grub time

[taichara]

I like it when food comes up in a game. Reading about what gets commonly chowed down where is a great bit of worldbuilding or at least setting dressing -- and unlike the poor benighted souls of the Exalted fanserver, all agog over regional food and dishes being mentioned in Across The Eight Directions, I'm long-used to seeing (and writing!) that kind of thing. Even just a few well-placed phrases or a tavern menu (such as it might be) can really set the stage.

I've also been doing this long before anyone heard of Dungeon Meshi. Lol.
(I probably knew about Dungeon Meshi long before a loooot of the ttrpg bodies currently agog over it but that's neither here nor there ...)

This isn't about Dungeon Meshi or Exalted, though; it's just me yammering into the wind, lol.

So if it's not about eating your way through a dungeon, what's here?

Mostly me noting that this kind of detail, or even tables, is good. (see here, here and here for some examples of food tables *ha* here on Lone Knight.) And also a little bit of musing on ...

... Well, what if your dauntless adventurers need to go find and catch or otherwise acquire their grub?

Many systems do have survival/foraging rules, brief or otherwise. I'd just like to add the following potential little bits, namely: you, the adventurer looking for eats, should concentrate on either foraging or hunting (entomophagy can fall under either, depending on what kind of bugs you're after, honestly). Doing both is going to be inefficient as hell.

- Foraging (whether plants, some bugs, and more stationary shellfish and the like) is a surer thing, at the expense of needing more bulk for your bang, so it may not go as far unless you dedicate yourself

- Hunting can give a good payoff but that's if you find something and if the food intake is more than the energy required for capture and if you actually catch it

Now, reflecting this in a game can easily get granular as fuck and we don't need that.
How about some smallish results tables? Say, after 1d4 hours effort or something.

Forage (2d6)

02: nothing. maybe a few handfuls to stave off cravings briefly.
03: a meal for one
04-05: meal for 1d3
06-08: meal for 1d4+1
09-10: day's rations for one
11: day's rations for 1d3
12: day's rations for 1d4+1


Hunting (2d6)

02: nothing. no critters for you.
03: nothing.
04-05: really small game (squirrels, songbirds). holds off the worst for one.
06-08: really small game for 1d3+1
09-10: small game (rabbits, etc). proper rations for 1d4+1.
11: respectable catch, day's rations for 2d3+2
12: large game, potentally a week's rations for a party -- if time taken to prepare it; if not, 1d4 day's rations for a party

(these are totally off the cuff tables, just saying *lol*)


Also, don't discount the power of descriptive wording!

A berry pie is a berry pie; a thunderberry pie raises questions about them there berries.
Silvercorn, shimmery and bright ... what does it taste like?
What about sunbacon?
And why is that booze called angel's ichor, anyway?

Ideas and inklings about the world your adventures are in will start to glob together (kind of like making butter!) as you drop grub names and shove them in tables even if it's mostly just stuff you see yourself.

Also kind of like butter, they do work together a little better after some kneading and salting. So to speak. Lol.