Scavenging With Diminishing Returns

In Dead of Winter players can scavenge for items that are represented by cards at various locations. Players can draw X cards with a penalty for each one drawn after the first. They must keep one and place the others on the bottom of the deck. Some cards are useful items others are junk. (literally junk see picture below) So as the game progresses the decks get thinned of all of the good items. In fact at the end of the game you may draw nothing but junk.

Dead of Winter rules Page 4 (Search):

http://www.orderofgamers.com/downloads/DeadofWinter_v1.2.pdf

Picture of junk card:
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2395653/dead-winter-crossroads-game

How about instead of a track, use tokens that the players have to pick up when they scavenge? Might be easier to remember if they can correlate "scavenge = pick up a token". The symbolism is a little tighter to the action that is happening. You can require turning in the token to collect from that spot. If a space starts with 3 tokens, the player picks one up and turns it in for 3 resources. Next time, when the spot has 2 tokens, turning it in gives you 2 resources. And so on.

You could even have the number on the token itself if that would be easier. It would give you power to make it more variable too. So if there are three tokens, one might be worth 5 resources, another worth 3, and the last worth 1.

Or you could go the opposite route, and have players place scavenge tokens when they do it, and this causes the location to dispense less resources the next time it is scavenged.

If the game allows a stack of tokens per location, you could use something like:
- Roll 1d6 vs the number of tokens in the stack.
- If it is <= number of tokens, take the top token.

The inverse would produce the same effect (start with zero tokens, roll > number of tokens, place a token when you search), but psychologically it is different and players are more likely to forget to add a token than they are to forget to take the token -- especially if the token itself is what gives them the reward/resources.

I'm struggling to come up with any alternate ideas that don't involve a stack of tokens per location.

A variation on the Dead of Winter mechanic referenced earlier would work if the number of locations is small, or the locations can be grouped into a small number of categories. It works like this:
- Have a single deck of loot/resource cards.
- Each loot card identifies the location(s) where that loot can be found.
- Some of the loot cards are junk.
- When you search a location, draw X cards from the deck, choose one of them that matches your current location, and place the rest on the bottom.
- If none match your current location you get nothing.

All of the above ideas involve randomisation, which you said you wanted to avoid so they may not suit your game as written. But maybe something will trigger your ideas.

Regards,
kos