Category Archives: Survival RPG

August 11, 2011 · 9:38 am

Survival Games – Cave

For the last two days I’ve toured the largest cave system in the world, Mammoth Caves. For an explanation on how to use these stats, check out the original Survival Games post.

Cave
A cave can act as shelter for PCs or any number of creatures. Few are likely to travel deep into the cave past the line where light from the outside starts to fail but may be chased further into the cave. Elephants have been seen entering a cave to get at minerals in the rock and dirt. Humans have a deep fascination with caves. In Mammoth Caves, Native Americans traveled deep into the cave using only bundles of reeds for torches. Some areas of the cave floor are covered in these burnt reeds. In some areas that modern cavers are only just exploring with modern equipment, they will find a footprint or a torch of someone who had been there 2-4000 years ago. Why did they travel so deep? We don’t really know.

Players may be tasked with finding ancient artifacts left behind or the cave may surface in a different place, providing a route to travel through.

Surmount Method: Squeezing through tight passages, climbing over rubble strewn floors, up and down rock faces, swimming through subterranean rivers.
Surmounting Attribute: Constitution

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 2 3 4

Surmounting Attribute: Strength (for Climbing)

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 1 1 2

SP 1 per 10 meters

Hazards

Exertion
For every failed Constitution or Strength roll the characters face an exertion hazard. They get a -2 CDF to Str and a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of the attribute).  CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can recover for a period of time. While recovering, the player rolls for the character’s Con. A Full result means 1 point of Str and Con are recovered. A 1/2 result means that 2 points are recovered. A 1/4 result means 3 points and a 1/8 result means 4 points recovered. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character must be rescued off the rock face or fall if they fail another Str roll.

Random Hazard

For every survival round the GM should roll once on the following table.

Roll 1D100

1-25 Tight Passage
26-40 Loose Rock
41-60 Dome Pit
61-70 Vertical Climb
71-80 Confusion
81-90 Tunnel Splits
91-95 Tunnel Ends
96-100 Underground River

Tight Passage
Characters must crawl through very tight tunnels to move deeper into the cave. Large packs and equipment must be either disassembled and dragged through or left behind. Passages are so tight that characters may need to exhale to fit through. Characters must make a Psyche roll (willpower) to make it through.

Loose Rock
Loose rocks of various sizes cover the passage floor. Traveling over them is treacherous. While slips and falls are minor hazards the injuries can build up over time. Characters must make an Agility roll. If failed they get a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of the attribute).

Dome Pit
A vertical shaft with a dome at the top intersects the passage. The shaft is 1D6 meters wide and may be too wide to jump across. There is also a 25% possibility that the passage is too short to allow a person to jump. Characters will have to devise a method of crossing.

Vertical Climb
A vertical shaft continues the passage either up or down for 1D10x2 meters. Use the Rock Wall obstacle stats for this part of the passage.

Confusion
The characters must make a Subterranean Navigation skill roll or the party is thrown off course for a period of time. Add 2d6 to the remaining SP of the obstacle.

Tunnel Splits
The Tunnel splits into two main passages. If the players have a specific goal to reach, they must pick one of the tunnels. There may not be any way of knowing which tunnel is the correct one unless someone has already mapped the tunnels. If someone has mapped them, make a Subterranean Navigation skill roll to pick the right one.

Tunnel Ends
The tunnel abruptly ends, possibly by getting so narrow that a human cannot pass through. If there is a goal the players have to reach that has not been accomplished, the GM may decide that there was a branch in the path some way back, possibly obscured by a rock or a rock formation.

Underground River
Most caves are formed by rivers, in this cave’s case the river has carved another passage that is still full or mostly full of water. To keep going the characters will have to swim through the river. There is a 50% chance that the characters will have to hold their breath for 2D10 meters along the river’s path before they emerge again in a dry passage. Players will not know how far they have to go underwater. Con roll is required for every turn underwater to stay focused. If the Con roll is failed they must seek air.

Defenses and Weaknesses
10% Chance Defenses: Foul Air
Caves may not always have breathable air. Methane, Co2 or other gasses may make air unbreathable in some or all of the cave.

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August 8, 2011 · 9:05 am

Survival Games – Food Theory

I mentioned that I would take the posts on food in survival games and put them together into a whole concept so here it is. This post is going to take carrying food, rationing and foraging and work them into one system for reference. I’ve talked about why I went with the numbers in the earlier posts so if you’re reading this and want to know why something is working the way it is, here are some links that will explain.

Foraging Carrying Food Rationing

One of the core concepts of making something fun is being able to win. Without the proper mechanics to deal with food problems, the tests all become an issue of loosing. That is to say, running out of food. To fix this, any RPG food theory has to have an element of choice and the possibility for the players to improve their situation.

Food Units

When traveling, the main concerns about food is, how much can the characters bring with them and how fast do they eat it? For simplicity, it is usually best to deal with food in the number of days the characters can sustain themselves so we will use days of food as a unit. However it will also be necessary to break those days up into meals and even half meals when rationing. For our purposes, there are three meals to every day of food and two half meals for every meal.

Traveling

A character can comfortably carry four days of food. This usually takes up one third of their encumbrance if your game uses it.  If the player chooses they can carry more food in their packs and make their supply eight days but the food takes up two thirds of their packs. The GM should severely limit what items they can take with them at this point, only allowing for two large items like a two man tent and a sleeping bag (or items of like size) or ten small items like drinking cups and candles. A character can carry up to twelve days of food but they cannot carry anything else.

This assumes that the characters will be packing food that is lightweight and as calorie dense as is possible. This does require specific knowledge of foods. If the GM wishes to make a skill for this that may allow the players to pack slightly more food in their packs it adds to the players enjoyment of the task. They get to “win” by putting out effort and doing better than the baseline. Any extra food would be on the meal or half meal level instead of days of food.

Rationing

The figures I’ll give here are for The Artifact RPG because rationing has to have an effect on the characters to make it a choice that the players have to think about. To modify it to your system you can read my reasoning on the subject in the Rationing Mechanics post.

When the players decide to ration food to make it go further, it will have an impact on the characters. Characters can comfortably live off five half meals a day (just under three full meals a day). If they ration under those five half meal, they get a -1 CDF to CON for every half meal missed. This minus builds each day until it is offset by eating more food and getting positive CDFs to offset the deficit. If they eat more than five half meals, they get a +1 CDF to CON for that day for every half meal they eat. For every extra half meal over six, the character must roll against their CON to see if they can eat it. Once they fail this CON roll they cannot eat any more for the day.

If the characters CON CDF minus effectively brings their CON to zero, every two days they will loose one Hit Point if they do not bring their CON CDF up.

Foraging

Characters may forage for food and water to offset what they need to bring with them. A skilled forager can find enough food for a day in a matter of hours while a novice forager may only find a half meal a day.

For every two hours of foraging or each Surmount Point they pass, the player may roll against the character’s foraging skill. Use the table below to determine how many half meals the character finds.

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 2 4 6

However not all environments are the same and many harsher environments will have a difficulty modifier for the foraging roll.

Dessert -50
Tundra -40
Plains -30
Winter Forest -30
Swamp -20
Forest -0
Jungle +10
Urban +10 (lots of food in garbage and dumpsters)

Another aspect of foraging is that some of the food may be unfamiliar to characters not native to the environment and not accustomed to foraging. Foraged food can include bitter roots, insects and in an urban environment food taken from the trash. To a character without a foraging skill, they must make a PSY roll (or generically willpower) to be able to eat the food.

Conclusion

In a game about survival, food and water are critical elements of the tension of a story. If the game is not about survival, this is all unnecessary complexity. Make sure the survival aspect of the game is important to your story before using these rules or they will only slow down play. Conversely, if it is important, give the players time to think about their choices and make it part of the story.

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August 2, 2011 · 12:13 pm

Survival Games – Rationing Mechanics

So having talked about carrying food and the minimum amount of food that will keep a person moving and functioning, lets talk about rationing food.

The first thing that a player will say when running low on food is “I won’t eat as much.” While that may keep them alive, it also will affect their energy levels and make other tasks harder. Don’t get me wrong, between having a hard time and dying it’s a no brainer. Modeling that hard time is important for the tension in a survival game.

Effects of Rationing

So what does not eating as much do? Most people know how they feel when they’re hungry so this is an easy one. You have less energy, it’s harder to think, your attention is on food so you notice less, you might get the shakes, you get grouchy. One might argue that some cultures fast in order to think more clearly so not eating should give an intelligence boost. While that is true, those cultures are normally sedentary while fasting. Meaning not actively trudging through forests using up energy. Fasting cultures will exempt a faster from even important activities during their fast.

As I mentioned in the last post ultralight backpackers will carry 700 grams of food for the day. But that is really the lower limit of what is likely to sustain a human, especially a big one. 800 grams a day is more manageable and the larger the person, the more they’ll need. Again, the mass of the food isn’t as important as the volume but this becomes important when thinking about rationing.

Starving

The other limit to consider is how long can a human live without food? How long can they function at least semi-normally without food? The answers to those questions are very different. People have lived longer than month without food. They will only be able to function normally for about three days with no food. Those are very different numbers so how can this be modeled effectively? I’ll give an example from The Artifact RPG to use as an example and you can modify the thought process to your own system.

The average person has a Constitution of 30 but they become far less effective in three days. So lets say that for each day with no food they get a -5 CDF per day. In three days their CON is effectively down to 15 making it unlikely they’ll make a CON roll (on a 1d100). In another three days their Con is effectively zero and they’re incapable of doing any strenuous activity. After their CON CDF is higher than their CON they take one point of damage every other day. The average person has 15 Hit Points and so thats another 30 days bringing the total to 36 days. There have been reports of hunger strikes going for 40 days and a tougher character could easily make that so I’ll go with it.

Take it down a notch

So if most people can survive comfortably on 800 grams of food and zero food gives a -5 CDF per day, then each unit of 160 grams (about 1/3 lb) is worth a CDF of +/- 1. Interestingly this could be used to fight fatigue from harsh survival conditions like the ones I’ve been outlining. If a character eats 960 g (about one Kg) of food for the day, they get a +1 CDF to CON. There is a limit to how much a person can eat though so I’d say this effect maxes out at +10 CDF to CON each day (eating 2400 g or 2.4 Kg in a day).

Other effects of rationing would include more CDFs to attributes like IQ Psyche and Charisma. For every -5 to Con, the characters would also get a -1 CDF to IQ, PSY and CHA.

Now we’re getting a more holistic view of how food can fuel strenuous activity and the effects of limiting a diet. It also makes tracking food consumption a possible win for the characters and therefore of interest to the players. The point though is to have a baseline that the players can ignore food issues if they have it available but to be able to increase tension if food is an issue.

So I’ve talked about foraging, carrying food and rationing, the next post will deal with putting it all together and getting the whole picture.

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August 1, 2011 · 9:47 pm

Survival Games – Carrying Food

Player – Yeah, we’ve got food.

GM – You have enough for the whole trip?

Player – Um, yeah, sure we do.

No one wants to deal with tracking consumables. It’s not fun. Most consumables just get ignored anyway. The player says “I’ve got a hundred, if I don’t bother to erase one or two, it won’t matter.” The GM says “Okay mark it off your equipment.” and hopes the players are keeping an exact accounting. It’s good enough in most games because the players are usually good about being accurate with Hit Points and money but if you try to add any more accounting and everyone starts to gloss over it as unimportant.

But what about when those consumables, like food, is important to the story of a survival game? Even if you tell players it’s important, they don’t want to have to deal with it. Maybe it’s the modern day concept of food that makes tracking food hard. After all if you’re hungry, just pop over to the kitchen and eat something.

The GM can try to keep track of it but it’s not a lot of fun and for some reason the players feel that the GM is just trying to doom them by forcing them to run out of food. The players don’t buy into the idea of food scarcity.

Breaking it down

One of the problems in tracking food is that we don’t eat in units. We eat in meals but how much is a meal? How much volume, how much mass? Backpackers have to think about this question a lot and usually think about how much food they need for the day in terms of mass (or weight). Backpackers fine tune their food for the most calories for it’s weight and it would make sense that an adventurer would do something similar. Ultralight backpackers talk about carrying 0.7 Kg (1.5 Lb) of food per day but most backpackers say that’s too little to subsist on comfortably. It does give us a good baseline though of what a minimum for an active person’s needs.

So then, if we just go by mass, if a character carried 25 Kg of food, they could carry 35 days worth of food. Unfortunately, that’s pretty unrealistic. The reason is that although the food is light, it’s bulky. In my experience when I would go backpacking we could carry four days of food comfortably and we figured that if we wanted to, we could conceivably pack for eight days but that would be almost all we were carrying besides our tent and sleeping bag.

This is our second benchmark then, lets say 4 days of optimally chosen food takes up one third of a large backpack but only has a mass of 2.8-4 Kg.

So what does that do for us? A large backpack represents almost the limit of what a human can practically carry as far as bulk. The GM can now say “How much of your pack(s) are you devoting to food? Four days takes up a third of the pack.” Negotiating a pack’s contents should be a little more manageable for the players. Now everyone knows they can travel for four, eight or twelve days. Just don’t forget to bring water. . .

Next up, Rationing Mechanics.

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· 6:56 pm

Survival Games – Swamp

For an explanation on how to use these stats, check out the original Survival Games post.

Swamp
Water soaked ground, small islands, shallow water, along with plant and animal life all make survival in a swamp hazardous. Although there is plenty of water around, it’s unlikely that it’s drinkable without treatment.

Surmount Method: Slogging through mud and mire, mapping out safer paths, travel by boat.
Surmounting Attribute: Constitution

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 2 3 4

Surmounting Attribute: IQ (for mapping)

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 1 1 2

SP 1 per Km

Hazards

Exertion
For every failed Constitution roll the characters face an exertion hazard. While moving through mud the character has to exert themselves this leads to muscles getting tired. They get a -2 CDF to Str and a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of the attribute).  CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can recover for a period of time. While recovering, the player rolls for the character’s Con. A Full result means 1 point of Str and Con are recovered. A 1/2 result means that 2 points are recovered. A 1/4 result means 3 points and a 1/8 result means 4 points recovered. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character must be rescued off the rock face or fall if they fail another Str roll.

Exposure
When using Con as a Surmount attribute, the characters are charging through water and mud. Boots and cloths become heavy and wet making travel more difficult -2 CDF to Str and a -2 CDF to Con. Being exposed to the contaminated water also exposes the character to disease (see disease rules The Artifact RPG).

Random Hazard

For every survival round the GM should roll once on the following table.

Roll 1D100

1-25 none
26-40 Insect Bites
41-60 Poisonous insect Bites
61-70 Animal encounter
71-80 Confusion
81-90 Animal path
91-100 Rain

Insect Bites
Biting insects swarm the characters. They may just be a nuisance (CDF -1 PSY per bite) or they may carry disease 5% chance. Each character can roll against Reflex to avoid or swat the bugs. On a failed roll 2d10 insects bite the character. On a full success roll 1d10 insects bite the character. For a 1/2 column the character gets 1d6 bites. For 1/4 and 1/8 rolls the character gets no bites. Specially designed clothing with netting over exposed skin or vac-suits will protect against bites.

Poisonous insect Bites
Venom usually causes irritation and pain at first (CDFs -1 PSY -1 CON per bite) but if bitten repeatedly can cause illness or death (CON CDF drops CON to zero) and they may carry disease 5% chance.  Each character can roll against Reflex to avoid or swat the bugs. On a failed roll 2d10 insects bite the character. On a full success roll 1d10 insects bite the character. For a 1/2 column the character gets 1d6 bites. For 1/4 and 1/8 rolls the character gets no bites. Specially designed clothing with netting over exposed skin will protect against bites.

Animal Encounter
The characters are traveling toward an animal that is sleeping or hiding so does not hear them coming. The startled animal may attack. GM’s choice of animal.

Confusion
The lead character must make a Land Navigation skill roll or the party is thrown off course for a period of time. Add 2d6 to the remaining SP of the obstacle.

Animal path
A number of animals travel through the undergrowth and have cleared a path. All characters get to reduce twice the SP this survival round.

Rain
Rain makes surfaces slick, makes clothing heavy, makes soil muddy and may damage unprotected equipment causing rust and corrosion. Characters get a CDF of -5 to PSY and -1 to CON.  Characters can protect against this by making shelter.

Defenses and Weaknesses
30% Chance Weakness: Boat
Using a boat doubles the SP that can be reduced per roll when using IQ as the Surmount Attribute.

Defenses: Land Vehicles
Moving a land vehicle through dense undergrowth requires 10 x the number of SP.

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July 18, 2011 · 10:24 pm

Survival Games – Dense Undergrowth

For an explanation on how to use these stats, check out the original Survival Games post.

Dense Undergrowth
Travel is impeded by heavy vegetation. Foot travel is difficult and vehicles get stuck on the thick plant stems. Biting insects and poisonous plants may also be present. Visibility is very limited so getting lost is a real possibility.

Surmount Method: Chopping out brush in front of the group or vehicles, finding an animal path, crashing through.
Surmounting Attribute: Constitution

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 2 3 4

SP 1 per Km

Hazards

Exertion
For every failed Constitution roll the characters face an exertion hazard. While moving through undergrowth the character has to exert themselves this leads to muscles getting tired. They get a -2 CDF to Str and a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of the attribute).  CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can recover for a period of time. While recovering, the player rolls for the character’s Con. A Full result means 1 point of Str and Con are recovered. A 1/2 result means that 2 points are recovered. A 1/4 result means 3 points and a 1/8 result means 4 points recovered. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character must be rescued off the rock face or fall if they fail another Str roll.

Random Hazard
For every survival round the GM should roll once on the following table.

Roll 1D100

1-25 none
26-60 Insect Bites
26-60 Poisonous insect Bites
61-70 Animal encounter
71-80 Confusion
81-90 Animal path
91-100 Rain

Insect Bites
Biting insects swarm the characters. They may just be a nuisance (CDF -1 PSY per bite) or they may carry disease 5% chance. Each character can roll against Reflex to avoid or swat the bugs. On a failed roll 2d10 insects bite the character. On a full success roll 1d10 insects bite the character. For a 1/2 column the character gets 1d6 bites. For 1/4 and 1/8 rolls the character gets no bites. Specially designed clothing with netting over exposed skin or vac-suits will protect against bites.

Poisonous insect Bites
Venom usually causes irritation and pain at first (CDFs -1 PSY -1 CON per bite) but if bitten repeatedly can cause illness or death (CON CDF drops CON to zero) and they may carry disease 5% chance.  Each character can roll against Reflex to avoid or swat the bugs. On a failed roll 2d10 insects bite the character. On a full success roll 1d10 insects bite the character. For a 1/2 column the character gets 1d6 bites. For 1/4 and 1/8 rolls the character gets no bites. Specially designed clothing with netting over exposed skin will protect against bites.

Animal Encounter
The characters are traveling toward an animal that is sleeping or hiding so does not hear them coming. The startled animal may attack. GM’s choice of animal.

Confusion
The lead character must make a Land Navigation skill roll or the party is thrown off course for a period of time. Add 2d6 to the remaining SP of the obstacle.

Animal path
A number of animals travel through the undergrowth and have cleared a path. All characters get to reduce twice the SP this survival round.

Rain
Rain makes surfaces slick, makes clothing heavy, makes soil muddy and may damage unprotected equipment causing rust and corrosion. Characters get a CDF of -5 to PSY and -1 to CON.  Characters can protect against this by making shelter.

Defenses and Weaknesses
Weakness: Machete
Using a Machete doubles the SP that can be reduced per roll.

Defenses: Land Vehicles
Moving a large object such as a land vehicle through dense undergrowth requires 10 x the number of SP.

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July 11, 2011 · 2:09 pm

Survival Games – Cold Desert

For an explanation on how to use these stats and a traditional hot desert stats, check out the original Survival Games post.

Cold Desert
A cold desert is a dry region with very little water but unlike a hot desert, heat is not the problem, chilling cold temperatures are.

Surmount Method: Carrying water and food to get across. Foraging while in the desert. Fast travel. Warm Clothing.

Surmounting Attribute: Constitution or Psyche (Whichever is higher)

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 2 3 4

SP 1 per 5 Kilometers

Hazards

Dehydration
For every survival round the characters face a dehydration hazard that can only be defended against by drinking 1/2 liters of water. If the character does not drink the required amount they get a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of their endurance attribute). CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can eat, drink and recover for a period of time. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character takes one point of damage per round.

Exertion
For every survival round the characters face an exertion hazard. While walking on foot the character has to exert themselves this leads to further dehydration they get a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of their endurance attribute) unless they drink another 1/2 liter of water or making a successful Con roll.  CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can eat, drink and recover for a period of time. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character takes one point of damage per round.

Random Hazard

For every survival round the GM should roll once on the following table.
Roll 1D100
1-70 Blowing wind
71-75 Frigid night
76-85 Monotony
86-90 Ravine
91-95 Lost
96-98 Sand/dust storm
99 Dunes
100 Snow Storm
Blowing wind
The temperatures are normally cold but with the wind chill there is a real hazard. Without protection from the wind the characters take a -1D6 CDF to Con. The GM should determine if the character’s clothing is sufficient to protect them from the cold. Even if the characters are properly protected by clothing they get a -1 CDF to Con unless they seek shelter or the warmth of a fire.
Frigid night
The night is very cold. Without warm cloths or a fire the characters get a -10 to their Con.
Monotony
The boredom is getting to the characters, they must make a successful Psyche roll or they cannot travel.
Ravine
A deep gorge blocks travel. Going around will take a trip of 30 Km. (Climbing down and back up the ravine would require a Ravine Hazard be made).
Lost
The characters have lost their direction for some time and didn’t notice it. Roll 2D6 and add that to the remaining SP.
Sand/dust Storm
A fierce storm blocks travel for a day and gives the following CDFs -10 Con, -5 Str, -2 Ref unless the characters are able to find or erect a shelter.
Dunes
Tall sandy dunes make travel more difficult, especially for wheeled vehicles. SP rate is halved (round down) for this hazard, making a roll on a 1/2 fraction column necessary to pass it. Wheeled vehicles can only travel at half speed.
Snow Storm
Temperatures plummet and a snow storm develops giving the following CDFs -10 Con, -5 Str, -2 Ref unless the characters are able to find or erect a shelter. By melting the snow, the characters can drink as much water as they need and can refill their water supply.

Defenses and Weaknesses
None?

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July 4, 2011 · 10:00 am

Player Characters and Foraging

Because of my interest in games about wilderness survival I’ve thought about PCs being able to forage for food and water on and off. This doesn’t sound like a particularly exciting part of game play. “I’m gonna go look for plants.” Might not be as exciting as “We’re under attack!” but it’s something that a GM (or players) shouldn’t overlook. Being able to find food and water can be a very powerful skill. The PCs can travel further and faster if they don’t have to carry all their consumables with them. I’m not advocating spending a lot of time in game dealing with foraging. That would probably be as much fun as having to describe chewing the food you just found. Usually a simple skill check is what you want to use to show that effort was put into the activity. (Although foraging can be a great excuse to introduce a lot of fun story ideas. “Look a cave!”)

The question I’ve always wondered was, how much food could a character be expected to collect and how much time would it take? Would this be an all day affair just to get a few twigs and berries or could a player expect to take care of all their needs. I came off with a very dim view of foraging after watching a show called Survivorman, Les Stroud would be dropped in a remote location and would have to survive for three days all while hauling a bunch of camera equipment. Poor Les would find some water to drink, if he was lucky he would find a few bugs or a mouse to eat. He was usually dehydrated and starving at the end of the show. Added to this, it seemed like Les was reasonably well equipped with information about his environment. He would consult local experts on how to live off the land and would deliver an array of statistics about the fate of poor uninformed souls that got lost or died in the environment he was in.

The problem with using Survivorman as a model is that Mr Stroud was purposely picking the most difficult environments to survive in and at best would have to be considered a novice forager. He was good at finding water but when it came to getting food he knew what to look for but you could tell that he wasn’t practiced at it. It was almost always the first time he had attempted a technique.

An accomplished forager does much better, in hunter-gatherer societies 60% of the population is in the business of acquiring food and they work only around 15 hours a week to do so. In other words, in nine hours a week a skilled hunter-gatherer could supply himself with food for the week. On average, in one hour and seventeen minutes, a forager could get a day’s food (or one meal for three people). Most people take that long to get a fire going and set up a tent.

The challenge to this is that you’d expect that to only work in verdant forests and lush healthy landscapes but that hour and seventeen minutes comes from present day hunter-gatherers that live in locations like the Kalahari dessert or the ice pack of the north pole. Obviously some environments are more difficult to forage in than others but it would seem that in most situations survival by foraging is an issue of skill. In a rich environment, poor quality food is often passed up for better tasting food instead of people taking less time to forage.

In harsher environments the PCs will have to travel further to find food, something on the range of 2-20 km (so 3d6 km?) a half day’s travel on the far end. When they do find it, there would only be enough to sustain them for a few meals. So instead of foraging slowing down travel, travel makes more foraging possible. In a rich environment a single square kilometer can sustain up to 11 people for extended periods of time.

I should qualify that these statistics are for hunting and gathering but the gathering (or foraging) end of it usually accounted for 60-80% of the food in harsh environments.

I’m going to try and incorporate this in some of my Survival Games posts since I’ll be doing some more environments soon.

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June 30, 2011 · 10:11 am

Survival Games – Rock Wall

For an explanation on how to use these stats, check out the original Survival Games post.

Rock Wall
A geological barrier blocks travel.  Traveling around it will take time, climbing up or down it could be dangerous.

Surmount Method: Bare handed climbing. Ropes, spikes and hooks but the rope has to get to the top somehow.
Surmounting Attribute: Strength

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 2 3 4

SP 1 per 2 meters

Hazards

Exertion
For every failed Strength roll the characters face an exertion hazard. While climbing the character has to exert themselves this leads to muscles getting tired. They get a -2 CDF to Str and a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of the attribute).  CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can recover for a period of time. While recovering, the player rolls for the character’s Con. A Full result means 1 point of Str and Con are recovered. A 1/2 result means that 2 points are recovered. A 1/4 result means 3 points and a 1/8 result means 4 points recovered. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character must be rescued off the rock face or fall if they fail another Str roll.

Random Hazard
For every survival round the GM should roll once on the following table.

Roll 1D100

1-50 none
51-60 Loose Rock
61-70 Overhang
71-80 Stretch between holds
81-90 Wet rock/moss
91-100 Ledge

Loose Rock
A hand hold or foot hold that looked sturdy breaks off. The Character in the lead of the group must make an Agility roll to recover or the strain causes a -2 CDF to Con. All other characters must protect themselves from falling rocks (1d6 points of damage). Using rope to climb does not eliminate this hazard.

Overhang
There is a portion of the wall that angles outward. This makes the climbers rely primarily on arm strength. The characters must make an Agility roll or the strain causes a -2 CDF to Str and-2 CDF to Con. Using Rope eliminates this hazard.

Stretch between holds
The distance between handholds makes progressing difficult. The next Str roll to move up or down must be made with a -2d10 difficulty for all characters. Using Rope eliminates this hazard.

Wet Rock/Moss
A portion of the rock is slippery from moisture or moss. The next Str roll to move up or down must be made with a -3d6 difficulty for all characters. Using Rope reduces this hazard by half.

Ledge
A small ledge allows the characters to rest and recover.

Defenses and Weaknesses
Defense: Impervious rock 10% chance
The rock of this cliff is very hard and driving in spikes to hold a rope is extremely difficult. If a character falls the spikes will not hold the rope in place and all the characters will fall.

Defense: Loose rock 10% chance
The rock of the cliff is loose and climbing by hand will cause rock fall after rock fall. Using a rope to climb is required.

Defense: Waterfall 2% chance
The only climbable section of the cliff is up a waterfall. This soaks the characters making them heavier and hand holds and ropes slippery. All Str rolls must be made with a -3d10 difficulty for all characters.

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Filed under Experimental Mechanics, Survival RPG

June 23, 2011 · 2:13 am

Survival Games

When I started play testing The Artifact RPG, some of its inspiration came from the movie Lawrence of Arabia. While the movie doesn’t center around survival, the crossing of the Nefud Desert is a great part of the movie. I wanted to make survival situations an interesting part of our games. I thought that story telling would be enough to use it to add flavor to the game. I was wrong and it almost universally backfired. Crossing a dessert is boring and there really is only one choice for the players “I keep going”. Rolls to test their will or endurance can only lead to eventual failure and are therefore despised.

Most other survival situations are met with similar reactions. The GM can describe the situation beautifully and compellingly but the players have only one option, keep going. So they disengage, their eyes glaze over and the game is lost.

Is It Hopeless?

I thought it was for a while. I’ve been thinking about it recently and now I’m ready to try again. My main thought is to take what is known to work in an RPG (combat) and use that as a model to make survival tasks interesting. Let’s look at the basic monster encounter. What makes it interesting? There’s something to defeat, maybe the PC get experience for it, the players get to test their characters and equipment. Some games also have the monster drop treasure, I’ve never played that way so it’s not a factor in my imagination but if you want the PCs to get gold for climbing a mountain, it makes as much sense as a giant lizard dropping money. Keep in mind, defeating a monster is not usually the purpose of the players (okay maybe it is for some) it is more likely that there is a goal somewhere beyond the monster and the same should be true for these obstacles. Another thing that makes a monster interesting is that the player’s rolls bring them closer to winning instead of just staving off failure.

So what does a monster have? They have hit points, they have attacks against the characters and they have defenses. Let’s give that to a dessert or a mountain, they need to be tweaked a bit first though.

Instead of hit points I’m going to give these obstacles Surmount Points (sounds weird to me, maybe Surmount Value? Let me know if you have a better name in the comments). Each successful roll will bring down the SP of the obstacle. The types of rolls would vary based on the type of obstacle.

Next the obstacle needs to have attacks. Each turn the players roll to surmount the obstacle it gets to fight back. In reality the obstacle is just existing and the characters are just experiencing it but the idea still makes sense. There is one caveat to this, the obstacle should not hit the players as hard as possible every time. In fact, most of it’s attacks should be easily weathered by the players. Major danger should only happen occasionally because the obstacle has no guiding intelligence (although in some games it could which is interesting in itself). Because of this the attacks should happen randomly.

Lastly the obstacle needs defenses. This consists mainly of things the players cannot do to defeat the obstacle. Some cliff walls may be unclimbable without a rope because they’re made of shale or very sheer rock. The PC cannot wait out a dessert (actually maybe you could, some have a rainy season). These will be very individual to each obstacle. The defenses could also have weaknesses (like the afore-mentioned rainy season) that a knowledgeable character could exploit.

The Take Down

So how does a character surmount an obstacle? Most of them are basic and any human of good health could attempt to surmount them. Special knowledge of the obstacle or survival techniques help a lot but should not be a prerequisite. Because of this base stats should usually be cited for resolution.

I’m going to also strongly suggest a system of success by degrees. I use this in The Artifact RPG system and I feel it will make this process far more enjoyable but it is possible to implement in most systems. Put simply there is a base success and a series of more difficult to achieve successes with the pay off for each increasing with the value of the success.

Here’s where things get a little weird. All characters have to defeat the obstacle individually. Here you can’t have the one guy that defeats the monster and everyone else gives a little support. In a sense each character has their own obstacle to defeat. However characters can help each other get past the obstacle so if one character fails his rolls and another character does exceptionally well, he can share up to half his SP for that turn with the other player.

Example Obstacle

I’m going to be using The Artifact’s system to set this obstacle up but I’ll include general notes to convert the effects to another system. I’m not super sure of the numbers here.

Desert

This region of very low precipitation leaves little in the way of drinking water and very little grows here so there is no food. Harsh conditions await anyone attempting to cross it.

Surmount Method: Carrying water and food to get across. Foraging while in the desert. Fast travel.
Surmounting Attribute: Constitution (or endurance)
Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
1 2 3 4
SP 1 per 5 Kilometers (usually more than 300 Km or 20 SP)

Hazards

Dehydration
For every survival round the characters face a dehydration hazard that can only be defended against by drinking 1 liter of water. If the character does not drink the required amount they get a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of their endurance attribute). CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can eat, drink and recover for a period of time. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character takes one point of damage per round.

Exertion
For every survival round the characters face an exertion hazard. While walking on foot the character has to exert themselves this leads to further dehydration they get a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of their endurance attribute) unless they drink another liter of water or making a successful Con roll.  CDF penalties accumulate until the characters can eat, drink and recover for a period of time. If the CDF penalties exceed their Con the character takes one point of damage per round.

Random Hazard

For every survival round the GM should roll once on the following table.
Roll 1D100
1-70 Blazing sun
71-75 Frigid night
76-85 Monotony
86-90 Ravine
91-95 Lost
96-98 Sand/dust storm
99 Sink hole
100 Oasis
Blazing sun
The heat is especially intense, the characters face an extra dehydration hazard this leads to further dehydration they get a -2 CDF to Con (or 5-6% of their endurance attribute) unless they drink another liter of water or making a successful Con roll.
Frigid night
The night is very cold. Without warm cloths or a fire the characters get a -10 to their Con.
Monotony
The boredom is getting to the characters, they must make a successful Psy roll or they cannot travel.
Ravine
A deep gorge blocks travel. Going around will take a trip of 30 Km. (Climbing down and back up the ravine would require a Ravine Hazard be made).
Lost
The characters have lost their direction for some time and didn’t notice it. Roll 2D6 and add that to the remaining SP.
Sand/dust Storm
A fierce storm blocks travel for a day and gives the following CDFs -10 Con, -5 Str, -2 Ref unless the characters are able to find or erect a shelter.
Salt Marsh
A salt marsh appears like an oasis but a telltale line of white salt surrounds the marsh. The water will taste salty which may warn the characters not to drink it. If the characters have lost Hit Points due to dehydration they must make a Psy roll to resist drinking the water.
Sink Hole
A sink hole opens up and swallows one character. They cannot get out by themselves but can be pulled out with rope or a human chain.
Oasis
The characters can drink as much water as they need and can refill their water supply.
Defenses and Weaknesses
Weakness: Rainy season 25% chance
There is a rainy season that makes 1D100% of the desert easily passable. The characters have to wait 2D6 months for the season to come.

 

 

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Filed under Experimental Mechanics, Survival RPG