How many times have you played in a game with a character who thought he could carry a knife, a combat axe, two heavy pistols, a submachinegun, an assault rifle, a grapple gun, eight grenades, a medkit, six kilos of compound XII, all while wearing form fitting body armor under a vest with plates? According to the rules, anyone with a strength of 7 or more could do it. But have you ever personally tried to carry around anything like that? Much less walk, run, climb stairs, shoot from cover, drive, or pursue on foot? Now before all of you go grab pistols, stick them in your pants, and run around the house let me just say that I'm only advocating a slight reality check. Carrying a concealed weapon is a huge responsibility, and one that should not be taken lightly. But that's another topic entirely. So what to do? Thanks to some forward looking legislation, it's hard to come by good cheap weapon replicas anymore. If you're lucky, though, you can find autopistol sized squirtguns at the local drugstore for $5 and probably a couple good plastic guns at the local Toys R Us. For a guide, most 9mm semi-autos are about 17-22cm long and weigh anywhere from 600-1000g. For comparison, the silenced version of the ever popular MP-5 subgun series is 61cm with the stock closed and weighs 2.9kg empty. The standard M16A2 5.56mm assault rifle is 99cm long and weighs 3.4 kg empty. The M60 machinegun, probably qualifies as an LMG, measures 110cm and comes in at 10.5kg empty. And that's just for starters. If you want to figure out how it feels to wear body armor, tape two sheets of quarter-inch cardboard to your chest. Now check out how dextrous you are. All right, all right, I agree that in the next century there will be vast improvements in composite construction of body armor, so that it's less bulky and restrictive. But consider this: there will be similar developments in ammunition and weapons to make them more effective. In any case, there isn't going to be a way around the purely bulky nature of the gear that a runner is hauling around. Keep yourself honest. Stop and do a reality check. Can you really bounce down that rappelling line with that sniper rifle on your back, a grenade in one hand, and a struggling body in the other? (Note, we're not going to deal with the gender of the body, why it's struggling, or why the character even has it.) But wait, you say, I've watched all the Viet Nam films, I saw Desert Storm on CNN and those soldiers all looked like they had a shitload of stuff strapped on them, and they were in a warzone. Well, that's right, soldiers do haul an awful lot of gear around. Trust me on this one even if you haven't seen a marine in full combat loadout. But listen to what you just said: they were in a warzone. While we like to think of the streets of Seattle as being a free fire zone, truth be told they're not. So you can't wander around with your ALICE harness and webgear sporting ammo bandoliers and RPGs poking out of your bedroll. No one who sees a soldier loaded down with a combat load can mistake him for anything other than what he is: a soldier. So unless you like having the Lone Star FRTs show up wherever you go, don't think you can get away with the same trick.