HowTo Network emblem How To: Gaming THE HOW TO CO. — EDITION 10
A heavy leather tool roll laid open flat on a workbench by lantern light: worn implements standing in the loops along the left, and a run of loops at the right end holding nothing at all.
◆ OFF WAYPOINT 03  ·  ZONE II — THE FORGE YARD

THE EMPTY LOOPS
are part of the kit.

Twelve loops in the leather and thirty things on the bench behind you. Everything that makes a loadout good happens in the gap between those two numbers.

THE TOOL ROLLWORDS BY POPPYTHREE LOOPS STAY OPEN ON PURPOSE
THE LAW OF
THE ROLL

A hoard is everything you own. A loadout is everything you can reach.

The roll.

TWELVE LOOPS  ◆  SAME TWELVE, EVERY ROW  ◆  ONLY THE FILLING MOVES
A workbench photographed from directly above, a leather tool roll open at its centre with implements laid in the loops, and loose tools, tins and offcuts scattered across the boards all around it.

ONE ROLL AT THE CENTRE. EVERYTHING AROUND IT ON THE BOARDS IS THE HOARD IT WAS CHOSEN OUT OF.

FILLED ◆ SOMETHING IS IN IT
OPEN ◆ NOTHING IS IN IT, AND THAT IS THE POINT
OPENCUTPRYSTRIKEBINDLIGHTMEASUREMENDREACHMARKCARRYSPARE
THE TWELVE, IN ORDER, LEFT TO RIGHT  ◆  OPEN · CUT · PRY · STRIKE · BIND · LIGHT · MEASURE · MEND · REACH · MARK · CARRY · SPARE

The standing roll

What is in the leather on a night you know nothing about yet.

NINE FILLED  ·  THREE OPEN

Those last three are not things you forgot. They are the only reason you can answer a surprise.

The honest week

The same roll, marked once for every loop that actually came out.

FOUR CAME OUT  ·  FIVE RODE ALONG

Five of the nine never left the leather. That is not a kit. That is luggage with a strap.

The reroll

You know what tonight is before you start it. Two loops change.

NINE FILLED  ·  THREE OPEN  ·  TWO CHANGED

The count did not move. Only the contents did — that is the whole of what a swap is.

Going light

Something short and strange. You take less than you are allowed to.

FIVE FILLED  ·  SEVEN OPEN

Going light is a decision, not an oversight. Seven open loops is a roll that can still change its mind.

The hoard

Nothing left behind, and a second bag under the bench for the rest.

TWELVE FILLED  ·  NOTHING OPEN

Nothing is missing, so nothing can be added. A full roll is not a finished roll. It is a closed one.

Five rolls, one field, and the only one with nothing missing from it is the one you cannot play out of. A loadout is the shape of the space you left.

Three questions at the roll.

WHAT EARNS A LOOP  ◆  WHAT SWAPS  ◆  WHAT IS JUST STORAGE
A close view of an open leather tool roll: full loops crowding in from both sides and several loops in the middle standing empty, their leather creased where something used to sit.
01THE RESERVE

Leave loops open, or stop calling it a loadout.

An open loop looks like laziness and works like a hand. It is the only part of the roll that can hold whatever tonight turns out to need, and it stops existing the moment you fill it with something merely good. The reserve is the part of the plan that covers the plan being wrong, which is the part of any plan that gets used most.

TRADE — one fewer thing you own, for one more thing you can become
KEEP THREE OPENFILL THEM LATEGOOD IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH
Two near-identical leather belt rigs hanging side by side from iron hooks on a plank wall, each fitted out with a different arrangement of pouches, keys and small tools.
02THE REROLL

The rig is not the loadout. The fitting is.

Two identical belts on two hooks, fitted for two different nights, and nobody looking at them would call them the same kit. The leather was never the decision. Swap for the night you know is coming, never for the one you are losing — a swap made mid-loss is not a plan changing, it is a plan being abandoned by someone tired.

TRADE — a kit tuned for tonight, for a kit that was fine on any night
SWAP BEFORE, NOT DURINGTWO LOOPS, NOT SIXPUT IT BACK AFTERWARDS
A wooden sorting tray of small components on a workbench, each compartment holding a different kind of piece, with one compartment left completely empty.
03THE HOARD

A hoard can be beautifully sorted.

This is the trap that catches careful people. A tray with every compartment labelled and every piece in its place feels like the opposite of a mess, so it never gets audited — but sorting is not selecting. The test is reach: a loadout is what you can put a hand on without thinking. Everything else is inventory, and inventory belongs on the bench.

TRADE — the comfort of having it all, for the speed of having chosen
SORTED IS NOT CHOSENREACH BEATS OWNTHE BENCH IS ALLOWED
A single heavily worn implement, its handle darkened by years of use, lying across an open leather tool roll beside a burning lantern.
◆ THE ONE THAT NEVER GETS AUDITED

Every roll has one nobody questions, and it is always the oldest thing in it. Habit and use look identical right up until the thing is gone.

The habit ledger.

WHAT YOU SAY IT IS FOR  ◆  NO TRACK HERE — A LOOP IS FULL OR IT IS OPEN  ◆  WHAT IT IS DOING
It is there for emergencies.
There has been one emergency, and you solved it with something else.
It covers a gap.
It covers a gap you stopped walking into once you learned the route.
Everyone carries it.
Everyone carries it because everyone carries it.
It is barely any weight.
It is barely any weight, and it is sitting in the loop tonight needed.
I might want it later.
Later has a bench in it. This is not later.
It got me out of something once.
Once. And you have paid rent on that loop every night since.

Upstairs in the yard, a trade sits somewhere along a rail. Down here it does not: the loop is full or the loop is open, and there is nowhere in between to hide.

Quest Log

GUIDES BEING WRITTEN FOR THIS SUB-CHAPTER
01How to Decide What Comes Out of the Roll FirstQUEST PENDING
02How to Keep Loops Open Without Feeling UnderpreparedQUEST PENDING
03How to Audit a Loadout You Have Not Changed in MonthsQUEST PENDING
04How to Swap for a Situation You Know Is ComingQUEST PENDING
05How to Tell a Reserve From a HoardQUEST PENDING
06How to Carry Less and Answer MoreQUEST PENDING

Nobody remembers a full roll. They remember the night there was a loop free for the thing that mattered.

FROM POPPY’S
OWN ROLL

“I spent years asking what my kit was for. The night I started asking what it was in the way of, three things came out and never went back.”

POPPY — CONTRIBUTOR PROFILE · HOME REGIONS: VIDEO & COLLECTIBLES