2010 Nov 2 9:02 AM

Outdoor Survival

Underworld & Wilderness Adventures recommends using the board from Avalon Hill’s 1972 board game Outdoor Survival for a wilderness map. Here’s the Boardgame Geek page for Outdoor Survival, which includes pictures of the game. The playing board is marked by a hexagonal grid, sized 34 x 43 hexes. The map includes various terrain types, such as woods, desert, mountains, and swamps. Nine buildings and twenty-four catch-basins dot the map. U&WA says to use the buildings as towns, and the catch-basins as castles. Some of those castles would be ruins, others not. This seems to be the assumed starting area for a campaign. Hexes are assumed to be five miles across. A man on foot can cross three hexes per day, depending upon terrain type. A “light” horse (40gp) can cross 10 hexes a day. So, a party might reasonably be able to cross the map from corner to corner in about a week. That seems like a manageable starting point. Have you used the Outdoor Survival map for a campaign?

5 comments:

JDJarvis November 2, 2010 at 2:45 PM

I’ve used the map (or a segment of it) for a fill-in emergency wilderness but never for a whole campaign

Scott November 2, 2010 at 6:50 PM

I’ve used it a couple of times for OD&D campaigns or side projects that never really got off the ground. There are a couple versions out there digitized per the Volume 3 guidelines for campaign use.

Paul November 2, 2010 at 10:48 PM

Clones should come with a numbered hex map showing cities and castles for the referee to populate. I’ve been reading the castles section in U&WA today. It’s strange that none of the retroclones have done much with castles, as those rules strike me some of the most interesting.

Paul November 2, 2010 at 11:20 PM

To contextualize the size of the map, it’s somewhere between West Virginia and Maine.

Greg Christopher November 2, 2010 at 11:25 PM

Looks like a cool game. Shame I have never seen it in real life.

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