How do you handle weather?

Zulgyan · Apr 18, 2007

The DMG Guide system seem a bit to much complicated for me. I want a simpler, more game friendly weather system.
Just how do you handle weather?

Edheldur · Apr 18, 2007

Zulgyan said:
The DMG Guide system seem a bit to much complicated for me. I want a simpler, more game friendly weather system.
Just how do you handle weather?

I created a script based on the weather system presented in Wildscape.

CleverNickName · Apr 18, 2007

Zulgyan said:
The DMG Guide system seem a bit to much complicated for me. I want a simpler, more game friendly weather system.
Just how do you handle weather?

I put weather changes on my wilderness random encounter table. The weather will always be typical for the region and time of the year, unless a random encounter roll indicates that it will change.

For example, the party is traveling through the desert. The weather will be sunny and hot during the day, with cool starry nights...but sandstorms and storm downbursts are common this time of year. So I put these two things on the wilderness encounter table, with about a 7-10% chance of occuring and having a duration of 2d6 hours. If a random encounter result indicates that a weather event is moving in, the party gets to make Survival checks to notice the hazard and seek shelter before it is upon them.

This way, the weather events can be customized to a particular region, and the party never knows when or if a sudden storm, fog bank, blizzard, etc. is going to catch them off guard.

arnon · Apr 18, 2007

If you mean how do i decide what the weather is, then I do whatever fits the story at the time and place.

arnon

SteelDraco · Apr 18, 2007

Usually I don't pay a bit of attention to it. When I was running a sea-based game, Bad Weather was one of the most common encounters on the table, so it came up a couple of times. Sometimes, I'll roll luck for the group at the beginning of the day, and use that to determine how nice it is. If it's not nice, what's going on will be based on where they are and what time of year it is.

Getting much more detailed than that doesn't seem all that interesting to me, so I don't do it. If it's dramatically appropriate, guess what? It's raining. Or thunderstorming. Or whatever.

Nifft · Apr 18, 2007

Generally it's a few circumstance penalties for an encounter, if I remember to impose them.

Limits on visibility due to rain or mist, wind reducing ranged attacks, etc. They're generally ad-hoc (-2 or -4).

Cheers, -- N

lukelightning · Apr 18, 2007

I have a pre-made calendar for my campaign and figure out the weather for a week or so in advance. I just mark any days I think there is going to be special weather (rain, high winds, dead gigiloes falling from the sky, etc.).

Zulgyan · Apr 18, 2007

arnon said:
If you mean how do i decide what the weather is, then I do whatever fits the story at the time and place.

arnon

This kind of aproach is not very apropiate for plot-less, free-form gaming I am most acustumed to. That's why I prefer some random generator or such.

lukelightning · Apr 18, 2007

Then there is always the good old "if they ask, it's raining" method. I was really bad like that; any time anyone asked about or brought up the weather I automatically decided it was BAD weather.