On 16 May 2018 at 07:32, Graham Donald (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

I've actually got a novel from 1990s called "The Talisman Deception", two of the ships in that are oil tankers that have been modified with re-inforced bows, sandbag armor around the bridge and afterhouse, relocated steering, and every free space (eg not the crew accommodation) has been filled with buoyant materials (e.g. Table-Tennis Balls, Kapok, Cork, etc.) and used in a quasi Q-ship role.

Wow! That sounds like a lot of table tennis balls for an oil tanker!

Speaking of which, my players in the Monday lunchtime game were, with the help of some rather traumatised locals, helping dig through rubble to try and rescue people following a tsunami. Two questions came up:

Roughly how much rubble would be left by a collapsed four story apartment block, with creche on the ground floor. We were dealing with a 10m x 4m corner of such a building - so I said it was a bout four times the size of the rubble plan I gave them where sounds had been heard.

How much rubble can be moved by hand?

Two wrinkles on this one: most of the workers are victims of disaster and not eaten/slept well in a few days.

All such, and even the PCs, are quite driven to rescue people as there's still a chance of survivors.

(Although they pulled out bodies, I did have them save a couple of children by their diligent labours.)

The rules just don't cover this kind of scenario!