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Weather in your Games?
- Thread starter Mark CMG
- Start date
LostSoul
Adventurer
I was going to start a thread yesterday on this topic! Cool.
I'm trying to build a better weather/precipitation table for my hack. And I am failing horribly. I want something that is short and simple and affects the game in the following ways:
Increases travel time
Reduces visibility (encounter distance, combat modifiers, low-light vision)
Requires extra resources (HP, rations)
Causes fatigue
I need a forecast so you can see what's coming up, and I want seasons to have an effect.
Any ideas?
I'm trying to build a better weather/precipitation table for my hack. And I am failing horribly. I want something that is short and simple and affects the game in the following ways:
Increases travel time
Reduces visibility (encounter distance, combat modifiers, low-light vision)
Requires extra resources (HP, rations)
Causes fatigue
I need a forecast so you can see what's coming up, and I want seasons to have an effect.
Any ideas?
the Jester
Legend
I love using weather in game. "Can't travel today, there's a blizzard!"
Sometimes the weather can be a major adventure hook too- "the crops froze, how do we prevent a famine?"
Sometimes the weather can be a major adventure hook too- "the crops froze, how do we prevent a famine?"
Some cheap and dirty ideas:
barring teleportation, the PCs experience of weather is always localized. They are not likely to travel fast enough/far enough to actually see a meaningly difference in weather. As such, you only need to roll for the weather as "current relative to the PCs current position"
You could then roll up weather on a day by day basis (or get fancier) that you describe to the PCs. But not actually worry about modelling complex weather patterns.
Exceptions:
if the PCs do teleport (or other really fast travel to some place far enough to justify different weather) then there is even chances that the weather is the same, better or worse. You could easily just flip it. If it's raining where they started, it is NOT raining where the end up, That contrasts that they moved far enough away.
If the PCs arrive at a new destination, and the past local weather becomes important, just roll it up, like you did for the PCs.
Determining weather:
assuming your world has the same 4 seasons, either cheat and use last year's actual weather. Or make some fun tables. Make a table for each season. List out weather that ranges from nice and sunny to worst weather possible. Arrange the table in order for nicest to worse (so it progresses).
Then randomly pick a starting point on the table. Each day, the weather moves position on the table up or down by a 1d4-2 increment. Thus weather gets worse or better, but not supersonically radical.
You could actually roll multiple times per day (to better model weather changing over the course of a day).
You could pre-roll all this on your calendar for the year, so you basically know what the weather is all the time (less likely to forget, easier to incorporate into your descriptions).
That's Janx's free weather system.
barring teleportation, the PCs experience of weather is always localized. They are not likely to travel fast enough/far enough to actually see a meaningly difference in weather. As such, you only need to roll for the weather as "current relative to the PCs current position"
You could then roll up weather on a day by day basis (or get fancier) that you describe to the PCs. But not actually worry about modelling complex weather patterns.
Exceptions:
if the PCs do teleport (or other really fast travel to some place far enough to justify different weather) then there is even chances that the weather is the same, better or worse. You could easily just flip it. If it's raining where they started, it is NOT raining where the end up, That contrasts that they moved far enough away.
If the PCs arrive at a new destination, and the past local weather becomes important, just roll it up, like you did for the PCs.
Determining weather:
assuming your world has the same 4 seasons, either cheat and use last year's actual weather. Or make some fun tables. Make a table for each season. List out weather that ranges from nice and sunny to worst weather possible. Arrange the table in order for nicest to worse (so it progresses).
Then randomly pick a starting point on the table. Each day, the weather moves position on the table up or down by a 1d4-2 increment. Thus weather gets worse or better, but not supersonically radical.
You could actually roll multiple times per day (to better model weather changing over the course of a day).
You could pre-roll all this on your calendar for the year, so you basically know what the weather is all the time (less likely to forget, easier to incorporate into your descriptions).
That's Janx's free weather system.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
In FRPG I chart and track seasons, and have simple weather tables for each season, which I use to generate weather some time in advance (which gives some meaning to Predict Weather or related skills).
Often the weather is window dressing which enhances the general atmosphere, occasionally it turns into a significant part of the adventure (I still remember the PCs desperately trying to keep their horses alive in a terrible blizzard, while making their way back to the border)
Often the weather is window dressing which enhances the general atmosphere, occasionally it turns into a significant part of the adventure (I still remember the PCs desperately trying to keep their horses alive in a terrible blizzard, while making their way back to the border)
Kaodi
Legend
I think I picked up this link from another thread here, or maybe on Paizo's boards: Weather Forecast & Reports - Long Range & Local | Wunderground : Weather Underground . If you look there you can see what the actual weather was for a given place and date, covering up to the last ten years maybe. If you keep track of dates in your campaign, it would be easy to just pick a year and month and choose an appropriate analagous place to where your campaign is and you get weather that is very... realistic, 
.
.Well, people who live in regions where there are certain weather patterns tend to adapt to them. It's the extremes, and visitors, when odd things happen.
Pick a city somewhere in the world where the climate is like that in the area the game is taking place in. Look up what weather they have for a month or so. Use that.
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