[Kromm]

The foraging rules are detailed where it matters for DF – i.e., to give everybody a dramatic role, not to describe complicated effects. They aim to offer a wide range of heroes ways to contribute to the party's food reserves. In all other regards, they're more generous and vague than the Basic Set rules. In particular, the rules for outcomes (especially bad ones) are totally generic, for two reasons:

1. To avoid having a special rule for every terrain type and kind of forage. This means that HP loss is abstract, and could represent poisoning if you're gathering plant matter, a lungful of water if you're fishing and fall in, an arrow graze if you're hunting with pals, or a general wilderness mishap like falling on rocks, being stung by bees, or having your tongue freeze to an icicle. The idea is to leave details to drama, whence the recommendations about "fish stories." By all means, if you take 3 HP this way, call it the average of 2d-4 from poison berries! Inasmuch as individual skills are called out, the Naturalist/Survival roll isn't specifically a "gather plants" roll but a generic "find food" roll; it could as easily represent a quest for eggs, honey, or creatures too small to escape big hands, so dwelling on mild poisoning wouldn't be apropos. (And don't mock the odds of critical failure . . . at a default of attribute -5 on average and with -4 to rolls in harsh terrain, unskilled people will end up critically failing much of the time.)

2. To avoid having a special rule for every fantastic race and ability. Getting specific with hazards means having to worry about whether bee stings affect the delver with natural DR on his skin, whether poison berries matter to the person with Resistant to Poison, whether someone with high Swimming could avoid drowning injury, etc. That's too much detail. Instead, this rule assumes that screwing up means screwing up – doing something bad that your talents cannot block. That's a dramatic proclamation.

In any event, most of the extra verbiage isn't additional detail on the act of foraging. The first four paragraphs reiterate and explain the simplification of p. B427. The fifth is an "added color" rule for drama, not realism. And the list of skills is intended to increase the number of people who can help out, not to increase complexity.