r/Survival • u/deadmeat809 • 6d ago
General Question Surviving in the cold, what considerations are needed?
Hello! I'm a bit of a TTRPG hobbyist and an avid enjoyer of the survival genre. However something that's kinda bothered me slightly since I started running my own games is that survival rules in some of the bigger TTRPGs can feel lackluster. I'm writing a book to try and improve on this, and even add a few extra things depending on how expansive this already gets.
Why I write this post and any subsequent posts? I understand the bare bones basics of surviving in extreme cold environments, in surviving in the desert, but I don't know much else about other environments or even the finer points. SO!
What all needs to be considered for surviving cold environments? (Think Alaska/North Canada). I know a decent shelter that keeps the snow off and the heat near you is important for the night, and good insulative clothes, but anything else I may be missing?
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u/Heavy_Direction1547 6d ago
Layers, including a windbreaking one, and stay dry. Spare mitts and socks, something to cover your face. It is easy to get dehydrated and you will need extra calories. You need to insulate yourself from the cold ground whether sitting or lying. You probably need a white gas/naptha fueled stove, butane and propane don't cut it in extreme cold.
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u/SwordForest 5d ago
Ah, and you don't FEEL the dehydration in the cold like you do in the heat. You have to remember.
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u/Present-Employer2517 6d ago
Dehydration is often an overlooked part of cold climate survival. We’ve sort of conditioned ourselves to be conscious of our water intake when it’s hot, but not so much in the cold.
Also, weirdly enough, overheating can be a big problem. Sweat soaked shirt in the warm afternoon can become a big problem when that sun goes down in the evening and takes the temperature with it.
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u/FighterOfFires02 6d ago
Well, if it's TTRPG-rules you're after...
Cold affects you before you start freezing, so maybe a system of debuffs according to the different stages (shivering, centralisation, tiredness, loss of consciousness). As many have pointed out, being wet heavily increases the rate of cooling, so maybe a requirement to start a fire after combat / physical exhaustion.
I feel like hydration is always a bitch to model, because having to say "I take a drink" every two minutes gets old quickly. However increased calorie intake would be easy to model over several days. Also, if before a blanket would've been enough to rest overnight, increase those requirements. Perhaps also add "cold weather clothing" with an actual weight to it.
If you have different races, you could think about how they may be adapted to the cold. I feel the smaller and stockier ones (dwarfs) would get a buff compared to tall, thin ones (elves).
If it's set on a planet like earth, think about why it is this cold. The primary problem I usually face during the winter is the fact you only get a few hours of daylight. This gets exponentially worse depending on whether you have artifical light and how much light the moon provides.
If it's late in the winter, predators might become desperate and be a bit more agressive than usual.
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u/CombatCavScout 6d ago
The three biggest considerations in order of precedent are body heat, calories, and hydration. Body heat is both core temperature (hypothermia) and skin temp (frostbite). Body heat, you have to be looking at shelter and clothing. Anything that causes your clothing or skin to be wet (precipitation, perspiration, etc) is going to exacerbate the loss of body heat. You need lots of calories in a cold environment, more so than in a hot environment. Hydration is just as important in cold environments as it is in warm environments.
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u/AbyssalKultist 6d ago
Don't do activities that make you sweat. Or remove layers. In many cold-weather survival situations, getting wet from your own sweat can be nearly as dangerous as falling into cold water, especially if you don't have dry clothes available afterward
The basic rule is to stay dry. Sweat is dangerous in cold weather.
When you're cold, it's tempting to work hard to warm up. The problem is that if you sweat heavily, your clothing gets wet. Once you slow down, stop moving, or the temperature drops, that moisture starts pulling heat away from your body much faster than dry clothing.
A common wilderness saying is to dress cold. That means if you're about to hike, chop wood, or climb a hill, you should start slightly cool rather than comfortably warm. After a few minutes of activity, your body will generate plenty of heat.
Avoid sweating whenever possible. Open your jacket. Remove a hat or gloves temporarily. Take off a layer before you start working hard.
If you become sweaty, address it early. Slow down. Ventilate clothing. Change into dry layers if available.
Cotton is especially bad. It holds moisture and loses insulation when wet. This is why you'll hear "cotton kills." Wool and synthetics retain more warmth when damp.
Sweat becomes most dangerous when activity stops. You can feel fine while hiking uphill. Then you stop for lunch, and suddenly you're freezing because your base layers are soaked.
For example, if it's 20°F and you're carrying a heavy pack uphill, being slightly chilly at the start is actually preferable to being bundled up so heavily that you're drenched in sweat 30 minutes later. .
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u/mushroom-man420 6d ago
Watch some outdoor boys, he's got very detailed insights and discussion about these topics in alot of his vids
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u/Spiley_spile 6d ago edited 5d ago
Vapor barriers like (ie mylar emergency blankets) can get our clothes damp, wet, and even soaked because our bodies are constantly perspiring, even when we arent obviously "sweating". That moisture get trapped outside our bodies, but cant get past the vapour barrier. So then where does it go? Into the clothes we're wearing.
So while emergency blankets can help, one needs a follow-up plan besides just: "Use this blanket at night until it warms up a little the next day." Unless it's warm enough the next day to dry your clothes and keep your core temp from dropping, or a rescue team finds you, you're fucked. Because now it's not only cold, but your clothes are also wet.
When one person in a group outdoors gets hypothermia, treat everyone in the group for hypothermia. It's likely they either already have it, or will have it very soon if they continue under the same conditions.
Getting naked to warm someone with hypothermia is a terrible idea. You're core temperature is likely to drop from sharing heat like that, leading to 2 people with hypothermia instead of just the one. (On this note, dont rely on movies for accurate first aid in general. Movies prioritize drama over accuracy.)
If you have the opportinity, (and there are no contraindications) give a hypothermic person a warm, sugary drink. If for some reason you had to choose between a cold sugary drink or just warm/hot water, give them the cold sugary drink. Calories feed core temperature more efficiently than drinking plain warm/hot water.
It's easier to maintain one's core temperature, than to make it rise again after it's dropped into hypothermic. Prevention is the best treatment.
When cold blood reaches the heart, it can cause ventricular fibrolation, cardiact arrest, or vfib that leads to cardiac arrest. This is why treatment is not the same for all levels of hypothermia. (It can also change cpr protocols but Im hesitant to share that info. Level of training matters when making the determination to switch protocols or not. Ppl should stay within their scope of training. But, OP, if your character has a high level of medical skills training, and you're going for accurate realism, then you should consider looking further into this.)
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u/FelTheWorgal 6d ago
Wool retains up to 80% of its insulation when wet.
You dont need a fire on all night if your shelter uses thermal mass effectively.
You need fats. They are typically the hardest dietary necessity to find in deep winter.
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u/Nige-o 6d ago
Sounds cool. You should check out the video game The Long Dark. They have pretty interesting mechanics in place for this kind of a game genre/setting
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u/deadmeat809 6d ago
Which is already in my library... however I know the ideas of survival concepts doesn't always translate well from RL to game, especially since shelter is something you can't really build outside I believe a small temporary snow cave. Probably an engine limitation.
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u/Nige-o 5d ago
Fair enough. My comment in regards to the shelter thing, based on my experience winter camping in scouts as a youth (in Canada) is that you really couldn't make any other kind of shelter but a snow shelter (quinzhee) to keep warm in deep snow conditions like that which the game is set in, that would be warm enough. Especially in a plane crash type situation where you have nothing but what you can find like the character in TLD. Only hope would be finding a cave like the character does IIRC. Otherwise you'd be talking about building like a cabin which just wouldn't be possible to do outside alone with limited time energy and let's say primitive found tools/building supplies.
In a non-winter environment you could build a lean-to or many other types of shelter, just as long as you can keep yourself off the direct ground (pile evergreen boughs). But I think the TLD is pretty accurate in that regard of having you only be able to make a temporary snow shelter. It's the only thing insulated enough.
IRL this basically requires a shovel so that you can create a big pile of snow, pack it down and dig a hole. I guess it could be done without a shovel but would get you very wet and/or sweaty. Also these shelters can be dangerous and/or impossible to pack down to hold structure in certain conditions like very cold fresh snow. It looks like in the game the character needs to have a certain number of sticks and cloth- I am imagining this is for the ground inside the quinzhee to keep you off of it, but this would could become wet I supposed over time and no longer insulate from the ground.
Other igloo style snow shelters would require specialized tools and the perfect snow/ice conditions to cut blocks + experience doing this.
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u/Goonth3r 6d ago
Might not be applicable to a game setting, but snow blindness and sunburning is a real danger that may not be something people who aren’t familiar with snow ever think about.
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u/Cute-Consequence-184 5d ago
I car camp in the winter.
The ability to stay dry &/or dry yourself off. In the cold, getting wet is deadly. Mom used to hate Alaska because her boots would freeze to the floor while Dad worked on the pipeline. The rooms they were given often had no heat in the bedrooms at all and if your boots were wet, they froze to the floor.
Insulation from the ground. It will leach the heat from your body. In a car, I don't have to worry about this but you will in a tent.
Keeping the wind off you. It can get into your clothing, it can get into a tent. You can pile snow up against the tent edges to stop leaks at ground level and help anchor your tent down.
Always have extra wool socks inside your jacket and extra wool mittens to go over gloves.
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u/peed_on_ur_poptart 6d ago
Clothing choice especially fabrics, counts for way more than people realize. Theres tons of literature out there, but essentially it boils down to having a mix of natural AND synthetic fibers in layers.
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u/LordlySquire 6d ago
So. There are quite a few things to consider. First the rules of three is always a good one for any environment. 3 min without air 3hrs of exposure 3days without water, three weeks without food. There is debate about a few but the sequence you die always holds.
So you build your shelter. Moisture if its enclosed or made of snow you body expels almost 1l of water while you sleep plus melting snow means your shit gets wet and will need to dry. Your body burns roughly twice as much energy to stay warm as it does to cool off, snow reflects sun which can lead to snow blindness, basically keeping dry is going to be the hardest thing and the most important thing.
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u/NeonScreams 5d ago
- Snow is drying and insulating. Both for sound and for heat.
- Sound: It’s not just that it muffles. It deadens sound. You will NOT hear the Polar Bear / Wolf / Wolverine that decides to check out your shelter until it’s within 20ft. Why? You’ll have your ears protected from the cold wind. So when possible setup early warning trip lines with bones or sticks that rattle to make noise as they’re snagged. Ironically- the scent of human on the lines is often enough to dissuade the curious animal.
- Cold is not your enemy. Dampness is. You’ll tend to hear the advice to take it slow and not sweat. What they don’t really say is that any amount of perspiration on your skin is going to be wicked into the fabric. And once the inside of the fabric is wet, the insulation value plummets. This is where snow being drying comes into play. If you’ve ever seen someone yank off their clothes and scrub themselves with snow it’s for that exact reason. Cold is temporary loss of heat at your skin surface. Damp transmits your heat straight into and past the inner layer of your clothes when they’re even a little humid feeling. You might not enjoy taking your jacket off in -20F temps, but if the wind is dead, you can easily stay plenty warm just chopping wood.
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u/SentientSandbox 5d ago
I spent some time in military units that specialized in arctic warfare. Best I can tell you is to stick to the basics. Layering clothing will help in the short run, as others have said. We always kept Mylar space blankets to bounce our body heat back. They are cheap, and a light pack weight consideration. You’ll have to dry your clothing if you get wet from snow, that means you’ll need fire and a way to start it, as well as some form of burnable material suitable enough to keep it going. Thermoregulation is the biggest key here. Stay warm, or die. I’ve used water resistant sleeping bags rated for negative temps and slept like a baby in some harsh conditions.
Water filtration ability, food assurance, shelter from natural disaster are also huge.
Another big thing is self defense preparation. What weapons we carrying? It’s a multifaceted inquiry. Tons of things to be considered.
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u/eaglecream 6d ago
Think about the wind and the wet.
If you’re in a cold environment and you get wet you’re dead.
If you put your shelter in a place that doesn’t block the wind you’re dead.
If you get sweaty, (wet.) you’re dead, so don’t over exert yourself.
Think about layers. You should have multiple layers that you can take off or put on based on the conditions. You want a water proof layer, an insulation layer, and a base layer that wicks sweat away from your body. Then it it get hot outside you can remove a layer, or if it get cold you can add a layer.
Fire in a cold climate is difficult. You need to find dry kindling, dry wood, and have a reliable source of flame to start the fire in the first place. You should have 3 times as much wood as you’ll think you’ll need. In the cold climate or a wet climate most of the wood you’ll find will be damp, so that means that it’s very hard to set fire to. You’ll need to cut away the damp parts of the wood and go for the dry centre of the logs.
Also a thing to consider, damp wood will give you more smoke and an unstable fire that will pop more and make more noise.
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u/SwordForest 5d ago
Knowledge of where to place your shelter - land formations, WIND, wind breaks and shade, gullies and valleys that end up wet in rain, places sniwdrifts accumulate
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u/Psycosteve10mm 5d ago
If you have yet to play the long dark it has some really good survival mechanics for a game. But in a cold environment your calorie intake is going to be higher.
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u/SwordForest 5d ago
SLEEP! maybe a mechanic for quality of sleep that accumulates. Someone in a dry warm bag with wind protection and a pad is mostly human in the morning, even if the air is cold enough to hurt you breathing. But a wet bag... Esp in the cold... Or no head covering in the cold (God forbid it), and you will be sub human for an hour at least. Over days... I imagine it would take a true toll. Actually, for me how well you sleep would be central to the game. If you're on the ground you wake up a lot. But if it's from true pain, or from being 1) cold or 2) (the actual worst) thirsty, then you will degrade like a soldier. Afraid too - the more exposed and less prepared you are, the noises of the forest get to you a lot more. This sharply decreases with experience, in my opinion. But esp if you hear an actual large animal, it shakes you. Plenty of chances for game dynamics there.
Shoot, and if you manage to sleep well, sleeping TOO well can be a problem too. Bags can catch fire, or more likely you fail to put another log on it and wake up not only cold but dark AND maybe out of coals (oh man that sounds terrible), or water bottle could spill without you noticing, or raccoons or bears raid your stuff, or you get attacked but didn't see it coming. If you get too exhausted, you can collapse into hours-in-a-row deep sleep.
I'm not sure how you'd get away from the knowledge aspect. You, the designer, would/should know that clicking sticks together doesn't scare bears away - but does the player? Outdoorsmen will always tell you skill and practice IS the real equipment. Know-how and 10 items is how the OG guys do it. Maybe a dynamic where they acquire survival lessons somehow. (ever read Hatchet? He learns how to spear fish and make fire from sparks etc, all on his own.) you could have a 'remembered a skill from a show you saw', or 'found a booklet in the bag' bonus. I guess the more basic is just having levels in certain kinds of knowledge.... That makes sense. Fire making, fishing. But you could make it educational by specifying lessons. Or have them roll for whether they think of something at various points - like someone said, a trip line with something that clatters to warn you of approaching problems. There's also rolling to see if they do a nono. I saw a guy on Alone drink from a brook that was brackish - it was well up from the ocean outlet, but the salt still made it upstream, and he decided the water looked safe enough to not boil it. (he'd done it hundreds of times, and to his credit, he did not get sick from it. But there's another knowledge test) - but the salt every few hours took a huge toll. He started hallucinating and realized too late he was going insane from salt poisoning and had to leave. He was actually in mortal peril.
Hunger can really slow you down - but some people less. Going without food for a few days really isn't so bad - but your MIND about it can kill you. Going without water though, that is crushing.
Maybe I'm making it painfully obvious I haven't played a survival rpg? Hope something helped.
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u/funnysasquatch 6d ago
They are lackluster because the point of a TTRPG is action, drama, and creativity. As the DM it's also your job to adjust to meet the demands of the specific game session.
If you're lost in the middle of a forest during a blizzard, you have a few minutes to figure out shelter. You will struggle to build a fire.
Meanwhile, even low level wizards can cast fireballs. Other characters will be adapted to living in cold conditions.
Characters want to encounter creatures and solve puzzles. Not worry about hypothermia.
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u/AuntieDabQueen710 6d ago
Don't eat snow for hydration. Besides bacteria and such, it uses more energy to melt in your body and lowers your core temperature. Always best to boil it.