Food-borne illnesses or food poisoning

[mlangsdorf]

One of the PCs in my DF game ate some obviously tainted meat. Not poisoned or horrifically mutated, just some cuts of wild boar that the goblins had left sitting out too long. I gave him an HT-2 roll to resist the effects, and he failed.

What's an appropriate mechanical effect for food poison or some random food borne disease? I don't necessarily want to give him cholera, just something that would effect him.

I'm thinking an unlimited, hourly cyclic Toxic attack for 1-2 HP, resistible by HT-2 until he succeeds twice in a row. Damage is uncurable while the disease is raging. Is this unfair or reasonable?

[Perfect Organism]

I'd go with Nausea (page 428 of the Basic Set), possibly with an additonal HT penalty to resist vomiting after eating and a requirement to drink more water (and a HT roll to actually drink it) to avoid dehydration.

[Bruno]

Unlimited sounds a bit harsh - most cases of food poisoning tend to "run their course" in 24 hours, and don't kill people. Boutolism can be lethal, but it's sort of exotic, especially if the food wasn't in airtight containers.

Anything with a HT penalty and ongoing tox damage is pretty rough - another option would be to make recovery rolls at flat HT-ish but require multiple sequential sucessess to recover - 3 in a row for example. So the patient can rally for a bit, and then backslide again.

Either way, while the victim is damaged, they should be suffering from at least Nausea - magical healing would temporarily halt this by eliminating the damage, but it'll come back until the disease is cured. I don't think there's an affliction for diarehha and I don' think I personally WANT one. Handwave it, or gloss over it as Mild chronic pain from stomach cramps when the patient takes more than 1/3 HP in tox damage.

Milder food poisoning might be better described as FP damage that can't be recovered without rest and clean water (to help recover from dehydration), and some ongoing Nausea. But that's not the kind of food poisoning you get from overeating on slightly green meat...

[jacobmuller]

Parasites: was it cooked? if not, he could have a wonderful variety of parasites. RL tapeworm...
Food poisoning:
He could be disabled for several hours with a fever causing Nausea (diarrhoea), Tipsy and Pain. It may ease off only to return, with the effects lasting up to 5 days. He might just get a "bad stomach".

What was his margin of failure? Maybe make him suffer the Nausea, Tipsy and Pain for hours = MoF then HT with success meaning "recovery" (dock Fatigue = hours sufferring) and failure = extra hours before next HT check. Repeated failure leads to starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, and eventually death. Somehow I don't think he'll die but he'll not repeat the experiment.
Recovery: check HT again after MoS hours, modified for behaviour; failure = relapse.
Being kept warm, resting, a mildly sweet/ stimulating tisane (IDHMBWM), pain medication, icecubes, and on recovery, plain food eg bread, unseasoned rice, weak porridge, for first hours = duration suffered, decrease possibility of relapse.

[Brett]

Unless you want to get nasty with botulism (which is rare, and a neurological illness marked by deafness and paralysis), the way to go is probably gastroenteritis: [margin-of-failure] days of diarrhoea, vomiting, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, abdominal cramps, headache, fainting, and weakness.

[ciaran_skye]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Anything with a HT penalty and ongoing tox damage is pretty rough - another option would be to make recovery rolls at flat HT-ish but require multiple sequential sucessess to recover - 3 in a row for example. So the patient can rally for a bit, and then backslide again.

We are talking about DF with Man Eating Blueberries, so a routine case of food poisoning that can kill wouldn't be out of the question. (I'm exaggerating based on a rule about requiring Naturalist skill when scrounging for food in DF3 I think...)

For a real-world case of food poisoning I'd consider just nausea and maybe kind of pain penalty. A couple years ago I went to the doctor unable to hold anything down/in and he asked if I had stomach cramps, because I didn't he concluded I had gastroenteritis rather than food poisoning, so the pain penalty for cramping makes sense.

Let's not forget that food poisoning and related illnesses was a killer at one point. King Henry V of England died from dysentery (days) before he could be crowed King of France.

[jacobmuller]

I was attempting to describe my personal experience of gastroenteritis (leastways, that's what I's tol it was). Worst case lasted 5 days. Fever, pain (from the fever), shivering despite the heat, dizziness, nausea so bad I couldn't even eat ice the first morning, fatigue. Coke/water 50/50 for the first 24 hours and worked my way up to dry bread. Back to work on day 3 and back to sick bed that night.

Tisanes-
for sickness: chamomile, fennel, balm, mint and centaury.
for pain: hawthorn leaf, lavender flower, balm leaf, st johns wort, elder flower.
diarrhoea: plantain, tormentil rhizome, purple loosestrife flower, wild thyme.
fever: meadowsweet, violet, cowslip flower, lime.

[Flyndaran]

I once ate mayo that had expired over two years earlier.
I vomited so forcefully, I scared my brother upstairs. Afterward I was peachy keen. But I had developed a weird reaction. I had drank some vodka that day, and my body became severely sick every time I smelled alcohol for the next few years.

[ciaran_skye]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I once ate mayo that had expired over two years earlier.
I vomited so forcefully, I scared my brother upstairs. Afterward I was peachy keen. But I had developed a weird reaction. I had drank some vodka that day, and my body became severely sick every time I smelled alcohol for the next few years.

When I had gastroenteritis it was Dinty Moore Beef Stew that set it off. I can't even look at it now and I used to love it.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

When I had gastroenteritis it was Dinty Moore Beef Stew that set it off. I can't even look at it now and I used to love it.

Nausea and vomiting are infamous for quickly conditioning intense aversions to smells and tastes. I used to eat fish fingers without thawing them. Then I had an attack of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps after eating a mess of prawns, and now I feel queasy at any smell or taste of fish, shellfish, or seafood.

The funny thing is that it usually takes about 6–12 hours for gastroenteritis to develop, so a lot of people develop aversions not to the thing that made them sick, but to something they ate at the next meal.