Hello Tavern patrons. I threw together a fairly simple hunting & gathering move for wilderness adventures. Suggestions, things I’m missing, a better move already online somewhere?
When you hunt or forage in dangerous territory, roll +WIS. On a 10+, chose 2. On a 7-9, chose 1.
* There is enough to feed your whole group for the night.
* You can smoke, dry or bottle the equivalent of 1d6 rations.
* You don’t get into trouble with a predator or monster.
I’ve been looking for a way to allow for hunting in the wilderness, and make rations a more valuable resource. I like these options!
What if fighting a monster resulted in a payoff? (warning, I pulled this out of my bag of holding just now, so it’s rough)
“When you hunt or forage in dangerous territory, elect a group member to roll +WIS. On a 10+, The group gets to choose one. On a 7-9, the GM chooses one.
*Venture out into the wilderness in search of game, risk an encounter with a monster, collect enough food to feed your group for the night, and have 1d6 rations worth of leftovers
*Spend 1d6 resources (adventurer’s kit, or other) and build traps to collect 1d6 rations worth of smaller animals.
*Tighten your belts, take a debility, and recover 2d6 HP.
I like this. My group tends to forget to buy rations and they are level 4 :P.
Awesome.
Thanks, gents.
I’ll crash test the move tomorrow as my heroes are stranded hungry in a dungeon, with most of the party wounded and the elf ranger went out to feed them.
I’ll come back here and edit if needed.
When you choose option 2 and 3 – why don’t you have enough for the whole group for the night? You could roll a number that matches your group. But still your whole group isn’t feed because you didn’t pick that option.
Maybe replace one option with “you find an interesting herb or root”. Players can then spout some lore about their herbology and you can put cool herbs into your game.
I also like making gathering and hunting for food more of an “adventure” because there is interesting stuff there that can happen. But that might be my Torchbearer sensibilities.
In this case I need a move to resolve what’s happening to the elf before we start the session proper.
I see what you mean with 2 and 3. Thanks, I’ll make it clearer.
What about this now?
When you hunt or forage in dangerous territory, roll +WIS. On a 7-9, you bring back enough to feed your whole group for the night, provided you have time and a safe place to smoke, dry or salt the food.
On a 10+, chose 2.
* The food can be consumed with little to no cooking or preparation.
* You can prepare an extra 1d6 rations for later.
* You find an interesting, but possibly dangerous, herb or creature.
maybe just choose 1? Otherwise i would always choose option 2 and then another one. Maybe that is the right thing? Not sure…
Yeah, I thought you should get a good bonus when you roll 10+. Because I won’t miss you if you get 6- 😉
How about:
On 10+ it is fresh bread, ham, cheese and a good red wine.
On 7-9 its Black Pudding, Gelatinous Cube and goblin leftovers.
Nah. Didn’t think so either.
Only if you meet a girl with a brightly coloured cape.
Tim Franzke From the courts of Chaos?
Wynand Louw You could find somebody else’s food stash actually. That’d make for a fun side-plot.
nah, from the Grim Fairy Tales.
Speaking of Grimm: There is a little table that fills itself with food at a command. All you need then is the girl…
Sorry. I’m hijacking threads again. I will now punish myself severely, and promise not to do it again.
I like all you put into the Move but not the way you put it together. I would definitely go for:
When you hunt or forage in dangerous territory to feed you and your friends, roll +WIS.
On a 10+, you can even smoke, dry or bottle the equivalent of 1d6 rations.
On a 7-9, choose 1 (or 2 if you are a soft GM):
+ You don’t get into trouble with a predator or monster.
+ You find an interesting, but possibly dangerous, herb or creature.
+ You don’t loose so much time you aren’t able to rest (and get your HP back).
Bastien Wauthoz, I like your take on it, but I might rewrite it to be more player facing.
When you hunt or forage in dangerous territory to feed yourself and your friends, roll +Wis. On a hit, you get enough to feed everyone. On a 10+ choose 2, on a 7-9 choose 1.
-You’re careful, and don’t attract any unwanted attention
-You’re really successful, and get enough for tomorrow too OR you can preserve the surplus as 1d6 rations.
-You’re fast, and it doesn’t cut into travel or sleep time.
-You do something exploring, and find a bizarre place, plant, or creature.
Michael Atlin I am convinced the “ration” part has to go on a 10+ but i love your two last options. The way you phrase it is much more open.
Thanks for the great feedback guys. I think I’ll go with Michael Atlin ‘s tweaks and see how it goes tonight.
I’m glad you guys like it. Bastien Wauthoz, You may well be right that the bonus rations should come only on a 10+. I’ll need to think about it more!
I made it an option, so that you can just prepare rations if you don’t need to feed anybody.
When you hunt or forage in dangerous territory, roll +WIS. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2.
+You’re successful: there is enough food for you and your friends tonight.
+You’re prepared: you can prepare 1d6+1 rations.
+You’re careful, and don’t attract any unwanted attention.
+You’re fast: it doesn’t cut into travel or sleep time (you get your HP back).
+You’re lucky, and find an interesting place, plant or creature.
Way too many options in my opinion. Well, not only mine. It’s also the Guide’s.
how about the move gives you a list of 3 things you can find and 3 possible complications. on a hit you choose 1 from the good list. on a 7-9 you also have to choose 1 from the bad list. on a 10+ you can choose to choose an option from the bad list to choose an additional option from the good list.
The first option certainly shouldn’t be an optional. You’re going out to forage, right? To get food? If you succeed, you get the get the food, period. Anything else is either extras or avoiding consequences. Otherwise, you can end up with the odd situation of someone rolling a 7-9, and picking Fast and Careful: they avoid attention and don’t use up time, but they don’t get any food either. Don’t let the players have the option of taking the move back. That’s not interesting, and it doesn’t move the story forward. At the least, the situation should have changed; they should have gained something and/or lost something.
That’s why I structured the move the way I did. The implicit consequences are that it takes a while, and you attract attention. A 7-9 means you get the food, but you suffer both consequences and get a little bonus, or manage to avoid 1 of the consequences, but no bonus. A 10 means you get the food and can choose between no consequences, a consequence and a good thing, or two consequences and two good things. But you always get the food, unless you fail outright, in which case it should be disastrous!
I wouldn’t tie delay explicitly to HP recovery. Losing time means so much more than that. You might not travel as far. You might be exhausted when you wake up. You might doze off on your watch. You might miss the boat. You might get caught out in a storm. Those things chasing you might catch up.
Again, I’d try to reframe the options in terms of what the characters do to create these outcomes as opposed to the outcomes themselves. Do it by doing it. A character can’t choose to be lucky, but she can choose to explore, and when she does explore, it’ll mean she’s sacrificed time or attracted attention.
Well, the extra base thing on a hit would be you find enough rations to feed 3. (why 3? Because the move should maybe not “auto”feed a whole bigger adventuring group. If you are a bigger group more of you have to hunt or you have to spend extra effort on feeding everyone) If you want more you need to choose an option for that.
Tim Franzke I agree, that’s a good way to handle a general exploration move. But I got the impression the focus of this one was to forage for food food first and foremost (fun with alliteration). So basically, the first option of ‘find food’ is selected by default?
Tim Franzke, good point about autofeeding a large group. I hate tracking that stuff, so I would to handwave it (you get enough food, or you’re hungry, or you’re starving) but yeah. 3’s not many though. I might go as high as 5. A standard party.
I love tracking that stuff!
but it is really the torchbearer GM in me. The fun only begins when the party is so hungry they start thinking about these glowing mushrooms on the wall…
I love it in the abstract. And I love it when logistics has a serious impact on the story.
But I also know that with my ADHD, I’ll forget to tick off boxes, or miscount, or whatever, and it’ll lead to recriminations and misery. =)
Or if not that, then at least not add much to my fun.
It’s what I like most about torchbearer. GM tracks it, not me and when you miss a meal you become Hungry. Simple, elegant. But I hate tracking how many rations I have left in each little inventory box. Anyway, enough threadjacking on my part!
Oh, and just as a followup – I don’t think that anything will break if you don’t take my advice =) This is just some of the best practices stuff I’ve learned from the forums, particularly from Jon Harper.
I don’t really mind that the player would decide to come back empty handed – they still have spent a couple hours away from their friends, which is likely to have an effect on the fiction.
I think I’ll tweak it like this:
When you spend a few hours to hunt or forage in dangerous territory, roll +WIS. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2.
+You’re successful: there is enough food for you and your friends tonight.
+You think ahead: you can prepare 1d6+1 rations.
+You’re fast: it doesn’t cut into travel or sleep and healing time.
+You’re careful, and don’t attract any unwanted attention.
+You’re lucky, and find an interesting place, plant or creature.
Thanks again for taking the time to help, guys.