Weather Matrices for Real Locations [Simulationism]

[Celebrim]

I like weather generation systems, but for the last 20 years or so rather than programming one or rolling the dice at the table I just look up the weather at some real-world location and that becomes the weather for the day in the game. I can track things down to the hour that way.

The internet changes things.

 

[el-remmen]

Back when I cared about such things, I just went the Farmer's Almanac route, and used historical weather data. Nobody's going to notice if you cheat and use November 18th's weather data from 1986 for November 18th, 2032.

I used this method for years.

 

[aco175]

Similar to what @Milieu said, just add a % in the chart to use the next month or previous month to get something more extreme. Although I do like just having 4 seasons with 3 months per chart instead of 12.

I'm a big advocate of simpler over complicated. One chart per kingdom is better than 4, which is better than 12. Depends on that you are after in terms of more realistic or how it plays at the table. I tend to just make up the weather if it is even needed in the game that night.

 

[Bill Zebub]

On the one hand this is way too much simulationism for me. I just don't care.

But on the other hand, I can't help but imagine a software weather simulator where you define, hex by hex, your game world, and then it generates weather patterns for every hex. Just input the date, click on your hex, voila.

That would be kind of cool.

 

[aco175]

On the one hand this is way too much simulationism for me. I just don't care.

But on the other hand, I can't help but imagine a software weather simulator where you define, hex by hex, your game world, and then it generates weather patterns for every hex. Just input the date, click on your hex, voila.

That would be kind of cool.

I could see something that references a real world place to make it easier. One could take Seattle weather and make it match to Waterdeep for example.

 

[The Firebird]

Similar to what @Milieu said, just add a % in the chart to use the next month or previous month to get something more extreme. Although I do like just having 4 seasons with 3 months per chart instead of 12.

I'm a big advocate of simpler over complicated. One chart per kingdom is better than 4, which is better than 12. Depends on that you are after in terms of more realistic or how it plays at the table. I tend to just make up the weather if it is even needed in the game that night.

One chart is hard, because you need to have rules to move around the chart based on season. E.g., maybe you have results in the range 01-200, roll a d100, and add +50 for summer, -50 for winter. You won't get very realistic results in an absolute sense. But for many tables it will be enough.

12 tables, though, feels overwhelming to me.

I could see something that references a real world place to make it easier. One could take Seattle weather and make it match to Waterdeep for example.

Agreed! One of my goals for the project is to compile some fantasy cities and tie them to real locations, so you can get tables for Waterdeep or Baldur's Gate or Minas Tirith.

On the one hand this is way too much simulationism for me. I just don't care.

But on the other hand, I can't help but imagine a software weather simulator where you define, hex by hex, your game world, and then it generates weather patterns for every hex. Just input the date, click on your hex, voila.

That would be kind of cool.

That's a really interesting idea. It hadn't occurred to me. The weather generation will not be challenging. But having a place where a user can upload a hexmap and mapping etc. would be.

Maybe the right approach would be to integrate the weather generation with an existing hex map program, like worldographer.