Well before we talk about adding in a starvation system (which I would be in favour of if it was done correctly) we should really talk about the existing hunger/first system. As it is now, it's quite old and under used. It doesn't make a lot of sense either. There are water canteens that work, and water canteens that don't, we have rivers and streams and lakes everywhere but outside of Har'Akir I don't actually think you can fill them up. We have a fishing rod, but we can't fish. We can hunt deer, and squirrel (and other things), but instead of getting venison or squirrel meat when we cook over camp fires, we get manufactured tinned cans. How do we get tinned cans? We can't even bake a loaf of bread.
I think a better hunger/first system would first of all encourage more people to use it, because I have a suspicion that the vast majority of players never pay attention to hunger and thirst, I do sometimes, but very very rarely. We could do some fairly simple changes to improve it, we don't have to put penalties on people who don't use it, but I think we can see a benefit from fleshing it out a little, make it more fun and meaningful to play with. Here's what I think could be done.
1) Replace tinned cans with glass jars. I loathe those tinned cans lol, Glass jars make more sense for the vast majority of the domains technical limit, tin cans became used around about the early 1800's, Gothic Earth characters can't come from time periods later than 1650 so I feel it doesn't really add up properly. Now I don't know if any of the Ravenoft realms have developed tin cans specifically, but it just seems a little jarring to have them. If we wanted to manufacture glass jars it would seem to me too fit better than tinned cans, sand deposits, a shovel, and a coal furnace would easily craft glass jars in game, much more plausible than tinned cans.
2) Deer's drop raw venison, squirrel drops squirrel meat, throw in some game birds and we have raw poultry. Cooking meat over fire creates a few pieces of cooked meat, not tinned cans.
3) One glass jar + raw meat with campfire = rations. Rations have X number of uses, so they can be used multiple times to simulate preservation in glass jars with cork tops to re-seal. I think the only suitable looking items in game for containers aren't stack able, so that gets around the none stacking issue.
4) Create locations to fish in streams and rivers. Fish can be eaten raw or cooked.
5a) Create some basic baking, flour, water, salt, yeast, ovens = loaves of bread. Bread is a staple food source and it would accommodate characters who don't eat meat to actually make their own baked bread as rations.
5b) Make some generic vegetables/edible plants relieve hunger so character who don't eat meat can forage for food.
6) Create filling locations for canteens. OK so this one would take time but frankly it's something that can be done slowly, to explain how not every water source is going to be a filling point, we just say that water sources that don't have a filling point are not fresh water, its polluted due to human/animal waste, contains parasites or water born plagues, or just local superstition means locals don't use it. We could even create water based monsters, that randomly spawn demons, or mischievous water spirits that drag people to their deaths. It would be great to have monster that drag people into the lakes and drown them in the underwater areas, or just jump out of the lake and fight you, the Vallaki lake is supposed to be full of sea monsters.
7) Cooking should take a little bit of time, make the character do an animation over the camp fire instead of BAM instantly created tinned food.
