How do you deal with food and shelter?

[Dice4Hire]

I personally feel that way about feats and powers. Give me a grappling hook and some rope any day.

I see. You go for realistic roleplaying? If you personally cannot slay a dragon, your character cannot either?

I handwave a lot of stuff, or in my Dark Sun game, I make he characters roll pretty easy endurance checks daily, getting harder in rougher terrain. It works well. Accounting is no fun at all. Shopping is even less fun.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Food: my wife buys it and makes the more complicated dishes. Sometimes I cook especially if its a dessert, breakfast foods, or a whole chicken.

Shelter: My wife's job pays for our Condo. We have a Tent, used on maybe 1-5 nights a year.

Sleep: 7 hours a night. 11pm-7am with an hour of insomnia, frequently spent on Enworld. (see title).

Traveling: last year I managed 2 eight mile runs, and climbed (on hiking trails) 3 large mountains. Each mountain was at most 4 miles from car to peak, but above 12,000 feet, breathing sucks. The longest hike took about six hours.
Spending a 10 hour day walking? never tried.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I charge the PCs monthly upkeep (using the rules on page 130 of the 3.5 DMG) in civilized areas, and keep track of daily rations when they are in the wild. I'm old school enough to think that resource management is part of what makes D&D fun.

 

[Filcher]

Is it heroic? If not, I ignore it.

It took me a long time to come to this. Once I made a player sit out several sessions because his PC kept lapsing into unconsciousness after failing a roll to leap from one horse to another horse.

As a DM, I've always regretted that decision.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Fundamentally, D&D is about moving on to bigger and badder challenges. If you don't do that, then the game will become stale. Entire campaign from level 1 - 30 stocked with the same 3 types of orcs with the number level adjusted? Bad idea. Entire campaign stocked with N-foot pits? Bad idea. Entire campaign filled with the hunt for rations/water/malaria cures? Bad idea too.

Essentially, you might consider doing this once. And even then, only if you have a plan for how to make it fun. Get them to describe their camp set up for the one middle-of-the-night attack you do (and since you're only going to do one, make it something special, not a run-of-the-mill fight to the death). Get them to describe what they do for food when you have a cool encounter for them while they're out scavenging (or after... those eggs they picked up for tonights dinner are something's eggs after all). Point out to them that they're low on water when they're near that awesome lake monster you've got plotted.

But don't ever do anything to make adventuring less adventurous.

 

[steeldragons]

What everybody else said. Handwave it unless it is plot relevant.

For food and water, this would include:

• Deserts
• Artic adventures
• Lost at sea (drinkin' water becomes something of an issue if your boat is stranded, caught in a storm, out of port for longer than was expected) Marooned on an uncharted island
• Extended trips into the Underdark (We once ran a lengthy adventure through the underdark. Were down there for months! "If I never have to eat a fungus again...")

Every so often, if the party has NOT been somewhere to acquire supplies in a while (over...2 or 3 weeks, let's say) I'd ask how much food everyone had with them. But in general, yes, so long as they're somewhere where it is possible, I just handwave that they can find some rabbits or a couple of fish...with druids, rangers, elves, gnomes or halflings in the party, berries, fruits (in season, of course and/or edible roots are assumed.

But again, unless it is "harsh" terrain with limited (or no) vegetation and sparce wildlife, we don't need to talk rations.

For shelter, again, only if there's some harsh environment.

However, shelter is also dependent on how closely you will be paying attention to things like seasons and weather patterns.

Heavy rains in the spring? Thunderstorms (or hurricanes near coasts) in late summer. Blizzards.

In these cases when I'd incorporate harsh weather, shelter becomes a challenge for the players.

It is D&D, so most of the time there's always a small dry cave to be found (inhabited, of course...or found by something else seeking shelter from the storm while the party sets up camp Or a "Dryish" patch in the woods.

I pretty much assume, if there's anyone with ANY kind of outdoor/survival skill (or even just an elf) in the party, that they are capable of making a lean-to, at least.

Available shelter is a matter of location.

In areas where travel is common, trade routes, etc...there may very well be a random inn along the road (in relatively secure lands) or at least some kind of unmanned travelers'/mountain refuge set up along the path.

The hiker's shelters I've seen are usually just a low open building (2 or 3 walls and a roof and a fire pit for cooking). 20 or 30 feet x 20 or 30 feet...large enough for a small group and a couple of mounts to be out of the direct elements. (Naturally, if you want to get creative, if you're in a mountainous region it could have been built by/for dwarves who used to traverse the area and thus only 5 or 6 feet high.

Naturally, any nasty creatures in the area would know of these shelters, possibly use it themselves in harsh weather or at least patrol it regularly to see if any easy prey stopped in.

Things like run-of-the-mill colds or disease I tended to stay away from...adventurers being the hardy sort that they are. I am reminded, however, of one player who suffered from terrible allergies in the spring and incorporated them into her character. It was rather fun(ny) to hear her speak all stuffed up and sniffling...the occasional sneeze.

Next time spring came around IN-game (it wasn't spring in real life) she started sneezing and talking all stopped-up again. It was really great. (and she was playing a rogue, so sneaking about became a bit challenging)

But that was the player's choice, not anything I imposed.

--Steel Dragons

 

[Hand of Evil]

Have a house rule on Wear and Tear. 50% change something breaks or goes wrong during travel.

• Players do not make "camp" +30% (see below)
• No rest stop -10%
• No food -10% for first 10 hours, then an additional -5 every hour after

There are other things too, like weather.

What can go wrong, illiness mostly but also things like forgetfulness and clumsiness, cramps, weakness, issues dealing with others. You have also, events like animals go lame, ropes breaking, shoes or outfit malfunctions (buy new/repair).

Making Camp: my players tell me they are making camp, this is defined by my players (sidebar one time), gathering fire wood, putting up tents, tieing up the horses (if they have them), setting watch, taking their armor off, doing maintenance (shoe strings, oiling swords, etc), set out some animal traps. down time: 10 to 12 hours this is 1 hour to setup, 1 hour to break and 8 to sleep.

Rest stop: just one to two hours of rest.

 

[Wiseblood]

I see. You go for realistic roleplaying? If you personally cannot slay a dragon, your character cannot either?

I handwave a lot of stuff, or in my Dark Sun game, I make he characters roll pretty easy endurance checks daily, getting harder in rougher terrain. It works well. Accounting is no fun at all. Shopping is even less fun.

I wouldn't call it realistic. Perhasps it would be called Over the Top -1. I really dig adventuring. Fighting is important so is looting. I like my challenges to be less reliant on a skillcheck perhaps even some metagaming. Call me nuts but I do not mind metagaming.

Accounting is no fun at all. I agree with you there, but for me accounting is recaclculating bonuses every round. Shopping for feats is ok if it's one stop shopping. I do not like cherry picking from different books.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Moatly handwave unless plot relevant, otherwise too much work. Similarly with ammunition.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

In a Star Wars game I played in there was a lot of bookkeeping of stuff like docking fees and fuel fees for our starship. That was a great way to lose the adventurous tone that the game should have.

My general rule is that if it wasn't heroic enough for Han and Chewie to do it, don't include it in your game.