Natural Disasters in Your Game

Shawn Merrow · September 17, 2015, 03:09:53 PM

I have used Blizzards in two Beyond the Supernatural Victim games. They worked out great for creating tension and isolating players from the outside help.

Omega · September 17, 2015, 03:26:33 PM

Quote from: Skarg;856271One of my favorite things (not saying much) about white-box D&D was that (IIRC) it told you to get Avalon Hill's boardgame Outdoor Survival to resolve long-distance wilderness travel. Which I never did. I assume Outdoor Survival has weather rules... perhaps not rules for disaster-level weather, though?

It doesn't. There are natural hazards. But these are not named and are abstracted down to a loss of movement that turn and none actually cause harm so at a guess they are more like terrain hazards.

The rules are only about 4-5 pages including options. But it came packed with an actual wilderness survival guide. The game was sold at gift shops at parks.

According to notes Gygax used it for the map, and possibly the resource management aspect. The game is about staying alive long enough to get off the map and would be useful for simulating fantasy wilderness trekking.

Skarg · September 17, 2015, 04:33:05 PM

Interesting - thanks Omega! I had seen the rules before, and decided they weren't going to help me so I never tracked one down to own, but it's always been a curiosity of mine.

BTW the olde 3rd party Traveller supplements The Mountain Environment and (especially) The Desert Environment are quite good fairly generic (though you want a 2d6 scale Endurance stat for each character) outdoor travel/survival books, which I still refer to or use as sources for game mechanics.

RPGPundit · September 24, 2015, 02:19:18 AM

I've generally not found a lot of use for natural disasters, unless they're part of some larger series of events going on. That is to say, not to focus on the disaster itself, but it's consequences.

Natural Disasters in Your Game

Shawn Merrow

Omega

Skarg

RPGPundit