I bought the Wilderness Survival Guide- Now What?

[Madara]

I just purchased the Wilderness Survival Guide in some attempt to shape a Westmarch out of a child born of it and Dungeon Crawl Classics.

What rules/material are worth cribbing from Wilderness Survival?

[JadedDM]

Personally, I like to use the rules for weather and the rules on food/water (including how easy/hard it is to find them in the wild and how much you need to survive). There's also a chart in there that lets you figure out what time the sun goes down or goes up, depending on the month, that I find pretty handy.

[knag]

I use WSG in my 1e campaign. I often refer to the movement and encumbrance section, especially movement over various types of terrain, and I use the climbing rules for non-thief characters. With regard to movement, I don't use the fatigue rules in WSG as written. My players are very meta-gamy and figured out how to work around it. So I use the simpler fatigue rules from the 1e DMG, which causes the players to lose effective levels when they get fatigued, until they can rest. This is both easier for me to implement and more punishing on players who want to consistently forced march through the night followed by an immediate dungeon crawl.

I find the NWP system a little clunky, but I do use some of it. I like the hunting and fishing mechanic, and I use the rules for the riding proficiency for any character who has riding skills. (NWP in my game are more about character background than proficiency slots). I have also found use for the flying mount section for higher-level PCs; our last campaign featured a pair of tamed griffons the party druid kept around.

Weather tends to be more of a DM fiat thing rather than the tables in WSG, and I use the tables from the 1e AD&D World of Greyhawk boxed set for seasonal changes. If it makes the story better to be raining or snowing, it's raining or snowing. I also like the little section in WSG on the fatiguing effects of not having enough clothes/shelter. This caused my party to have to carry a bunch more expedition equipment, and I keep strict track of encumbrance, so it forces more realism, in particular for transporting treasure along with all the necessary gear to travel.

WSG and DSG get pushed aside by a lot of AD&D players for being part of the "1.5e" material, and being post-Gygax. But I think if you read through WSG, it at least makes you think about the considerations you should take into account for a hex-crawl OSR-type game. As with all material, use those bits you like. For the stuff that doesn't work for you, consider whether you want to completely discard the material, or if you want to make up your own way to deal with the topic.