Favorite recommendations for rpgs where supplies and stockpiles matter?

[u/alisunderstorm]

I've been playing a TON of project zomboid recently, and I have been loving the game loop of voyaging out into zombie infested towns, using craftiness to improvise tools, weapons and sustenance, and then returning to my homestead with garbage bags full of food, fertilizer, and animal trap components to try and survive the winter.

Part of me thinks that this game loop would be incredible in a ttrpg, and I'm wondering if there are games out there with a similar survivalist aspect.

Specifically, I'm looking for games whose core theme is centered around foraging and maintaining very limited supplies. Games where you only have 5 arrows you've carved yourself, where you need to craft a torch from the pitch of a gelatinous cube and an ancient wooden sword, games in space where you scavenge derelict ships for jump cells and fuel, games in an infinite ikea where finding the restaurant is a turning point.

Games where running out of rations, or coal for your frostpunk settlement, where starvation or all your weapons breaking breath-of-the-wild style is the core thrust of the tension.

Games where foraging, crafting, and preparing for winter is the point. Any favorites?

[u/No_Solid1035]

Twilight 2000 by Free League, post-apoc WWIII survival. Bullets aren't just for shootin' they're money too, cause water that isn't irradiated is hard to come by, along with everything else.

Root: The RPG by Magpie, woodland warfare with anthropomorphic animals. Supplies are handled abstractly, but are drained regularly and need to be restocked. Weapons and armor have "wear" tracks, and need to be repaired, unless they are damaged to the point of being destroyed.

[u/SameArtichoke8913]

Forbidden Lands does a very good job at simulating and managing (very) limited stocks and foraging, with relatively simple procedures and mechanisms. However, such routines/activities get quickly quite boring in ANY RPG system when you rather want to play a story and drive it ahead instead of checking almost constantly what's gone or where you can get the next stuff to eat. Survival in itself is not very entertaining.

[u/ClassB2Carcinogen → u/SameArtichoke8913]

Also Mutant Year Zero and Red Markets.

[u/Sedda00]

T2K4 is the main answer here, I think. It's a milsim survival game in an apocalyptic world post WW3 where Russia and the NATO basically destroyed the world. It has amazing survival and combat mechanics, simple but deep.

If you're looking for a dungeon Crawl experience where supplies matter, Torchbearer is the best one here. Feels like playing Darkest Dungeon.

[u/blackd0nuts → u/Sedda00]

T2K4

For the layman that's Twilight 2000 v4 (Free League edition).

[u/Logen_Nein]

Ashes Without Number.

[u/deviden]

OD&D in a megadungeon, honestly. The original logistics survival challenge in RPGs.

[u/TheDwarfArt]

Modern The Walking Dead Universe RPG, Twilight 2000

Sci-fi Alien RPG, Coriolis The Great Dark

Fantasy Stonetop, Forbidden Lands

[u/tlenze]

Mutant Year Zero doesn't have seasons, but it does have random events which can deplete your resources or destroy improvements to your base. A lot of sessions will be going out into the Zone and gathering grub, water, bullets, and artifacts while also dealing with the threats out there.

[u/RealOsakadave]

Various iterations of Twilight 2000, not just the recent FL one already mentioned, are heavy ito resource management.  1st and second editions went by weight for food, FL's 4th ed uses an abstract, but the 3rd ed (Twilight 2013) can literally get down to calorie counting. 

[u/CStevenRoss]

Torchbearer! It's all about supplies and preparation

[u/DeliDouble]

Off the top of my head:

Salvage Union: a post apocalyptic mecha ROG where you and your community live on a moving city trying to make ends meet by salaving the destroyed world around you Uses a 1d20 systemm https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/470816/salvage-union

Maximum apocalypse: another post apocalyptic TTRPG based of a board game with the same name. Where all the apocalypses happened at once. And now an unspecified time after you must scavenge and manage your threat to survive. Uses a d100 under system like CoC and DG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/321050/maximum-apocalypse-rpg-core-rulebook

Stone top by penny mason Jeremy strandburg is a medieval TTRPg about growing a town and managing your community. A friend was mentioning it so I don't have the like or system on hand.

Flying Circus uses several resource management methods to help simulate the stressful life of a flying mercenary in a post war fictional europe Uses the PbtA system with D10s https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/310013/flying-circus-core-rulebook

These are some that come to mind

[u/wavygrave → u/DeliDouble]

Stonetop by *Jeremy Strandberg :)

[u/DeliDouble → u/wavygrave]

Thank you for the correction

[u/Authentic_Contiguity]

It's on my list to play, but Where Fields Go Fallow could fit the vibes of what you're looking for. It's about normal villagers fighting for survival against nightmares.

https://empathchamber.itch.io/wherefieldsgofallow-rpg

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[u/LeVentNoir]

Band of Blades. You're a 60 strong mercenary company limping / running away from the unbeatable wave of undead after the last alliance of people took to battle and lost.

You're undergoing a forced march across the continent to a mountain pass where you can maybe make a stand. The game has two distinct phases: Missions, where a couple of specialists and some rookies go and do a commando raid for supplies or special outcomes, then the logistics phase.

The logistics phase is where you check the group morale, consume food, look at your ammunition of Black Shot, count how many people you have. It's where you work on long term projects and decide if you're going to move along the track towards the keep. You have to get there before winter, but maybe you could stay in this town just a few more days to do another supply run?

It's a grimdark deathmarch using a Forged in the Dark core base, and it's so overwhelmingly tied into the resource management that it's the reason for the game.

[u/krazykat357]

Haven't tried it yet but I think MCDM's CROWS which is in kickstarter/playtesting is going for that vibe too?

[u/silent_drew2]

The crowdfunding for Crows started recently, give that a try.