Quote from: Bren;905602Welcome. Thanks for posting.

I agree day length and lunar phases are important. My Honor+Intrigue game is set in France. Most of Europe is pretty far north. For example, Paris (48.8566° N) is farther north than Quebec, Canada and farther north than almost everywhere in the continental USA outside of a tiny bit of Minnesota. It doesn't make it colder than Quebec, but day length is even longer in the summer and shorter in the winter than it is in the USA. I ran a loup garou adventure in the middle of winter and both the very short day and the phases of the moon mattered a lot as the PCs planned their hunt. I recently posted a bunch of links to sites that allow you to calculate an annual calender, the lunar phases, day length, and stuff like that for both the past and the future.

Your version of Paris is in the Arctic?

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_United_States

Or did you mean the contiguous United States?

Quote from: Matt;905603Or did you mean the contiguous United States?

Yes I did. I owe you a beer.

Quote from: Spike;905593On a similar note, rather than a play anecdote, I have in the past used old almanacs and calendars to track dates and weather conditions. Not extensively, especially the almanacs... another great GMing plan that didn't quite play out as I'd hoped, but I do hate all these 'near future' games that just assume we either already know if the fifth of august in, say 2050 is a Tuesday, or assume we don't actually care.

I fucking care! Give me at least a starting point!!!   Though, of course, computers have solved that little problem for me.


For the record? It's a friday. Expect bad traffic in the afternoon getting out of the megaplex.

Back circa 1980, we found that the Yellow Pages phone directory had a page with a chart that would let you determine the calendar for various years. We used them in our campaigns. Nowadays, computers have functions for that, too.

Thank you everyone for your responses.  It's been very interesting.

If I may ask a followup question and narrow the scope a little: for those of you that run hexcrawls or similar sandbox games, do you have weather generators?  Do weather patterns play any part in your hexcrawling?  Do players take assumptions about the weather into account when planning their expeditions?

Quote from: daniel_ream;905698If I may ask a followup question and narrow the scope a little: for those of you that run hexcrawls or similar sandbox games, do you have weather generators?  Do weather patterns play any part in your hexcrawling?  Do players take assumptions about the weather into account when planning their expeditions?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Quote from: RustyDM;905586Of course, it's still easy to foil characters who want to travel at night during a full moon, as I can "fudge" complete cloud cover to dim the light below a usable value.

Welcome, Rusty!

But here's my question: why would you want to, as a matter of course?  If the group's well-rested, and the lighting is good, what's wrong with them choosing to do that?

Quote from: daniel_ream;905698If I may ask a followup question and narrow the scope a little: for those of you that run hexcrawls or similar sandbox games, do you have weather generators?  Do weather patterns play any part in your hexcrawling?  Do players take assumptions about the weather into account when planning their expeditions?

I do have weather tables I've done up, somewhat based on Rolemaster's set, a different set for each season.  It certainly impacts play: one group just last week got stranded in a city for a crucial two days longer than planned, when I bucked out on a midwinter roll, and they got one of those epic once-a-generation blizzards that dropped four feet of snow, with 30+ mph winds, and unseasonable high tides that caused extensive coastal flooding.

As far as weather patterns go, yes.  Prevailing winds are from the northwest in the aforementioned city, which heavily impact sea travel.

Do the players take weather into account in planning.  Happily, they're not morons.  Travel during "storm" season is very dicey at the best of times, and sea travel in winter is asking for frostbite.  The current group's had to travel in the mountains in early spring, where there's still deep snow in the upper reaches, mudslides are possible, and late snowstorms can happen.  Chance favors the prepared mind.

Quote from: Ravenswing;905752Welcome, Rusty!

But here's my question: why would you want to, as a matter of course?  If the group's well-rested, and the lighting is good, what's wrong with them choosing to do that?

Well, in my DMing of way back around 1980, the party wanted to be able to trail a bad guy to the bad guy's hideout in the countryside. It would have been too easy for them to just follow the baddies tracks from town, so I had a thunderstorm come up which totally obliterated the baddie's tracks. That meant the good guys (& gals) had to find some alternate way of finding the hideout. Eventually, they talked to the right folks at the local tavern, and those folks spilled the beans (after the party had bought the bean-spillers copious amounts of alcohol).

It was the same with the party wanting to go somewhere by traveling when the moon was full--it would have been too easy for them to get where they wanted to go, and I felt I had to give them more of an obstacle by causing the clouds to obscure the moonlight. I wouldn't always do that, but sometimes you just have to slow the party down a little.

Did someone else mention that it's also important to know the moon phases if you have any lycanthropes lurking around (or maybe even main characters)? You can't have a full moon every other night to trigger were-changes!

RustyDM

Quote from: daniel_ream;904801The use of weather is a staple in most fiction, but I've rarely seen it figure in to most RPGs. The assumption seems to be that it's pretty much always a mild 20° partly cloudy day with no wind in every RPG everywhere.  The old Greyhawk boxed set had fairly sophisticated weather rules, but I know of no one who ever used them.

How about you?  Have you ever used (or had a GM who used) weather as part of the background setting in your RPGs?  How was it used?

Yes, I use weather.
I have used the Greyhawk tables. These days I am more likely to use an online weather generator.
Weather affects things like overland travel, sea travel, tracking, and sometimes combat.

I might make arbitrary calls about weather. Gods make it so.

Quote from: daniel_ream;905698Thank you everyone for your responses.  It's been very interesting.

If I may ask a followup question and narrow the scope a little: for those of you that run hexcrawls or similar sandbox games, do you have weather generators?  Do weather patterns play any part in your hexcrawling?  Do players take assumptions about the weather into account when planning their expeditions?

Yes, the season and location and terrain and recent weather contribute to the likelihood of future weather. I generate the weather in detail in advance for the expected PC locations, and put it on the calendar I use to track what's going on. Weather of course has major effects on the situation, including travel time, visibility (especially at night), audibility (try being outside in the countryside at night - you may be able to hear for miles, until it starts raining or there's a wind storm, etc), effects of being outside on hiking and camping and equipment and loot & supplies & animals, how camps and night shifts are set up, use of campfires, game availability, what clothing & camping gear & effects have what effects, levels of rivers, what people in the countryside are doing, sailing, storm hazards, and so on. Players take weather into account or risk possibly having very inconvenient results. Some plans have had major weather considerations involved - it can make stealth and escape much more easy or difficult, etc., especially if you prepare in unexpected ways.

Weather can be really interesting and add a lot of depth to play... unless there's magic & tech in the game which makes it largely irrelevant with various "convenience" abilities that remove most such elements from play. At least, until those become unavailable for some reason. It also makes for some interesting risks. Um yeah you drove off that goblin attack... except for the one you didn't notice stealing your rain gear, or the fireball that missed and hit your tent, or the horses that panicked who were pulling your wagon with a bunch of your gear on it, or the lightning bolt that hit the magic item you were using to keep everyone warm & dry so you wouldn't need to pack winter clothes... too bad you are 300km into the wilderness. Etc. Those considerations are another reason why I like hexmap tactical combat, so such events are determined by what actually happens on the map, rather than by possibly unfair GM rulings. The line of fire of that fireball really did happen to end up on the tent, and there are rules for the chance the miss hit the tent at that range given the obstacles...

Quote from: RustyDM;905899Did someone else mention that it's also important to know the moon phases if you have any lycanthropes lurking around (or maybe even main characters)? You can't have a full moon every other night to trigger were-changes!

That was probably me.

I have a weather die I use. With a little 'English' on the results based on the previous day. Though even in the real world weather can be real weird.

I live in Canada. Snow gets used a lot.

Quote from: Krimson;906363I live in Canada. Snow gets used a lot.

A fellow Canadian!  Hello!  For my part I tend to avoid snow...

Krimson and Haffrung live in the same neighbourhood.

Me, I live in the Centre of the Universe.  I'll buy you a beer if you're ever in town.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;906394A fellow Canadian!  Hello!  For my part I tend to avoid snow...

I have a fictional city that I use often called Heritage. I use fog a lot for that city as it's kind of my Castle Rock but with more Wendigo.