Minimum Food Rules?

[HouseRules]

0950 Calories in 1 pound of food (with fiber)
1900 Calories in 1 pound of food (protein or carbohydrate)
4250 Calories in 1 pound of food (lipid)

In most games, they assume a quantity have sufficient amount of food.
That is most games of D&D requires 1 pound of ration per day.
If it split into 3 or 4 meals, that means 4 to 6 ounces of ration per meal, clearly it is:
5-6-5 for those that eat breakfast, dinner, supper (3 meals per day)
5-5-6 for those that eat breakfast, lunch, dinner (3 meals per day)
4-4-4-4 for those that eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper (4 meals per day)

Numbers for comparison...

Clearly, we know that people in real life does not need a minimum of 1900 Calories, but closer to 1200 for sedentary life.
The 1900 Calories does not match the 2500 for males and 2000 for females recommended for non-sedentary life.
Thus, we should say that some portion of ration has to have lipid (fat and oil) in it.

[AdAstra]

Using historical examples of food fit for use in rations (preserves well, low-moisture, isn’t too fragile, highly efficient nutrient-wise), you can safely assume the higher end of that calorie-density range. Salt-pork is going to be mostly fat. Dried meats in general are gonna have a lot of lipids and protein and little water ie pemmican, though Mongolian Borts might be leaner. Depending on what foods are available, you could have all kinds of rations, though. The Inca made use of potatoes freeze-dried in the mountains, likely something the dwarves might make.

Also note that while the game says one pound of food per day, one days worth of rations weighs two pounds. You could easily say that one pound is packaging or sundries, but you could also say that the one pound rule is for general living, while fighting and traveling will require more, richer fare. Modern-day soldiers are expected to eat at minimum 3000 calories per day, often more, and this is exemplified in the rations they get. MREs have 1250 calories each on average, and you’re expected to eat three per day, at least in combat. Having to run around with nearly a whole extra person’s worth of weight on you for hours and days means even that’s usually not sufficient to keep soldiers from losing weight in pitched situations.

[HouseRules]

All the rules ignore packaging weight.

Even if soldiers need 3000 Calories and have to maintain a BMI of 26 (the upper range of normal weight), some do important or secretive missions that require them to not eat for days on end.
Stealth missions really require them to be stealthy and fast, so they could be within the bottom range of healthy (BMI 20) by the end of such missions.

[Kaptin Keen]

Not that it matters, but why do you ask? Did it arise in play, or are you planning a survival based scenario or some such?

[HouseRules]

It is a Simulation vs Excessive Rounding discussion.
At what point does the game do excessive rounding?
At what point is the game a good simulation?

The thresholds are arbitrary. Very arbitrary.

[Morty]

I'm pretty sure that counting calories and comparing them to rations is so deep into pointless simulationism that it can't see daylight.

[Kaptin Keen]

It is a Simulation vs Excessive Rounding discussion.
At what point does the game do excessive rounding?
At what point is the game a good simulation?

The thresholds are arbitrary. Very arbitrary.

Well - now, seriously, don't listen to me, but my answers would be:

- At no point does a game do excessive rounding .. basically, rounding is good, and simulation is bad
- A good simulation isn't really a game anymore

But I'm very much a rules-light, rule-of-cool, improvise and overcome, RAW is just a guideline kinda guy. To me, it's all about story telling =)

[Recherché]

Can you do something cool with the simulation that you couldn't do with an abstraction that takes less time? If yes then maybe it should be included. If not then definitely don't include It.

I really can't think of anything particularly cool one could do with extra detailed information about rations and ration weight. Possibly if one was playing hardcore survival based games where calories replaced HP, but that would be a super niche game.

[HouseRules]

Abstraction within limits, or we would all consider Chess a very in-depth Role Playing Game.

Survival Horror could be much worst.
Day 1 of Fasting - protein as alternative source of energy
Day 2 of Fasting - muscles internal cannibalism
Day 3 of Fasting - now your body fat begins to break down

Eating 4000 calories every other day would make your body horrible.
Not enough protein to restore muscle damage.

Eating 6000 calories every third day would be worse.
Your muscles itself will break down, and but body fat would be stored.

Eating 8000 calories every four days is somewhat better.
If you could survive this long, you are a better survivor than the previous two situation.

[Kaptin Keen]

Abstraction within limits, or we would all consider Chess a very in-depth Role Playing Game.

Survival Horror could be much worst.
Day 1 of Fasting - protein as alternative source of energy
Day 2 of Fasting - muscles internal cannibalism
Day 3 of Fasting - now your body fat begins to break down

Eating 4000 calories every other day would make your body horrible.
Not enough protein to restore muscle damage.

Eating 6000 calories every third day would be worse.
Your muscles itself will break down, and but body fat would be stored.

Eating 8000 calories every four days is somewhat better.
If you could survive this long, you are a better survivor than the previous two situation.

Yes, but .. this is wildly specific. In no scenario I can think of would you expect to find sugar, and only sugar, at such specific intervals. Yes, if we limit ourselves to only calories over any significant stretch of time, we damage the body and eventually die. But ... we don't. And even in an end-of-civilization scenario, we don't have to. Unless aliens landed and took everything except pure, refined sugar.

[JeenLeen]

Thus, we should say that some portion of ration has to have lipid (fat and oil) in it.

I'd agree that this is a logical deduction.

It is a Simulation vs Excessive Rounding discussion.
At what point does the game do excessive rounding?
At what point is the game a good simulation?

The thresholds are arbitrary. Very arbitrary.

True. And groups should, in general, figure out what's the most fun for them. I can see some games wanting to track resources and some not. I tend towards the 'not', as it usually doesn't matter. But in certain niche games, campaigns, or individual sessions I could see it being important and maybe even fun.

Abstraction within limits, or we would all consider Chess a very in-depth Role Playing Game.

Survival Horror could be much worst.
Day 1 of Fasting - protein as alternative source of energy
Day 2 of Fasting - muscles internal cannibalism
Day 3 of Fasting - now your body fat begins to break down

Eating 4000 calories every other day would make your body horrible.
Not enough protein to restore muscle damage.

Eating 6000 calories every third day would be worse.
Your muscles itself will break down, and but body fat would be stored.

Eating 8000 calories every four days is somewhat better.
If you could survive this long, you are a better survivor than the previous two situation.

I'd find that hard to really translate into horror. I occasionally fast for 1-3 days at a time. For me at least, one day without food isn't bad if you're used to it. Three is pretty horrible. I think rules like Exhaustion (a la D&D, though perhaps not necessarily as laid out in any specific edition--I forget the details or how good levels of exhaustion were done in any game) emulate it pretty well.

And, for some players, mechanical detriments are the best way to show there's a real risk, and thus horror can come into play
In more serious tone: horror requires an element of extra risk, and probably uncertainty. Hunger is pretty understandable, but I could see horror creeping in if the players have the risk of mechanical penalties + ignorance about when such penalties might be relieved. Or the possibility of relief via questionable means, e.g, do they read the "mysterious meat" and maybe risk disease or supernatural cannibalism curses, or stay with the known penalties?

[Morty]

Abstraction within limits, or we would all consider Chess a very in-depth Role Playing Game.

Survival Horror could be much worst.
Day 1 of Fasting - protein as alternative source of energy
Day 2 of Fasting - muscles internal cannibalism
Day 3 of Fasting - now your body fat begins to break down

Eating 4000 calories every other day would make your body horrible.
Not enough protein to restore muscle damage.

Eating 6000 calories every third day would be worse.
Your muscles itself will break down, and but body fat would be stored.

Eating 8000 calories every four days is somewhat better.
If you could survive this long, you are a better survivor than the previous two situation.

What is this in response to, exactly?

[comk59]

I gotta say, even when I run survival games, I tend to measure food in "Days worth of" rather than in calories. I let them eat half a days worth of food for a small penalty, but that's as simulationist as I'm willing to go.
When my players are in a post-apocalyptic (or in my case, post-post-apocalyptic) game they're way more interested in character interactions and exploring than in calculating their BMI.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'd say measure food in days' worth, with weight for carrying a lot of it figured out based on a competent choice in foods to bring as rations, assuming the characters are fairly competent at such things since they're doing them on a regular basis.

Then deal with the exceptions based on lack of availability, unusually inexperienced characters making bad choices, strange circumstances, etc.

[Slipperychicken]

I wouldn't bother going down to the level of calories. Just assign an encumbrance value, price and say "yep that's enough food for this time interval". For a survival situation, have simple rules focused on quickly answering the dramatic question "will the characters get to eat today?" instead of diving into pointless detail.

If you're specifying which molecules need to be present in characters' food, then you're going way too deep into it.

If the quality of nutrition really matters that much, have some results of the food-minigame be "the character's hunger is sated, but with low-quality food so his nutrition is lacking", maybe over time giving one general penalty to represent chronically missing important nutrients.

[LibraryOgre]

So, Hackmaster, unsurprisingly, has rules on this front, though they don't go into calorie counts.

If you are at zero food, you lose 1 point of strength per day for the first three days, then 40 fractional points of strength per day thereafter (until you reach 0/00 Strength, at which point you die). If you're overweight or obese, you actually lose less strength after those first three days; your body has more reserves to draw on. If you have stimulants you can take (caffeine, drugs, etc.), you lose 10 fractional points per day less, which lets you get by on 3/4 rations and coffee.