Playing "Adventurers" As Actual Adventurers

[Micah Sweet]

I am not so much interested in the combat as war aspect. I am more interested in making the threat of disease or starvation actually interesting to play out.

Plenty of games are good for this. Just not modern D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Grimm Tales is a d20 modern game that is focused on survival.

World Without Numbers takes survival very seriously. In the game I’m playing, we are trekking through the jungle and we have to worry about water and food and exposure. We have hired porters to carry a lot of our stuff and we need to protect them. (How else will we carry out all our loot!?)

All the Without Number games do great work with survival rules. The newest, Ashes Without Number, is particularly impressive in that respect IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16 - Wilderness Adventures has some very detailed rules for overland adventures. You could certainly use it to make travel or exploration the focus of an adventure.

I used this once with my group when we were trying out GURPS Dungeon Fantasy as a short campaign and it really threw the group as they weren’t expecting to spend some much time and effort on the travel part of adventuring. I think you would need the players to understand this was going to be be a major focus to get the most enjoyment out of it.

This is true. A lot of gamers IME who are familiar with modern D&D are assuming special forces action missions and need to be informed otherwise if that's not what you want to run.

 

[dbm]

in my mind it’s the difference between the Indiana Jones films and the Lord of the Rings books. With Indy films we ride the red line across the map and get straight to the action. With LotR we get detailed exposition on their demanding journey.

Both can be great but you need to be cued up for what experience you are getting into.

 

[Umbran]

I am not so much interested in the combat as war aspect. I am more interested in making the threat of disease or starvation actually interesting to play out.

Personal opinion: They aren't generally interesting to play out, in and of themselves.

Like, the things you do to prevent disease and starvation are in what most folks would call the "drudgery" bucket. They are incredibly mundane actions. There's no drama or dynamism to canning peaches for storage, or remembering to dig your latrine sufficiently far away from your water source, and washing your damn hands, and so on. The core of good logistics is bookkeeping, which, again, isn't full of rising and falling tension itself.

You want to see threat of starvation as something interesting? Go watch the TV series Yellowjackets. In it the threat of starvation is basically a setting element that puts stress on the characters. It is not the actual dealing with the details of starvation, but how it drives interpersonal dynamics, that is interesting.

 

[Reynard]

You want to see threat of starvation as something interesting? Go watch the TV series Yellowjackets. In it the threat of starvation is basically a setting element that puts stress on the characters. It is not the actual dealing with the details of starvation, but how it drives interpersonal dynamics, that is interesting.

I think if you can do it successfully in other media, there is probably a way to do it successfully in TTRPGs.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Personal opinion: They aren't generally interesting to play out, in and of themselves.

This mostly.

Like, the things you do to prevent disease and starvation are in what most folks would call the "drudgery" bucket. They are incredibly mundane actions. There's no drama or dynamism to canning peaches for storage, or remembering to dig your latrine sufficiently far away from your water source, and washing your damn hands, and so on. The core of good logistics is bookkeeping, which, again, isn't full of rising and falling tension itself.

You want to see threat of starvation as something interesting? Go watch the TV series Yellowjackets. In it the threat of starvation is basically a setting element that puts stress on the characters. It is not the actual dealing with the details of starvation, but how it drives interpersonal dynamics, that is interesting.

The only game I can think of that does logistics (right now) outside of wargames would be Dead of Winter (possibly without the traitor mechanic). You could emulate the crisis of the week style with an oracle system to generate random themed crises.

 

[payn]

I think if you can do it successfully in other media, there is probably a way to do it successfully in TTRPGs.

I think its triggering a knee jerk reaction to old school survival sim. Where every morsel of food and drop of water needs to be tracked. Folks found it to be exhausting and not particularly exciting. Which is why the exploration pillar is sort of in limbo currently. It's been reestablished as a pillar, but what does that mean? Social is in the same boat but its off topic for this thread.

What you need then is to examine how it plays out. Starvation/disease would be more like traps to avoid in the traditional sense. How do players navigate that in the name of exploration without it being mechanically burdensome? Furthermore, the starvation and disease obstacles are just in the way of the real prize which is exploring stuff. How do you make that piece exciting? I think thats largely going to be up to plot devices to provide a rewarding experience.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think if you can do it successfully in other media, there is probably a way to do it successfully in TTRPGs.

Not necessarily, in most other media this is an exercise in creative writing. Some elements of it could be handled with improv but that is creative writing wearing another hat.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think its triggering a knee jerk reaction to old school survival sim. Where every morsel of food and drop of water needs to be tracked. Folks found it to be exhausting and not particularly exciting. Which is why the exploration pillar is sort of in limbo currently. It's been reestablished as a pillar, but what does that mean? Social is in the same boat but its off topic for this thread.

What you need then is to examine how it plays out. Starvation/disease would be more like traps to avoid in the traditional sense. How do players navigate that in the name of exploration without it being mechanically burdensome? Furthermore, the starvation and disease obstacles are just in the way of the real prize which is exploring stuff. How do you make that piece exciting? I think thats largely going to be up to plot devices to provide a rewarding experience.

Maybe some kind of deck mechanic that generates a thematic scenario for the party to resolve?