WIP: Dehydration/Starvation (Patreon)

From a section about adding systems to the game, here is one such example of the process. It's a first draft, so a lot will change before it reaches its final form (I'll be using this caveat a lot in the next several months).

Example 1: Dehydration/Starvation

With rare exceptions, Remade need food and water just like anyone else. Some Renegades struggle to secure consistent access to these essentials. They might be living on the street, in the wilderness, or in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Dehydration/Starvation Basics

•            Hungry: A character who goes more than 24 hours without eating or drinking suffers the Hungry Condition (p. XX).

•            Exertion: The onset of this Condition occurs more quickly if the character engages in heavy exertion while deprived. Every six hours of exertion counts as 24 hours if only food is lacking. If the character has neither food nor drink, every three hours counts as 24 hours.

•            Partial Starvation: If the character eats (and drinks) some but much less than she needs, she can go twice as long. Typically, this means every two days of partial starvation counts as one day of complete deprivation, although exertion can shorten this interval.

•            Low-Quality Food: Consuming rotting, dirty, or improperly prepared (raw squirrel, for example, or human meat) food or drink requires a successful Resolve + Stamina roll (with the penalty for the Hungry or Starving Condition – p. XX). If successful, the Deviant enjoys the full benefits of the meal. On a failure, he suffers food poisoning, suffering the Sick Tilt in action scenes for the next 24 hours, and advances his hunger (or thirst) by one day. Food or drink that humans can’t safely consume (sea water, for example, or dirt) provoke the Resolve + Stamina roll, but success only prevents the character from getting violently ill; it does nothing to ease his hunger pangs.

•            Sourcing Food and Drink: Finding potable water in civilized areas isn’t usually difficult. Finding food or water in rural or uninhabited places requires an extended Wits + Survival action to locate a source of food or water (each roll is eight hours, with failures delivering low-quality supplies and dramatic failures sourcing nothing at all). The roll may suffer a penalty due to scarcity and will require more successes based on how many people the character is attempting to feed (3 successes + 2 per person to feed them adequately for a day). The roll to find food in human-inhabited areas is the same, but each roll instead requires one hour.

This system intended for a story or chronicle in which hunger and/or thirst is a looming threat to the cohort’s survival. It assumes that the characters will be hungry a good part of the time and that it will drive behavior by offering positive reinforcement rather than by loading up the Deviants on terrible penalties that will be frustrating for the players. It uses Conditions similar to Fatigued (Deviant, p. 322) and Soulless (Shallow Graves, p. XX), and borrows the Magnitude 1 effect of the Philia Scar (Devoted Companion, p. 16) for one of its Beat triggers. Its mechanics don’t involve rolling dice, so players have a clear idea how close to the brink their characters are.

[FORMAT AS CONDITIONS]

Hungry (Persistent)

The Remade is famished due to a lack of food or drink.

If only food is lacking, all actions suffer a -1 penalty that worsens the longer he goes without food. It increases to -2 after two days at -1 and increases to -3 after four days at -2. After a week at -3, this Condition resolves, and the character gains the Starving Condition.

If the Deviant also goes without hydrating liquids, this penalty worsens much more quickly, increasing to -2 after one day at -1 and to -3 after two days at -2 After three days at a -3 penalty, the Condition resolves, and the character gains the Starving Condition.

The character may choose to suffer a point of bashing damage to ignore the penalty from this Condition until his next turn (in action scenes) or spend a point of Willpower to ignore it for several minutes (in other scenes). Bashing damage suffered this way will not heal until the Remade no longer has the Hungry or Starving Condition.

Possible Sources: Going without food for 24 hours (or less if engaging in heavy exertion, longer if consuming some food but less than you need).

Resolution: The character is able to consume as much food and hydrating liquids as he wants – the equivalent of twice what he ordinarily needs. This reduces a -3 penalty to -2 after a week of consuming plenty of food, from -2 to -1 after four days of eating well, and resolves the Condition entirely after two days of eating if the penalty is only -1. This Condition also resolves if the Broken gains the Starving Condition.

Beat: You go to extremes to acquire and consume food or water or act irrationally with regard to it even when it is no longer scarce. This behavior could range from eating or drinking things that could make you sick to stealing or hoarding food to cannibalism.

Starving (Persistent)

The Broken is suffering from effects of acute starvation or dehydration. All actions are at a -3 penalty.

If only food is lacking, the Deviant loses a Health box at the end of each week spent with this Condition. If reduced to zero Health, the character dies.

If the Remade also goes without liquids, the loss of Health occurs at the end of each day spent with this Condition.

Possible Sources: Going without food and/or hydration for an extended period.

Resolution: Recovery from extreme deprivation takes time and access to adequate nutrition (and liquids) – roughly twice what the character ordinarily needs. The Broken recovers one Health box per day spent in the hospital (one per week in other settings). Once the character has regained all lost Health boxes, she resolves this Condition and replaces it with Hungry.

Beat: The Deviant loses a Health box due to further starvation or dehydration, as described above.