PDA

View Full Version : Trail Rations



Figgin of Chaos
2014-02-03, 09:25 PM
I'm running a game where I want rations to matter. I've got a few questions about them, which could perhaps be answered by those with more real-world survival knowledge than mine.

I'm also interested to hear stories involving rations in RPGs.

In the typical medieval setting of D&D, what would a day's trail rations weigh, on average? How long would they keep? What would go into them?

I know, the SRD has them listed as weighing 1 lb and keeping for months. That doesn't seem realistic, though; more likely, that weight was intended to make rations as easy to hand-wave as possible. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of campaigns where rations would just be an annoyance; but I think they also have the potential to give a campaign a sense of down-to-earth realism.

Brawny
2014-02-03, 09:28 PM
Honestly the weight seems pretty accurate and so does the keep time.

Dried fruit and meat does actually keep for months but any further than that it'll go bad for sure.

When I DM I just have my PCs deduct 1 from their trail rations per day whenever they're traveling through wilderness. Once they get a bag of holding and reach a certain point of wealth I just stop caring though.

IW Judicator
2014-02-03, 10:19 PM
Overall, I'm inclined to agree that the SRD does a fairly good job of representing at least the basics of trail rations. However, there are a few notes that I would like to point out on that:

Just because it SAYS that something can last x long doesn't necessarily mean it WILL. Any number of conditions could cause even the sturdiest of trail foods to go bad at an accelerated rate. That dried bread in your pack is all well and good, until, let's say, you try to cross a river and the lot of it gets soaked. Or, using bread as an example again, just how much of that could get crushed into dry, tasteless breadcrumbs when packed in with all the rest of their gear?

This brings me to point two: just because there aren't rules on flavor or or nutrition doesn't mean they shouldn't be enforced. There aren't a lot of people who would be content to eat literally the same thing day in and day out for years on end. Similarly, surviving on bread alone (and I mean alone, no butter or other addons) would eventually catch up with someone. That being said, someone with the Survival Skill could and, honestly, should use it to supplement those trail rations, providing much needed flavor and nutrient alternatives. A couple ranks in "Cooking" would also help, but, again, that also means they'll need more than that dried bread and meat.

That all being said, it's also important to note that there's fulfilling someone's calorie needs, and then there's being properly full. Adventurers in general would need a higher than average calorie intake, and thus may very well trend towards higher-base calorie foods (for example, that meat), which, by itself, isn't all that filling. Just think of how many hotdogs, bacon sandwiches, and the like that one hungry person can eat, and how many calories would be involved. They might be addressing their calorie needs, but there's always that chance they may not be "Full". To be properly full (and this can change radically by the person) it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a consumption rate of about 2-3 pounds per person per day, trending towards the higher end of that scale since, again, most adventurers are very active individuals, which would promote hunger.

Ultimately, trail rations are most useful when the party has no means of procuring fresh food (such as a long march through the wilderness in bad weather). In town, realistically speaking, so long as they can afford it, a person will likely splurge on something better than dried bread and meat. They are not the end all and be all of a persons diet.

(Naturally, this all assumes the players/DM want to play in this fashion)

jindra34
2014-02-03, 10:33 PM
Honestly depends on the quality. Though even for medival era (much less medival+magic) trail rations can last a pretty long time. For 'good' (as in not detrimental to overall health for day in day out eating, while hiking over land for 6ish hours) your talking close to 2 lbs of food, consisting of mixed grains, dried fruit, and salted meat. Probably would end up lasting longer than a person could carrying them on an excursion. For lower quality stuff... well 1 lb probably a tight minimum, but you still end up with a person dying of poor nutrition before the rations would go bad normally.

Ravens_cry
2014-02-03, 10:47 PM
Don't forget cheese. A good hard cheese, smoked and/or waxed, can keep pretty good.

Slylizard
2014-02-03, 11:41 PM
Not so sure how they managed in medieval times, but I've dealt with modern military rations and can confirm that they last. I once had rations that were approx 25 years old (made during the Vietnam War era)... they didn't have a negative effect on my healh (there was meat, chocolate, biscuits...).

The stuff tasted pretty awful (I found that was the case with the more recent stuff too mind you) but throw a pile of salt or sauce or spice into it and it can mask the flavor of anything (tabasco sauce was popular).

Weight wise, a 24 hour pack weighed about 1kg each (so about 2.2lbs). Meals weren't exactly huge, but you had enough energy for pretty tough 18+ hour days. I was infantry as well if that helps, so equivilent physical exertion to adventurers (i.e. lots of walking).

Here's (http://www.kitbag.com.au/products/24hr-1-Man-Army-Food-Ration-Packs-13000Kj.html)a pretty accurate example of what they use these days. Gives you an idea of how much you actuall yget on the whole "feeling full" angle. For the record, I never ate it all (maybe 60%/day) and never had issues with feeling hungry... probably because my feet hurt too much for me to think about hunger.

Slipperychicken
2014-02-04, 12:11 AM
People need to drink, too, and I bet those rations are pretty dry. Wikipedia tells me that people need roughly 8lb (3.7L) of water per day, so unless you're foraging for water (or somehow getting it locally via streams and such), one day's total sustenance should run you about 10lb.

Ravens_cry
2014-02-04, 12:45 AM
People need to drink, too, and I bet those rations are pretty dry. Wikipedia tells me that people need roughly 8lb (3.7L) of water per day, so unless you're foraging for water (or somehow getting it locally via streams and such), one day's total sustenance should run you about 10lb.
Or, if this is D&D, you use a zero level spell and make more than enough water. Otherwise, using some anachronistic knowledge, you boil the local water if you are afraid it's tainted.

Figgin of Chaos
2014-02-04, 12:59 AM
Or, if this is D&D, you use a zero level spell and make more than enough water. Otherwise, using some anachronistic knowledge, you boil the local water if you are afraid it's tainted.

Right. In my particular case we're not using D&D. Or, more to the point, magic in this setting doesn't directly help with providing food or water. You'll whip out your flashy sword moves and/or elemental blasts in fights, but the long exhausting treks through the wilderness function pretty much like they would in real life.

Ravens_cry
2014-02-04, 01:55 AM
Right. In my particular case we're not using D&D. Or, more to the point, magic in this setting doesn't directly help with providing food or water. You'll whip out your flashy sword moves and/or elemental blasts in fights, but the long exhausting treks through the wilderness function pretty much like they would in real life.
Well, people did those things, and I doubt they carried *all* their water with them. That stuff is heavy, yo. Things like boiling, pouring through a bed of fine sand and charcoal, or taking the risk, people made do. They had water-skins and such, but they would reload at the nearest opportunity. If your local fictional culture has a tea and/or coffee culture, or an equivalent, that can be a good excuse to boil up some water if boiling water to purify it is too anachronistic.

Isamu Dyson
2014-02-04, 01:59 AM
if boiling water to purify it is too anachronistic.

I could easily see such knowledge being imparted by a water god or even fire god.

Mastikator
2014-02-04, 05:51 AM
Well, people did those things, and I doubt they carried *all* their water with them. That stuff is heavy, yo. Things like boiling, pouring through a bed of fine sand and charcoal, or taking the risk, people made do. They had water-skins and such, but they would reload at the nearest opportunity. If your local fictional culture has a tea and/or coffee culture, or an equivalent, that can be a good excuse to boil up some water if boiling water to purify it is too anachronistic.

But you would carry enough water to last several days and always keep it replenished if you can. It also depends on where you're going. If you're going along a river then you'd be fine. If you're going across a desert then you better bring all the water you can carry and then some.

Raimun
2014-02-04, 06:00 AM
Luckily, no one seems to know that if you equip rations, you are automatically revived back to life if you are killed.

Same works with beer too.

hamlet
2014-02-04, 09:22 AM
I've always assumed "trail rations" or "iron rations" as we called em in the old days consisted of dried fruits, trail bread (aka, "Cram"), nuts, dehydrated meats, cheese etc., and would weigh in the neighborhood of about a pound a day on standard marching rations. I.e., you can survive on it effectively indefinately, but it'll get old real fast if you don't supplement your diet and you might run into some malnutrition problems going along down the road. That stuff lasts a long time, which is precisely why humans learned how to do that kind of thing thousands of years ago. Cheese is, in all reality, a way of preserving the nutritional content of milk for long term storage.

Water is something else. A human leading a sedentary existance (i.e., most of us) needs about a gallon of it a day. Seriously, we don't drink enough water. Hard exertion ups that total, probably by a factor of 2. Ditto hot weather. A gallon of water weight between 8-9 pounds (I've forgotten) and you have to keep it pretty secure or it'll go nasty on you. Lots of things like to live in water.

For overland treks, unless there's a reason why it wouldn't, I generally permit parties to simply find it along the way assuming that most of them know what to do with it when they find it. If you're in a dessert or the like, or the water's been tainted, then you need to start worrying.

And, FYI, boiling water does nothing for "tainted" (i.e., contaminated) water. It helps with things like water full of microorganisms, but not contamination. That stuff needs to be filtered out or counteracted in some way which may involve mechanical or chemicle setups, or magic of some sort.

Slipperychicken
2014-02-04, 09:41 AM
I could easily see such knowledge being imparted by a water god or even fire god.

Historically, before germ theory ever developed, people would often just make low-grade beer and drink that because it was safer/cleaner than water.

Also, there were some famous stories about health professionals trying and failing to get people to boil water even after science embraced the practice: Nobody understood the reason for it, and it was a very time-consuming and strange thing fir a healthy person to do.

jindra34
2014-02-04, 10:17 AM
I've always assumed "trail rations" or "iron rations" as we called em in the old days consisted of dried fruits, trail bread (aka, "Cram"), nuts, dehydrated meats, cheese etc., and would weigh in the neighborhood of about a pound a day on standard marching rations. I.e., you can survive on it effectively indefinately, but it'll get old real fast if you don't supplement your diet and you might run into some malnutrition problems going along down the road. That stuff lasts a long time, which is precisely why humans learned how to do that kind of thing thousands of years ago. Cheese is, in all reality, a way of preserving the nutritional content of milk for long term storage.
.
Note that that is the Roman standard that was used for so long precisely because it wouldn't go bad before you ran out (though they tended to carry grains that could be used for bread over the bread itself). Seriously Roman field rations lasted long enough to be shipped from an outlying province, to Rome, and then to the army and still last several winters. Serious longevity there. But I will disagree on weight, you can't get anywhere near the required caloric needs of a person at 1 pound, even if they aren't particularly active.

Xuc Xac
2014-02-04, 10:18 AM
Honestly depends on the quality. Though even for medival era (much less medival+magic) trail rations can last a pretty long time.

Food can last a very long time.
I recall reading a few years ago about an archaeological find that included a big slab of preserved meat from the middle ages. I think it was salted pork. It was still edible. Any heavily salted meat will last a long time. Unfortunately, you have to soak it a long time in a lot of water to make it edible and you'll need to increase your own water intake to digest it, so it's not a good food to take on a desert excursion.

White sugar and white rice will remain edible indefinitely as long as they are dry. Honey also never goes bad. You can keep eggs fresh for many months without refrigeration by sticking them in a jar of honey or (less messily) sealing the porous shells in a layer of hard wax. Wine and certain beers can last for years or decades if the bottle remains sealed (and some of them actually improve with age like medieval-style Trappist ales). Water stored in a silver vessel will also remain fresh and uninfected by germs.

Medieval people knew all this and it was all standard practice. They didn't know why these things worked, but they knew that they did work. A lot of foods were actually created just to preserve calories and nutrition for later: butter and cheese are preserved milk, wine is preserved grapes, etc. In fact, medieval pies were the equivalent of canned goods. They had a thick, hard, air-tight shell and the interior was heat-pasteurized during baking. As long as the shell wasn't broken, the meat or fruit inside would remain edible for months (the shell itself wasn't edible, but the insides would be consumed throughout the winter).


But I will disagree on weight, you can't get anywhere near the required caloric needs of a person at 1 pound, even if they aren't particularly active.

Pemmican can do it.

The_Werebear
2014-02-04, 10:30 AM
I've always assumed "trail rations" or "iron rations" as we called em in the old days consisted of dried fruits, trail bread (aka, "Cram"), nuts, dehydrated meats, cheese etc., and would weigh in the neighborhood of about a pound a day on standard marching rations. I.e., you can survive on it effectively indefinately, but it'll get old real fast if you don't supplement your diet and you might run into some malnutrition problems going along down the road.

If I recall correctly, didn't the Roman Legions survive pretty much on mostly bread? I remember reading a report where they complained that they ran out of grain and had to subsist on meat.

TheStranger
2014-02-04, 10:46 AM
I have some real-world experience here, having done a fair bit of backpacking, including a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. That means I ate mostly what I carried for four months, and I spent a lot of time worrying about how much it weighed.

Generally speaking, you're going to need about two pounds of food a day for an expedition of any length. You'll want some type of staple (grain, rice, beans, pasta, etc.), dried meat, maybe dried fruit, hard cheese, etc. Basically, things that don't have much water weight to speak of, because water's heavy. Fat content is good if you can get it, because calories are your friend. You'll lose weight fast eating two pounds of food and walking all day. I supplemented my trail food by stuffing my face at every restaurant, hot dog stand, and convenience store I could find, and I still lost weight.

Eating the same thing every day isn't a problem at all. I ate the same thing pretty much every day for four months, and I was too hungry to be sick of it. Seriously - everything tastes good when you're on a starvation diet.

The default solution for water is to carry a little bit and drink what you find unless you're in a dry area. If you need to go more than a day with just what you can carry, you need pack animals (which also have to carry their own water). Depending on the weather, you'll need anywhere from two to six liters a day for drinking, and more for cooking, but most of your water use will be at camp, so you don't need to carry that much. I can't speak to dry areas, but in forested areas water is a non-issue. Purifying water can generally be ignored for game purposes; anything that isn't stagnant isn't likely to kill you, and your gut will adapt to the most common microorganisms. Every once in a while you'll die of dysentery, but if I wanted to worry about that I'd play Oregon Trail instead of D&D.

Edit: Xuc Xac, you're right about pemmican. I'd still aim for a pound and a half, but you could get by on a pound if you had to. It's really an amazing food, and the best option I can think of for a wilderness expedition.

hamlet
2014-02-04, 11:03 AM
If I recall correctly, didn't the Roman Legions survive pretty much on mostly bread? I remember reading a report where they complained that they ran out of grain and had to subsist on meat.

Lentils, actually. They are more nutritionally dense, last longer and, in the end, you can do more with them as a soldier when it comes down to chow time. A creative person can mix up a bit of rations, meat, honey, what have you, and come up with some darn tasty stuff. Bread, while quite good, is not as good as dried legumes. It is, in fact, why we dry legumes. They last forever and are quite good for you.

Joe the Rat
2014-02-04, 11:37 AM
Yes, the stuff keeps, and you can get some nutritionally dense dry foods.
New School D&D gives you 1lb of trail mix a day. Old School gives you 2lb of "iron rations" - which may or may not also include hard cheeses and dried or smoked meats packed in a waxed cloth. 2lb is more realistic for a sustenance food.

Oh, and you need a LOT of water, particularly is everything you are eating has been dried, salted, or candied for the long haul. You will have to drink your liquids. Double again for hot weather. On the bright side, you don't have to cook it.

For more realism fun:
Serve nothing but dried fruits and granola at your games. See how long before someone brings something else. It's sustaining, possibly filling, and always an exercise in chewing, but it's not the type of stuff you WANT to eat day in-day out. You want fresh foods, or cooked foods when you can. You can carry dry goods to cook with, and will be much happier than another day of Nature's Own and Cliff bars. If you can hunt, trap, or gather something, all the better. Oh look, mushrooms!

Dry foods keep best when they are dry. Keep track of this. As soon as stuff gets wet, you are now on perishable foods timetables - a few days to a week. The hotter and wetter.. and dirtier things are, the less time you have.

Water: How are you keeping it clean and fresh? How much green crap can you have growing in your canteen/rain barrel before it becomes undrinkable? There's a reason we had wineskins in the equipment lists: wine keeps better than water. A little fruit nutrition, a little buzz, a little antimicrobial alcohol content. I believe the idea was to cut straight wine with water, and still get the preservative qualities (please correct me on this). Small beers (low alcohol content) may serve a similar function. If water is easily accessible, this becomes far less of an issue. If they have to carry their own (desert, underground catacombs, hostile war zone with poisoned wells), encumbrance will add up quickly. Best get a hireling... and a donkey with a cart.

jindra34
2014-02-04, 12:58 PM
If I recall correctly, didn't the Roman Legions survive pretty much on mostly bread? I remember reading a report where they complained that they ran out of grain and had to subsist on meat.

Kinda. They never carried bread with them. They carried the grain and baked it into simple flat bread in camp. And the complaint was more that they were going through other rations to fast, not that they were using them as the main part. Because meat was costly either in time taken to acquire or just coinage.

Jay R
2014-02-04, 03:21 PM
I'm running a game where I want rations to matter.
Why? Do you have players who enjoy planning menus and tracking daily intake?

What is the exact fun you believe that this will add?

lytokk
2014-02-04, 03:35 PM
Some players actually enjoy this kind of minute detail keeping. My players actually do enjoy this, keeping track of rations and ammunition. It helps them to really get immersed in their characters. Different strokes for different folks.

Sometimes its nice to forget the small things, sometimes its fun for the archer to realize he's only got 5 arrows left, and needs to pick his targets carefully. Sometimes you want to be the good guy who gives his last bit of rations off to a fellow party member.

hamlet
2014-02-04, 03:39 PM
Why? Do you have players who enjoy planning menus and tracking daily intake?

What is the exact fun you believe that this will add?

Perhaps they're playing a Dark Sun campaign?:smallwink:

Actually, I've always tracked rations. Not in exquisite detail, mind, but I always make sure the players keep track of how many days of food they have and, when it does become an issue, I start applying privation rules as I see fit.

Why? Because it can be fun.

Not all the time, but when it's appropriate and part of the situation. Like when they embark on a long overland journey through the dessert or the tundra. It's led to a few interesting situations where some folks considered eating the paladin's warhorse or the mage's familiar in order to keep the rest of the party alive.

SouthpawSoldier
2014-02-04, 04:21 PM
Trail rations doesn't mean trail mix.

Fruitcake/panforte/Lebkuchen is based on a medieval survival food. The modern rendition is a desert, but fruit and nuts in bread, preserved with booze or honey, makes a great long-term food. Honeyed fruit and nuts weren't just treats; it boost caloric value and helps preserve them (honey doesn't spoil, it's too hydroscopic). Heavy spice and seasonings prevented diet fatigue.

Nor do trail rations have to be a prepared item. Carrots, potatoes, and other tubers pack calories, nutrition, and flavor, and last a while unwashed/unpeeled.

Cheese lasts a lot longer than people think, and doesn't NEED to be refridgerated. Especially the rustic, dry/hard cheeses like pecorino.

A lot of the food preservation standards we have now weren't concerns back then. Milk goes bad? Hey, you've got yogurt! Eggs get a little old? Egg grading didn't come about until 1937, so if that Grade AA ages and becomes a Grade B, no one cares. Most of the standards we have now are geared towards having the best nutrition and flavor possible. In that day and age, you were happy to be full.

*Edit* That being said, what hasn't been mentioned is rations for the pack animals. They NEED grain for the calories and nutrition. Grazing just doesnt cut it. For more than a few days journey, you need a couple animals per person; carrying your food, carrying their food, rotating out to give them rest breaks, repair kits for your saddles and gear....you get the idea.

Ravens_cry
2014-02-04, 04:31 PM
But you would carry enough water to last several days and always keep it replenished if you can. It also depends on where you're going. If you're going along a river then you'd be fine. If you're going across a desert then you better bring all the water you can carry and then some.

Oh, of course but even travelling in deserts, you usually travelled along a route where water could be dependably found, unless you were striking out into new territory. And even then, water could be found surprisingly often by simply digging.

Figgin of Chaos
2014-02-04, 05:20 PM
Thanks for the answers, everyone.

A bit more information about the campaign:

The PCs are in a tribal setting, with little to no cities to speak of; just villages and small towns. They're in a habitable area now, but their long-term goal involves an expedition across a desert.

Here's what I've worked out for survival rules, partly based on this thread:

I go for simplicity in the system, so there'll just be one type of ration item, weighing 2 lbs. It'll last long enough that spoiling won't matter, unless it gets soaked, burned, etc.

They'll need 8 lbs of water per person per day, although rivers and streams will make that less of a problem until they enter the desert.

Hunting and gathering will be skills that can be learned, which they can use to supplement their diet and go through rations more slowly.