The importance of the seasons in your adventures/campaigns?

[Desdichado]

In theory I think it's a great idea to keep track of the parties place on the calendar and what's going on around them in the world, and making that an important part of the game.

In practice, though, I usually don't get around to it.

 

[Mycanid]

Hey there J-Dawg...

Don't know if it will help or not, but I usually write a a "boxed text" description of the pc's travelling between main encounter areas emphasizing the seasons of the time, and try to mention it as often as I can.

I would LOVE to be able to mention it to the degree that 'ole Whizbang has been able to pull off! But I'm not as talented as he is....

 

[Ruined]

I try to use seasons to good effect. In the current campaign I started off on a holiday for the final day of spring. Then as the game got into heavy summer, it helped set the scene as the big artifact for the game drastically changed the weather, cooling everything down and causing snows to appear. The premature winter has been a big theme for the game.

I've enjoyed keeping a calendar for the game, but I admittedly have a problem with injecting 'free time' in the game to move the calendar along. My PCs have risen from 3rd lvl to ~17 in about six months time.

 

[Treebore]

Oh bother. I advanced the calendar six months and completely forgot to mention that they're trekking cross-country in late autumn. Cold winds and rain. They probably still thinking they walking through fields of spring flowers. Glad this thread was here to remind me.

Then again, they're in a cave system, so it probably doesn't matter much, anyway.

Actually, if huge mines are anything to judge by, there are a lot of "natural hazards" and climate conditions to mines as well. Usually lots of cold water seeping in from everywhere at deeper levels, say below a 100 feet. Assumng your world has "water tables".

 

[Voadam]

I do a little bit of weather and seasons, but it is mostly background description as the party travels. Usually its somewhere on the continuum of spring to fall, winter has not often been the time of adventures.

 

[DrNilesCrane]

In The 6 Elements campaign, I decided to make the weather / environment fairly harsh: it's a tropical world, so for a fair portion of the day, anyone traveling needs to make Fortitude saves hourly (or every 10 minutes on occasion), for example. My players have all commented that it adds another level of realism to the world and played a significant role in character creation (the party is all lightly armored or no armor, for example).

In The Falconmoor Campaign, the annual town festival played a big role in some earlier adventures, giving the characters (and players) a chance to try out some of the more complex 3rd edition rules (such as grappling and bull rushing) as a part of the festival games rather than in a real combat. The games went over well and the players remember them very fondly, bringing them up even though it's been three or four years since those adventures ran.

 

[RFisher]

Unfortunately, unless I have a specific idea for using the seasons/weather as a tie-in to what's going on in the world or to set the mood, I tend to completely ignore both seasons & weather.

Maybe the one exception was the LotR campaign I ran, in which considering the season just came naturally for some reason.

 

[Mycanid]

Yeah - it's a piece of work to tie in the seasons, and often adventures aim and/or design seem the most surefire way.

 

[Sunderstone]

Holidays.... rarely. Weather and seasons.... Definately. My group even role-plays shopping for specific gear before they set out on a quest in bad weather. I try to be as descriptive as possible for more flavor.

 

[genshou]

I love seasonal festivals, especially in online games.

The seasons can have other effects as well. Winter weather can easily kill low-level characters. Spring rains and melting of the winter snow can make otherwise safe canyons treacherous. In the summer, extreme heat can cause fatigue and heatstroke. And in Fall, allergies just suck, but there's not too much else harmful going on, aside from the orcs coming down from the mountains to steal the harvest.