What kind of realistic substitutes can you think of for Equipment in an RPG?

[Edit] The reason why I'm asking is because I dislike it how when you switch equipment the character's clothes remain the same. (And yes, I know that you can use RGSS to make a feature for this, but that makes it impossible to do clothing-based cutscenes and such.) I'm sure not all RPGs use Equipment, and maybe one of you has an idea of a valid substitute. e.g. jewelry, medication, materia, etc. Anything that isn't Equipment but boosts stats and can be collected/bought.

Body Surfing?

Oh, come on, not every RPG has Equipment do they? :')

Do you need equipment? (Or something like)

It's nice collecting them, sure, but games like Zelda stay away from it and still work.

Do I need equipment? I'm wondering about substitutes that work the same way (collectable/buyable, increases stats, etc.) but aren't actually Equipment. Aka. not switching clothes. How does Zelda do it?

I'm not sure what you're asking for, exactly. RPGs aren't exactly realistic, there's already a suspension of disbelief at play. You can try to make it logical and plausible, but pushing for actually realistic would probably propel you into a different genre (adventure, survival/horror, action, simulation, etc).

Do you want a system to manage stats and skills, but not have it be visually based? If so, you can do things like switching gems out of jewelry or use steroids/medication to boost stats and abilities.

Or are you asking about getting rid of equipment altogether? If that's the case, you can focus on inventory management and have upgrades revolve around how much free space you have and the number of items you can carry at one time. This may also involve getting rid of stats and, as a result, conventional battle mechanics.

Accessories, basically.
Crystals, Pins, Badges, Augments, Glimbles whatever you want to call it. Red Glimbles primarily raise attack, Purple Glimbles primarily raise Intelligence, etc. All you have to do is not call it "Armor" or "Shield" or "Sword" and blamo, you have a replacement for equipment.

Hm, I don't see how this question is confusing in any way. ô_o I'll edit my first post with why I'm asking this. Maybe that clarifies the question?

Jewelry and steroids are good substitutes, though.

[Edit] ^ That's a good idea as well. Magically imbued accessories that strengthen the character. Hmm.

It wasn't that your question was confusing so much as it was worded ambiguously. No standard equipment could mean getting rid of it altogether, or it could mean using a non-visually based system for managing skills/stats. I'm glad you clarified :3

Here are some other possible systems:
- Combining one set of equipment (current clothes + current weapon) with rune etching. The player customizes the equipment by writing combinations of runes, but the equipment wouldn't look any different.
- Equipping element orbs or elementals. If each element has an active and passive set of skills/stats, the player could use different combinations to gain skills and stat gains. If you equip 3 fire elementals, for example, you gain the most powerful fire spells and +attack power, but your defense is lowered.
- Equipping skills. Instead of equipment slots, you would have skill slots. Depending on the skill combinations, you could also gain passive effects in terms of stats. You could combine this with the existing equipment system and have different ranks. Weapon can become "offensive" slot where you could put any offensive skill. Shield becomes defensive, and so on.

Since you can create the database entries anyway you want, it wouldn't be too complicated to create a "weapon" item that would only fit into the "weapon" slot. That item can be anything from a rune, jewel, skill, orb, etc etc. Think of something that would fit into your game world and roll with it :3

Great even on the internet my posts are invisible . What I mean by Body Surfing is that we're a ghost who has a mission to complete and we do so by possessing people. Each person we possess can have different specialties and we can unlock more of their hidden potential if we use them well enough. Sounds a bit iffy but someone might be able to make something good at it if they plan well enough.

Paper Mario's Badge system works nicely for this. What are badges? Where do they go? What is BP and why does it restrict how many badges you have? No one knows, but no one really questions it. It's just, an entirely new accessory. It isn't clothing, weapons, or jewelery, it's just, "Badges".

If you want realism, just give the main actor a "Badge Repository" or something that they keep in their pocket. Just say they're magic or something. Magic is totally realistic and not a lazy story patch-job at all.

Auras
Sprits/Ghosts
Rings/Amulets/Bracelets/Earrings
Orbs
Jewels
Psyche/Ego (Wear Happy and get +1 to all stats, wear Depressed and get +10 INT, wear Morose and get +15)
Badges
Tattoos/Body Markings
Runes

the reason why most RPGs don't bother changing a character's clothes when they change equipment is mostly a matter of practicality and resources. If you have to re-render the character's physical look every single time you put on a single piece of equipment, that drastically increases the amount of resources you need to create. And this is even before we get to touch on characterization. A lot of games (especially ones that follow a narrative of a pre-written character) ties a lot of the characterization into the visuals of the character itself. If you let the players start changing up their look, it becomes harder to maintain the integrity of the image they're trying to get across. Imagine if you could actually change Titus out of his ridiculous outfit or if you can re-design Ryu's outfit from scratch. It would be fun for the player for a couple of minutes, but it would be nearly impossible to establish a good visual image for the character. That's why while I like the presence of a "create your fighter" feature in Soul Calibur 4, I don't want that to ever replace the original characters they have.

Sigh people can at least tell me my idea sucks. Why do I even bother? I can just call everyone on this board a douchebag and no- um sorry! I was just kidding .