ToME WikiOrvin: There have recently been several suggestions for ways to implement a more realistic inventory management system, one which still provides limitations that affect player strategy. Here is a possibly simpler, yet still effective, suggestion:
In addition to describing objects by weight, describe them by bulk. Provide one extra equipment slot for a container object. Each container object has a bulk rating, and the total bulk of objects in inventory cannot exceed this. This bulk limitation is in addition to weight limitation.
Possibly, the total inventory bulk could affect inventory retrieval time. This might be modified by container object flavors, such as "well-organized" (i.e., you can retrieve inventory objects more quickly from a well-organized chest than a normal chest of the same bulk rating).
Derakon: I don't think that modifying retrieval time is a good idea, primarily because there's likely not much a character can do about it (in general, you'll want to have the largest capacity possible), and secondarily because people worry too much about speed as it is.
As far as giving items volume (I suppose "bulk" is supposed to conflate volume and how unweidly the item is?), you'll need to be careful with balance. Current characters can carry absurdly large quantities of stuff; characters with the new system will also need to be able to carry absurdly large quantities of stuff, or else the game will become unbalanced (because one of our assumptions is that characters will have some basic backup in the form of expendables - potions, scrolls, spare spellbooks, extra staves - readily available). Frankly I'm not terribly convinced that we need a new inventory management system; the current one works, even if it's rather weird, and above all, it's simple to use.
RavenRed: I absolutely agree on the grounds of realism and profoundly disagree on the grounds of playability and complexity. Of course, what this would really affect is the way that loot is handled. Carrying more than one set of armour would be unthinkable, as would carrying any other full-size (non-dagger) weapon. With a riding system you could conceivably put more onto your steed, but it's still a degree of complexity that's very much opposed to the way ToME is currently played. I'd support it in a module with a hyper-realist attitude (which I'd probably quite enjoy playing) but it's somewhat difficult to implement within ToME.
NeilStevens: Yes, there's another good reason not to do it: We're intending to encourage the use of swaps in 3, so making it impossible would ruin our fun with respect to things like slays.
Atarlost: Swaps are not incompatable with increased access time for your pack. Several extra no effect slots can be added to your equipment list, possibly at the expense of seperate shooter and tool slots. You could have, for example, a "baldrick" that can hold any CAN2H or MUST2H weapon or shooter and a "scabbard" that can hold any one handed weapon. If that is too constraining you can allow something like 40 pounds of weapons in a "swap space" (one mace of disruption or 40 daggers). These would be assumed to be strapped onto your body somewhere. Items could be swapped in and out of swap slots or swap space in less than a normal turn. As described this wouldn't allow armor swaps, but is it really reasonable for someone change armor with a monster apaproaching?
JohnGilmore: In the interest of realism the thing to do would be to eliminate the inventory completely - have just equipment. And drastically reduce the weight limit - fighting in full armor is HARD. Fighting in full armor while carrying another full set of armor on your back should be darn near impossible. We'd have to add several things like the "belt" in Diablo. Or the scabard/baldric mentioned above. Good idea, btw, I like it.
Then add a "length" as well as a volume. It's not reasonable for a belt pouch to contain an arrow- it's simply too long, even though the pouch may be big enough volume wise. So we'd need Weight, Volume, Length, and what for lack of a better term I'll call "mess". The access times to a pouch or backpack or would depend primarily on "mess", which would be mainly a function of how many different items are in the given container. A pouch with 30 !oCCW would be a great deal quicker to access than a pouch with 30 different potions in it. And 20 different arrows would be easier to sort through than 4 or 5 bows. Short characters (halflings, yeeks, etc) could be penalized for using weapons that are too long for them, and everybody could get a penalty for carrying something longer than they are. Not such a worry for a Half-Ogre, of course.
You might need to add a mule to carry your loot out. And get eaten by passing monsters, forcing you to sort through your crap (err.. I mean loot) and decide what to keep and what to toss.
That would be really complicated to properly implement and balance the game play of. I'd love to see it, but I don't have time to do it...
On a different note, I disagree with the statement (Niels?) about carrying too many rings being a problem. If the problem is the immense value of them, simply make them rarer or cheaper. If the problem is the power they give the player, keep the restriction that you can only wear two rings at a time. I don't really see a problem with a middle-level character carrying twenty rings, and swapping them in and out to face different opponents. Mainly because until you get artifact rings, the individual rings aren't all THAT great. And once you get artifact rings, you probably have all your resists covered anyway, so you're just going to be picking the rings with the best bonuses to speed/dam/hit/ac or whichever you're shortest of, and wearing that one all the time.
To sum up, I don't think the ability to reasonably carry 20 different rings would really effect gameplay all that much.
Now, one thing that WOULD effect gameplay quite a bit is the ability to carry multiple sorts of scrolls/potions and especially rods. I don't have a good answer to that one. Though with the ultra-realist thing above, those would naturally fall under the same sorts of limitations, as you could only reasonably carry eight or so such items into combat.
ShrikeDeCil: How many slots do people tend to have empty when going _in_ to the dungeon? I tend to focus on hyper-conservative Sorcerors that only carry half the spellbooks, I always tend to have about 6-8 slots empty going in to a random level. (I might have fewer free if I _know_ what I'm going to face, like any of the quests.) Going against one of the main bad guys, I might fill every single slot with useful stuff (carrying Healing _and_ *Healing*), but most of the time I have plenty of space going _in_. Coming out is always a different story, and this is the focal point of my argument. Yes, its pretty silly for my gnome sorceror to have 8 dragon scale mails. But coming out of the dungeon, it is either that or some random crap artifacts that I'll be carrying. In a 'Real' game, I'd have a 'loot bag' that gets dropped on entering combat. If it gets destroyed/stolen/whatever, I'll live. But that isn't "How much stuff can you fight with on your back?" it is "How much stuff can you drag out of the dungeon once every single monster inside is dead?"
And now we're adding 'vehicles'. A horse with a travois can haul a whole lot. A single normal horse with a cart can carry a lot more loot than a human. A barge... well.
The monetary system is collapsed into a single statistic, that also ignores weight. Because it would certainly 'chafe' if we had to account for individual copper/silver coins... and their weight. Or appraise & convert gems and jewelry. The mere fact that it chafes does not indicate "Hey, this must be a useful addition to the game, because a lot of people would sure be irritated by it."
For scrolls & potions, I could see '99 potions' being a euphemism for 'a jug of xxx with 99 doses inside'. Or with a scroll, one can envision multiple writings on each scroll. (where the transcription is left out to simplify things.) The 'Sheesh, I shouldn't be able to do this' really hits when thinking about staves, armor, and swords/halberds/whatever. The armor part at least can really be rejiggered by modifying just the existing weights and weight-allowances-at-a-given-strength, can't it?
Derakon: I don't see how we can make the changes people are suggesting here without completely destroying game balance. The predominant argument appears to be "the current inventory system allows me to do things that I should not be able to do". Well, unfortunately, the current game depends on players being able to do things that they shouldn't be able to do. For Eru's sake, the ultimate goal is to kill a god! If you change what people can carry or conveniently access, then you completely change the game's dynamic. "Backup plan" equipment wouldn't be available at a moment's notice, if at all, meaning that there's much less margin for error. Swap equipment would become horrendously annoying to use. Situations that would have been survivable with the old system would be death in the new one.
Realism is not automatically a bad thing. But when realism starts interfering with fun, then that's a problem. And so far, I haven't seen, or thought of (and believe me, I've spent a lot of time thinking about better inventory management systems), a way to run a more realistic inventory that is also a more fun inventory, especially not with the kinds of situations that our characters commonly get into.
Orvin: If swapping is going to be very important, then I agree this bulk system would not be good. However, if there are going to be mounts, one could give mounts saddle bags, carts to pull, etc. with huge bulk ratings, so you could effectively store items in them without regard for bulk (still with regard for weight, though), and then swap from them, rather than from your personal inventory.
JohnGilmore: Swaping for items that Ol' Jenny's carrying may lead that Ancient Green Dragon in close enough to melt her where she stands, and then what are you going to do, eh?
I was thinking more along the lines of formalizing the mythical "bag that I drop when I go into combat and pick up afterwards" by making that explicit, naming her "Jenny" and giving her four legs, gray fur, long ears, and a rather sad expression. You could name your mule something else of course.
This WOULD restrict combat, as backup weapons/potions/scrolls etc would be limited to what you can carry. So Derakon is right, it would be more dangerous. It would also be more chancy, as Jenny doesn't have infinite HP, and could die, leaving you with no way to get your loot back.
This might work better with persistent dungeons, where you could kill all the monsters, and then bring Jenny in from a ways away to loot the battlefield. The whole discussion loses some of it's point if money isn't made more useful. I heard mention of selling equipment being removed in TOME3. I hope that's not the case, I would prefer to see it re-examined. There is something out of balance with the TOME2 monetary system, but it's not time to shoot the dog yet. (Uhm... boy that was off topic. Feel free to ignore that bit, or move it somewhere appropriate.)
BucketMan: Thematically speaking, wouldn't 'Bill' be an appripriate name for your pack pony? 
I kind of like the idea of allowing pack creatures. Maybe set it up so that you can access pack-creature inventory via a single command and swap it back and forth from regular inventory where it could be used. With a little consideration, it could probably be balanced somewhere between 'unbalancing' and 'unpleasant to use.' But...at the same time, I think I agree with Neil. I don't really see any problem with the existing inventory system. It's not broken, so why fix it?
How about somebody build an alternative system like Orvin's 'bulk' or 'saddlebags' and try it out in a module and we'll see how it works.
Orvin: I intend to do just that, if/when I make a module.
ShrikeDeCil: I don't think this even requires a module. Picture a "Bag of Holding Named Bill" item that fits in an equipment slot. Artifacts can have arbitrary code in them now. So when Activated, it prompts 'Do you wish to add or remove an item?'. In either case, it then proceeds to through the 'choose an item' business. When you add an item, the item is actually destroyed while the Bag's memoryspace is fiddled to say item XXX added. And the Bag's weight can be adjusted. Removing an item actually 'creates' a new item. (And perhaps recreates some of the fields that are a bit longwinded to actually store, like where the item was originally found perhaps.) Adding a HOOK for on-equiping this item allows you to say 'ok, -50 to speed' or whatever. With the chance to also make 'equiping' the bag take 5 normal turns. Or 10. Whatever. So you'd have an item that essentially works like a 'loot bag'. No weight is reduced, you probably won't be swapping heavy armors while in the face of the the enemy... but if you see a situation that warrants wading through your pack for a specific item with a specific resist, you don't have to abandon the level (and usually the situation you wanted the resist for) in order to reorganize.
That's a single item, not an entire module. The LUAfication of 'Artifacts' seems to indicate that there's a whole lot of interesting things that could be done there. But if 'Miscellaneous Magic Items' are going to appear, they should probably lose the flags indicating that they're unique and immune to the normal elements.
Derakon: The main reason to put bags of holding into a module is not because they'd be complicated to do, but because they'll play holy hell with game balance. And while I enjoyed playing PernAngband 5.0.0 back in the day, these days a little stability is nice too. I think what we'll find in general is that experimental stuff will go into extra modules instead of being in the main game module; once it's stabilized it can be absorbed into ToME itself. Er...that is, if I understand how modules work correctly. You can have a module essentially act as a plugin for another module, right?
DarkGod: An extension yes. Although in this case an addon would be best for that. Note taht such an object exists already it's the portable hole amulet which really is a carryable home.
BucketMan: I suppose, on a related note, I'll mention that Dragonball T right now features fully functional 'capsules' which act as single-item-only bags of holding. Basically you can put any single item into a capsule, and it then weighs .1 pounds. To use or equip it, you then have to remove it from the capsule, taking a round, at which point you have the item and the capsule again. No effect on inventory slots, of course, but inevntory management isn't really an issue in Dragonball T.