Re: Survival and Exhaustion

From: Philippe Sigaud <sigaud_at_...>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:13:38 +0100

Mike:
>> From: "Sam Elliot" <sam.elliot1_at_...>
>>
>> Hunger, Thirst, Heat and Humidty all rolled into one
>>
>
> Oh, this is a good one to mention. (snip)
> So...what Sam said. We all know that the jungle is dangerous because of the
> heat and humidity, and that the drinking water might be contaminated.
> Represent these survival challenges with a contest at some point. Gives
> players a chance to show off their various survival abilities with
> appropriate modifiers. And failure means degraded performance in line with
> the level of the failure (or AP loss).
Exactly. Or lost stuff: beasts of burden, fleeing guides, no more water packs, no more rope, etc. And a sprained ankle!

> Fun stuff. One of my favorites is to watch for characters who are using
> magic repeatedly, or for large applications. Even if they use their
> abilities successfully, I may have a follow on contest to see if their magic
> use exhausts them - I think of using magic as an exhausting activity. This
> gives another reason "why people don't use magic for everything all the
> time." Not only might you fail with whatever bad repercussions that failing
> to use magic successfully has (and these are numerous themselves), but it's
> simply not easy.

Paradoxically, my players wouldn't appreciate it directly after a successful use of magic, but they tolerate declarations like 'OK, you all used magic heavily, your throats are raw, your hands aching, your heads swim, take a -10 till you rest'.
I could insert an 'endurance scene' : "hours pass, then a day and another night. Monkey cries and mosquitoes never stop, nor the heat. And now, it's monsoon time, again. Roll for endurance, against a TN of <Whatever>".

Ah, no one mentioned rain, did you?

  Philippe