When 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.
I think I've always rolled for weather (d8 for weather, d8 for wind direction). The only time I'd use set piece weather is if it was part of a published adventure I was running.
Rolling for weather can throw up a lot of cool stuff, eg recently the PCs were sailing south along the Orichan coast towards Rallu when a north-easterly gale blew up, forcing their ship SW into the Straits of Oricha, taking shelter (after sailing check) in islands on the edge of hostile Amiondel Elf territory, and an adventure I'd not expected. They met pixies and captured two Amiondel spies, but they never did reach Rallu!
Quote from: S'mon;1013990I think I've always rolled for weather (d8 for weather, d8 for wind direction). The only time I'd use set piece weather is if it was part of a published adventure I was running.
Rolling for weather can throw up a lot of cool stuff, eg recently the PCs were sailing south along the Orichan coast towards Rallu when a north-easterly gale blew up, forcing their ship SW into the Straits of Oricha, taking shelter (after sailing check) in islands on the edge of hostile Amiondel Elf territory, and an adventure I'd not expected. They met pixies and captured two Amiondel spies, but they never did reach Rallu!
Their sailors didnt know how to tack?
Quote from: rgrove0172;1013993Their sailors didnt know how to tack?
They tacked north ok after the sudden storm blew over. The wind had shifted from NE to I think N or NW by then though.
But I really hate treating voyages by sail as car or plane journeys. Ships do deviate from course, certainly with the roughly AD 900 tech of my Wilderlands ships. It was about a 20 mile deviation in that case AIR.
Oh I was just funnin ya.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1014010Oh I was just funnin ya.
Careful there, I've had a bad few days! :p
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.
As with most random charts, I think it's best to let the dice decide UNLESS you've already rolled a particular result several times before and want something different for a change, or you don't find a seventh straight day of sleet storms (for example) terribly plausible.
Now, if you're using something like the Events Tables from OA (where storms and acts of nature are among many other kinds of events for that day/week/month/year) or rolling dice just for weather, or you decree as DM that a violent thunderstorm will happen the day after tomorrow, you need to play it straight and honest with your players if their PCs have the means to accurately predict weather. Otherwise, you're just being a dick.
Unless I have something planned, it's almost always rolled. Except, as Elfdart posits, when it becomes implausible.
I like both random and set piece weather. But mostly random.
Interesting question. Not something I've really thought about, probably because I don't generally make a great deal of use of weather. I've sometimes gone into a campaign planning to roll random weather regularly, but I've never stuck with it.
Anyway, on giving it some thought my answer is:
If the weather is being described mainly for mood/setting, it will be whatever I think is appropriate.
If the weather is likely to actually have a significant impact on play and is something the PCs should be considering, I'll generally go with random, unless the outcome is pretty much inevitable under the prevailing circumstances anyway.
My moon phases are always either based on the correct phase for the in-game date (including what logically follows from the last phase that was established in game) or, if I don't have that information, determined randomly as required.
Random or (plot-relevant) planned encounter?
There's a third way: use real weather data.
Just a few days ago Oakes Spalding (of the "neo clone" Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-voyages-of-zylarthen-electronic-edition/ebook/product-23389356.html)) published three books about medieval weather data (England (http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-years-of-fantasy-weather-volume-1-medieval-england/ebook/product-23452583.html), Iceland (http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-years-of-fantasy-weather-volume-2-the-iceland-of-the-sagas/ebook/product-23452922.html), Indea (http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-years-of-fantasy-weather-volume-3-indea/ebook/product-23452073.html)).
Last year this was posted here in a thread relevant to this one:
Quote from: Spellslinging Sellsword;904853I haven't done it in the past, but I'm going to include it in my campaign that starts up next month. However, rather than rolling, I'm going to use Wolfram Alpha to access historical data. Even though I'm using the Forgotten Realms, I'm going to just pick a real world city that is approximately the same location/climate as whatever location in the Forgotten Realms the characters are currently at that day. Example:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weather+london+united+kingdom+june+29,+1977
It's really cool with times of day charts for temperature, weather, wind, etc.
In the 80s I thought about noting local weather info in a pocket calendar but never started because I realized that such a project would be too long-term to be usable in my games.
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.
I've used both. Random rolls where needed and occasionally "timed events" that will happen no matter. and with the timed events its usually with forewarning that a storm is coming. But I prefer to have a timed event type weather as an area prepped for a weather condition instead and then leave it to a roll for the if/when it happens.
Depends on the time of year and such too.
On rare occasions I'll open an adventure with a weather type to set mood or later reveal it wasnt natural. Or is the trigger for the adventure. Like the flood in Deep Carbon Observatory. Burned Bush Wells for example starts during a particularly harsh winter.
Quote from: Sable Wyvern;1014100My moon phases are always either based on the correct phase for the in-game date (including what logically follows from the last phase that was established in game) or, if I don't have that information, determined randomly as required.
How 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.
How I treat weather depends a lot on what sort of campaign I'm running. If I'm running a sandbox fantasy campaign where time is continuously tracked then weather matters and it should seem like real weather for the setting. So there I prefer having or creating weather charts to roll randomly or if fantasy land is similar enough to earth, find an earth location as a proxy model for the location in the campaign and use the actual weather. For a historical campaign where time is continuously tracked I'd do the same thing though I might lean more towards using real earth weather as a model.
If I'm not tracking time continuously e.g. in a mission-based campaign, I'm ambivalent about how I do weather. For some missions weather, tide, or phase of the moon may be a key factor or even a necessary precondition for the mission. You might not even send in frogmen for an amphibious attack unless the tide is right and the night is cloudily and/or the moon isn't up. So picking the weather may work better here or having a really simple dice off for the weather.
If I'm playing Star Trek or Star Wars there are way too many planets, climates, and calendars to track weather. There I just pick based on what my initial state is for the setup for the mission.
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?
Sometimes. In Glorantha the Lunar Empire's magic users have a heavy correlation to the lunar cycle for the Red Moon. Which is not at all like earth's moon and which does have a consistent, short (7-day) cycle. In my Honor+Intrigue game certain spells could only be cast during certain cycles of the moon, e.g. some fertility spells needed a full moon and the converse death and decay spells needed the dark of the moon.
Quote from: Bren;1014191Sometimes. In Glorantha the Lunar Empire's magic users have a heavy correlation to the lunar cycle for the Red Moon. Which is not at all like earth's moon and which does have a consistent, short (7-day) cycle. In my Honor+Intrigue game certain spells could only be cast during certain cycles of the moon, e.g. some fertility spells needed a full moon and the converse death and decay spells needed the dark of the moon.
How 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?
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.
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's when the werewolves come out.
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.
Of course there is a difference. If playing in a long-term campaign that is trying to offer a consistent game-world, the weather is an impartial element (or something at the bidding of specific gods or perhaps powerful wizards), and not something the GM uses to deliberately make things interesting by dictating weather results.
Imagine a game where the logistics of travel are an appreciated element of play. Part of the game may be about the pros and cons of what equipment and supplies and people to take on a trip, what time of day to travel, when to go where, and the weather can be a big factor in that. Or it could just be a simple thing about needing clear sky for moonlight to conduct a night attack or cast a spell that requires it or something. That can either be actually up to game systems and dice, in which case the players can play a game about accounting for and thinking of good ways to deal with that, or it can be a game where the GM chooses what the weather is, and can and does either aid or torment them based on what the feels is fun or cool or dramatic (which may or may not be appreciated by the players).
In general, and particularly in an ongoing campaign, I don't want the GM dictating the weather at will. Or at least, I wish the GM would choose the weather usually with some degree of impartiality and fairness and balance, and not for cliche dramatic effect or to prevent a strategy that should work from working because he has control issues.
However, in limited scenarios, or when there is an in-gameworld reason such as an angry weather god or wizard or curse, I don't have a problem with dictated weather.
In an ongoing campaign where the weather starts being suspiciously appropriate to some purpose, though, as a player (and as a PC when appropriate) I'm liable to decide that effectively there is a weather god at work deliberately shaping the weather, based on the evidence. (Reminds me a bit of the rain god who doesn't know he is one in Douglas Adams'
So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.)
Nature is often an overlooked feature that can definitely add something to a game. Weather, fires, phase of the moon etc.
Weather has rarely come up in game, the only time I can recall weather being a consideration was after the party escaped into the wilderness with basically the clothes on their back after a particularly humiliating defeat. We spent a few sessions just wandering about the countryside trying to survive. I think it was the only time that GM ever opened the D&D wilderness survival guide. It was an unplanned thing but turned out to be the most memorable part of the campaign.
I wouldn't have an issue with a dictated weather event being used to influence the PCs if it makes sense. An example I can think of would be a major winter storm being expected and the PCs have a time sensitive journey planned. This pushes them to leave early to beat the storm, but possibly before they are fully prepared, waiting for the storm to pass which might cause time table issues down the road, or push through the storm. Now if it were the middle of summer that would be dumb...
Random works for some situations. If you regularly produce weather in your game then having a major unplanned inconvenience due to weather is fine, but I wouldn't just make random weather rolls out of the blue, unless the situation dictates that minor weather matters. Its winter, so the players need to pack cold weather gear, tracking rainy days, snow days, cold but clear days doesn't really matter as they are prepared for it. If they abandoned all of their camping and cold weather gear so they could haul more loot on the other hand it would make sense to know what kind of hardships they will face, but they should be aware that weather is a factor. Not too cool to let them dump all the camping gear they have never needed and then halfway home go, oh yeah, btw it is the middle of winter and it is snowing, you all die of hypothermia...
Some weather element cards was something I wanted to add to Dragon Storm way back. As additional scene cards.
As for moon phases. Dragonlance had that for wizards way back.
As for werewolves and multi-moon settings. One easy solution was that the transformation was triggered by a specific moon.
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?
Using this entry from OA, I had one group almost get wiped out completely by a randomly rolled storm:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2033[/ATTACH]
I wasn't planning on it -I just rolled the storm as part of daily events. The party was already made up of walking wounded and ended up in a desperate battle with a pair of trolls just so they could use the trolls' cave for shelter. The intensity level went way up because of the storm.
I roll-up weather in advance, usually on a season basis. Why? Because there is weather magic in the game, and those ole' farmers and sailors can be pretty good at predictin' the weather. Where there is weather magic to both predict and control, at least locally, the weather it's good to know. Weather control, IMC, is a high level "game" that is played discretely at the strategic level to mess with another kingdom or help your own. Those adventurers may be able to live on gold alone, but the army needs, grain, horse and hay. Even more important as I nixed the whole create food or water spells long ago.
Almost forgot, weather also makes a big difference for visibility and aerial recon, both of friends and foes.
Quote from: Bren;1014450For 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?
For my setting, I figured the gods set things in motion, but don't bother micro-managing all the day-to-day details that ongoing existence entails. The various nature deities can and do make alterations to the pre-existing pattern as necessary, but only for the really important stuff. The various storm priests and druids understand this, and don't bother trying to alter any and every weather cell that might be somewhat inconvenient, because they understand that less-than-perfect weather is a necessary part of life (and also because they're usually dicks).
It depends on the weather. If you're talking mudslides, flooding, and avalanches then it requires a certain amount of precipitation before it occurs. If I'm randomly generating the weather and the last few days are incompatible with the weather encounter type I treat it as a "no encounter." If I'm planning a weather encounter I build up to as if I'd randomly generated it. Stuff like severe storms/hurricanes are perfectly fine to be rolled or planned and happen almost immediately.
But I should point out that I normally pre-roll all this stuff to cut down on administration at the table. So it is kind of planned.
It depends on where the game is taking place. There was a recent meme about it always being sunny in the Forgotten Realms. Conversely in Ravenloft, the weather is almost never pleasant. One of my modern games took place in a town in Alberta called Heritage (my own Castle Rock/Innsmouth type place) where a fog rolled in almost every night and things rolled out of it which probably was influenced by The Mist as well as living near a Provincial Park where wildlife comes into urban areas at night. This was often combined with sleet and visibility was often zero, defined as under 100 meters though it could get as bad as about 10 meters. You can create a sense of isolation in your own neighbourhood.
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.
I'm sort of planning a Hex Crawl, and part of the exploration aspect I've been considering are exactly that: weather and environmental "encounters". I've been making a list of things but haven't gone beyond that as of yet.
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;1014112Random or (plot-relevant) planned encounter?
There's a third way: use real weather data.
Just a few days ago Oakes Spalding (of the "neo clone" Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-voyages-of-zylarthen-electronic-edition/ebook/product-23389356.html)) published three books about medieval weather data (England (http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-years-of-fantasy-weather-volume-1-medieval-england/ebook/product-23452583.html), Iceland (http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-years-of-fantasy-weather-volume-2-the-iceland-of-the-sagas/ebook/product-23452922.html), Indea (http://www.lulu.com/shop/oakes-spalding/seven-years-of-fantasy-weather-volume-3-indea/ebook/product-23452073.html)).
Thanks for the signal boost!
Actually it's not "real" weather data in the sense of being a transcript of the actual weather of seven sample years for, say, London, Reykjavik or Mumbai. Rather, I designed an algorithm to "crank out" weather for each climate type. The AVERAGE seasonal temperatures, precipitation rates and possible precipitation types for the seasons were designed to be a match in each case, but the actual weather is fictional, if that makes sense. Also I made the weather slightly more exciting (though only slightly). For example, there's a bit more fog and snow in London than there actually is, at least at this time (2017), though I think in two years out of the seven, there's no snow at all. Also, you get the occasional Bifrost Bridge to Valhalla (especially in Iceland), which I'm not sure the weather stations have reported recently. :)
I don't pay too much attention to weather, generally speaking, except when there's something relevant going on like terrain (extremes of cold or hot weather, for example), or sea voyages or the like.
That said, in Dark Albion some of the travel-encounter tables include harsh weather, as well as other terrain features.