Weather in Campaigns

[was]

I am interested in seeing how people deal with the weather in their campaigns. Do you closely keep track of seasonal weather? Do you roll randomly on a weather chart? or do you ignore the weather completely?

 

[Balesir]

Depends on the campaign. For HârnMaster I use the (excellent) Hârnic weather system and generate weather watch-by-watch during "action-intense days". For D&D or 13th Age I just use weather that fits the scene.

 

[steeldragons]

I keep track, in a general sense of seasonal variations. Occasionally, and completely at my own discretion/entertainment, there might be a serious heat/cold wave fora week here or there, a thunderstorm/blizzard/hurricane/tornado depending on terrain and season is generally a 1-3 per season thing (unless something funny/weird is going on), things like wildfires/droughts/long-term snow-ins/floods are rare..but happen. There's really no set mechanic for these but depend on story considerations or, as I said, my own amusement...and/or just to shake things up every once in a while and/or force the players to deal with their environment.

 

[Umbran]

I've found that most of the time, weather doesn't add enough interest to make it worth tracking.

Basically, weather is usually, "Gee. It is raining. Huh. Okay, we go into the lair...."

If I'm working a set piece, for which particular weather is especially important for flavor or plot, I'll include it.

This is aided and abetted by the fact that these days, I generally use an "upkeep cost" mechanic instead of having the party do detailed shopping. If they pay their upkeep, they have food, shelter, clothing, and gear appropriate such that the details of day-to-day weather are not much of an issue. If and when the characters go somewhere they don't have access to supplies or suppliers, then it may become plot-relevant, and I'll choose some tracking method for the weather and the resources used to handle it.

 

[Morrus]

Like Umbran said, weather is best used as a set-piece environmental effect in encounters, along with terrain.

This is the super-rainy encounter. This is the one in deep snow. This one has lava. This one is underwater. This one is on ice. This one has gale-force winds. This one is zero-g.

Tracking it? I tend to be more vague. If it's winter, then then it's winter for a bunch of sessions, and occasionally that might matter in individual encounters. Not all the time to the extent that players get bored and annoyed with penalties.

 

[Celebrim]

I am interested in seeing how people deal with the weather in their campaigns. Do you closely keep track of seasonal weather? Do you roll randomly on a weather chart? or do you ignore the weather completely?

I used to use random charts but now I have a tendency to just copy weather events from the appropriate time of year and geographic location from a weather almanac.

 

[S'mon]

I roll a d6, 1 is rainy/snowy, 6 is bright/clear, with gradient in between depending on the season. I wish I had a weather die but I have to make do with a d6.

 

[JuliaFor9]

We usually ignore the weather.

 

[Artifact]

Unless the weather matters to the story, I just look out the window. If it's raining outside for instance, then it's raining during the encounter.

Just enough so weather isn't being outright ignored.

 

[Sunseeker]

Every area of the world has "mood weather". Swamps are dank and drizzly. Coasts are foggy, jungles are humid. I added some random effects for extremes of these conditions in place of random monster encounters.