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« on: May 17, 2025, 11:12:53 PM »
I like to make a few personal rules, some for roleplay reasons, and some engagement reasons. What I have keeps me enjoying the game more as I play it.
1) no drying meat! this must sound mad but I really do think so much of what is available in the game is flatted over by the fact that it is incredibly simply to accumulate far more even a couple years of food in a single winter, dry it on even just a simple shelter, forget about it, put it in a cellar, and be set on food for as long as a player is likely to play.
I don't dry meat anymore. This means my main food preservation technique is *Smoking*, which requires an investment in construction (though I'd love to be able to do it in a kota) and active maintenance for a time, and doesn't last Forever in a cellar (but still lasts long enough!). This means I sometimes will even value salt for salting meat! Additionally, it lends value to agriculture and cooking too. Suddenly- a lot of mechanics are more interesting and more worth engaging with. It certainly is still easy enough to amass enough smoked meat to be overloaded with food for the year and take some to sell- that's fine! but I like that it takes more than just one day and a shelter to do it basically anywhere anytime while cold. Try it- you wont miss it.
2) For usual "general sacrifice" I only sacrifice flatbreads. Again, this lends me to developing infastructure. If you want to do it on the go bring some flour with you and make them in town. I do sacrifice fish for the waters and I also allow myself one sacrifice from the cut of meat from kills (but not birds), for roleplay reasons among others. Because of this, I care more about agriculture, buying grains, and cooking breads- something I probably would normally mostly just completely ignore. I like to imagine that breads are especially favored as sacrifice by the spirits, and that they usually aren't interested in offerings that are worthless to me. I *always* add seasoning to these breads- usually just nettle leaves or unneeded turnip seeds etc.
3) I don't drink marsh water. This is certainly stagnant water that would probably make you sick! Now that boiling water is so easy as to do it in a birchbark can we have water quality please? I understand the sea water and river water being safe, even possibly lake water, but there is just no way it would be safe to drink stagnant marsh pool water. If i am in an emergency I let myself drink or use it if I leave a container of it by the fire for about 30 minutes.
4) No infinite Dogfood!! dogs are incredibly powerful and it's easy to amass a mountain of spoiled cuts that the dogs will eat forever. I do two cleanups per year- one in Fallow Season and the other in Fall Season. During this i throw away all my piled up spoiled food not from the previous month. It's still easy to keep a mountain of dog food around of course, but I cannot keep infinite dogs forever. This goes without saying, of course, that I also do not allow myself to starve any dogs and if any dog is left hungry for 3 days and I can't feed it right then I imagine it gets loose and runs away.
5) Dogs may only sic once per day- Another dog rule. Except against human foes, I consider my dog's to have a limit to the amount of perfect obedience they're willing to participate in and will only sic them on an animal once per day. If I bring multiple dogs I can do them all at once or chain them if I need multiple attempts to catch the animal. Just so that they don't entirely trivialize persistence hunting. Roleplay additional: If a dog actually helps me in catching an animal I always feed it one of the cuts from the animal as a reward. This isn't a hard rule I just consider it proper decency and incentive to a good helper to get to enjoy some proper, fresh meat.
6) (Roleplay) Taste Preference- I don't take this one *too* seriously but if I have food that isnt bland, I always eat the non-bland first unless the food situation stressfully demands it (if food is scarce I will try to eat stale food first to get it all in etc.) But if I am doing fine I am certainly not going to sit here eating bland unsatisfying meals while my delicious cuts are sitting right there! Normally this is optimal- you want to sell your delicious and tasty cuts and keep the bland ones for yourself to optimize cash value. That is easy for YOU to do, as someone separated from your character by a screen, but I can almost guarantee that unless you were in dire straits, you would do the same if it was your body and senses in play
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