I love the idea of rations in a survival fantasy RPG.
A lone hunter on a mountainside, buffeted by the wind, turning a goat on a spit.
A train of adventurers, retainers, and pack animals trekking across the badlands.
So good.
But, after playing Knave and Shadowdark for the last year and a half, carefully tallying rations, I’ve found it… not fun. And I'm bummed. I’m an OSR head! I’m supposed to love this gritty survival stuff!
Yet, when I look down at my character sheet, I only have three experiences:
- Bored ("Yep, got rations.")
- Annoyed ("Nope, don’t have rations. Time to sideline this fun quest to go forage.")
- Exasperated ("We have two mules loaded with rations. Do I really need to cross out 97 rations and write 92? Who TF cares?)
How can I redesign rations to fit my beautiful, muddy, OSR dream?
Rations, when designed well, should do the following:
- Create a sense of realism. (Your Character is a living person— they have to eat.)
- Create more “surface area” for the game world. (Players must barter, hunt, etc. and, in doing so, organically discover a new location, reveal a meaningful random encounter).
- Create compelling dilemmas where the Players must choose between going hungry, or pursuing time-sensitive goals (e.g. give chase to an NPC, get back to town before nightfall).
So, here's the new rule:
- It is assumed you have the supplies required to eat. If this changes, the Referee will tell you.
- Dry rations fill your belly, but bring no joy.
- When you eat a hot meal, regain an additional 1d6 HP or advantage on your next roll.
The idea is Players can opt-in to hunting, foraging, for an added bonus, but they aren't penalized for not doing it. They also aren't mandated to do tedious bookkeeping.
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This is following a design idea I’ve been thinking a lot about it:
Don't punish inaction. Instead, reward action.
It's all about where you set your baseline.
 |
| Don't punish inaction. Instead, reward action. |
Imagine this axis:
NEGATIVE EFFECT - NO EFFECT - POSITIVE EFFECT
Now shift along the axis from this:
- NO ACTION = NEGATIVE EFFECT
- ACTION = NO EFFECT (BASELINE)
To this:
- NO ACTION = NO EFFECT (BASELINE)
- ACTION = POSITIVE EFFECT
This is inspired by one of my all-time favorite blog posts by Jack at Rotten Pulp who came up with “Positive Conditions” (“Well-Fed”, “Well-Rested”) for Mausritter. A really great and useful inversion of the familiar negative conditions (“Hungry”, “Exhausted”).
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Do you like tracking rations? What do you like about it? How else might we design rations to get the OSR game you're dreaming about?
*If this changes, the Referee will tell you (i.e. you escape from a prison camp wearing only rags (no food), trek across the desert (no water), are caught in a snowstorm (no warmth), etc.)
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