[Space] Alternate starvation rules: Half-rations?

weevis · 06-01-2016, 05:02 PM

I'm a GM running a game where I would like my spacefarers to become marooned and have to undertake a long and arduous journey home. Is there a "fun" way to model the effects of starvation? I'm thinking they need N days of food but they only have some % of N days of food and there should be health consequences for this that are governed by dice and HT. I wouldn't want this to involve one dice roll every day, as it's a long journey.

It seems like this kind of rule set might appear in an RPG book somewhere as this kind of journey (in a lifeboat, say) might occur in many adventure settings. Think: Captain Bligh's 3500 mile journey in an open ship's launch. Think: "The Martian." In the Patrick O'Brian novels they are often short of food..

Let's say their spaceship doesn't produce its own food (it is not meant for such a long journey), but it can handle water recycling and they should have plenty of water.

How about about something like a die roll for a certain period of time, and on a failure you acquire some starvation-related medical disadvantage worth X points, or lose HT, or something. Encounters in the adventure mid-way through the journey would then be complicated by the new disadvantage(s). There seem to be a lot of possible medical complications from starvation beyond just fatigue, including all sorts of vitamin deficiencies, irregular heartbeat, pain, ...? The disadvantages could be temporary. This rule structure is vaguely similar to the Radiation Effects table on p. B436.

If you've read the existing starvation rules you know they don't work this way. I showed one player the rules on p. B426 and he said, "So every four days I'll eat only one meal for two days, then eat all three means for two days. Looks like I'll be fine and I'll only need 50% of the food we bought!"

I found the other threads on the starvation rules, but they are mostly concerned with grading the existing rules, or talking about realism. I am more interested in gameplay.

CAVEAT: I realize that I am the GM and I can hand-wave this stuff away if I want. The point is that the people on this forum are much better at thinking about rules than I am, and thinking through some dice-governed structure here would be fun.

Any pointers to rules or ideas for new ones?

Hoping you can help.

06-01-2016, 05:02 PM	#1
weevis Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: 3.165, -3.048, -0.0818	[Space] Alternate starvation rules: Half-rations? I'm a GM running a game where I would like my spacefarers to become marooned and have to undertake a long and arduous journey home. Is there a "fun" way to model the effects of starvation? I'm thinking they need N days of food but they only have some % of N days of food and there should be health consequences for this that are governed by dice and HT. I wouldn't want this to involve one dice roll every day, as it's a long journey. It seems like this kind of rule set might appear in an RPG book somewhere as this kind of journey (in a lifeboat, say) might occur in many adventure settings. Think: Captain Bligh's 3500 mile journey in an open ship's launch. Think: "The Martian." In the Patrick O'Brian novels they are often short of food.. Let's say their spaceship doesn't produce its own food (it is not meant for such a long journey), but it can handle water recycling and they should have plenty of water. How about about something like a die roll for a certain period of time, and on a failure you acquire some starvation-related medical disadvantage worth X points, or lose HT, or something. Encounters in the adventure mid-way through the journey would then be complicated by the new disadvantage(s). There seem to be a lot of possible medical complications from starvation beyond just fatigue, including all sorts of vitamin deficiencies, irregular heartbeat, pain, ...? The disadvantages could be temporary. This rule structure is vaguely similar to the Radiation Effects table on p. B436. If you've read the existing starvation rules you know they don't work this way. I showed one player the rules on p. B426 and he said, "So every four days I'll eat only one meal for two days, then eat all three means for two days. Looks like I'll be fine and I'll only need 50% of the food we bought!" I found the other threads on the starvation rules, but they are mostly concerned with grading the existing rules, or talking about realism. I am more interested in gameplay. CAVEAT: I realize that I am the GM and I can hand-wave this stuff away if I want. The point is that the people on this forum are much better at thinking about rules than I am, and thinking through some dice-governed structure here would be fun. Any pointers to rules or ideas for new ones? Hoping you can help.