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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9614279" data-attributes="member: 6799660">So the conversation has moved past this in many ways, but I wanted to come back to it. Regardless of discussions of how things should be, or whether survival play is conducive towards heroic gameplay, I've come to a conclusion on a separate point. And that's that TSR-era A/D&D did a poor job of making the survival mini-game fun and interesting. Now, there was some rules evolution -- AD&D shifted the encumbrance value of  survival gear from a fixed amount to however much you wanted to bring along; the Wilderness Survival Guide made a bunch of overly complex rules which made you regret leaving your hometown; and it and 2e AD&D included non-weapon proficiencies, which specified that you were a fool to rely upon said skills and to pack enough supplies not to need to do so. However, in general, it all boiled down to, as Reynard put it, "gear or gold" -- encumbrance dedicated to supplies vs encumbrance dedicated to treasure. Number of rations going down towards zero until you resupply. Not unlike hit points. However, hit points have the advantage that:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">There are plenty of interesting decision points in hit-point-risking situations that influence the outcome, and </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">There's a generally-considered interesting consequence of reaching 0.</li> </ol>To the former, there are the occasional 'do we cut short the adventure and head back?' or 'do we take the shortcut (we might get lost)?' decisions in wilderness travel, but for the most part the only decision is how much food and water to pack. To the later, regardless of one's opinion on character death in general, the whole party* setting out for a dungeon and never being heard from again (starving to death) is one of the most ignominious/least interesting TPKs one can imagine. *assuming the party generally all packs the same amount, and/or shares food until it is goneI think I've seen a group that actually went through with that all of twice in 42 years of gaming. Some have come up with some kind of house-rule alternative consequences*. Most just over-pack food and water** and try to have backups*** asap, making it pretty much a survival-insurance tax, rather than an interesting part of the gameplay. *"All but 10% of you wander out of the woods 1d3 weeks later, 1d4 towns over, with 1d6 hp left, and 1d8 lasting injuries. Make 1d10 item saves amongst your magic items. Those of you in the 10% group, roll on this chart to see why you aren't amongst them..."**pretty inexpensive after a few levels, so not horrible if you have to jettison some in place of treasure on most adventures.***magic items, create water/create food & water/good berry spells, or emergency go-home abilities.Most other games I've seen do the same or less interesting*, although few advertise it as a major part of the game, either*. However, if someone wanted to make an interesting game around such things, there's no reason why you couldn't. My co-GM and I tried to do so with a homebrew game we were making -- simplifying supplies into 'cups' and 'candles' and adding weariness and morale metrics along with charts of wilderness events against which you could make various skill checks (depending on how you wanted to address the specified situations). The whole thing didn't get off the ground/past playtesting for reasons unrelated to this game aspect**, but I saw enough to know that a theoretical final product could easily have been engaging for those who wanted that kind of gameplay. *even the much-vaunted 'low-res life simulator' GURPS generally abstracts survival to some skill checks.**and those that do, like Forbidden Lands, do have some level of interesting mechanics.***real life got in the way of the campaign starting.I certainly did play it to a lot higher levels -- at least once we got to the Immortal setting through actual gameplay all the way through*. There certainly were more books dedicated to levels 15+. However, I'm trying to think of any specific rules which support this and kinda coming up blank -- maybe the initiative rules or specifics on getting extra attacks or the like would alter if high-level games were actually survivable, but I think the variations in how people played likely would dwarf that. The Companion and Master sets had a bunch of extra rules for running kingdoms and hosting tourneys and such, but not much that required more than name level. Most of levels 19 (so after getting level 9 spells for Magic Users) were generally more-of-the-same -- maybe with a few more weapon masteries or skills (if using the gazetteers) and such. Did you have anything in particular in mind, other than the game describes gameplay as going up that high? *no idea on how loose we were with ease, xp rewards, etc. Everything I've seen about high-level play in the TSR era can be summarized as 'by that level, it's all going to be table-dependent.' If not actual house rules, it will be which of the existing rules actually get used, or what aspect of the game is the central focus (and speed of advancement being one of the biggest question marks). Perhaps the MU does reach level 18, but they are mostly making magic items or sending others on quests (barely needing stats anymore). Or they are in adventuring parties, but really the player is playing their dragon pet/mount most of the time. Or they have an intelligent quarterstaff, and half the gameplay is a Statler and Waldorf back and forth between the two.</blockquote>

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