When teams start the Oregon Trail Game at the Baker County Public Library, each member receives a paper tombstone. If a calamity kills someone along the way, such as cholera or a snake bite, the player marks the gravestone with initials and leaves it at the stop.

Would you have survived the Oregon Trail?

You can give it a try at the Baker County Public Library’s live action Oregon Trail Game — as live as it can be without actually contracting cholera.

Library employees Missy Grammon and Heather Spry based the activity on the computer game that was developed in the 1970s and used in schools to (somewhat) simulate the Oregon Trail experience.

Stations will be set up around the library, 2400 Resort St., for about two weeks. Anyone who played the original Oregon Trail Game will recognize the rudimentary font used for each sign.

“Missy found the font,” Spry said.

Teams of four to six start at the front desk to get supply cards and a giant die to roll.

“You also get a gravestone to put your initials on when you die,” Grammon said.

Notice she said “when” and not “if” — the Oregon Trail Game, like the actual trail, is full of danger.

At each stop, the team rolls the die. If the number is even, the team moves to the next stop. If the number is odd, players must draw a calamity card.

“You definitely want to get as many evens as possible,” Grammon said with a laugh.

Calamities include snake bites, cholera, typhoid, dysentery, freezing weather, starvation and the death of oxen.

“95% random death. That’s real,” Spry said.

Supply cards — bullets, food, clothing, medicine, extra oxen — can help survive a calamity.

“The more people you have, the better your chance of success,” Grammon said.

Teams can resupply at forts along the way, but supplies can also be lost in a river crossing.

And, if someone dies, their supply cards must be discarded “along with the calamity that murdered you,” Spry said.

Those who make it to Baker City receive a keepsake memento. And, Spry said, those who die along the way get a pin to commemorate the cause of death.

“Calamity: measles,” she said.

Also, the paper tombstones with initials can be added to the stop where a calamity befell the group.

The Oregon Trail Game can be played any time the library is open. Hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday.