D&D 5E A brief rant about Rime of the Frost Maiden, farming, logistics, and ecology

[Protonicmass]

Assuming people have eaten through the supplies and are now facing death. Reduce the population each month by 10 people each month. This either due to them moving away, dying due to lack of food, or getting eaten. (Eaten by whom you say?? I not saying.)

Can't we just increase the Save DCs, add hazards based on the temperature and kill some people off?

 

[jasper]

Can't we just increase the Save DCs, add hazards based on the temperature and kill some people off?

You can. For example blizzards having a lost chance and DC extreme cold chance. But I am tracking the deaths cause by and around the pcs. For example the population in 3 towns are always going down by 1 each new moon.
Some monsters due to PC action/non action may wander into to town to have a quick meal.

 

[Protonicmass]

You can. For example blizzards having a lost chance and DC extreme cold chance. But I am tracking the deaths cause by and around the pcs. For example the population in 3 towns are always going down by 1 each new moon.
Some monsters due to PC action/non action may wander into to town to have a quick meal.

Spoiler: Nitpick

Inaction

 

[MarkB]

You can. For example blizzards having a lost chance and DC extreme cold chance. But I am tracking the deaths cause by and around the pcs. For example the population in 3 towns are always going down by 1 each new moon.
Some monsters due to PC action/non action may wander into to town to have a quick meal.

Also, each of the Ten Towns has a main quest and usually a couple of other things going on, and the PCs will generally get to hear rumours about several of them as they visit different towns. Just keep a record of the ones they've heard about but haven't dealt with by the time they reach 4th level, and have some of them play out to their natural conclusions.

 

[jasper]

I have tied some pcs to Ten-Towns. Some people have paid 5GP for rumors. I give them the rumors on slips of paper. Those rumors also go on to the Facebook write up, and the big map. Currently my messenger feed is dinging at me. They are plotting on taking over the gem mine. Current plan is to murder the mine owner. Use the kobolds as slaves. Feed them using the cauldron of plenty. Some players do want to pay the kobolds some money. I have two counters to this but some of my players read this forum.

 

[Burnside]

I think the designers got themselves into a bind where they both really wanted to include the sacrifices element, but also didn't want want the adventure to be set in a lifeless, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

In order for Icewind Dale NOT to be a lifeless, post-apocalyptic wasteland, this can't have been going on for two years. But if it's only been going on for a period of months, the people of Ten Towns look psychotic for resorting to human sacrifices so abruptly.

The compromise probably has to do with removing the "no sunlight" thing. A year or two of winter is a region on the brink of total collapse. A year or two of winter plus 4 hours of twilight/20 hours of darkness per day equals total extinction. But that messes with the duergar storyline.

Another possibility would be to introduce the idea that the sacrifices to Auril are actually working, and that she permits the towns some relief from the cold and dark in exchange for performing them. But that introduces a level of moral queasiness and complexity that I'm not sure WotC really wanted to deal with in this story. As written, there's no evidence that the sacrifices are having any results, so morally the adventurers are in the clear if they decide to put a stop to them. If you change it so that the sacrifices are actually benefitting the towns, then the players have to choose between allowing human sacrifices or putting entire populations at risk. Which would be great drama at some tables, but isn't the sort of stuff 5E adventures tend to grapple with.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yes, I think some stuff is left out of the adventure so any given group can choose to "go there" or not, as their sensibilities dictate. I honestly think that some of the things we can see as mistakes are on purpose, while others are simple mistakes (because, you know, the designers are human).

Edit to add: Probably the really seemingly-sloppy "mistakes"(aside from paste-up stuff) are done because of some insider-considerations that we would never think of, like legal or parent-company rules, or opinions of powerful but ignorant suits above the designers. You never know. Works like that more than we'd all like to believe, I'd expect.

 

[MarkB]

I think the designers got themselves into a bind where they both really wanted to include the sacrifices element, but also didn't want want the adventure to be set in a lifeless, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

In order for Icewind Dale NOT to be a lifeless, post-apocalyptic wasteland, this can't have been going on for two years. But if it's only been going on for a period of months, the people of Ten Towns look psychotic for resorting to human sacrifices so abruptly.

The compromise probably has to do with removing the "no sunlight" thing. A year or two of winter is a region on the brink of total collapse. A year or two of winter plus 4 hours of twilight/20 hours of darkness per day equals total extinction. But that messes with the duergar storyline.

Another possibility would be to introduce the idea that the sacrifices to Auril are actually working, and that she permits the towns some relief from the cold and dark in exchange for performing them. But that introduces a level of moral queasiness and complexity that I'm not sure WotC really wanted to deal with in this story. As written, there's no evidence that the sacrifices are having any results, so morally the adventurers are in the clear if they decide to put a stop to them. If you change it so that the sacrifices are actually benefitting the towns, then the players have to choose between allowing human sacrifices or putting entire populations at risk. Which would be great drama at some tables, but isn't the sort of stuff 5E adventures tend to grapple with.

Yeah, I've compromised on the sacrifices element in my game. The three towns that were making humanoid sacrifices in the official version are instead making sacrifices of both food and warmth. However, they've instituted an official death penalty by exposure for anyone who violates the terms of the sacrifice by hoarding either food or warmth. They call it a deterrent, but their detractors call it a de facto humanoid sacrifice.

 

[TheSword]

So when I read the book for the first time it took me about 5 minutes to go "well that doesn't make sense" and decide that if I were to run the module winter would only be a few months late. I actually decided that I was going to have the players come in at what was supposed to be the end of winter and see the effects of the never ending winter over a few months as they level up.

It is perfectly acceptable to have things that don't make perfect sense in a story. The problem comes when the things that don't make sense are central to the story being told. When telling a story it is expected that the audience (in this case the players) are going to engage with, think about, and ask questions about that story. When basic questions about that story fail to have any sort of logical answer it makes the audience disengage with the story and stop caring.

The central conflict is that the two years of darkness and winter have driven the region to the brink of despair. People are terrified and desperate, willing to sacrifice their fellow man to try and appease a cold and uncaring god. So a very reasonable question to ask as a player is "why are the people desperate?" because of course you want to know what kind of horror you as a hero are saving them from. The obvious answer is "they are running out of food and fuel and will soon starve/freeze to death." The problem is that this brings up the next very obvious question "why now? Why are they running out now and not a year or 18 months ago?" To which the module gives no obvious answer. So now because the players know that that question has no satisfying answer they are more likely to ask other questions that also don't have any answers. "If they can survive two years with no obvious explanation whey can't they survive 2 more? or 10 more?" "If they were able to survive two years through presumably magic why are they so desperate that they started to sacrifice people? "If things are that desperate why aren't people leaving? If people can't leave how did we get here? If we were always here why haven't we done something about this problem in the last two years?" "Wait if Auiril can just freeze an entire region why is she doing so now? Also what's to stop her from doing so again whenever she reforms? Also why is she freezing an area full of people instead of a random abandoned area on the spine of the world?" "Wait isn't Drizzt like native to this region? If it's been two years why are we dealing with this and not him?" Next thing you know they players have gone from having fun and engaging with the story to not caring because nothing makes sense.

You have some good questions there but do you honestly think the DM or players isn’t capable of answering them...

... Why now (Stores have run out)

... why not 2 more years (...Stores have definitely run out?

... Why don’t people leave (When people have always lived here and leaving involves heading out to unknown monstrous lands surrounded by blizzards and no food? would you take your kids into that? Or bunker down and hope for the best?)

... How did PCs get there (Sounds like a classic question for the PCs not the DM)

... Why turn to sacrifice ( ... No... Really... Stores have run out)

... Why have we not fixed the problem before (Escalation or the fact that the PC was alone. Again it sounds like a question for the PC not the DM)

... Why doesn’t Drizzt help? (It’s a big world and Drizzt travels)

... Why is Auril acting now and why in IWD (Why did Lolth orchestrate the Silence? Why did Bane steal the tablets of date? Why did shar create the shadow weave? To build personal power and further set goals. She wants to freeze life in ice - harder to do where there is no life. She also has followers in the area. Create an icy stronghold.)

Those are some of the easiest questions I’ve seen to answer on this thread. Much easier than asking why the ave temp is -45 degrees C.

 

[Hussar]

I think part of it is people have a real problem understanding just how long you could survive on starvation level food levels. So long as you have water and heat, you could survive years on starvation food levels. Your farm animals are all dead, so, they got eaten. Pests and pets are now gone. The people are down to boiling boot leather for calories.

Survive doesn't mean in comfort.