Previously I clarified some of the OD&D wilderness adventuring rules for myself in OD&D Wilderness Adventuring Part 1. This made me curious how much of Outdoor Survival could be (or actually was) adopted into the earliest procedures of the game.
A common refrain is that OSR games are about resource management, which generally boils down to not hand waving encumbrance rules and tracking ammunition, but stops short of actually gamifying water/food outside rations and water existing on the equipment list. Does this mean that they didn't worry about eating and drinking? Or did they not include the rules because the rules already existed in Outdoor Survival?
It is worth noting that the scale of the Outdoor Survival board game has been adjusted, the hexes increased from 3 miles to 5 miles and movement rates halved for men on foot from 6 to 3 to compensate.
So how is food and water tracked in Outdoor Survival?
Outdoor Survival uses a Life Level Index Chart to track the overall health of the player as they try to survive the chosen scenario. As players move across the game board they encounter rivers and basins which replenish water and wild game which replenishes food. Every day that food or water is not encountered adds a token to that track on the corresponding track on the Life Level Index Chart and at certain points adds tokens to the Life Level Index itself which impacts movement.
This is not unlike exhaustion in 5e which I previously explored here: Resource Management. I will be building upon that in a bit.
In summary, everyone starts with 15 life levels (really 11 because once you can’t move you are screwed) and you can survive 7 days without water and 23 days without food. D&D 5e has a pretty brutal exhaustion mechanic that slots nicely here:
For OD&D this wouldn't slot perfectly so I'd adjust to make it even simpler. Total Exhaustion Levels are subtracted from HD (thus impacting Attacks, Saves, and HP). After 0 HD you are "normal human" and then dead. Exhaustion levels from multiple tracks are additive.
A waterskin = 1 day of water
A ration = 1 day of food
So what does this look like in OD&D? We would have to assume that each terrain type has a chance to find food and water when ending a turn in it (not just for passing through). The assumption is being made that when food/water is found it is enough to feed the entire party and replenish waterskins.
Adding to the terrain chart from the previous post, the chance to find food & water in a given hex can be resolved on a single die roll. Example: In a woods hex on a roll of 1-3 neither food or water is found, on a 4 water is found, on a 5-6 both food and water is found.
