Making a Game About Survival?

[jdagna]

I was also thinking, as someone else has mentioned, if you want to create a communal focus, I think having the players control multiple characters might work well. If you don't like that, maybe just have the players create the NPC's? I think that would help establish a vested interest in players in the characters/NPC's beyond them just being a 'resource' or whatever..

Yes, I'm definitely leaning in that direction, especially since it would be really tedious for players to sit around and listen to the GM role-play the PC's relatives bickering.  It would also let the camera shift at will - if the hunting party finds something interesting, they play those characters, but if the herdsmen are attacked, the attention can shift there.

And it seems to me that a good survival game needs a high mortality rate.  Having multiple characters lessens the blow of losing one while simultaneously making the rest of the tribe more valuable.

If I went with the extended family approach you suggest (which I see many merits to), I could literally have tribe size determined by the number of PCs (one family of 10+ each), but that might actually lessen some of the social conflicts.  Players are almost always more cooperative with each other than normal people would be in that situation... and I'm worried that reinforcing competition with mechanics makes things a bit more Gamist than I'd want to go.  I don't know... that part needs more thought.

There's also this possibility: players have one (or a small number) of priority PCs, where the players have full authority over them, as in a traditional game setup.  The other tribal NPCs are under shared player-GM control (so that either one of them could step in and take control of that character for a scene).  This might solve a lot of the problems I just mentioned.

[Tomas HVM]

Leaders often work that way - their skills and interests wind up dramatically affecting an organization, often in subtle ways that aren't clear.  In game terms, I was thinking that perhaps the leaders of a tribe could have a similar effect, perhaps giving bonuses to tests or something like that based on their leadership.  (or perhaps even in a Trollbabe sense, where the person can be called on as a resource, though in absentia, I would think).

Further than this, you should consider how to make the leader(s) part of the essay, for the GM to play. In the example I gave; "Hunting with Nestor", the GM is given ample oportunity to explore such a leader, and making his portrait influence the gameplay. He is old and frail, but his mind is as sharp as ever, and as such he has the ability to lead the hunt with great autorithy.

So, leaders should, depending on their nature, come with some kind of autorithy. The way they lead should influence the game, making some desicions more obvious than others, and maybe forbidding some course of actions.

An aggressive leader will resolve conflicts with other tribes by threaths and violence, and will be a hard case to turn when he has decided upon a course. However; he is prone to plunge the tribe into conflicts with opponents that are too strong, and become a danger to the tribe himself...

A more amiable leader will be prone to negotiate a conflict, and will take counsel from his best men. However; if there is much conflicts, and they are recurring, he may end up with little or no autorithy, due to him "not being able to forestallt he conflicts and scare the other tribes off" (in the eyes of his more aggressive men).

A bad leader will make bad desicions, but some of them will be covered up by luck (or delayed consequences), and he will also make a handful of good desicions.

A good leader will make some good desicions, but certainly also some unpopular ones, and the tribe will fail in certain respects anyhow (due to the opposition, or misfortunes).

Normally it is hard to tell who is bad, and who is good. A leader will always have some support, and he has to be really bad if he is to be cast down from the throne (depending on how leaders are picked).

I think you will have to address some of these issues, if you are to make the leader an integral part of the game. And I think you should. A tribe is such a small community that a personal knowlegde of the leader, and direct contact with his desicions, is natural. You could give the GM a list of leader types (with advice on how to portrait them), and let him choose which one to start the game with. Or you could make some types, and choose on of them for the tribe initially. Remember that the same goes for central advisors and main characters in opposition to the leader. Give them qualities (both positive and negative). Try to fascilitate an unpredictable mesh in the game, of the qualities you give to these major NPCs, with the qualities of the player characters.

I have had a great time playing out Nestor in our game, in those scenes he is active. In "Hunting with Nestor" I was given ample oportunity to show him from  his best side (the enthusiastic master of the hunt) and his worst side (the grumpy old man with a broken leg). By the way; we played it last saturday, and Nestor got his leg amputated due to a failure of one of his sons. The prospect of never going on the hunt again made him, if possible, even more grumpy! And it is very hard to care for an old man with a bad mouth, even if he's your "father"...

I also play out his wife; Aura. The principles I play these two by, is stone for Nestor, and water for Aura. It functions very well. Both is strong in their way, but Nestor has more apparent weaknesses (I have not disovered any real weaknesses with Aura yet).

To complicate the picture of how good or bad a leader is, you also have the elements of skills, as you mentioned. A leader may be very aggressive and unfair, even brutal, but his skills may be so important that without him the tribe will perish. So keep your mouth, young man, and do the bidding of the chief!

In this case, they might even come together for the winter season and thus this season could focus on relationship-building.  In winter, you build alliances with other tribes, find a mate, catch up with family who may be in another tribe, and so on.

Good idea!

There is loads of scenarios to be played out in such a winter camp, if it is carefully planned and laid out for the GM.

[Tomas HVM]

I think having the players control multiple characters might work well. If you don't like that, maybe just have the players create the NPC's?  

The problem with multiple characters is that it makes them more like gamepieces to the players. The players do not invest so much of themselves in the character, and as a consequence the conflicts of the game loose potential. I do not encourage it in a roleplaying game.

Your idea about letting the players create the major NPCs is brilliant! Make a way for them to do this easy, and with consequence, and it will give the players the firsthand knowledge of these characters that is natural to the members of the tribe.

... it would be really tedious for players to sit around and listen to the GM role-play the PC's relatives bickering.

Yes, so you have to make the GM use scene framing here, making such quarrels in a kind of impressionistic way, to focus attention as much as possible on the player characters.

It would also let the camera shift at will - if the hunting party finds something interesting, they play those characters, but if the herdsmen are attacked, the attention can shift there.

I do not believe in multiple characters. It is one of the concepts that works rather badly in Ars Magica. My closest group of roleplaying friends have used it a lot, and me too, but it still is a lousy way to "solve" the problem of possible character death (you solve it by not becoming so involved in you character... in a roleplaying game... Huh!?).

I sincerely believe that it makes the game into some sort of tactical simulation, like the computer game "Baldurs Gate", and not a roleplaying game.

I'd rather see you make a roleplaying game with firm frames for character creation within the tribe (let them make hunters is my suggestion), and with some clever advice on both the avoidance of character death, and the way to make it felt within the game. I consider players with GMs willing to kill any player character, to be lucky. They possess the foundation necessary to make a game with nerve.

And it seems to me that a good survival game needs a high mortality rate.

Yes, but it don't have to be the characters dying. It is, after all, a survival game. No one would react if the game were to focus on the characters most likely to survive the hardships. Make them morally obliged to help the weaker members, and fascilitate the creation of family ties in the game (I'm presuming a game for adults here, not children of 10 or 14). If the player characters invest time and tolls on their mother, or their siblings, it will be a bad shock to see them dwindle and die of hunger. Write a paragraph on how death can render the strongest hero quite helpless, and tell the game master how this can be played out in the game.

The other tribal NPCs are under shared player-GM control (so that either one of them could step in and take control of that character for a scene).  This might solve a lot of the problems I just mentioned.

And create a host of others. Seriously: to "share" is a very popular principle these days; shared space of imagination, shared GM/player responcibility, shared narrative, etc. Such thinking has some merit to it, but it should be carefully considered in what way it influence gameplay, especially with regards to which possibilities it obstructs, and if there in fact are other possibilities to be won.

If it is to be used, it has to be used with something else than the game-paradigm. The players has to use such powers with an attitude that makes them distance themselves from the narrative, so they can objectively let it flow with the elements of the action, without them wishing to "win" it (create a happy ending). This is fine theory, but it affects character play in subtle, yet important, ways. In some ways it is quite contradictory to the attitude necessary for good character play.

I would prefer to see a survival game where the players are desperate to keep their characters alive, and where the gamesystem incorporate the age old wisdom of how important solidarity is in such a quest. Without the tribe the individual character will perish! A group of characters may also perish, if it is not big enough... yes, even the tribe itself may meet it's doom, if the circumstances is against it.

In it's most obvious sense, such realities may translate into a rule that a character who is ousted from the tribe is considered "dead" for game purposes (and most likely in every other respect too), and that such an event must be followed by the player making a new character. To be a rebel in such a tribe has it's dangers. It will be tolerated only to a certain extent. If a member of the tribe sows too much discord, when cohesion is vital, he must be whipped into acceptance of the ruling principle, or driven off. It is brutal, and emotional, but it is the only justice possible. Too much discord is highly dangerous in a society under such pressures.

[jdagna]

Thomas, one big danger with NPCs like the ones you had in your scenario is that they can often overshadow (I'm sure some would say deprotagonize) the players' characters.  Done correctly and in certain kinds of groups, it can work out just fine, but in many cases, the players wind up getting tired of the NPC, and all the attention he gets (both in-game attention from other characters and screen time during actual play).  

I'm also not convinced that letting people play more than one PC is any more dangerous than restricting them to a single character.  Your concern is that the players will see characters as pawns... and my concern is the same.  The players I know see NPCs in one of three ways: 1) helpful and thus worth keeping around, 2) neutral and thus hardly worth remembering or 3) unhelpful and thus an obstacle to be gotten rid of.  The unhelpful category generally includes allies who have their own agendas... once the ally's agenda overshadows his worth to the players, they happily get rid of him.    In a game where the proposed mechanic actually gives them power to do this, it's a deadly combination.

Of course, I think the question of players "respecting" NPCs is unrelated to whether the players control more than one character or not.  They're either to going to value NPC relationships or they're not.

Returning to the subject of people playing multiple characters, I do think there needs to be a sharing of control.  For example, having a player control his character's wife makes sense most of the time, but the GM should be able step in to create conflicts there (like the wife worries that bear-hunting is too dangerous and asks her husband to tend goats for a while instead).  These kinds of conflicts play out best when the player doesn't control both characters. Another reason to give players some control is that requiring the GM to play 40+ NPCs is a bit much if you want to emphasize the relationships, even if the players had a chance to design the characters. (Though it could certainly be done without player control).

[contracycle]

As I see it, whats missing in these secanrios in existing RPG design is enough specific focus.  Abstract hunting is only fun for gamist reasons becuase usually only a gamist challenge exists: roll dice to get food or not.  There's no detail; the challenge is usually not trying to determine whether the pug-marks where made by a male or female leopard.

IMO the failing in RPG to date has been not to make these actual survival activities significant components of play.  Most players do not know much about wilderness survivsal, and so if the game is going to be about this topic it needs to be detailed and specific as to what the characters are going to do, how they will do it and why they are doing it.

Issues around leadership and other members of the group are significant, and are indeed a major part of a survival strategy.  But they are  a means not an end; corporate survival is a strategy, not an imperative.  A game concentrating on the politics of these socities without a study of the practical limits to their operations always feels aritificial to me; we end up with intra-tribal conflicts on nominal issues that exist merely to have some "conflict", but this nominalism trivialises that conflict.

[Tomas HVM]

... one big danger with NPCs like the ones you had in your scenario is that they can often overshadow (I'm sure some would say deprotagonize) the players' characters.  

You are right in observing that it is easy to overdo such a use of NPCs. I think you should create several kinds of scenarios to use with your game, and that such a scenario is one type you may use. A scenario driven by a major NPC (or several of them) gives you certain possibilities lacking in other kinds of scenarios. However; if I were to play only such scenarios, I would expect my game group to disintegrate in the course of three game sessions, regardless of how good or bad the scenarios in themselves were. it is a very strong tool to use, for sure, and so you should be careful not to overdo it.

You have to know how to mix the tools of your trade, what each and every one of your tools are best at (and what dangers they come with), and how much you may use any one tool at your disposal.

The players I know see NPCs in one of three ways: 1) helpful and thus worth keeping around, 2) neutral and thus hardly worth remembering or 3) unhelpful and thus an obstacle to be gotten rid of.  The unhelpful category generally includes allies who have their own agendas... once the ally's agenda overshadows his worth to the players, they happily get rid of him.

I find this somewhat strange. Players I know see NPCs in a lot of ways, depending on the game, the theme, and the characters they play. Some of this has to do with how I interact with them, thorugh the NPCs. I handle my NPCs differently from game to game, from theme to theme, and I experience that the players shift accordingly. You may take into consideration that "the players you know" is heavily influenced by the kind of game master you are, perhaps :-)

If you choose to make a game with more or less shared control, it is your prerogative. I'm only voicing my doubts about the effects. I think it is possible to do so to great effect, yes, but only to a certain extent. To establish more than one player character per player is not a way to bolster the game, at least not as a solution to the perceived danger of character death.

Take care of the player characters, but be brutal enough to accept the big plunge of a character death.

[Tomas HVM]

As I see it, whats missing in these scenarios in existing RPG design is enough specific focus.  Abstract hunting is only fun for gamist reasons becuase usually only a gamist challenge exists: roll dice to get food or not.  There's no detail; the challenge is usually not trying to determine whether the pug-marks where made by a male or female leopard.

I'm writing a Wilderness-module for my fantasy game Fabula these days, focusing on hunters and what they do, trying to make scenarios on the theme too. I find that there is lots of elements in this type of game to make more than gamist challenges. In fact the gamist challenge is far from central in my writings on it. I choose to keep the hunt very abstract. I find that the Wilderness and the hunter has more to do with presenting a field of expertice, empowering the hunter over other types of characters, making him into some kind of negotiatior of danger. In addition it is about atmosphere; creating an emotional content of the game that matches the strong fear for the unknown underlying the "Here be dragons!"-note on old maps.

I try to translate "wilderness" into a place of chaos, where the unexpected may be expected to happen, and where the characters are out of control. I make the wilderness a place filled with strong symbols of chaos and beastliness, and as such it may be that my take on this, is so far from your ideas that our two views don't communicate at all.

... we end up with intra-tribal conflicts on nominal issues that exist merely to have some "conflict", but this nominalism trivialises that conflict.

I always consider human conflicts to be essential. If such a conflict is resolved the wrong way, the consequences may be very grave, so it is indeed real conflicts. There is nothing "nominal" about it.

I think your experience must be with generally bad games, made by gamesmiths unable to wield their hammers the right way.

[contracycle]

I find that there is lots of elements in this type of game to make more than gamist challenges. In fact the gamist challenge is far from central in my writings on it. I choose to keep the hunt very abstract. I find that the Wilderness and the hunter has more to do with presenting a field of expertice, empowering the hunter over other types of characters, making him into some kind of negotiatior of danger. In addition it is about atmosphere; creating an emotional content of the game that matches the strong fear for the unknown underlying the "Here be dragons!"-note on old maps.

Erm, that sounds highly gamist to me.  A negotiator of danger?  Surely thats about as pure a form of step on up as is available, especially when framed by "the fate of the tribe rests on your shoulders".

I make the wilderness a place filled with strong symbols of chaos and beastliness, and as such it may be that my take on this, is so far from your ideas that our two views don't communicate at all.

Its true that I don't think of the wilderness primarily in allegorical terms, no.  But that is the kind of failing I was trying to highlight - reducing the wilderness to some Issue like this robs it of its externality, its impassivity in the face of human suffering.  And the result is that despite the the fact that game is nominally about survival, its in fact really just another save-the-world-before-sundown-by-killing-the-badguy-and-taking-their-stuff game.  It could have been any where, and in any setting, and thus as a game about survival it fails.

I think your experience must be with generally bad games, made by gamesmiths unable to wield their hammers the right way.

I think you should stop patronising people who disagree with you on the assumption they have had some traumatic experience.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Justin, I think people are starting to discuss their own survival-games rather than helping with yours. But it's your call - do you want to see lots of diversity for your basis of comparison, or a return to focus on your stated parameters?

Everyone else, whatever Justin says, do that. Thanks.

Best,
Ron

[Tomas HVM]

I wrote:
I think your experience must be with generally bad games, made by gamesmiths unable to wield their hammers the right way.

I think you should stop patronising people who disagree with you on the assumption they have had some traumatic experience.

Sorry. Did not mean to sound patronising. I'm referring to failings I find to be present in many traditional roleplaying games. I find some themes to be very badly treated in many roleplaying games. But please: let us discuss that in another thread.

[jdagna]

Justin, I think people are starting to discuss their own survival-games rather than helping with yours. But it's your call - do you want to see lots of diversity for your basis of comparison, or a return to focus on your stated parameters?

Everyone else, whatever Justin says, do that. Thanks.

At this point, I'm still brainstorming for ways to approach this kind of game, so talking about other games is pretty useful if it's a way to highlight or illustrate the different methods one can use to make something like this engaging for the players.  

I don't think I'll have a chance to work on this game in a concrete sense until after GenCon, so I'm just trying to get a sense of what's been done, what people are looking for, and hoping that something sets off the spark that starts to crystallize this concept for me.

[trechriron]

So, to get this back on track.

The goals here for the tribe;  survive, gather or hunt food, mate and propagate, agriculture, animal husbandry, inter and intra-tribal relations, avoid invaders (bandits, Goths, or something...), confront mountain creatures, and adapt to the elements.  Possibly could include some crafts and trading in there.

I would suggest in-game play on two levels; a tribal-level and an individual-level.  I like the idea of year-long goals and seasonal events.  I like the fate mechanic you have come up with that allows the players to sacrifice results to reach a target number and take modifiers and apply them.  I think this should be a unifying mechanic across the game regardless at what level you are playing.  Giving the players narrative control of results is also a nifty technique.  I think the players should have narrative control of results when you are at individual-level and the GM has narrative control of results at the tribal-level.  I think the players should always control both the tribe and the individuals (as far as direction).

Tribal creation:  The players first decide the nature of the tribe and at least a number of important figures as there are players.  These will be the "PCs".  These important figures are created in a collaborative effort.  Then the players collaborate on the extended family of all the PCs.  Then the group collaborates on the extended tribe, including the current leader, any other important figures, and alliances, enemies, etc.  Then the group decides on important aspects of the tribe, events that have colored it, and the current goal of the tribe.  The end result is a set of PCs, piles of NPCs, a leader, and a Tribe (as an in game entity).  A reward system should be created to reward good collaboration.  This gets everyone into a tribal spirit before in-game play begins.

A tribe could be an entity in the game with resources listed numerically that function as game characteristics.  The individual tribal members are playable entities as well.  The players could collaborate on the tribe's goals and overall actions.  Then as conflicts happen, the players can elect to resolve the conflict tribally or as a group of selected PCs.  Rewards are in resources which are awarded to the tribe or the individual for each respective level of play.  Individuals should be able to donate or impact tribal resources.  To ease the transition between levels of play you have actual in-game techniques required to shift play.  The default play would be at the tribal level.  You set up events from this level and it acts as a sort of brain storming group collaboration play.  When any player decides to pursue a scene as an individual, he narrates the beginning of the scene that must include the current location, situation, and the name of the individual picked.  He simply starts narrating at the individual level and this is the queue to go that level of play.  I guess you could also have the GM initiate a scene by handing a character to a player and then narrating a scene and having them play it (or do both).  After the situation is set, the remaining players select an individual and set the scene for what their character is doing in support of the initiating player's character.  The GM then provides setting and catalysts to further the scene until it reaches some conclusion (the conclusion part could get difficult, not sure how to adjudicate that).

If, during tribal-level play some social conflict is called for, then players can draw sides and resolve the conflict and the GM plays outside forces, etc.  The players are always playing the tribe or individuals in the tribe and the GM is always playing outside forces, factors, catalysts, etc.  At tribal level play, bad results (negative modifiers) are applied by the group and if they want to play out the situation, then they can (even making a reward for individual-level play by allowing those results to modify and potentially improve the tribal-level play results).  Rewards can focus on drama, collaboration, and interaction.  If a group consistently cheeses all conflicts to benefit the tribe and individuals despite poor fate results, then dire consequences should be leveraged by the GM to balance out all the free "rewards".

I really like the resolution mechanic idea.  I think this could inspire creative narration.  I think you should tie the modifiers/results into the currency and reward system of the game.  Perhaps even allowing individuals or tribes to sacrifice permanent ratings as a resource.  I like the idea of earned rewards being applied as ratings.  I think all the characteristics should function like this.  It could be fun to have an exchange rate for certain resources.  Gathered and hunted resources convert to a percentage of food that is less than what was gathered/hunted (waste, etc.) and for tribes with the skills can also convert to skins, bones for weapons, etc.  The better skilled and diverse your tribe the better net resources received.

The game really needs to focus around these resources to give it the feel of survival.  Perhaps a rating that reflects required resources consumed in say a week.  These can be totaled up for the whole tribe for tribal level play.  Less resources means starvations, or health issues, or death.

At what point do you want to start a new thread in game design and start hitting specifics?  :-D  Like characteristics, currency, rewards, etc.  Is that even needed?  Can we do that here?

[jdagna]

contracycle, I agree with you on the need for detail and emphasis on the survival itself in a survival game.  In this case, I really think that a well-done survival bit will drive the interpersonal conflicts between tribes and people.  

One of the reasons I feel this way is a simple comparison.  Imagine playing a detective in a murder mystery, but the GM reduced the murder mystery to an abstract issue that empowered the detectives over other people, which is basically what you're saying, Tomas.  The problem here is that you're ulatimately left with something that isn't really a mystery or a detective story - it just uses those elements as backdrop.  As much as the mystery genre depends on internal and personal conflicts, you can't abstract the mystery itself and still have a mystery.

There's been lots of discussion on the Forge about how to redo mysteries so that players can have input (such as letting them invent clues) and GM's can introduce events as-needed to keep a story going instead of letting players flounder around (as is often the strategy).  It seems like there should be analogous ways to make a survival emphasize those kinds of issues over random encounters and lots of book-keeping rolls, as is the tradition.

Anyway, some other specific responses:

Tomas, when I say most players, I don't just mean most of the people I play with.  For one, people who see NPCs as tactical game objects are generally not compatible with the way I play in other areas.  For another, I see the behavior even when I'm not GMing and stories from many other GMs confirms that it happens when I'm not even in the room.  

Now, these kinds of people may be incompatible with this type of game altogether.  While I'm fine acknowledging that some games won't fit peoples' styles, I'm always leery of games that basically blame the players for not using it right.  A game should fulfill a function and it should fulfill that function regardless of who uses it.  The playing group's interests and aptitudes should only influence whether they enjoyed that function.  That's my philosophy on game design anyway.  In this case, the system should encourage the right attitude toward NPCs instead of just hoping that players do what we want them to.

contracycle wrote:

As I see it, whats missing in these secanrios in existing RPG design is enough specific focus.  Abstract hunting is only fun for gamist reasons becuase usually only a gamist challenge exists: roll dice to get food or not.  There's no detail; the challenge is usually not trying to determine whether the pug-marks where made by a male or female leopard.

IMO the failing in RPG to date has been not to make these actual survival activities significant components of play.  Most players do not know much about wilderness survivsal, and so if the game is going to be about this topic it needs to be detailed and specific as to what the characters are going to do, how they will do it and why they are doing it.

I definitely agree with you here, but one of my difficulties is deciding what exactly the players should be doing.  For example, in determining whether a leopard is male or female, you either have to teach the players themselves something about tracks and then show them pictures of tracks, or it comes down to a roll.

Now, I do have some ideas... maybe you can tell me if I'm on the right track for what you're thinking.
1) In interpreting tracks, I've though about a 20-questions kind of scenario, but the number of questions you get depends on your roll.
2) Tactical choices: do you track it, trap it, or wait in a blind?  If you're following an animal, can you take a shortcut in anticipation of where it's going?  These probably have to be roll-dependent unless we're going to train the players again.
3) Choice of prey: a large kill like a moose will give more meat, but at a hgher risk in killing it.  Birds are very safe to kill, but might not be worth it.  Some animals may be valuable for horns, tusks or other tool-related merits.

[contracycle]

I definitely agree with you here, but one of my difficulties is deciding what exactly the players should be doing. For example, in determining whether a leopard is male or female, you either have to teach the players themselves something about tracks and then show them pictures of tracks, or it comes down to a roll.

Right; we should be training the players.  Look at all the training players commonly receive on methods of medieval warfare, everything from how to sharpen a sword to how to knock down walls with seige equipment or mining.  Theres even quite a lot of detail on pastoral agriculture in some games, although IMO this frequently still suffers from a mechanised mindset.

One major failing of RPG IMO in this regard lies in the universalist ethic of most setting sourcebooks.  Most settings are whole worlds, which makes concentration on specific survival tricks very difficult; the quanitityof data requiring representation is prohibitive.  A game that is specifically intended to be about survival should I think select a specific place in which to be set, and to provide systematic support for the real techniques that were employed by real people in those places so that real players can have the vicarious experience of engaging with the same problems those people did.  This means they do have to be specific and detailed, and including a booklet of animal tracks is exactly the kind of propr I have in mind for facilitating this form of play.

Editted to add: this doesn;t mean I want to actually compel players to actually memorise tracks or anything.  But I want the shape and form of tracks to be a meaningful part of the conversation; this means it has to be more than just a Spot Track roll or similar.  Its more important that the GM should be trained, and should be able to say something like " its definitely a male leapord, and moving fast by the toe/claw scuff-marks".  And furthermore, the game as a whole needs to direct play toward this sort of problem.

[Vaxalon]

I think what you're talking about is only important if you're playing from a simultionist perspective.

I think you can easily imagine gamist or narrativist wilderness survival games.