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D&D Ideas — Scarcity

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is the scarcity, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of scarcity harsh environments like the tundra present unique challenges for those who live and adventure there. Uncovering the secrets of the frozen tundra gives adventurers the edge they’ll need to survive. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Cast a spell over the week that was! Learn wizarding the nerdy way, make things go boom with new evocations and discover powerful magic from a dragon’s hoard plus a new live chats and game play rounds out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

This week’s topic is scarcity but I find no scarcity in ways to use this topic in a 5E D&D game. I’ll start by thinking about scarcity as a campaign theme first.

Scarcity is one of the hardest types of campaigns to run in 5E D&D without altering the rules and limiting players’ options. Any campaign with survivalist or apocalypse themes aren’t effective with the rules as written. There are several low level spells to provide the basics of food, shelter and water. Goodberry comes to mind as a 1st level spell for both druids and rangers. Create or destroy water is only a 1st level spell and available to clerics, druids, Oath of the Open Sea paladins and The Fathomless warlocks. Create food and water is a 3rd level spell for clerics, paladins, artificers, Circle of the Land (Desert) druids and The Genie warlocks. The water doesn’t go bad and the food — enough to sustain up to 15 humanoids or five steeds — lasts for 24 hours. Another very popular 3rd level spell is Leomund’s tiny hut, which creates shelter from environmental harm for 8 hours. It’s also a ritual spell so it doesn’t even necessarily expend a character’s resources. Bards, wizards and Twilight Domain clerics all get access to this spell.

By 5th level the basics of food, shelter and water are completely taken care of by spells. The Genie warlock’s 10th level Bottled Respite feature is pretty close to the benefits of Leomund’s tiny hut with the extra benefit of being able to complete a short rest in 10 minutes. These are just a few things I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure clever players come up with solutions buried in the 5E D&D rule set.

The simplest thing is to reduce the effect of these spells or eliminate them all together. If you decide to go this route I recommend a session zero and to go over this change in the rules. These are definitely not changes you want to spring on players as a surprise.

We’ve done videos on this in the past. D&D Magic — Is The Magic Easy Button Ruining the Game? is one such example.

Scarcity can be a plot device to create a problem for characters to fix in your 5E D&D game. As the premise of a campaign it becomes an inherent part of the game not to be fixed but instead overcome and endured. Characters can accomplish these goals through fetch style quests, political intrigue or investigation fueled adventures. Here’s some ideas:

• Scarcity of food/wood/iron or another kind of important resource
  • Is it being intercepted along the delivery route?
  • Are the sources failing?
  • Are creatures involved going missing or being killed?

These are all things the characters can work to figure out. Bandits could be raiding caravans. An evil druid might be blighting the crops. Roving monsters become aggressive and kill for food or sport.

Here’s a handful of additional ideas springing to mind related to scarcity:

• A labor shortage in the city
  • Is an ongoing war conscripting available workers?
  • Does the city rely on migrant workers who have stopped coming?
  • Has the rat catcher’s guild gone on strike and refuse to enter the sewers?
  • Has a guild war broken out and taken a toll on the skilled laborers?

Here again these are more problems for a group of adventurers to tackle. The characters could take part in a diplomatic mission to end the war. They may discover migrant workers being captured as slaves and in need of rescue. Wererats who’ve taken control of the sewers must be driven out. A party can participate in finding out why the guilds are at war and try to solve the underlying problems to broker peace.

From Ted’s Head

After last weeks’ topic of abundance this makes a lot of sense to consider scarcity. When you have an abundance the phrase spoiled for choice comes to mind. But when things are scarce tough choices must be made.

In the real world we see, sadly, people who have a scarcity of funds make the tough choice of feeding themselves or feeding the children. It really sucks. When we take this concept into an RPG a hero who has lots of funds could easily change the lives of so many. But if the adventurer is the one who has to deal with the scarcity it is another situation entirely.

The easiest way to for adventurer to contend with scarcity would be a campaign really pushing the boundary of dealing with the party’s resources. Hit points, spell slots and class features can really be tapped if you play a number of sessions all packed into a major time crunch. In Season 5 of the Dawnbringers over on Mini Terrain Domain we had 4-5 sessions together without getting a long rest.

When you push the envelope like this you can test not only the characters to be as creative thinking as possible but the players as well. If you are looking to go down this road consider testing out Gritty Realism. This optional rule for resting in the Dungeon Master’s Guide makes a short rest take 8 hours and a long rest 7 days. This method really allows you to test out scarcity much easier.

Another concept to look into is tracking equipment, which includes food. Some people love these style of games. I can recall games back in second edition Advanced D&D when I played an archer and had to keep track of my arrows. When you get far away from town and from trees to make more ammo then finding more arrows can be really exciting.

The same can be said about tracking food — starvation can be a nasty situation with which to deal. Spells and certain class features can make this issue practically nonexistent. If you are looking to play this style of game or adventure I recommend either altering or removing these types of abilities. I would also say you should let your players know you plan on playing this style of game so it is not a surprise during play.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

Scarcity can certainly present challenges. I’ll point to the scarcity of internet access while I was out of town this past week as the reason this week’s newsletter is late but that’s a different story!

From a certain perspective scarcity is the No. 1 driver of 5E D&D adventures. At the very least a short supply of folks willing to take action in the face of adversity puts parties in place to become protagonists for whatever story emerges.

Bringing a theme like scarcity to the forefront of a campaign or single adventure can greatly benefit from a session zero before the game begins and through active listening during play. One of the most important aspects of session zero is generating ideas for how and why various adventuring characters share connections to each other and the wider world. Nestled in these creative brainstorms a wealth of broader ideas and hooks come up and scarcity can become the catalyst to move those concepts forward.

For one thing characters may strike out on the road to adventure to solve a problem of scarcity they share. On a small scale this could be personal and very relatable like a scarcity of opportunity in a small town and the draw of the wider world. On a larger scale a dwindling supply of a critical resource can drive characters out into the world to find a solution. These examples might be very simple but therein lies the value for your game. They’re easy to latch onto and help create engaging scenarios into which players can really sink their teeth.

Once a campaign gets underway — perhaps spurred forward by a variety of different scarcities shared between various characters — an actively listening DM allows the players to keep themselves engaged and immersed. Anything the characters seek or desire illustrates a perceived scarcity and this is where the magic happens.

Knowledge, power and wealth (and the lack thereof) highlight the low hanging fruit adventurers often crave. If these things were in abundance then where’s the motivation, right? Listening to players and making note of the things their character’s hope to accomplish means fulfilling those goals and overcoming the shortage of those things become their motivations for whatever adventuresome ideas a DM devises.

In other words the overlap of perceived scarcity from the characters’ points of view and whatever exciting challenges a DM cooks up generate the momentum for an adventure or an entire campaign. This applies to completely homebrew campaigns of course but also very much any prewritten material from a third party. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve added something as simple as a book on a shelf or an otherwise innocuous NPC to bridge this gap and seen it lead to much more engaged players.

In a very similar way to the conflict>tension>resolution cycle of an RPG a model of scarcity>bounty is a tremendously valuable tool for every DM. When you plan and plot your next 5E D&D session try distilling your creative concepts down to a matter of deficiency vs. excess and I wager the simplified terms open up a lot of awesome opportunities for the entire group and the story you create together.

*Featured image — Arctic creatures, items and character options represent the values and cultures of a perilous environment for the unprepared adventurer. The yaska are hale and hearty folk who dwell in these cold climes and new subclasses put the power of the tundra in players’ hands. Uncover these Treasures of the Tundra to drop into your Fifth Edition games and add them to your collection here.

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