How do i run a force of nature game?

I'm getting ready to run a game that set in a frozen tundra and would like some advice. primarily on how to make challenges and death from things that aren't combat, such as starvation, frostbite, and the environment.

i want the primary antagonist to be the bitter cold that embraces them.

The players will be exiled from their land and sent to the frozen north to await the rest of their lives, here they will encounter excessively few people and very few living things. Which means i need to have story points derived not from people but from events and needs of the players.

Any advice? tips? experience?

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Make some random tables for events, maybe even multi-part table for possible encounters and events. Encounters should be more like certain kinds of landmarks (Like that stone altar, or a river for example) or desolate, abandoned homes, rather than actual monsters, save monsters for the highest of rolls.

Go through everyone's inventories and look for all the things they need and didn't bother to bring. Base your story around that, I've never seen a player character that was prepared for winter.

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i d play it in nordheim, cimeria or hyperborea.
use the 2d20 conan system but make it so that the cold/frost/starvation damage is not soakable

i would really love to play such a game.

Reminds me of a game a friend ran many years ago when he was fairly new to leading games. It was a 3.5 game set on a northern island that had an extreme weather condition in that each night, unless you found shelter or had a locally grown timber to warm you, you basically expired. In one way it could be seen as "rocks falls everyone dies" bullshit but it really put some interesting pressure on the party to always make sure we had some of that timber that we could make a fire out of, or find shelter. In that way, small encounters such as fighting wolves in the wild could be a dangerous prospect as any wounds we might suffer might inhibit our ability to gather resources that we needed while still doing the job we were assigned to do.

We did use the weather against the enemy too, though, such as flooding a tunnel that was being invaded by angry feral wolves, and the ice flash-freezing during the night and encasing the wolves. One of our proudest moments.

Ive never been a fan of random tables, but maybe its the best choice considering the type of game.

For the first session thats not a bad idea, have them scavenge for supplies

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I'll tell ya how I'd go around It.

First, I use Mouse Guard as a base system since dealing with nature is a core thing in It.
Second, planned scenarios.
Third, random tables to throw inbetween the scenarios.
Fourth, make It lethal. Remember the intro to the All Guardsman Party? Shitload of character sheets. Just names and basics. Make your players fear for their lives. Annoyed. Bitter.
Fifth, you introduce the unknown. A stalking predator, natural or supernatural, mysterious weather changes, whispering cold winds, wandering mists of darkness, anything that makes the players go "yo, something's out there".
Finally, conflict. Have a random table of conflict. Every once in a while you roll for a random pair of players and declare for example: Player A and B met a girl. They are now competing over her.
Or, during the [work] PlayerC hit PlayerD in the hand with a [tool]. Probably an accident. PlayerD, you now have some difficulties with using that hand.

S' what I'd do, at least. Hope that helps

this is extremely helpful! i just went and got the mouse guard core book.

If they are exiled to a frozen place (Siberia or Alaska during winter), they'll die within two or three days, unless they can take some equipment (winter clothing, tools, weapons, tent) and food (their horses or dogs count as food) with them.

outsideonline.com/1926316/freezing-persons-recollect-snow—first-chill—then-stupor—then-letting-go

Not that user but yea, Mouse Guard is very much "Mice vs Seasons" the Game.

Is there any fiction/non-fiction based around survival in the cold?

I know of:
>Gulag Archipelago
>The Way back

Play or look at some steams/lets plays of The Long Dark. Tis a game about surviving without power in rural northern Canada. Will probs help you get a feel for it.

Some thoughts:
Can't stay outside, or without fire for too long or you freeze, especially in mornings/night when it is coldest.

You and your party is freezing. After gathering firewood, you try to start a fire, but it is too windy. You find a location to block the wind, and try again. This works for about 15 minutes, but the heavy winds change direction, threatening to blow out the fire.

Go looking for firewood, a sudden fog makes it impossible to find your way back to camp. Either try making it back through and risk getting lost, or wait out the fog.

And of course, sudden blizzards that cause you to freeze + make you unable to know your direction + unable to start campfires.

Although to be fair, magics can make all of these situations irrelevant.

Bonus poem:
>"The fog comes
>on little cat feet.
>
>"It sits looking
>over harbor and city
>on silent haunches
>and then moves on."

Anyone else think that OP's image was a medievalized version of the forest scene from The Force Awakens for a second?

Canuck detected
Deploying hugs

bump

it does kinda look like that

This is an interesting theme and one I thought of while browsing those Primeval Thule books for 5e, the setting seems built very much for the "man vs wild" concept.