The backpack has a cutoff, not just a capacity
A weight limit can behave like a switch. Below the limit, the character can sprint; once the carried load crosses it, sprinting is disabled. In this case, the extra desk fan pushes the backpack just 0.1 pounds over that boundary. The tiny excess matters because the game checks which side of the threshold the total weight falls on—not how significant the excess feels to a person.
That creates a sharp change from a small pickup. The fan may be light, but it can turn a fast-moving character into one who has to travel at a slower pace. The important number is therefore not the fan’s weight by itself, but the difference between the current load and the sprint limit.
A small item becomes a real choice
This kind of rule makes inventory management part of movement. Picking up something useful has a cost that may not be obvious until it pushes the total over the line. Players have to weigh the item against the speed they give up, rather than treating every open backpack slot as free space.
The threshold also makes weight easy to understand and consequential: a fraction of a pound can change what the character is able to do. That extra fan is not merely clutter—it is the item that turns a nearly full backpack into a hard stop for sprinting.
