Quote from: RPGPundit;826425In your D&D games, do you regularly/meticulously track the weather?

Or only in those rare occasions where you feel it really matters?

I tried doing this a long time ago.  For a stretch of a campaign, I tried using the system in the 1e Wilderness Survival Guide to track weather conditions.  I quit because I didn't feel it was adding anything to the experience.

Now the only way I track weather is just to maybe add a weather condition to match the mood I'm looking for in the episode.  I don't use any system to generate weather or to generate forecasts or anything.

Ocen voyages and long overland treks yes. Especially ocean voyages as I was used to that from BX D&D.

Other times an adventure is so short that the weather is not likely to change dramatically from start to finish. Others may have a change depending on what it was doing when the group went in and when they came back out.

Like its raining when they enter the dwarven mountain highway, but suns out by the time they make it to the other side.

Now Oriental Adventures on the other hand, tracked events more closely as it could have a impact on holdings and yearly events.

I'm notorious for it. The groans of the players when I broke out the Wilderness Survival Guide was like the music of angels to my ears. I collected their tears too for cocktails later.

These days I keep to general weather and seasons and regional climate patterns. But hell's yes I use weather. It will remarkably set the tone of a place if you drill it into them. It doesn't even have to be weather that's negative. I've often used beautiful weather, perfect environment, to make it seem peaceful and pleasant... and my players will have that stick in their memories.

One of the best adventures I've done with that is playing on the Shaar - which is like sub-saharan savannah. Dry and hot. And it was summer time - so the PC's were natives but stranded out there when their draft horses died in a gnoll attack. The environment was their new enemy and they had a hundred miles to cross to get home. Respect nature! It brings the mundane aspect of the world into full focus.

It's a wonderful GM tool.

For my Greyhawk campaign, I let this online weather generator. It implements the method from the Glossography in the 1983 box set — previously published in Dragon, I believe. I run the thing for a in-game month, take a screenshot, consult when needed. It's had pretty profound effects on the campaign, like heavy rains making rivers unfordable, then continuing for a few days and making travel impossible... and obliterating tracking information that would have been mighty useful to the party.

Wouldn't mind a similar gizmo for the Wilderness Survival Guide method...

it becomes a lot less important when your not on the material plane there is the occasional odd weather but quite often what is normal is deadly enough

Avernus has a forecast of high heat and great masses of fireballs hurtling through the sky

meanwhile torrent the 148th layer of the abyss is expecting thunderstorms and strong winds

Quote from: Barbatruc;826565For my Greyhawk campaign, I let this online weather generator. It implements the method from the Glossography in the 1983 box set — previously published in Dragon, I believe. I run the thing for a in-game month, take a screenshot, consult when needed. It's had pretty profound effects on the campaign, like heavy rains making rivers unfordable, then continuing for a few days and making travel impossible... and obliterating tracking information that would have been mighty useful to the party.

Wouldn't mind a similar gizmo for the Wilderness Survival Guide method...

That's pretty cool. That made me think, I wonder if someone did one for Harn. Sure enough, yep.

http://www.phantasia.org/miju/rpg/harn/generators.html

Of course I do.  Honestly, I can't imagine how a GM would think that traps, enemy soldiers, pickpockets or diseases could be appropriate environmental/static things that can screw with a party, but that weather's either inappropriate or too much bother.  

Say what?  It's more trouble to determine precipitation/temperature/wind a day than to come up with umpteen one-shot throwaway -X to disarm Type Q poison needle traps?

Anyway, my parties travel a lot.  The bulk of that travel is by sea.  Weather impacts a lot of plots.

For instance, both my groups are in around the same place, and the rain/storm season has just hit.  For the one group, the coup and subsequent rioting in the capital city has been heavily affected by the several days' worth of thunderstorms tending to keep the protesters indoors.  A serious problem with the coup (and the PCs interacting with it) was the terrible hurricane last year that not only flattened Shanteytown -- with the PCs pitching in to help rebuild, and therefore gaining sympathetic ears in Shanteytown when the PCs wanted to gauge the level of unrest among the lower classes -- but the Hall of Records as well, causing horrible problems with trying to recreate the Kingdom's financial and tax records (those being burned by the losing side of the coup).

For the other group, attempting to rescue the one remaining member of the royal family not accounted for was seriously impeded by the weather -- the thunderstorms and high winds grounded the capital's saddle birds, and the princess was in the next province over.  Let's just say they made some suboptimal decisions.  :nono:

I use tables geared to the seasons, based loosely on Shadow World's charts -- unlike many other generators and tables, they reflect that a weather situation can last for days, and that a certain type of weather will usually follow a front.  When I just want a fast determination, though, I just roll a d10 three times: once for temperature, once for precipitation, once for wind.  Low = cold/lots of rain/little to no wind, High = scorching/dry/gales.

Love that generator, BTW, Barbatruc.  Thanks for posting it.

I make reaction rolls. If the weather is hostile, you get whatever counts as the worst for the current season. If the weather is friendly, it's the best weather for that season.  Follow up rolls are relative to the starting weather: it either gets better, worse, or stays the same.

Quote from: talysman;826617I make reaction rolls. If the weather is hostile, you get whatever counts as the worst for the current season. If the weather is friendly, it's the best weather for that season.  Follow up rolls are relative to the starting weather: it either gets better, worse, or stays the same.

Neat idea. So I suppose the party gets the member with the highest CHA to look out and check the weather each day?

Quote from: talysman;826617I make reaction rolls. If the weather is hostile, you get whatever counts as the worst for the current season. If the weather is friendly, it's the best weather for that season.  Follow up rolls are relative to the starting weather: it either gets better, worse, or stays the same.

I like it.

Quote from: talysman;826617I make reaction rolls. If the weather is hostile, you get whatever counts as the worst for the current season. If the weather is friendly, it's the best weather for that season.  Follow up rolls are relative to the starting weather: it either gets better, worse, or stays the same.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;826634Neat idea. So I suppose the party gets the member with the highest CHA to look out and check the weather each day?

I wouldn't give the bonus unless the character was a weather-worker or otherwise able to communicate with nature spirits. On the other hand I wouldn't apply a penalty, either, unless a character has a generic curse, or one specific to weather. Or if a member of the party defilade the temple of the sky god, for example.

I have in a few games. I try to keep it in mind. Only game I actually put real effort in I had a calender for the campaign world (Matched ours) and had the holidays for various gods and individual races on it so I added the wather for the central campaign on it temp, winds and humidity so I could always reference it to see what was going on that day. The Calender also doubled as a way for me to keep track of things like when projects for players would be done if they had something being built, special events for the players etc. It worked really well. If the players were outside the central area I just adjusted the weather which was usually  the  tempature for being further north or south etc. Not exactly accurate but it seemed to the player I had it all planned out.

Only when it really matters, which is my general rule for everything.

Quote from: talysman;826617I make reaction rolls. If the weather is hostile, you get whatever counts as the worst for the current season. If the weather is friendly, it's the best weather for that season.  Follow up rolls are relative to the starting weather: it either gets better, worse, or stays the same.

I'm doing something similar for the adventure module I'm working on, except that the individual d6 rolls determine specific details of the weather.

Quote from: ptingler;826584That's pretty cool. That made me think, I wonder if someone did one for Harn. Sure enough, yep.

http://www.phantasia.org/miju/rpg/harn/generators.html

Oof, not just weather but maps, manors, vessels, households, price lists. Thanks for sharing!