Quote from: Zalman on July 13, 2021, 10:23:47 AM
Well, you can be a hobo or a pilgrim with nothing but a backpack, so long as there are villages, etc. at which to replenish along the way. You don't need to supply all your own food to "live outdoors year round." I lived this way myself for almost a decade, walking through mountains for 3-5 days at a time to get from one town to the next. Essentials I carried in the 20th century:

- backpack
- warm sleeping bag
- tarp
- foam pad
- stainless steel pot
- water bottle
- flashlight
- lighter
- knife

I also found good boots and a wide-brimmed hat indispensable for living outdoors. The heaviest thing I carried was invariably food and water. Water in particular weights 8 lbs per gallon; carrying enough to drink between water sources can get very heavy quickly.

Regarding the OP, I definitely avoided fires any time I was camped near civilization.

No offense, but what you're describing is tourism. I don't mean to be nasty, it actually sounds like a great time. But I'd call that a number of "minimal camping trips" strung together, with civilization at each endpoint. You bought all your food, and if you did it today, you probably would have cellphone service the whole way.

When I said "living outdoors year-round" I meant living independently far outside of civilization.

I suppose there is also an "expedition" type of experience, which is camping, but done for months or years. Expeditions start out with truck, wagon or boatloads of supplies, mostly food, and either go until they run out of supplies, or establish a permanent base of operations and arrange for resupply. Or they build a colony.

Quote from: Lurkndog on July 13, 2021, 01:44:18 PM
I suppose there is also an "expedition" type of experience, which is camping, but done for months or years. Expeditions start out with truck, wagon or boatloads of supplies, mostly food, and either go until they run out of supplies, or establish a permanent base of operations and arrange for resupply. Or they build a colony.

Given the traditional D&D dungeon with its abundance of dressed stone and a defensible position, an extended expedition or even colony probably isn't a bad plan of approach. If you want an eventual stronghold, a dungeon is either a good foundation or a quarry for dressed stone. General laborers and carts to strip the walls/floors are a lot cheaper and faster than hiring a stonemason to make new dressed stone.

It's impossible to live for years in the wilderness without constant resupply

Or not. 

It doesn't always end well, but, well, everyone dies eventually.  The fact is it is possible to live off the land for years at a time.  Like, that's the nature of existence that humans evolved to live. 

Quote from: oggsmash on July 13, 2021, 11:37:28 AM
   You left out the A number 1 essential in that list.  Money.  without that, I think your experience would have been quite different.

Not at all, I started with less than $500, worked along the way. There are lots of occupations that befit a homeless lifestyle! Forestry, migrant farm work, fishing boats, trail crews, etc., all of which operate from some outdoor living situation.

Quote from: Lurkndog on July 13, 2021, 01:44:18 PM
When I said "living outdoors year-round" I meant living independently far outside of civilization.

Cool, but that's not how PCs typically "live outdoors" in my experience.  I typically combined store-bought goods at stops along the way with hunting, fishing, and foraging; the longest I was in the wilderness personally was 24 days. You have an interesting definition of "tourism"!

Quote from: Zalman on July 13, 2021, 07:16:30 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on July 13, 2021, 11:37:28 AM
   You left out the A number 1 essential in that list.  Money.  without that, I think your experience would have been quite different.

Not at all, I started with less than $500, worked along the way. There are lots of occupations that befit a homeless lifestyle! Forestry, migrant farm work, fishing boats, trail crews, etc., all of which operate from some outdoor living situation.

   You make my point for me.   You needed money the entire time.  I never said you have to start with a million bucks.  But it was a needed commodity for the duration.

Greetings!

Well, as a Marine veteran, I certainly became well-acquainted with living and surviving in the wilderness. Being heloed into some shithole in the gawdforsaken wilderness, marching overland in full gear ready to rock for 15, 20, and 25 miles, just to arrive at a *bivouac* sight reconned out ahead of the main force definitely forces you to reach down for new motivation and to remember--or discover--what you are made of, as a man, and a warrior.

Granted, except for forays into survival training--where I ate insects, leaves, and what the fuck I found in the wilderness--we had the wonderful and gracious benefit of being tossed three rubber-pouches of MRE's. Each MRE was a meal, and we had to make sure they lasted until the next food truck arrived--usually every day, but not always. Supplementing our yummy GI food out in the field, besides the aforementioned bugs and mint leaves--was whatever you managed to stow in your gear, which was often just bags of pogey-bait or something fairly decent, like trail-mix. That was it, along with canteens of water. Then, we got to get together with a buddy and *DIG* a fighting-pit. Lower stepped, about 4-ft. deep and 6-ft. wide. I, being the machine gunner, had to set my SAW up nice, and ensure ammo was ready to rock. That fucking fighting pit was what we got to sleep in, come rain or shine. I remember many, many nights feeling the rain fall on me as I watched on guard duty in the dark of night, while my buddy caught some exhausted sleep right next to me. Four hours later, I would wake him up, and he would be on guard duty, while I got to sleep a royal four hours in the mud and rain. And the fucking dark. Thankfully, I wasn't also being entirely eaten alive by bugs, but they tried stubbornly. Day after day, for weeks or a month, living like this, my SAW on the ledge in front of me, and my M-16 between my legs. Mud up to my ankles, rain pouring on me constantly.

And yeah, no showers, either. Bathing was washing your nuts with ice-cold water from your helmet. The morning came with the fucking dawn, a swallow of water, and a cigarette. Get your shit up, time to move out on a patrol. Usually 10 to 20 miles, up and down through the wilderness. Every day.

After a month of that, yeah. I stood in the hot shower covered in soap for an hour staright, just like everyone else. *Laughing* The feeling of coming back home after weeks or months of that, and heading into town, enjoying some hot food--real food!--and hitting a hotel with yeah, a real-live woman giggling at you, well, the feeling is difficult to describe. Just some of the perks that come with working for Uncle Sam. I definitely learned a few things about living in the wilderness, without any modern conveniences or pleasures.

Most civilians really aren't prepared for living like that. I expect adventurers to fucking learn quick though! Forget all the easy goodies from civilization, or from magic. No, fuckers, you need to suffer! Struggle! DIG!!!

As difficult as it all was, I always keep fond memories of my many experiences in the field with my fellow Marines. OOH-RAH!!!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on July 13, 2021, 09:04:57 PM
Well, as a Marine veteran, I certainly became well-acquainted with living and surviving in the wilderness.

There's this fun show Alone, where they take people claimed as survival experts and ditch them in the wilderness, last one to either quit or get a medical discharge wins some cash.

The interesting thing is that the ones mentioning military experience quite often bail in the first week. There was some SEAL did well, but the rank-and-file types crumble. We don't always appreciate just how much support the typical grunt gets, all the hundreds of people involved in keeping him supplied with water, fuel and food - and of course clothes and tents and all that.

And those who quit, it's almost always simple loneliness. Grunts are rarely alone. Of course, an adventuring party is basically a section or squad, they're not alone, either. But still.

Quote from: jhkim on July 12, 2021, 08:42:09 PMIn practice, I've seen a lot of GMs push back if players try to have an expedition with lots of porters, pack animals, and other support characters for them -- because it comes across as unheroic and breaks assumptions.

Pfft on them.  My wife and I love logistics: we're the ones who pore over gear for optimum use. We come by this honestly; we met in a combat boffer LARP with many camping events a year.  If anyone has any question on the matter, if you're going to be out all day swinging swords in 90+ degree weather, you want to have a good hot meal in your belly made from good food, you want to have slept through the cold rain last night in a dry tent, you want to have had a good night sleep in good bedding, and you want plenty of pure liquid to drink.

By contrast, people who figured they were young and tough, wrapped themselves in a cloak, dined on a half-bag of Doritos, tried to sleep on a hillside without shelter, no change of clothing ... nope.  Didn't fight so well.

So yeah: if I'm a PC, I'm going to pay attention to logistics.  If I can afford it, I'll absolutely pop for a pack mount, quality camping gear, good food.  A GM who "pushes back" on that is a campaign I'm walking away from. 

Quote from: deadDMwalking on July 13, 2021, 02:25:07 PM
It's impossible to live for years in the wilderness without constant resupply

I don't know about impossible, subsistence farming is certainly a thing. It's generally not what player characters do, though.

It's a lot more likely that your homesteader/mountain man/hermit/murderhobo will mostly live off their own resources, coming into town a couple times a year to sell stuff and pick up things like coffee, sugar, tools and bits of hardware that it makes sense to buy rather than make for yourself.

There's a movie Leave No Trace where a dad and his daughter live out in the woods. But he's got some sort of veteran's pension, and they occasionally go to town to get stuff.

On the other hand they don't have a permanent camp because they're not supposed to be living in the woods at all. If you can settle down in a place then you can grow things and all that, then you don't have to buy them. So really the money bought them mobility and obscurity.

Quote from: Lurkndog on July 17, 2021, 10:03:35 AM

Quote from: deadDMwalking on July 13, 2021, 02:25:07 PM
It's impossible to live for years in the wilderness without constant resupply

I don't know about impossible, subsistence farming is certainly a thing. It's generally not what player characters do, though.

Reading fail - I pointed out that there are people that have gone completely off the grid alone or with their families and lived for years or decades.  If someone lived on their own for 40 years, then died of old age, it's hardly 'impossible'. 

Quote from: Lurkndog on July 17, 2021, 10:03:35 AM

I don't know about impossible, subsistence farming is certainly a thing. It's generally not what player characters do, though.

Even farming shouldn't really be necessary.  According to some sources all humans were hunter/gatherers until about 12,000 years ago.  If they did it back then, there's no reason we couldn't do it now, and it's certainly reasonable for characters in fantasy setting to be able to live that way.

Quote from: Mishihari on July 18, 2021, 10:27:04 PM

Quote from: Lurkndog on July 17, 2021, 10:03:35 AM

I don't know about impossible, subsistence farming is certainly a thing. It's generally not what player characters do, though.

Even farming shouldn't really be necessary.  According to some sources all humans were hunter/gatherers until about 12,000 years ago.  If they did it back then, there's no reason we couldn't do it now, and it's certainly reasonable for characters in fantasy setting to be able to live that way.

Game was much more plentiful back then, and forage far more abundant.

And there were fewer people! But of course, in the implied setting of D&D - on the marches of a fallen civilisation - there aren't many people, either. France in 1450 it ain't. More like like northern Britain in 500. Much game! Many savages! The wind howling across the moors!