GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Eh, in proper DF style 2d-4 damage is too low, it's just that you took the 2d-4 damage from wandering monsters, not starvation.

I'm afraid I don't understand this as an answer to my question. Are you saying that the Basic Set rule was replaced by both the foraging rule and the wandering monsters rules?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'm afraid I don't understand this as an answer to my question. Are you saying that the Basic Set rule was replaced by both the foraging rule and the wandering monsters rules?

No, I'm just commenting that large amounts of damage from wandering in the wilderness is entirely in genre for DF.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

Next up, Urban Adventures? To complete the set? :-)

I hope so. There was an article in the Urban Fantasy II Pyramid issue recently (ish) which covered some DF Town Stuff, but I'm sure there's another 40+ pages of good stuff Sean can add to the line!

As for this product, Wilderness Adventures, excellent so far - interesting how much all of the Templates from DF1-15 can be mostly Wilderness ready with the right template choices!

[RyanW]

A question: On a scale from 1 to Very, how useful would it be for non-DF games? Particularly, would I get much use out of it for a post-apocalyptic campaign featuring a lot of overland travel and survival (a realistic campaign, so no mutant hordes or people wearing football pads and leather)?

I'll probably get this either way. The answer to my question will simply determine where on the priority list it goes.

ETA (further detail on campaign in mind): basically Twilight 2000, but slightly different background and not as military.

[entitivity]

Originally Posted by RyanW

A question: On a scale from 1 to Very, how useful would it be for non-DF games? Particularly, would I get much use out of it for a post-apocalyptic campaign featuring a lot of overland travel and survival (a realistic campaign, so no mutant hordes or people wearing football pads and leather)?

I'll probably get this either way. The answer to my question will simply determine where on the priority list it goes.

On that note, are any of the wilderness rules/suggestions useful for realistic campaigns?

[Crakkerjakk]

There's actually very little overtly supernatural stuff (I'd say ~5%), and while the rules aren't grittily realistic, I'd say they're about Action 2 levels of "simplified/abstract rules for this narrowly focused subject matter.". The first big chapter is all about how various DF templates and allies might need to be adjusted for a more wilderness focused game, and the gear section is DF centric, but the " wilderness rules" chapter and the "how to introduce these into your campaign" chapter are both pretty DF neutral

The only caveat is that these are all pretty low tech focused, so less useful (though still somewhat) for something like getting yourself rescued off the planet your spaceship crashed on. Well, and that they're abstract. I don't think you can die from exposure quickly enough to be realistic, frex.

Oh, and you would generally need DF2 for the rules it references in there too.

[Kromm]

The contents are more mundane than supernatural. Many words are spent to remind the reader of druidic spells, nature spirits, outdoor monsters, etc., but these appear almost entirely in the fluff text. The crunch text describes what happens to people who don't have fantastic abilities, and would suit any game where the PCs are limited to mundane abilities and TL0-4 gear.

The contents are also more cinematic than realistic. Chronic outdoor hazards (like cold and sunburn) serve to chip away at resources – FP, HP, rations, bug juice, etc. – so that unprepared travelers are somewhat weakened. These are not so much primary dangers as they are force multipliers for active threats like animals and highwaymen, who attack fresh rather than used-up. As in the dungeon, killing the PCs outright is saved for suitably dramatic acute hazards, which happen to be wilderness-themed: lightning, tornados, deadfall traps, etc. This approach is genre- and TL-neutral, but better suited to larger-than-life campaign styles than to gritty ones.

You could use most of this stuff with, say, GURPS Action or GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol without adjusting for anything but gear TL. You would not want to use this in a gritty GURPS SEALs in Vietnam campaign or GURPS Reign of Steel game. If your specific interest is post-apoc, I'd put the realism level at that seen in the Fallout games, which are superficially kind of tough because most first-person shooters don't care about food and weather at all, but in fact very generous when you look at the timescales and actual effects.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Didn't DF2 already replace that for DF with the much less harsh foraging rule?

That has nothing to do with foraging whatsoever. And much of DF2 took out for foraging went back in with DF16.

[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.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Kromm

By all means, if you take 3 HP this way, call it the average of 2d-4 from poison berries!

But my question in the other thread, as I just pointed out to Sir Pudding, had nothing to do with the foraging rules on p. B427. They had to do with the roll to "live safely in a wilderness situation" on p. B223. I have no clue where foraging came into all this.