How do you deal with food and shelter?

[DragonLancer]

Hey DMs, how do you deal with the mundane necessities of adventuring like food, shelter, and sleep in your campaign? Do you keep close tabs on it all, and mandate that at least a crude shelter be made each night? If so, how do you do that?
Do you ensure that the PCs keep tabs on food, and nock them down d/t hunger effects?
Or do you just handwave it to allow for faster, less cumbersome gameplay?

I am starting my first campaign as a DM, and am not certain how detailed and realistic most people want their adventuring to be. I don't want gameplay to be a chore, but I don't want a 300-mile hike with no forethought on provisions and sleeping arrangements, either. I've backpacked and slept in a hand-made shelter before, and it's hard work!

I don't bother. As far as I am concerned the player characters have enough spare change to buy a round or two at the pub, and they have enough that trail rations for the journey can be purchased.

 

[howandwhy99]

Of course I do. Outdoor Survival has rules for all of these except sleep. However, while they are always in effect they rarely come up in game. It depends on whether or not the PCs are in a situation where the lack of these supplies will effect them. A place where they can't be easily reacquired.

Considering the vast amount of bookkeeping done in more modern games keeping a tally of rations, maybe ammo, and your basic list of equipment is quite simple overall.

As a DM you'll want the accurate copy on your side of the screen. I don't call for these things to be tracked, I do it myself. The players will do it, if they want to master the game. It's pretty simple. But I do ask if they are eating for the day, sleeping, etc. before making any notation.

EDIT: AD&D has some decent rules for sleep deprivation, if I recall.

 

[Umbran]

What it comes down to is - I don't like my games to have a lot of "busywork" - things that take up time at the table, but are not really in question.

You're in temperate, civilized lands, and have coin in your purse? Then you can find food, shelter, and basic equipment. Pay your upkeep costs, and let's move to something beyond accounting.

You're in a rough environment, where survival without wit and skill is questionable, and minor amounts of coin can't buy your way out of the situation? Well, then maybe we need to look at this in more detail.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

If characters have access to create food and water, Leomund's tiny hut or whatever, they can obviously use these things.

If they don't, and they take no other precautions, then they may die of starvation or exposure.

Travelling in the wilderness without food or shelter is unwise, although those with the Survival skill have an opportunity to shine.

 

[Nork]

If you suggest that the food/shelter at the location the PCs will be traveling to might be disagreeable, with such a description creating the possibility in their minds of the risk of a minor numeric penalty, watch how quickly and how much energy they put into tracking food/shelter.

Don't make them track food "or else", just go ahead and act like the "else" is your expected outcome, and let them thwart you.

 

[Pbartender]

I used to nickel and dime my players on all this stuff, but after awhile, it becomes a bookkeeping bore.

The only time where it becomes really important or where I will nitpick the issue is when the players are crossing into very harsh or hostile climes where part of the danger is not having enough water and food.

That's about how I look at it as well...

Most of the time, we ignore it. We presume that the characters, who are professional adventurers, are competent enough at their jobs to appropriately prepare for the length and climate of the journey they are about to undertake (even if the players themselves take such preparations for granted). Commensurate with how wealth generally works for creating higher level characters, we also generally ignore the relatively miniscule investment of resources these preparations represent. So long as they start in an appropriately civilized area, it assumed that the character have enough pocket change to purchase, or are good enough at scrounging or hunting to find lying around, or have the skills and materials available to build from scratch whatever basic equipment they might need.

However, when it becomes important to the plot to keep track of survival resources -- lost in the desert, stranded on a desert isle, etc. -- then we certainly do start tracking them very closely.

 

[chaochou]

I am starting my first campaign as a DM, and am not certain how detailed and realistic most people want their adventuring to be.

I don't want gameplay to be a chore, but I don't want a 300-mile hike with no forethought on provisions and sleeping arrangements, either.

Ask your players. Do they see the game as being about managing water and rations and assigning a watch rota?

How much forethought do you think is appropriate for a 300-mile hike? Is 'We buy enough rations and waterskins' enough? Will a nature roll do to make the trip safely?

Some people demand 'realistic'. Others don't really want to play out every footstep across 300 miles of sunbaked desert. They just wan't to say 'We buy a camel and load it with waterskins'. It's really up to you and the players to agree what's fun.

Personally, I've never seen D&D as about finding clean water and building shelters. And if a game was going to be about that I'd want everyone clear on that point up front.

I played a Twighlight 2000 game where we created our characters, weapons and equipment and then the GM told us each to roll a D6 and that was how many rounds of ammo you got - at that moment we knew the game was heavily about scarcity and survival. But I don't see D&D like that.

 

[funnybunny]

i think darksun has a 'survival days' mechanic that approximates this pretty well

 

[GhostBear]

However, when it becomes important to the plot to keep track of survival resources -- lost in the desert, stranded on a desert isle, etc. -- then we certainly do start tracking them very closely.

Just ensure to give your players some notice that you will be tracking those resources if you normally do not BEFORE they enter.

It's no fun for a player to adventure around for months, not worry about food and water due to hand wavium, then all of a sudden be told, "Oh, now that you're in the middle of a desert, you are dying from dehydration."

 

[Plane Sailing]

If characters have access to create food and water, Leomund's tiny hut or whatever, they can obviously use these things.

If they don't, and they take no other precautions, then they may die of starvation or exposure.

Travelling in the wilderness without food or shelter is unwise, although those with the Survival skill have an opportunity to shine.

This is my position too. In addition I like to make good use of seasons and weather; a snowstorm in winter is a bad time to run out of rations and shelter becomes more important.

For me, this gives a necessary verisimilitude.

It also matches up with scenes I've always enjoyed in literature where bad weather and/or lack of supplies provides important drama (e.g. Caradhas in LotR)

Done well, it can be exciting and helpful. It is especially good if there are Ranger/Druid PCs, or those who have chosen survival, as it gives them a good place to shine.

Cheers