rations vs iron rations

[stranger]

I think a fair house rule with Iron Rations would be that it can't be eaten for more than three straight weeks without any side effects, I would say a 3 weeks on to 1 week off ratio would work.

I believe one of the rule books states that you can only eat them for a certain length of time without suffering for it. I can't remember if it was 2 or 3 weeks. I will look if I get time later.

[TRP]

When I was young, I asked what iron rations was, and I was told that it was caned food. I had a hard time believing that because it was such a modern thing, but I was told that armies used caned food since the Napoleonic Wars. From my understanding, it can also cover pickled food (food preserved in glass jars).

IIRC, the "canned" food used by Napoleon's army was actually bottled. I think that peas were supposed to be a popular choice. This method was certainly available for a few years before the campaign into Russia. I think tinning hit the scene right at the time of the campaign, so I don't know if the French were using bottles or cans in Russia. Likely, both I'd conjecture. Regardless, they should have been using space heaters.

[fingolwyn]

Standard Rations= Bread, fresh produce, lightly preserved meats (smoked, lite brine, etc.), cheese wheel, etc.

Iron Rations= Hard Tack, dried beans, jerky (or pemican, etc.), heavily brined meats, parched corn, etc.

You can live off of both one just has better flavor. Do note that when they called it hard tack they meant it! There are hard tack bisquits from the American Revolution that have not yet begun to spoil! The practice was to throw them into the cooking beans, etc. to soften them up (it works sometimes).

Yep, that's the way we always played it. Iron Rations last a LOT longer than regular food, but no one can stand eating them for more than a couple weeks. And another historical anecdote...during the American Civil War the soldiers used to soak their hardtack in coffee for a long time, then beat it with the butt of their rifle to make it edible. Hardtack is just flour and water paste that has been baked-dried hard.

[Evreaux]

I usually run standard rations as allowing natural healing if consumed in a "safe camp" (a la G1), but spoiling if taken into the dungeon. Iron rations won't allow any healing if they're all you've got, but they can go into the dungeon and will prevent starvation.

The cost/encumbrance dynamic always struck me as really only being an issue the first time or two out of town, after which the extra gold for lower encumbrance is a pittance. Plus, it's a little boring if that's the only difference.

[T. Foster]

I usually run standard rations as allowing natural healing if consumed in a "safe camp" (a la G1), but spoiling if taken into the dungeon. Iron rations won't allow any healing if they're all you've got, but they can go into the dungeon and will prevent starvation.

That's a good one. Iron rations will keep you alive and can be taken into dungeons but if that's all you're eating you'll be less able to recover from wounds and other ailments. Standard rations allow you to recover naturally but can't be taken into dungeons without spoiling. Of course since "natural healing" is only 1 hp/day it's not likely to be too crucial a difference, but it's a little flavorful "something" that I like.

It also, perhaps, gives more reason for characters to seek out fresh (non-IR) food in dungeons, which is something I've really wanted to encourage ever since reading The Shadow People by Margaret St. Clair

[Evreaux]

It also nicely emphasizes that hit points are not purely physical.

Morale is better, and thus hit points are higher, when you come back to camp to a meal of hot beans and bacon, and some apples and cheese, and maybe an egg or a draw of raw milk from the jug in the stream, as opposed to choking down some jerky and hard tack, and sparingly swallowing the stale water in your skin, while crouching in a dank room with one eye on the spiked door, waiting for something horrible to break through and eat you.

I'm not familiar with The Shadow People.

[T. Foster]

I'm not familiar with The Shadow People.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/mar ... people.htm

It's one of the lesser-known books from the Gygax "Inspirational Reading" list, mainly concerning a man's expedition into an underworld very reminiscent of D&D's Underdark attempting to rescue his girlfriend who's been kidnapped by mysterious and villainous Black Elves. There's one group in the underworld (I can no longer recall if its the black elves themselves or some independent party) who leaves bowls of food sitting around that have been spiked with fungal spores that both have hallucinogenic properties and make it impossible for people with elf-blood to leave the underworld. Unsurprisingly, our hero eventually gets hungry, ignores the warnings, and eats some of this food...

Weird book, and easier to steal ideas directly from because so few people have read it (not like trying to rip off a scene or character from LOTR or Conan and have all your players groan in instant recognition...)

[TRP]

It also nicely emphasizes that hit points are not purely physical.

Morale is better, and thus hit points are higher, when you come back to camp to a meal of hot beans and bacon, and some apples and cheese, and maybe an egg or a draw of raw milk from the jug in the stream, as opposed to choking down some jerky and hard tack, and sparingly swallowing the stale water in your skin, while crouching in a dank room with one eye on the spiked door, waiting for something horrible to break through and eat you.

Morale. That's it. It could also affect morale for henchmen and hirelings.

"Deese basterds don gie us nuttin but jerky an ol' stale wraterrr"

[T. Foster]

Morale. That's it. It could also affect morale for henchmen and hirelings.

"Deese basterds don gie us nuttin but jerky an ol' stale wraterrr"

IMO anything that foregrounds the morale rules is a good thing, especially in this case because it's something of a catch-22: if you feed your hirelings iron rations it reduces their morale, but if you're going into a dungeon you have to use iron rations because standard rations spoil

[Irda Ranger]

IMO anything that foregrounds the morale rules is a good thing, especially in this case because it's something of a catch-22: if you feed your hirelings iron rations it reduces their morale, but if you're going into a dungeon you have to use iron rations because standard rations spoil

So is the morale listed in the book their maximum morale or their "iron ration adjusted" morale?

I've thought of making Morale more like "Morale Points", which can be lost while adventuring and must be healed with good food and loose women.

[Stonegiant]

These type of rulings concerning the rations would also possibly push the characters to take a long hard look at that creature that they just slew as a possible food source.

"Hmmm...I wonder how giant lizard tastes?", fire beetle on the half shell?

Races like dwarves and gnomes might have an inheirent affinity for some of the underground crawlies that are edible, BBQ giant spider?

[TRP]

Halflings believe gnoll nuts to be an aphrodisiac.

Fresh zombies ain't bad, as long as you boil the heck out of 'em.

Well, at least that's what the OSRIC supplement Cooking For The Servantless Adventurer states.

[Wheggi]

Well, at least that's what the OSRIC supplement Cooking For The Servantless Adventurer states.

As long as it doesn't try to push a Skill system, I'm good with that.

- Wheggi

[jgbrowning]

I got to thinking about this thread again after reading Mitchner's Poland and his description of the mongols eating dried strips of beef while in the saddle, never flagging even during a forced march.

As a note the Gygax/Arneson Blue Expert Book states:
Rations, iron: preserved food for one person for one week (x10).
Rations, standard: unpreserved food for one person for one week (x10).

Seems Stonegiant was spot on; I wonder if Gygax has considered Revolutionary War bisquets softened in beans. Yum.

Seems rational to me.

Boo! Hiss!

joe b.

[Stonegiant]

Well, at least that's what the OSRIC supplement Cooking For The Servantless Adventurer states.

As long as it doesn't try to push a Skill system, I'm good with that.

- Wheggi

Nah its a secondary profession