The world is often trying to kill you. This is even more
true in tabletop role-playing games where the trees themselves can
run after you and avenge their brethren. Regardless of the reason,
survival elements can come up in a typical D&D game as your
players attempt to cross a desert or climb a mountain. With that in
mind, I hope to share some of my thoughts for consideration and
comment.
What Do I Mean?
For
my purposes, I tend to think of survival in tabletop role-playing
games as quite a broad idea. Hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and weather
effects are the easiest things to think of and generally included in
rule sets (in D&D 5th
edition they are covered though some probably prefer more in depth
rules). I'd also say they are some of the most common ones I've seen.
However, I also include things such as dangerous terrain, poisonous
food or plants, sickness, ease of tracking and navigating as well.
Things that hinder your players from making it to their objective
that aren't social or combat are generally a good place to look at.
It isn't necessarily always the case, but it leaves room for a lot of
creativity. For example, wind might not play a big role for your
normal party getting around on horses. On a sailboat, however, it
becomes a serious problem as does spending time at sea without being
able to resupply.
Side Consideration
When talking about survival in tabletop role-playing games, you
probably don't want to drop your players in the middle of nowhere and
let them try to survive the hunger and cold. Instead, the survival
elements are usually present in order to add extra tension and
difficulty in accomplishing the main goal. This means that they
should generally be impactful, but not overly annoying. They are also
not the focus when used in this way. You don't want to annoy your
players with this kind of thing.
Situational
The
situation itself plays a big role in deciding if a survival element
will make sense. We can all agree that characters should be wearing
warm clothes at -30 Celsius, but before that point can be tricky.
There are also many factors that go into it. It might make sense to
use the rules for cold situations or make your own situational ones
if it's a particularly cold night and one of your players ended up in
the river. Those situations where it's obvious that some survival
aspect is at play are easy to rule. However, they aren't the only
situations where such rules may apply. I've seen someone use the heat
exhaustion rules in D&D 5th
edition for a quick method to handle a character with a fever (I
can't remember if they made changes to it but I seem to recall it
reminding me of the heat exhaustion rules).
Who Does it Hurt
Some elements of a game will hurt certain people more than others. If
your rules system is class based, it also means some classes take
more of a hit from certain survival elements. One example is cold
weather. If you decide everyone can wear warm clothing over whatever
they usually wear, things will go as normal. However, anyone who
needs to rely on their armour will take a big hit if you don't allow
them to wear it underneath. There may be some survival situations,
such as being poisoned by something or particularly cold weather,
where you might decide that a wizard will need to roll concentration.
Not handling this like a rule (they don't need to roll every time
they are in cold weather) gives you some flexibility as a Dungeon
Master to tailor things to the situation but also not expand the
rules (keeping it as a ruling, not a rule).
What's the Result?
Hunger
and thirst usually do one of two things. It forces the players to
slow down and forage for food on their route. The result is they
can't travel overland as fast. It also helps your ranger shine if
they like that kind of thing. If time is a critical element in your
game, this can be a big deal. It also allows your players to plan out
their route. They can buy enough rations for their trip and resupply
in cities along their path. This might be overall longer than the
direct route but could be faster in terms of time because the roads
are better. It will also allow the characters to arrive at their
destination without taking levels of exhaustion. In some cases, if
the path is particularly long without a chance to resupply, the
players will need to think of a way to proceed. They might plan for
half and forage the rest, they might jump in straight away and not
waste time buying supplies, or they might take extra horses or a cart
to carry their extra supplies.
A group tends to have a clear cut answer in these kinds of
situations. I've seen some prefer to just start moving now and worry
about supplies later. If their ranger has a good history of making
due just fine, this helps to contribute to the selection of this
option. Balancing these kinds of situations can be a bit difficult
and also depends on how adverse to risk your players/and or
characters are. To tempt players to take the riskier forage option
might take a lot for risk adverse groups, or it could be the
without-a-doubt best choice for a group that loves risk.
In Context of Travel
I find it easiest to consider survival aspects in the context of
travel. It's also the most common situation I've come across and it
probably extends to other tables as well. They are factors that
players need to consider when traveling and influence their path. A
path that might look absolutely nonsensical can be made promising
because of the sources of water along it, for example. Beyond the
rules dealing with exhaustion, some terrain features overlap with
survival aspects. They also behave in a similar way. If your players
come across an area with places of quicksand, deep snow (that 10-foot
pole can be very handy when going across icy terrain to check for
hidden places you could fall into), or swampland, your players are
forced to make a choice about the best way to go towards their
objective. Similarly, there is a risk with going through the
dangerous terrain, and there is the less dangerous but more time
consuming way of avoiding it.
Overstay Welcome
These kinds of elements should add something to the game and your
players should enjoy them. If they generally don't, you can probably
get away with it once or twice. If it's their first time in the
northern ice lands of [insert land here], it can help accent their
new location. However, if you hammer them with it every 15 minutes of
play it could get tedious quickly. In such situations you'd either
want the problem to go away as soon as they get proper clothing or
not spring it on them in the first place. It's similar to how long
everyone enjoys tracking experience or encumbrance. Some people
really like how it adds to the world and makes it seem more real
while others find it tedious. When used sparingly, such as
encumbrance stuff coming into play when trying to move a very heavy
object, it disappears into the game and it isn't a problem.
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