Stop Your RimWorld Storyteller From Becoming a Sadistic Monster

Quick Start Guide

Need to get started right away? Here are the key points to survive your first days in RimWorld:

Top Survival Tips

Choose the right storyteller: New players should start with Phoebe Chillax on Community Builder or Adventure Story difficulty.
Pick an easy biome: Temperate Forest or Arid Shrubland offer the best balance of resources and mild challenges. Check our complete starting scenarios guide for more details.
Fortify early: Build a simple wall with a single entrance by the end of the first week. Our combat and defense guide covers advanced defensive strategies.
Manage wealth: Don't hoard what you don't need - excess wealth increases raid difficulty.
Have contingency plans: Keep food reserves and prepare for common disasters like disease outbreaks or solar flares.

Understanding RimWorld's Difficulty System

RimWorld's difficulty system is multi-faceted, combining preset difficulty levels, storyteller AI, and environmental challenges to create a unique experience every time.

Difficulty Levels & Their Effects

Peaceful

Threat Scale:: 0.1× (minimal)
Mood Effect:: +10 (major boost)
Yield Multiplier:: 1.2× (20% extra resources)

Perfect for new players or those who want to focus on building. Major threats like raids are disabled, though you'll still face minor challenges like disease and mental breaks.

This mode is ideal for learning game mechanics and creative building without pressure.

Challenge Level 10%

Community Builder

Threat Scale:: 0.35× (very low)
Mood Effect:: +5 (moderate boost)
Yield Multiplier:: 1.1× (10% extra resources)

A relaxed experience with minimal danger. Threats exist but are small and infrequent. You'll have time to build your colony between challenges.

Good for casual players who want some action without too much stress.

Challenge Level 30%

Adventure Story

Threat Scale:: 0.6× (moderate)
Mood Effect:: 0 (neutral)
Yield Multiplier:: 1.0× (standard resources)

The "standard" difficulty mode. Provides a balanced experience with moderate challenges that most players can handle with some strategy.

Threats are significant enough to keep you on your toes, but not overwhelming.

Challenge Level 55%

Strive to Survive

Threat Scale:: 1.0× (full strength)
Mood Effect:: -3 (slight penalty)
Yield Multiplier:: 0.9× (10% fewer resources)

The challenging mode where RimWorld starts to bare its teeth. Threats appear at full strength and resources are slightly scarce.

This is where experienced players often play for a satisfying challenge without frustration.

Challenge Level 75%

Blood and Dust

Threat Scale:: 1.3× (enhanced threats)
Mood Effect:: -5 (significant penalty)
Yield Multiplier:: 0.85× (15% fewer resources)

A brutal difficulty where the game actively works against you. Threats are larger, colonists are more irritable, and resources are scarce.

Even experienced players will lose colonists on this setting. Requires careful planning and strategy.

Challenge Level 85%

Losing is Fun (220%)

Threat Scale:: 2.2× (overwhelming threats)
Mood Effect:: -10 (major penalty)
Yield Multiplier:: 0.8× (20% fewer resources)

The maximum preset difficulty. The game is actively unfair, with massive raids, constant threats, and scarce resources.

Expect to lose colonists regularly. Even perfect play may not be enough to survive indefinitely.

Some players push beyond this to 500% via custom settings for the ultimate challenge.

Challenge Level 100%

The Hidden Values

Beyond the visible settings, difficulty affects many hidden values:

Adaptation Growth Rate: How quickly the game adjusts to your performance. Higher difficulties have lower adaptation impact (40% at Losing is Fun vs 100% at Community Builder).
Enemy Death on Down Chance: The probability that enemies die when downed rather than becoming potential prisoners. Higher at greater difficulties.
Disease Frequency: More illnesses appear at higher difficulties.
Mental Break Threshold: Colonists break more easily on hard settings.
Food Poisoning Chance: Higher at greater difficulties.

Biome & Environment Difficulty

Your chosen map location greatly affects difficulty, independent of settings:

Difficulty	Biomes	Key Challenges
Easy	Temperate Forest, Arid Shrubland	Balanced temperatures, adequate resources
Medium	Boreal Forest, Tropical Rainforest, Desert	Temperature extremes, disease (tropical), resource scarcity (desert)
Hard	Tundra, Extreme Desert	Short growing seasons, temperature extremes, limited resources
Very Hard	Ice Sheet	Extreme cold, almost no growing season, scarce resources
Hopeless	Sea Ice	No soil, extreme cold, no resources - survival requires advanced strategies

Pro Tip: Starting in an easier biome on a higher difficulty can be more fun than struggling in a harsh biome on lower difficulty. You'll face interesting challenges without constant resource shortages. For cold biomes specifically, check our cold survival guide for essential clothing strategies.

AI Storytellers - The Masters of Your Fate

The AI Storyteller you choose is as important as your difficulty setting. Each creates a different gameplay experience by controlling the timing, type, and frequency of events.

Cassandra Classic

The standard storyteller who creates a steadily increasing challenge curve. Cassandra is predictable in her unpredictability - she'll reliably send threats that grow in intensity as your colony develops.

Storytelling Style:

Progressive difficulty increases over time
Balanced mix of positive and negative events
Predictable spacing between major threats
Strong correlation between colony wealth and raid size

Best For:

Players who want a traditional game experience with a clear progression curve. Cassandra creates a classic "build, defend, improve" gameplay loop that most closely resembles standard strategy games.

Difficulty Assessment:

Medium challenge - The predictable spacing allows for planning, but the steady escalation means you must continually improve your defenses.

Pro Tip: With Cassandra, always be planning for the next major threat. If you've just survived a raid, start preparing for the next one immediately - it will be bigger.

Phoebe Chillax

The friendliest storyteller who gives you long periods of peace between threats. She still sends challenges, but with generous breathing room between them.

Storytelling Style:

Long gaps between major threats
Same events as Cassandra but spaced further apart
More positive or neutral events
Threats still scale with wealth and time

Best For:

New players learning the game, builders who enjoy creating elaborate bases, or anyone who wants a more relaxed experience with occasional challenges.

Difficulty Assessment:

Easiest storyteller - The generous time between threats allows for recovery and preparation. However, the long gaps can create a false sense of security.

Warning: Don't be fooled by Phoebe's kindness. The threats, when they come, are just as severe as Cassandra's. The danger is becoming complacent during long peaceful periods.

Randy Random

The unpredictable storyteller who has no pattern or agenda. Randy might send three raids in a row, or nothing but beneficial events for a year. You never know what's coming.

Storytelling Style:

Completely random event timing and selection
No guaranteed recovery periods after disasters
Can stack multiple threats simultaneously
May provide unexpected bonuses or devastating challenges
Higher overall incident count than other storytellers

Best For:

Experienced players who enjoy unpredictability and adapting to chaotic situations. Randy creates the most unique stories and challenges players to respond to completely unexpected scenarios.

Difficulty Assessment:

Hardest storyteller - Not because he's always tough, but because you can't predict or plan for his events. You might face multiple major threats with no recovery time, or have long stretches of good fortune.

Pro Tip: With Randy, always maintain contingency plans and emergency reserves. Never commit all your resources to one project, as you may need to quickly pivot to handle unexpected threats.

DLC Storytellers

The Ideology and Biotech expansions introduced additional storytellers with unique mechanics:

Igor focuses heavily on combat challenges, sending more frequent and intense raids while reducing other types of threats.

Raid frequency increased by 75%
Non-raid threats reduced by 25%
Perfect for players who enjoy combat and defense building
Less emphasis on disease, weather events, and internal incidents

Winston creates a wave-defense style game with predictable, escalating raid cycles.

Sends raids in waves with clear timing
Displays a countdown to the next wave
Each wave grows stronger than the last
Provides rest periods between waves
Ideal for testing defense designs systematically

Perry creates constant pressure to expand by gradually increasing difficulty if you don't grow your colony.

Discourages turtling strategies
Requires constant progress and expansion
Will send increasingly difficult threats if colony size remains static
Rewards dynamic play and expansion

The newest storyteller (as of 2024) who introduces horror-themed events and challenges.

Focuses on Anomaly events when the void monolith is activated
Creates a horror-game atmosphere with unique threats
Can be toggled between Standard (30% anomaly events) and Ambient (7.5% anomaly events)
Adds another layer of difficulty with psychological horror elements

The Anomaly DLC is the most recent addition to RimWorld's difficulty tools, adding existential horror elements that can be adjusted independently of base difficulty.

How Difficulty Affects Gameplay

Difficulty settings influence every aspect of the RimWorld experience, from events and economy to colonist behavior and enemy tactics.

Wealth and Raid Scaling

Understanding how colony wealth affects raid strength is crucial for surviving higher difficulties.

The Raid Points Formula:

Raid Points = (Base Points + Wealth Factor + Population Factor) × Difficulty Multiplier × Adaptation Factor

Key components that increase raid strength:

Colony Wealth: Items, buildings, animals, and silver all contribute
Population: More colonists = stronger raids
Combat Animals: Trained attack animals add to raid points
Time: Base raid points increase over time regardless of wealth

Important: At high difficulties, a spike in colony wealth can lead to overwhelmingly powerful raids. Testing has shown that keeping wealth under 14,000 silver equivalent in early game has minimal raid impact, while wealth over 100,000 attracts massive threats.

Incidents & Events by Difficulty

The types and frequency of events you'll face changes drastically across difficulty levels:

Event Type	Peaceful	Community Builder	Adventure	Strive to Survive+
Raids	Disabled	Small, Infrequent	Moderate	Large, Frequent
Manhunter Packs	Disabled	Very Rare	Occasional	Common
Disease	Rare, Mild	Occasional	Normal	Frequent, Severe
Mental Breaks	Very Rare	Rare	Normal	Common
Infestations	Disabled	Small	Moderate	Large
Weather Events	Mild	Normal	Normal	Extended
Predators Hunting Colonists	Disabled	Disabled	Enabled	Common

Colony Mood and Needs

Higher difficulties impose significant mood penalties that affect colonist behavior:

Mood Buffs/Debuffs: Range from +10 (Peaceful) to -10 (Losing is Fun)
Food Poisoning Chance: Increases with difficulty
Infection Chance: Higher at greater difficulties
Mental Break Thresholds: Lower on higher difficulties

On Blood and Dust or Losing is Fun, you'll need to pay extra attention to colonist happiness. Luxuries like impressive bedrooms, recreation variety, and fine meals become necessities rather than optional improvements. In extreme situations, you might even need to consider unconventional food sources to survive.

Economy Scaling

Resource availability changes dramatically with difficulty:

Crop Yields: Up to +20% on Peaceful, down to -20% on Losing is Fun
Mining Output: Follows same scaling as crops
Research Speed: Slower on higher difficulties
Trade Prices: Better deals on easy modes, worse on hard modes

This means that on higher difficulties, you'll need to be much more efficient with resources while facing greater threats.

AI Aggression & Pawn Deaths

Enemy behavior changes with difficulty:

Enemy "Die When Downed" Chance: Higher on difficult settings, meaning fewer potential prisoners
Enemy Pawn Quality: Better equipment and stats on higher difficulties
Tactics: More breacher and sapper raids on higher difficulties
Friendly Fire: Reduced on easier difficulties

On Losing is Fun difficulty, expect enemies to use advanced tactics like shield belts, EMP grenades, and coordinated approaches much earlier in the game.

Strategies for Surviving Each Difficulty Level

Your approach to survival must adapt to the difficulty you've chosen. Here are targeted strategies for each level.

These difficulties are perfect for learning the game and practicing base design without constant pressure.

Focus Areas:

Colony Design: Experiment with efficient layouts - our optimal colony layout guide provides detailed blueprints
Farming & Production: Learn crop cycles and crafting workflows
Basic Combat: Practice hunting and dealing with mad animals
Research: Explore the tech tree at your own pace

Tips:

Take advantage of high production and mood bonuses to build an impressive base
Try different base layouts to find what works best
Practice managing power grids, temperature control, and storage systems
Even on Peaceful, disease and cold snaps can happen - have medical supplies and heating
Use this mode to learn systems like hygiene (if modded) and complex mechanics. If you're completely new, start with our comprehensive beginner's guide

These "standard" difficulties offer a balanced experience that requires some strategy but forgives mistakes.

Focus Areas:

Defense Planning: Start implementing proper defenses
Research Priorities: Focus on essential technologies
Resource Management: Balance between building and defense
Mood Management: Create proper recreation and dining facilities

Tips:

Set up a basic killbox or defensive perimeter by mid-game - see our detailed defense strategies
Prioritize research into gun turrets and better weapons
Use natural terrain (rivers, mountains) to your advantage for defense
Implement a recreation schedule to keep colonists happy
Have contingency plans for common threats (hospital room for infections, backup food for blights)
Begin using sandbag walls and basic traps to handle initial raids

This difficulty expects you to know RimWorld well. Even good players will lose colonists occasionally.

Focus Areas:

Advanced Defenses: Comprehensive defensive systems
Wealth Management: Control colony wealth to manage raid size
Colonist Protection: Better armor, weapons and positioning
Contingency Planning: Multiple backup plans for disasters

Tips:

Implement trap corridors and layered defenses - place deadfall traps before your main firing line
Keep a reserve of medicine and components at all times
By mid-game, outfit colonists with at least flak vests and helmets
Use mobility (pack animals or jump packs with Royalty DLC) to outmaneuver threats
Practice wealth control seriously - don't hoard unnecessary wealth
Cross-train skills so you're not dependent on a single colonist for crucial roles
Consider capturing raider recruits as "spares" in case you lose key colonists

At 220% threat scale, the game is actively unfair. Every weakness in your strategy will be tested.

Essential Strategies:

Killbox Mastery

An efficient killbox is practically mandatory at this difficulty. Consider these advanced designs:

Corridor Design: Create a path that slows enemies (use slag chunks or water) leading into a turret crossfire zone
"Burn Box": A sealed room with wooden floors where you can trap raiders and set them on fire, incapacitating whole raiding parties
"Gas Chamber": Use toxic gas (from Toxifier generators or insect corpses) to weaken enemies before they reach your shooters

Advanced Tactics

Micromanagement: Pause frequently to issue precise orders
Door-Peek Tactics: Shoot from doorways then duck inside to break enemy line-of-sight
Layered Fallback Points: Have multiple defensive positions to retreat to if your perimeter is breached
Aggressive Wealth Control: Every piece of gold or unused statue is another raider with an assault rifle

500% Custom Difficulty

Some players push beyond Losing is Fun to 500% threat scale. At that level:

Expect multiple centipede-class mechanoids or dozens of pirates at once
Every trick in the book becomes necessary - psycasts, doomsday rocket launchers, EMP grenades
At 500%, the question isn't if you'll lose pawns, but how long you can stave off destruction

As the game reminds us, "losing is fun!" The stories that emerge from these hopeless scenarios are often the most memorable.

Commitment Mode vs. Save-Scumming

Regardless of difficulty, RimWorld offers "commitment mode" (permadeath) for an ironman experience:

Commitment Mode Benefits:

Creates truly memorable stories as you accept losses and move forward
Forces you to learn from mistakes rather than erasing them
Keeps you engaged with the consequences of decisions
The intended RimWorld experience

Learning with Save/Load:

For new players, reload-able mode can help learn game mechanics
Consider self-enforcing a rule of only reloading on bugs, not to avoid legitimate losses
Use reloads as a learning tool - analyze what went wrong
Gradually transition to commitment mode as you improve

The ultimate challenge many streamers take on is 500% difficulty, Randy Random, commitment mode, no pause - which truly tests multitasking and resilience.

Tools, Mods, and Settings to Manage Difficulty

RimWorld offers numerous ways to tailor difficulty to your preferences, from built-in settings to community-created mods.

Custom Difficulty Settings

RimWorld's built-in custom difficulty menu is your first toolkit:

Key Adjustable Settings:

Threat Scale: Adjust the overall size and frequency of threats
Colonist Mood: Modify the mood penalty/bonus
Crop Yield/Mining Yield: Adjust resource production rates
Disease Frequency: Control how often pawns get sick
Enemy Death on Down: Change the chance that enemies die when incapacitated
Adaptation Impact: How much the game adjusts difficulty based on your success/failure

Wealth-Independent Mode

This important setting (added in v1.2+) fundamentally changes how raids scale:

Raid strength ignores your colony wealth
Instead follows a time-based curve (still scaled by population)
Creates a more predictable challenge curve
You won't be punished for building up your colony
Can adjust "years until max threat" (default ~12 years)
Recovery from losses is harder as raids don't scale down with lost wealth

Wealth-independent mode was designed for hardcore players who dislike the "wealth management meta-game".

Anomaly DLC Settings (2024)

The newest expansion adds horror-themed settings:

Standard Mode: 30% of major threats become Anomaly-related after activation
Ambient Mode: Keeps Anomaly incidents rare (7.5%) for flavor without focus
Disabled: No Anomaly content appears

In-Game Tools & Developer Mode

RimWorld offers some built-in tools to help manage difficulty:

Development Mode: Accessible in settings, it can display your current raid points and wealth stats. For more advanced debugging, see our console commands guide
History Tab: Graphs your wealth and population over time - watch for sharp wealth spikes
Learning Helper: Provides guidance on handling various threats
Work Tab Priorities: Fine-tuning colonist priorities helps efficiency on harder difficulties

Development mode also allows spawning events to practice scenarios or rescue a colony in dire situations - though that's effectively cheating, it's your game!

Must-Have Mods for Difficulty Management

The modding community has produced excellent options to adjust difficulty:

Mod Name	Function	Best For
Raid Limiter	Puts a cap on raid points or enemy count	Players who find late-game raids excessive or performance-heavy
Combat Readiness Check	Alters raid scaling to account for combat preparedness rather than raw wealth	Players who want fairer raid scaling based on actual military strength
Vanilla Storytellers Expanded	Adds new storytellers with different difficulty patterns	Veterans looking for fresh challenges or specific gameplay styles
Prepare Carefully	Customize starting colonists and gear	Removing early-game luck factor at high difficulties
Defensive Positions	Assign and recall battle stations with one click	Managing large battles more efficiently
RuntimeGC	Clean up map junk and keep game smooth	Preventing lag during huge late-game battles
Combat Extended	Overhauls combat to be more lethal and realistic	Players wanting more tactical combat challenges
Incident Tweaker	Disable specific incident types entirely	Players who dislike specific event types like infestations

Most mods can be found on the Steam Workshop or at RimWorld Base for non-Steam users.

Colony Wealth & Raid Calculator

Understanding how your colony's wealth affects raid strength is crucial for surviving higher difficulties. Use this calculator to estimate raid points based on your colony's values.

Colony Wealth (in silver equivalent): Number of Colonists:

Days since colony founded: Difficulty Setting:

Enter your colony values above to calculate estimated raid points.

Note: This is a simplified approximation. Actual raid points also consider adaptation factors, combat animals, and other variables. Use this as a general guideline rather than an exact prediction.

Interactive Wealth Management Decision Flowchart

Use this interactive flowchart to make smart wealth management decisions based on your colony's current situation:

How to use: Start at the top, check your colony's wealth in the History tab, then follow the flowchart based on your situation. Use the zoom controls to get a better view, and click the fullscreen button for detailed examination.

Wealth Management Strategies

Once you understand how wealth affects raid difficulty, you can manage it strategically:

Reduce Unnecessary Wealth

Avoid stockpiling resources you don't need immediately
Process raw resources into useful items rather than storing them
Trade excess wealth for useful but consumable items (medicine, components)
Destroy or gift items you don't need (smelt excess weapons, properly dispose of corpses)

Smart Wealth Investment

Invest in defenses that provide good value (traps have excellent protection/wealth ratio)
Use wealth for items that directly improve combat ability (weapons, armor)
Keep some wealth off-map on caravans or transport pods
Use high-value resources rather than stockpiling them (use gold for wiring instead of storage)

The threshold where wealth begins seriously impacting raid strength is around 14,000 silver equivalent in early game. By mid-game, wealth over 100,000 will attract massive threats. Monitor your History tab to track wealth growth.

Quick Tips for Surviving RimWorld

Here are some practical action steps combining everything we've covered, whether you're a new player or pushing into higher difficulties.

Early Game (First Week)

Secure shelter: Build simple rooms with beds for all colonists
Start food production: Plant crops and build a simple kitchen
Basic defenses: Create a perimeter wall with a single entrance
Get recreation: Build a horseshoe pin or chess table
Store essentials: Create a roofed stockpile for perishables

Mid Game (First Year)

Upgrade defenses: Build a proper killbox with traps
Improve weapons: Get everyone equipped with decent ranged weapons
Research key tech: Prioritize electricity, turrets, and smithing
Establish hospital: Set up sterile tiles and proper medical beds
Plan expansion: Lay groundwork for future growth

Late Game (Multiple Years)

Advanced defenses: Multiple layers of protection, emp weapons
High-tier weapons: Charge rifles, heavy weapons for specialists
Specialized roles: Dedicated crafters, researchers, soldiers
Multiple bases: Consider outposts or alternative settlements - learn about managing multiple colonies
Endgame prep: Work toward ship building or chosen ending

Stories from the Rim - Real Player Anecdotes

Playing RimWorld on high difficulty often yields memorable stories:

One Redditor recounted how on 500% difficulty, a perfectly planned base fell apart due to a chain-reaction of events: a solar flare knocked out defenses during a raid, leading to injuries that caused infections, which coincided with a toxic fallout that killed the crops.

Rather than reloading, they role-played a "phoenix colony" rising from the literal ashes, embracing a cannibal cult ideology to dispose of fallen enemies because conventional food was scarce.

This colony ultimately survived another two years before a mech cluster finally ended it - but the story of their desperate survival became legendary on the forums.

A Twitch streamer faced what appeared to be an "impossible" raid - dozens of heavily armed pirates against their last three colonists with minimal defenses.

In a moment of desperate inspiration, they set their entire wooden base on fire, creating a massive inferno that engulfed both the defenders and attackers.

Remarkably, one colonist survived by hiding in a stone room, and managed to rebuild from the burnt ruins. The strategy was unorthodox but effective - sometimes in RimWorld, sacrificing everything to live another day is the right call.

A player documented their 500% Randy Random Sea Ice challenge, starting with a single naked, cannibal colonist.

Through a combination of hunting the rare animal, eating human corpses, and carefully managing temperature, they survived the first year by living in a tiny 2x2 room.

By year five, they had a thriving colony of eight people living in a fortress of jade walls (transported piece by piece via trade caravans across the ice). Their story demonstrated that even the harshest RimWorld challenges can be overcome with patience and creativity.

Further Resources

To continue mastering RimWorld's difficulty, check out these resources:

Official Resources

Mod Collections

Version History of Difficulty Changes

Version	Date	Key Difficulty Changes
1.1	2020	Renamed difficulty levels (e.g., "Rough" became Strive to Survive). Introduction of custom difficulty settings concept.
1.2	Aug 2020	Added the Custom Playstyle system. Introduced "Fixed Wealth Mode" (later renamed to Wealth-Independent Mode).
1.3	Jul 2021	Turret ammo cost no longer scaled with difficulty. Introduced new raid types like breacher raids to challenge killbox strategies.
1.4	Oct 2022	Added Biotech-related difficulty options like "Children enemies" toggles and pregnancy event frequency settings. See our Biotech guide for advanced content.
1.5	Apr 2024	Introduced Anomaly-specific difficulty settings with Standard (30%), Ambient (7.5%), and Disabled modes.