How much wood and food does The Man start with? I want to track resources in the game but two sessions in a month has passed, and the Man has failed his Man’s Work roll each time. Should I just assume they are fed and warm until the start of summer? I had the Saga start in Spring, but we ruled that the failed roll resulted in his field being unusable until it was tilled and the soil replenished. After the two sessions, he’s accrued no labour or resources, and in fact had his stores drained by a pack of returning vikings who imposed on his hospitality.
Will the family be starving by next session, or should I house-rule the move? I was thinking on a miss, Hold 1 Labour but it counts as backbreaking in addition to the depleted farm?
Or should I just make him hire NPC workers to make up the shortfall in labour?
It depends on your fiction established at the table: if you are in winter and the house is not warm and fed, then all the people who live there must endure grave harm.
Otherwise, they don’t have to do it. Just remember the Man move is not the only way the farmstead inhabitants have to gain food and wood in order to pass the winter.
During your session, get things clear: explain they are going to endure grave harm if they don’t have food and wood enough, when the winter comes. Moreover, give them the opportunity to obtain those resources otherwise, by barter, theft, deal etc.
However, if they fail even so to get those resources when the winter arrives, well, they have to endure grave harm.
This is extremely helpful. Our next session will have a heavy emphasis on resource gathering.
Yes, but remember “resource gathering” is only a part of the game. It’s the tool the game uses to have the characters go out their confort zone, to look for other people and other possibilities. In order to survive, in this game you have to leave your farmstead and take relationships with others.
Those relationship are the core of the game and bring to unexpected ends. So the “resource gathering” part is the ignition of this engine, not the result you are aiming to. Just remember this.