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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9271300" data-attributes="member: 82106">But even the WSG is, as was noted a couple pages ago in this thread, 'lipstick on a pig'. I mean, I spent a lot of my youth camping, hiking, mountain climbing, caving, etc. and learned a reasonable amount about orienteering, what kind of supplies you need/can carry with you, how to scrounge for stuff, etc. Again, no survival guru, but I know enough to get by.Now, the WSG is presumably written in at least a modestly realistic 'verisimilitudinous' fashion. At least that is the argument. However, there is a primary issue here, which is that the core hit points, levels, etc. that are at the heart of D&D are pretty unrealistic to start with, so there's a limit to what can be achieved here. Beyond that even fairly detail oriented players and GMs are unlikely to spend vast effort on constantly keeping the books on various little bits of equipment, etc. Finally, how do you structure something like "will we get lost and how do you orient yourself in the wild?" It's not a simple topic and entire books have been written on just this, specific to one type of terrain! What is realistically applicable to a temperate forest in summer is meaningless when talking about someone traversing an ice sheet in fantasy Greenland! No WSG that is feasible to write (or use in play) can handle all that, so at best the rules are going to be highly abstract and merely representative, and will probably produce results that are not particularly realistic.Lets look at the section starting on page 61 "Camping and Campfires" and see what we can see! (I'm picking this at random, I haven't read it yet).Starting out is a discussion of shelter in the wilderness. This points out that natural shelter may exist, but unless you already know where it is (IE the area is mapped and you are familiar with it) stumbling upon shelter is hit or miss, and claims that different sorts of terrain will be more or less able to provide it. Then there's a table 'Table 35: Chance of finding Natural Shelter', which has dimensions of season and terrain type. I'd note that both of these dimensions are, at best, suited to a northern temperate to sub-arctic type of environment. Also the types of terrain seem fairly arbitrary to me, and subsume a WIDE variety of possible conditions. For example conditions in the Green Mountains of Vermont and on Mount Ranier in Washington (both places I am moderately to very familiar with) are QUITE different! I mean, maybe they both qualify as 'mountains' and I guess the fairly arbitrary assignment of a 40% chance of finding shelter in any season there is hard to argue with, but I know that they're just not THAT similar in most cases, though I'd mostly note that conditions in both areas will vary widely depending on exactly WHERE you are in the 'mountains'. Not that I'm really criticizing the chart, just pointing out that it is basically arbitrary. Someone pulled the numbers out of their head, no way they're based on anything given the level of generalization and lack of detail. Next the section gets into PORTABLE shelters, ones that the party would be bringing with them. The rules on carrying shelters seem fairly incoherent. First off is a statement that "even a single mount or size M pack animal is in the group, it can easily transport all the gear needed for many types of shelters with plenty of carrying capacity left over."What the heck does that mean? That if I have a pack mule I get free shelter for the whole party? What kind is it? Table 36 gives stats for small, medium, and large shelters of 'poor, adequate, good, and superior' grades. There's no explanation given! There are encumbrance values, but we already learned we need not worry about that, and the text even reiterates that a single person can reasonably transport shelter for several people in addition to their other gear (nonsense, BTW this is quite unrealistic even in the day and age of nylon and aluminum). Anyway there are some ratings for durability, water resistance, and wind resistance for different grades of shelter. This is all, again, arbitrary but in a game sense where nobody wants to dig into the details of how you set up your tent I guess it 'works'. Frankly I could create more realistic rules than this, though in terms of 'aimed at some degree of realism' they certainly are.After this there are some detailed, but again I feel pretty arbitrary, rules which detail exactly how long a shelter will last, the effects of weather on it, and then finally fairly complex, but again rather arbitrary, set of rules dealing with how much effective rest you get, the effects of deprivation of sleep and rest in game terms, etc. As I stated earlier, the issue here is the pig at the center of the whole thing. Given that D&D's core character rules are pretty unrealistic and gamist, we can't really do a lot in terms of 'realism' here, but the general idea is "the less you sleep, the worse off you are", so I'd put it in the realm of the core falling rules, it aims in the general direction of realistic, but doesn't try too hard.Then there's a discussion of fire, which starts off with a HIGHLY INACCURATE assessment of the value of cooking! In fact, sure, you can eat raw food, and if the food is already processed stuff, like bread, pemmican, dried fruits and meat, OK then eating it raw is fine, though you will need to drink plenty of water in that case! However, raw meat, raw vegetables (especially root vegetables and other less normally edible sorts often found in the wilderness) REALLY need to be cooked! Yes, you can eat them raw, but REALISTICALLY you would want to count that as half rations, at best. There's a reason man invented fire!Anyway, there's a LONG and complex section which purports to give pretty exact rules on starting fires, the warmth provided, how much fuel they use, availability of fuel, time required to start a fire (oddly with no mention of different means of doing so, which realistically vary widely) etc. Again, these rules are so abstract it is hard to make much of them, even in this detailed book and discussing a topic of such central importance to actual wilderness survival. Not to really criticize the rules, just to point out that, at best, they're a huge generalization and mostly just pulled from someone's head. I mean, I don't know of any actual source for information like "how long does it take to gather firewood?" My experience says it is hugely variable and might range from 'you hardly need to bother' up to 'it is pretty much hopeless'. Finally there's a pretty long section on the dangers of fire, pointing out that it can be seen from a distance, but then mostly dwelling on the possibilities of fires getting out of control and what might ensue in such a situation. This is not really 'rules' per se, just 'Smokey The Bear' kind of stuff. Where it gets specific I would again say it is such a generalization and basically arbitrary text that I'd just say 'yeah, it is not specifically unrealistic, or realistic either one'. A rule for fire damage is given, again this falls into the usual D&D level of realism 'fire can burn you'. There's a special set of 'if you are on fire' rules as well, which begs the question of why you need special rules for being burned by an out of control campfire, but they don't seem intended to apply in any other situation. Typical AD&D! That's the end of the section, total 6 pages, very abstract and general discussion. Not inaccurate necessarily, but just basically number soup with no real conveyed sense that the numbers relate to reality much, though one HOPES they add up to an interesting game (I have my doubts on that score as well, but never having employed these rules I cannot say with authority). And, IMHO, this is pretty much a capsule of all of AD&D in terms of verisimilitude/realism. Not very, but usually not leaping into absurdness, just aping our expectations mainly while attempting to remain within the realm of what might plausibly be playable.</blockquote>

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