this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2025
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Well, for most games it isn't useless items. Most of it just isn't useful to you. Either your gear is better, or it's for a combat style you don't use, or it's consumables like potions.
I'm talking about the things you can't use, like bowls and trinkets and other stuff that games frequently include as 'white' items that literally cannot be used. Those things that exist to be sold to vendors.
They have been in many of the rpgs I have played. In the rpgs that don't have them, there isn't a vendor that buys stuff and no 'economy' that exists.
That's almost exclusively a Bethesda thing, at least to the extent it's an issue. Technically it's in Tainted Grail some, and Larian games a very small amount, but never in enough quantity or weight to be an issue, nor are they ever worth enough to bother with.
Look, you started by saying Bethesda games don't have encumbrance but Skyrim was the first game I thought of that had stuff you couldn't use but had some kind of value and weight and encumbrance was a huge part of Skyrim when wearing heavy armor. There is even a whole strategy of figuring out value for the weight to increase the amount of value you get when selling. Baldur's Gate 3 and I assume earlier ones have the same thing.
We are talking about the games that have those things when saying they are an issue. Of course it isn't an issue in games that don't have it, but when it exists it absolutely is an issue, especially when game mechanics include a 'loot all' option. There you need to drop what you don't want.
Hell, inventory management by space and encumbrance have been a thing for all the years I have played rpgs. Not having either seems more like the exception to me.