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Blackhawk748
2019-08-23, 09:58 PM
What it says on the tin. I'm looking for RPGs that do the whole Survival thing well, points if its an actual focus of the game itself.

Im not married to any particular system style, but I do like moderate crunch at a minimum (like, don't go lighter than FATE Core, and Apocalypse World isn't something my group generally likes).

Thanks in advance.

Zakhara
2019-08-24, 12:55 AM
By "survival," do you mean games that involve exposure to the elements, or simply games that are tough as nails?

If it's the latter, I have a lot of praise for OD&D. If it's the former, OD&D could still work but would be much harsher.

Tanarii
2019-08-24, 02:34 AM
Check out the Free League games Mutant Year Zero for post apocalyptic hex crawl, and Forbidden Lands for fantasy hex crawl.

Blackhawk748
2019-08-24, 02:45 AM
By "survival," do you mean games that involve exposure to the elements, or simply games that are tough as nails?

If it's the latter, I have a lot of praise for OD&D. If it's the former, OD&D could still work but would be much harsher.

I mean the kind where you need food and the environment is as likely to kill you as the monsters. I would also like it to be fair as a baseline, not brutally difficult for its own sake.


Check out the Free League games Mutant Year Zero for post apocalyptic hex crawl, and Forbidden Lands for fantasy hex crawl.

Not sure how I forgot about Mutant Year Zero. A buddy has it and the limited play time I've had with it has made me like it.

I'll check out Forbidden lands

Altair_the_Vexed
2019-08-24, 03:13 AM
The One Ring does adventuring in the wilderness really well - with a strongly Middle Earth flavour, of course. You'll also find similar rules ported over to (the bare bones of) D&D 5e system in the same publisher's Adventures in Middle Earth. AIME uses 5e only in the very minimal way - all the D&D races, classes, and magic are replaced or transformed into a more Middle Earth focused set.

GnollPaladin
2019-08-24, 06:49 AM
Torchbearer?

Koo Rehtorb
2019-08-24, 09:13 AM
You want Torchbearer.

Tanarii
2019-08-24, 11:33 AM
Having playtested both, I recommend Forbidden Lands, I do not recommend Torchbearer.

They are similar in a lot of ways, but Torchbearer feels a bit too rules heavy during play.

But the primary difference is Forbidden Lands comes with a sandbox hexcrawl setting built in, and is designed for wilderness exploration and adventuring site exploration, and survival is all at the wilderness exploring level. Torchbearer doesn't do exploration at the wilderness level very well, and it definitely isn't designed to handle hexcrawls.

So I guess it really depends what you're looking for. Something that has good hexcrawl rules and setting/map provided, but no special survival mechanics at the adventuring site exploration level. Or something that has mechanics that are clunky at wilderness stuff, but have a time/survival grind (literally called The Grind) at the exploring an adventuring site level.

Blackhawk748
2019-08-25, 10:02 AM
Having playtested both, I recommend Forbidden Lands, I do not recommend Torchbearer.

They are similar in a lot of ways, but Torchbearer feels a bit too rules heavy during play.

But the primary difference is Forbidden Lands comes with a sandbox hexcrawl setting built in, and is designed for wilderness exploration and adventuring site exploration, and survival is all at the wilderness exploring level. Torchbearer doesn't do exploration at the wilderness level very well, and it definitely isn't designed to handle hexcrawls.

So I guess it really depends what you're looking for. Something that has good hexcrawl rules and setting/map provided, but no special survival mechanics at the adventuring site exploration level. Or something that has mechanics that are clunky at wilderness stuff, but have a time/survival grind (literally called The Grind) at the exploring an adventuring site level.

Hmmm I think I'll look at both of them and see what's what. Though Forbidden lands sounds a bit closer to what I want at first blush

Tanarii
2019-08-25, 01:00 PM
Hmmm I think I'll look at both of them and see what's what. Though Forbidden lands sounds a bit closer to what I want at first blush
Yeah, thats probably best. Torchbearer is definitely a survival game, totally qualifies.

It also has a fairly strong narrative / personality mechanic, if you like those. What makes it really interesting, it encourages using your personality traits both for and against yourself, and someone in the party must use a trait against themself at least once to take a rest

Zakhara
2019-08-25, 05:34 PM
I mean the kind where you need food and the environment is as likely to kill you as the monsters. I would also like it to be fair as a baseline, not brutally difficult for its own sake.

"Dark Sun" may be up your alley. It's brutal, but also compensates with characters much stronger than typical 2e ones.

Mutazoia
2019-09-02, 10:24 AM
If you don't mind breaking away from the fantasy genera, I would suggest Twilight 2000. You'll find yourself scrounging for everything from food, to fuel, to ammo, dealing with adverse weather conditions (and the occasional pocket of radiation) and, while there are no "monsters", you do get to fend off petty warlords, brigands, and remnants of foreign armies...or even your own.