Moon - in my Wilderlands the Moon is on an approx 28 day cycle, whereas months are 30 days. I only track the date of the full moon, then work out the rest from there if necessary. Mostly for flavour, sometimes it (moonlight) might affect the DCs for night stealth & perception checks.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1013988When preparing a game most GMs include a mix of random adversaries and challenges and a few that are planned.

It seems the weather could be approached the same way. The GM generating random weather when its really not an issue or purposefully plugging in a storm or heatwave when it lends something to the adventure.

Is this they way you approach weather in your game, or do you do something different?

I have read a few times that some believe weather should always be random, that forcing a snow storm or something is GM overstepping and yet GMs place specific monsters in a room or bandits on a road all time. Is there a difference? If you think so, explain.

Weather is something I believe all the GMs & players I ever met and played with pretty much ignored, with the exception of a storm-oriented druid (of the GM who moved to UK), and my personal attempt at making it a core part for a campaign set more or less in 'pirate era' Caribbeans.


I remember that I created a weather list to roll for at every major location (such as on every island, but not if you're still on the isle just in a different village) and I also had another list to roll for the wind direction (with a chance for none) too. Plus another roll during longer naval journeys. I don't know anymore how ship combat and movement was affected by these (did I make those up or were they in the system already? I know it wasn't D&D but don't know what it was), but I remember the 1996 Age of Sail and the first Port Royale games inspiring me.

The weather had a great effect on travel speed, risk of naval trading (the best method to make income, unless you were a pirate), obviously for sea combat as well (cannons, accuracy, ect), even land combat (especially with bow and guns). The players had to pay for /fix their ship now and then, but also their enemies/NPCs had the same problems. A big storm might drive up prices in a settlement for various goods needed for construction, or be seen as a chance to invade/raid during or after one.

As I recall, it was fun, but damn hard to keep my eye on it. I basically went with plausible, realistic cause/effect system. I barely ever predeterminated what weather there would be except in extremely few cases, like during an aristocratic night ball in Havana or an immense storm which caused two gold fleet ships to sink which triggered the story, and had everyone risk their luck and health to grab the riches (while the storm still raged on). One result as example was that players/their characters cheered for good weather when they went somewhere for market day or festivities. (as they might miss out on goods or events) It was one of the last campaigns I've ran as GM before my group broke up. (which I wrote about elsewhere)

Lately I've been giving more into the idea that gods control the weather in my setting (which is pretty much the assumption in the cosmology, but it has taken me a long time to shake out of the idea that it means it rains because the god of southern winds wants it to). That also means any deviations from normal weather could signify something significant, so I've been world events, even player actions on occasion to help shape the weather.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1014219Lately I've been giving more into the idea that gods control the weather in my setting (which is pretty much the assumption in the cosmology, but it has taken me a long time to shake out of the idea that it means it rains because the god of southern winds wants it to). That also means any deviations from normal weather could signify something significant, so I've been world events, even player actions on occasion to help shape the weather.

I didn't think about this but you're more than right. In a game with gods it's supposed to be more common that weather truly represents something like the current mood of a god, or that a storm is (as historically often depicted) the result of two gods clashing in a duel.

Weird weather would also be more 'plausible' due to active gods, like blood rain, 'snow'flakes made of sugar, acidic mist, or even see in the sky a battle between the sun and a moon (which mortals would hope neither side wins permanently)

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;1014179How do moon phases influence your game - are you using a magic system that relies on lunar cycles, or is it mainly for colour description? I ask because I'm contemplating tracking lunar phases for a dark fairytale type WFRP game, but I'm not sure whether it's worth the effort, especially since one of the moons is random and erratic.

It has a significant effect on night-time visibility -- it determines when the moon actually rises, and how much light it provides while it is in the sky. Whenever my players are planning a night op, someone always asks me the moon phase, because they know I'm going to take it into account.

It's obvious in retrospect, but a lot of people don't actual realise until they think about it that, just because it's night, doesn't mean the moon is necessarily even out. And, if it is out, a crescent has almost no effect on visibility, while a full moon on a clear night gives a surprisingly significant amount of light.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;1014193How does that work out in gameplay? Do players get excited about planning rituals around brief windows of opportunity, or does it just feel like a limitation on when they can do stuff?

In Glorantha the Lunar Empire were usually the opposition. So in play it mainly directly effected the NPCs not the players. Mechanically half moon meant your normal Lunar Runic magic was available at normal effect and cost. Dark moon meant less than normal spells i.e. lessened effect, greater magic point cost, and/or fewer spells available. Full moon meant enhanced spells, i.e. increased effect, lower magic point cost, and/or more spells available. (I may have some details wrong since I'm going from my memory from decades ago. But its correct enough to give you the general idea.)

In Honor+Intrigue there were no PC spell users. Spell users were not just the opposition. They were all some degree of evil. How it effected the PCs was that eventually after reading about witchcraft, consulting some experts, and tracking when human sacrifices had occurred they were able to determine when the next ritual would occur. By noticing the locations and sites where the sacrifices occurred formed a pentagram they were able to predict where the next ritual would occur. So at the right time and place they set up an ambush for the witch. Which mostly worked.

Quote from: Bren;1014297In Glorantha the Lunar Empire were usually the opposition. So in play it mainly directly effected the NPCs not the players. Mechanically half moon meant your normal Lunar Runic magic was available at normal effect and cost. Dark moon meant less than normal spells i.e. lessened effect, greater magic point cost, and/or fewer spells available. Full moon meant enhanced spells, i.e. increased effect, lower magic point cost, and/or more spells available. (I may have some details wrong since I'm going from my memory from decades ago. But its correct enough to give you the general idea.)

In Honor+Intrigue there were no PC spell users. Spell users were not just the opposition. They were all some degree of evil. How it effected the PCs was that eventually after reading about witchcraft, consulting some experts, and tracking when human sacrifices had occurred they were able to determine when the next ritual would occur. By noticing the locations and sites where the sacrifices occurred formed a pentagram they were able to predict where the next ritual would occur. So at the right time and place they set up an ambush for the witch. Which mostly worked.

Ah that makes sense, thanks. So lunar cycles could be used to track NPC wizard power levels, and locate NPC villains. I was thinking of adding some PC-facing moon magic, but thought it would be best to treat full moons as a "bonus" situation rather than a requirement. I could also see lunar cycles being important for games that include a significant number of lycanthropes.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern ;1014297It has a significant effect on night-time visibility -- it determines when the moon actually rises, and how much light it provides while it is in the sky. Whenever my players are planning a night op, someone always asks me the moon phase, because they know I'm going to take it into account.

It's obvious in retrospect, but a lot of people don't actual realise until they think about it that, just because it's night, doesn't mean the moon is necessarily even out. And, if it is out, a crescent has almost no effect on visibility, while a full moon on a clear night gives a surprisingly significant amount of light.

Good point, once you're out of the city you realize how much light the moon is really responsible for (and also that the sky has a ton of stars). I suppose in a game with PCs who are prone to sneaking around at night without torches or darkvision, it would be worth tracking.

If you want to focus more on the lunar cycle you also have to consider if/how things like clouds or storms hiding the moon affect the magic.

Random weather generation for me.  The weather doesn't care about the player characters and whatever adventure they're undertaking; sometimes they have to adjust their plans accordingly.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1013988When preparing a game most GMs include a mix of random adversaries and challenges and a few that are planned.

It seems the weather could be approached the same way. The GM generating random weather when its really not an issue or purposefully plugging in a storm or heatwave when it lends something to the adventure.

Is this they way you approach weather in your game, or do you do something different?

I have read a few times that some believe weather should always be random, that forcing a snow storm or something is GM overstepping and yet GMs place specific monsters in a room or bandits on a road all time. Is there a difference? If you think so, explain.

When it is not important, weather is random.

When it is important for things like travel by ship, then it is random.

When it is important to the scenario, then I have no problems saying that today is stormy, or hot, or windy or whatever.

And weather makes such a lovely plot element, too.  So the party's responding for a desperate plea for help from a mountain hamlet where they have friends, which arrived just a couple days before the winter snows closed the passes.  How do they get there, and how does the three feet of snow over everything affect the adventure?

If I came up with a really cool weather based idea, I'd probably do up a random weather chart and trigger the "adventure" when they hit that kind of random weather.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;1014349I could also see lunar cycles being important for games that include a significant number of lycanthropes.

Good point. I missed that. For my H+I campaign I ran three separate werewolf encounters. The first wasn't really a werewolf, he was a madman who people thought was a werewolf. The next was an actual werewolf who was cursed to change. He wanted revenge (for some pretty good reasons actually) and he did a deal with the devil to try to get his revenge. The third werewolf was one of the victims of the second one. The real werewolves only turned near or on the full moon (basically the night of the full moon +/- 24 hours or so). That process was not under their control. So the lunar cycle was important for the timing of when trouble would occur. Since the campaign was set in 1620s France I had a full moon on the dates when, historically, the full moon occurred.

Quote from: Tulpa Girl;1014394Random weather generation for me.  The weather doesn't care about the player characters and whatever adventure they're undertaking; sometimes they have to adjust their plans accordingly.

For some settings this makes sense. For others, such as those with active deities and/or non-scientific explanations and non-natural causation for weather the weather actually does care, or at least the weather you get is a manifestation of the cares of the storm god. Have you honored his holy days and made all the appropriate sacrifices?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1014441If I came up with a really cool weather based idea, I'd probably do up a random weather chart and trigger the "adventure" when they hit that kind of random weather.

If the adventure doesn't happen until (i) the right weather randomly occurs for a situation you have in mind and (ii) the PCs are in the right place, that also seems contrived and no less unnatural than the GM just picking the weather out of a hat because it makes for a more  interesting situation.

Depending on what you mean by triggering an advnture based on random weather giving you the appropriate or interesting weather and PC presence isn't any more natural than picking the weather to make an interesting encounter.

Maybe, but it would be more interesting for me.  Maybe they're all beat up when it happens?  Maybe they're carrying a shitton of treasure?  Who knows?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1014452Maybe, but it would be more interesting for me.  Maybe they're all beat up when it happens?  Maybe they're carrying a shitton of treasure?  Who knows?

OK. I get that. I too like being surprised by some events in the game I'm GMing. It's one major part of the appeal for me of using random encounters and events. Consider my prior comment more of a metaphysical observation.