Going through some D&D Basic and I found two different kinds of rations: Standard Rations and Iron Rations.

Standard Rations: last a week and go bad overnight if in bad conditions (like a swamp, dungeon, or jungles).

Iron Rations: last eight weeks and go bad over a week in bad conditions.

These really speak to travel campaigns. Would you use them now?

Quote from Erokow32 >>

Going through some D&D Basic and I found two different kinds of rations: Standard Rations and Iron Rations.

Standard Rations: last a week and go bad overnight if in bad conditions (like a swamp, dungeon, or jungles).

Iron Rations: last eight weeks and go bad over a week in bad conditions.

These really speak to travel campaigns. Would you use them now?

No, because if there was a campaign that really emphasized travel?  We'd just play with a Druid who knew Goodberry.

We're so far removed from the need for rations in D&D that unless a campaign REALLY REALLY wants to do it, and even then at first level its trivalized.  

If I tell the party that it will be a survival heavy campaign I know one of them will take Outlander. Also I have never understood that a band of adventurers who can fight goblins and other creatures, are unable to set snares and catch a few rabbits I mean, if the hobbits could do it near to Mordor, then a PC certainly can, maybe not a wizard, but I doubt a party will be made up of entirely non martial characters. 

The only campaigns I really drive home a survival aspect have been ones where the party started out with nothing, maybe a prison break, or waking up with nothing but the clothes on their back, and there is a sense of being chased or hunted so not allowing them time to spend hunting a ready supply of food. These situations are generally resolved relatively quickly allowing a period of game time for the players to experiance it, but not becoming tedious or boring to the game.  

Basic rations are heavy and bulky enough to assume that they're purpose-made travel rations.  They can absolutely spoil, but it generally requires something to happen to them.  'Spoiled rations' are a good thing to include in random encounter tables for travel sections, honestly.  Not every random encounter needs to be a fight - sometimes they're simply events that hinder the party in some other way, or occasionally neutral events that offer the chance for interaction.

The whole "Goodberry exists so nobody should ever eat" thing is dumb.  If the campaign tracks rations and a druid uses Goodberry to feed their team?  The druid is gaining benefit from their class feature/spell choice, in a way they would not if nobody ever ate.  Also means the druid has to prepare Goodberry, and use spell slots on it.  Is it a minor thing?  Sure - but it wouldn't even be a minor worry if people simply forgot that logistics existed.  Many class and background features exist to aid in easing travel logistics - if one eliminates travel and logistics both entirely, is it any wonder classes like the ranger or druid or backgrounds like outlander are often considered weaker or undesirable?

I don't ban Goodberrys from my game because, if it is a survival game then at early levels when "Survivability" counts using up a 1st level spell slot to feed the party, when the party may well need that spell to survive a combat later, or taking up a spell slot prepared that day in the hope you don't burn your spells by days end really can weaken a party. 

By about 4th/5th level when a druid can start considering a 1st level spell as ancillary a bit more, survival games have got a bit tedious and really I am focussing on different things, in much the same way I generally make my players track arrows levels 1-3 then, they get enough cash to buy 100 arrows, and at that point I might tell them every 6 months of real time, you might want to buy some more arrows now to top up (based on 3-5 shots per combat and 1-2 combats per every 2-3 sessions on average across a 6 months period). 

what spidy said...even without goodberry's unless you're a level 1 group, rations just don't mean much.  its not worth all the extra rules imo.  either a very specific adventure is designed around regular ol' rations - or its just not a factor at all.

I often remind my players about food and natural resources even at higher levels. 

If I need the party to move from one location to another quickly I'll gloss over the travel but remind them that they need to replenish or ask if they will be using survival skills to find food on the way.

Quote from Wysperra >>

I often remind my players about food and natural resources even at higher levels. 

If I need the party to move from one location to another quickly I'll gloss over the travel but remind them that they need to replenish or ask if they will be using survival skills to find food on the way.

 right - but that's really as flavor not as a mechanic with risk when failed.  You wouldn't be like 'hey level 10, so you decided to travel and ran out of rations, your survival check to scrounge up some rabbits and berries failed...sorry, you've starved to death in the woods...no one around to find your corpse to rez you...here I made a lvl 1 goblin for you.'  Rations are just flavor for 99.9% of games.

Well I wouldn't jump directly to starve to death. 

It would give an opportunity to drop in an NPC or Moral Dilemma. Eat the cute companion animal or get another level of exhaustion?

Quote from Wysperra >>

Well I wouldn't jump directly to starve to death. 

It would give an opportunity to drop in an NPC or Moral Dilemma. Eat the cute companion animal or get another level of exhaustion?

 lol, i know, i wouldn't either... i've just never gotten controlled rations to play out in a fun scenario...fun idea bout eating the companion. i keep thinking about a lvl 0 donner party style adventure but haven't played it out.

I started playing back in AD&D, and had PCs of mine die from starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia. That’s why all my PCs since have carried a second waterskin, a blanket and a bedroll, and a way to start a fire.

Every couple rests I tell the players to mark off some rations. They don’t really think about it… until they run out. Then they ask “so what?” When I tell them they get Exhaustion if they don’t eat, and the one who knows what that really means says “oh, 5|-|¡7,” that’s when it occurrs to them they should pay more attention. I have them track rations, torches, pitons, etc. It doesn’t take much to make that stuff relevant in any campaign, simply remembering to say the words “mark off a….”

This whole discussion is why I enjoy the Reborn so much (and Warforged to a lesser extent). Tedious things like tracking food and if I can breathe in certain environments are not where I want to spend my energy.

The trade off being is the rest of the party still does. Or I encounter a situation where I would like to use food as bait or something and don't have any on me because I personally don't need it. Happened once in each of my last two sessions.

Quote from HeathSmith >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

I often remind my players about food and natural resources even at higher levels. 

If I need the party to move from one location to another quickly I'll gloss over the travel but remind them that they need to replenish or ask if they will be using survival skills to find food on the way.

 right - but that's really as flavor not as a mechanic with risk when failed.  You wouldn't be like 'hey level 10, so you decided to travel and ran out of rations, your survival check to scrounge up some rabbits and berries failed...sorry, you've starved to death in the woods...no one around to find your corpse to rez you...here I made a lvl 1 goblin for you.'  Rations are just flavor for 99.9% of games.

 
Yes, I would let them starve to death if that’s what happens. The risk is what makes victory meaningful.Like Yurei stated, an encounter doesn’t have to mean combat, simply a challenge to overcome. Running out of food is just another challenge. Besides, the Explorers, Dungeoneers, & Burglars can share with the Diplomats, Scholars, Priests, & Monster Hunters for a few days until the can all resupply.

 I would not however write their new character for them. Not only would it be rude, that’s their job.

Quote from Spideycloned >> 

No, because if there was a campaign that really emphasized travel?  We'd just play with a Druid who knew Goodberry.

That's great if you're aware beforehand and somebody actually wants to play a druid. Don't get me wrong, I agree the survival/exploration part of the game is decidedly underwhelming most of the time, but that isn't simply because Goodberry exists. If that was the whole deal, houseruling one single spell would fix it. Regardless, even if it won't be in every campaign there will be opportune moments to make the party deal with food and water (and possibly shelter).

Player to GM: "I am 10th level now and I still have my rations I got when I created the PC, Do I need to by new food?" 

GM to Player: " You have not been marking off food? Have you washed the blood out of your cloths? Or taken a bath? In the last 10 levels?"

Play to GM: "Monsters bleed? Ick what type of game is this?"

Note: Their are lots of ways to roleplay and different GM's stress different aspects of the experience. So find out what is going to be stressed and not stressed by your GM in that game or if the GM is going to change the things he is going to stress in this game or that this game does different then other games you have played in the past. 

Note2: I can say since I have been playing for a long time often there were games that did not have rules for things the GM and we the group wanted in the game, so we created and or imported them from other systems into the game we were playing (the same goes for spells, equipment, races, etc). This made the experience more enjoyable to us and over time what I enjoy now in a game is vastly different then when I started in the late 70's. 

In general I can say that when things are included in a game or not they often change how the group does basic things. Such as: basic PC decisions, class, race, magic items, hiring NPC's to fill voids in the group, etc. In general I can say that those things add to my play experience but realize that they may not to other groups. 

General note: movies may not be the best examples to draw from as they as well as books are plot driven and programed. That is to say if the director or author wants something to happen it does. In real life just because you need to eat does not mean their is food or you can find food easily. Grocery stores are a fairly modern thing and may or may not apply in your game setting (whether they are mundane, magical or spell based). But again your game may vary (YGMV) 

MDC     

Quote from Erokow32 >>

Going through some D&D Basic and I found two different kinds of rations: Standard Rations and Iron Rations.

Standard Rations: last a week and go bad overnight if in bad conditions (like a swamp, dungeon, or jungles).

Iron Rations: last eight weeks and go bad over a week in bad conditions.

These really speak to travel campaigns. Would you use them now?

Oh man... iron rations, that takes me back

In 5e, I can't see any real need to distinguish between ration types, even if you're emphasizing exploration and such. Presumably if the party need to buy a week or more or food rather than hunt and forage, you can give them credit for being smart enough eat the stuff that goes bad the quickest first

Part of the problem with setting so many damn adventures on the Sword Coast is that it's trivially easy both to forage and to buy rations. There's forests everywhere, small and large game animals and fish and berries galore, and everybody's a merchant. But it doesn't have to be that way.

I feel like if you're going to bother tracking supplies, then rations are like a prize. You don't see them very often. They're really valuable. They're the survival equivalent of a healing potion: You hang onto it for those times when things go wrong and you have no better options. And you *can* hang onto it, because it doesn't spoil for a long time.

I'm setting up an adventure with survival elements, and I'm not planning on including rations. It can be hard enough squeezing additional days into a quest to drain physical resources. People aren't comfortable with the abstraction of days and weeks -- they want to be in full control as much as possible. You tell them a week passes, and their response is "wait, hold on, maybe I wanted to do something."

Quote from Scarloc_Stormcall >>

Also I have never understood that a band of adventurers who can fight goblins and other creatures, are unable to set snares and catch a few rabbits I mean, if the hobbits could do it near to Mordor, then a PC certainly can, maybe not a wizard, but I doubt a party will be made up of entirely non martial characters. 

 

 It's not so much that PC's are 'unable' to hunt and gather.  In fact, you can buy those metal jaw style traps to do just that.  It's just that if you are keeping track of time in the day, and are on a time sensitive quest, like the beginning of 'Red Hand of Doom' for example.  You don't necessarily want to stop for a short rest+ wherein you do your hunting and your gathering for fresh supplies.  Rations give you something to munch on while trekking so you needn't actually stop to get and prepare lunch.

Quote from ChoirOfFire >>

You tell them a week passes, and their response is "wait, hold on, maybe I wanted to do something."

Whenever I intend to fast forward time, I preface it with a "Unless there's anything you want to do". 

I think part of the reason I shy away from these kinds of "bookkeeping" things is that they kill the pacing of the story. As LotR has already been invoked, I'll point out that there's a reason we didn't see every hunting trip and campfire meal on that journey. Especially when you have people like Aragorn or Legolas in the party, is there really any tension at all in the question of whether they will be able to find food?

Now contrast that to a story like Cast Away or The Life of Pi where survival is the whole point of the narrative and every meal is a victory. I think you can do that in D&D - I will definitely try it if Athas is ever released or if I get tired of waiting and just try to recreate DS myself - but I find that it often just feels like a distraction when its jammed into travel between beats in the "real" narrative.