How Does Your Character Stay Fed? What Does It Take?

Food is one of those things that a lot of us handwave away in RPGs. Just like we don't bother counting how many arrows the ranger has fired, or how many lute strings the bard has broken, we just assume that characters are drinking enough water and eating enough rations to sustain themselves as the adventure goes on. However, are you playing the sort of character who just walks around eating the fantasy or sci-fi equivalent of MREs whenever they're not in town? And does a single "ration" really satisfy both the willowy 85-pound halfling and his massive, 300-pound orc companion?

Because sure, we don't have to dig into this part of the game if we don't want to... but it can sometimes add a little extra flavor (pun very much intended) if we do!

How many calories does an orc need every day? Oh boy... that's a lot...

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How Much Do You Need To Eat To Stay Action Ready?

Now, I'm not going to pretend that I'm the first person to talk about this issue. After all, the popularity of Delicious in Dungeon has led to gods alone know how many adventuring chefs who are looking to cook and eat anything they manage to defeat in an encounter, and some of my most popular TTRPG supplements are 100 Fantasy Foods and 100 Sci Fi Foods respectively.

However, this is a topic that I've thought about a lot.

For those who don't know, I was an athlete when I was in high school, I spent the latter part of my 20s as a sword fighter (I didn't do any of the historical re-enactment, I just showed up for blade practice), and for the past half dozen years I've been an acolyte of the Rites of Iron (the cool fantasy-speak way of saying I lift a lot of weights to stay healthy). As such, I know that if you're someone who is doing anything active, you need to eat more than your average person. Not only that, but you need to have different foods depending on what goals you're aiming for, or preserving. Bigger individuals need more protein to maintain their muscle mass, for example, while carbs are extremely important for endurance activities (like walking overland for a dozen miles a day), and so on, and so forth. And everyone needs the proper amount of salts and hydration.

And while there aren't usually mechanics for this (aside from taking damage from starvation if you aren't eating at all) it can get really interesting the methods you find to address this in-game.

And this is before we talk about coffee consumption...

For example, if you're a dragonborn or a lizardfolk, do you eat massive meals, but digest them slowly, thus allowing you to wolf down a huge haunch of meat when your journey begins before crawling into the back of the cart to sleep off the coming days? If you're an orc or a dwarf do you have the ability to eat things that would be extremely harmful to other people, thus allowing you to eat poisonous plants, or even rotting meat, with no ill effects?

And aside from your creature type, there are so many weird resources that might factor into your diet. For example, are there alchemical nutrient blocks that are densely packed with all the calories, fiber, etc. one needs while on the road that are the fantasy equivalent of the protein bars gym bros always keep in their duffel bags? Are there specially-prepared types of bread that can keep you full on a bite or two a day? Are there spells that summon a healthy feast for the righteous, or magic items that let you subsist off sunlight and water? And what do these alternatives taste like, or feel like? Is magically summoned water the equivalent of pure spring bottled water, or is it always flat and tasteless? And if you happen to have someone with prestidigitation in your party, does that mean that every meal tastes like a feast when you have a spell that can make hot water in a canteen taste like cool juice, and even bland, tasteless gruel sing with notes of phantom cinnamon and sugar?

There's even the question of how you prepare your food, and what that means for your load out when you hit the trail. For instance, are you more of a Samwise who carries their pots and skillet hung off their pack, ready to be deployed whenever you make camp for the night? Does the barbarian with the flaming great ax also use the weapon as a portable grill, cooking long cuts of meat along its blade of an evening... and if they happen to be a tiefling or an ifrit, do they flip the meat over with their bare hands, barely bothered by the heat of the weapon? Does the bard sing while cooking, their song actually impacting the performance and flavor? Does the wizard cook using magic, or do they skip the cooking process entirely and just summon what they want to eat? Does the ranger harvest herbs and spices as they travel through the foliage, keeping them in wooden bottles looped inside their pack? Or do particular characters eat their food raw, either out of personal preference, or because that is the tradition among their people?

It's Just A Fun Exercise

Again, none of this is likely to have a mechanical impact on your game, barring rolls made to harvest meat from creatures who have poison sacks, or making Constitution checks for particularly poor choices of food. But it can add a lot to your characterization if you think about how much your character needs to consume in a given day, where they get their food from, and how they prefer to prepare it (or not). Whether it's the fighter grumbling about hard tack and trail rations because that's what he's used to, the cleric being given bountiful feats by their god, or the ranger and barbarian field dressing and fresh-cooking whatever they happened to bring down that day, just give it a few thoughts to see where your brain goes!

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