How does the waterskin work?

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kbenzol17
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How does the waterskin work?

Post by kbenzol17 »

My friends and I just recently started playing Basic Fantasy, without any prior pen-and-paper rpg experience and one thing I don't understand is waterskin.
I have read the rules and know that a waterskin holds a quart of water which is the minimum water requirement for one day per character. Thus we think that if the character wanders in the wilderness/dungeons for let's say 3 days, without any chance of finding a well or spring or any freshwater source, then the character will start the journey with at least 3 full waterskins.
But several pre-generated playable characters, e.g. Morgansfort 2nd ed. r28 p71, the characters have 1 waterskin (to be exact, the text says 'waterskin' which I interpret as 1 waterskin). So these pre-generated characters contradict my theory of having multiple waterskins.

Is this house rule of using multiple waterskins inherently wrong and I have made wrong conclusions from the rulebook and our non-experienced group should play with only 1 waterskin/character or is this an acceptable interpretation of the rules and can be used?
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SmootRK
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Re: How does the waterskin work?

Post by SmootRK »

An assumption that I make is that characters living in this era/environment, know basic skills. Roughly what is good to eat, what water is safe to drink. Any time spent in camp will include many basics such as boiling/filtering any suspect water, cooking food, basic repairs, sharpening of equipment, etc. Most of which I am not going to bother having the players spell out what exactly they do during such times, no more than I expect them to annotate exactly how they are going to relieve themselves when nature calls... much is just assumed behaviors.

That comes back around to the water. I expect character refill periodically and every time they might encounter fresh water. One skin is probably quite sufficient, unless the environment is noted to be hostile or harsher conditions (ie desert/arid) where re-supply might be more difficult. In those areas, one should probably carry much more.
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Metroknight
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Re: How does the waterskin work?

Post by Metroknight »

When I run games, I treat wateskins as primitive canteens for that is what they are. They hold x amount of water, the carrier realizes the need to keep them fill when they have a chance, and if going into an unknown and potentially dangerous area, carry more than one.
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Solomoriah
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Re: How does the waterskin work?

Post by Solomoriah »

First level characters generally don't stay overnight in a dungeon (and survive, anyway) so one day's water is usually enough. Higher level characters do the kind of things that Mr. Smoot described. The only time you need to buy extra waterskins is when you are traveling where you know drinking water will be scarce.
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kbenzol17
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Re: How does the waterskin work?

Post by kbenzol17 »

Thanks for the quick explanations, they made things clear.
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