I've been thinking about this in terms of a long-term clan based game (Hero Wars meets Pendragon meets Ars Magica) and I came to the conclusion that granny makes it to the dunny because she is well fed and has warm wollen clothes on.
Maybe that needs a little elaboration in terms of game mechanics. In the simplest case every household would just make a group simple contest against 5W4 to survive the winter - as you can figure their chances would not be good. If they work as a team and follow the advice of the head of the family then resolve that as a single contest by the head augmented by 10 family members or so - still not good odds. Of course Sartarites do not just live in families, they live in clans and people within a clan mutually support one another. So the clan ring members each roll in a group simple contest against the winter augmented by all those heads of families who look to them for advice, who are in turn augmented by their families. Mostly the people involved only have relevant skills of 17 or so (farming, herding, weaving, etc) but cascaded up in a properly functioning clan they will still usually make it through the winter OK. A clan divided by strife however would struggle to survive, which in metagaming terms I would consider a good thing as it would help explain some Sartarite attitudes.
I did think that keeping track of which ring members might fail and succeed against the 5W4 would possibly make for storylines or background colour (e.g if the merchant fails then they failed to buy some crucial supplies in time and the heroes have to go off to buy some replacement copper pots if they want their stew cooked, over the snow-bound passes of mid-winter - aargh). It might also affect longterm clan politics as those who regularly "beat" the winter will have their advice listened to more and will be increasingly respected by the clan - important if player characters get onto the clan ring at some point.
-- Nic
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