The problem:
Weather is never an
easy subject. On its face, it looks simple, but let’s consider the real world
that any game system would have to model. Weather is driven by Chaos
Mathematics, which means that tiny changes can cascade into monumental consequences.
A butterfly flaps its wings somewhere at the wrong place and time and you get
different weather 2000 miles away and five days later. So the reality is
difficult to reduce to a simple simulation, which is what you need for an RPG.
Of course, we’re not
necessarily all that interested in accurately modelling real-world physics.
It’s a game, and simulation verisimilitude can and should be sacrificed in the
interests of play-ability as necessary. But even then, there are other problems
that make weather a difficult subject to handle well.
Weather is a non-static
system, where one day’s weather influences, but does not dictate, what happens
tomorrow. That means keeping track of day-to-day events and ensuring that the
trend, over many game seasons, reflects the climate that has been deemed by the
RM to be appropriate to the geography in question, while still providing the
degree of randomness that’s necessary to making it feel real.
Build
Your Weather a Year in Advance
If the location of the
story is going to be fairly predictable, then determine your weather a year in
advance, or for as long as you think PCs will be in the region. (I once
calculated weather for a whole decade because I was RMing a home base
campaign.) This not only gives you an answer for every day of the campaign for
a long period of time, but it helps you do this bit of campaign planning in one
short sitting.
If the location isn’t
predictable, you’ll need to create weather on a shorter term basis, or possibly
mid-session.
Weather
Should Affect
Make the weather affect
the game. How does it impact the PCs? How does it impact their foes, locations,
encounters, and plot points? If you’re going to put thought and effort into
generating weather, then put it to use during encounters and situations.
Weather for pure flavor
is great and is a minimum requirement. Use weather as another way to provide
detail and description. Yesterday the smithy was where the PCs dropped off gear
for repairs. Today it’s a wet and cold place because a chill wind is blowing
rain under the awning and into the work area, and wide streams of water flowing
off buildings and through the middle of streets makes everyone clutch capes and
hoods tightly as they dash between places, leaving no room for identification,
much less chatter.
It also is a good tool for
generating hazards. Consider the risks of being cold and wet, the benefit of
having the wind at your back, and the look of clear skies for direction. As a
bonus, weather can be dropped anywhere outside and provides temporary dangers
to make common routes interesting again.
Game mechanics for
weather effects are good too. They present the group with interesting options.
Is heavy rain coming? If so, should they chance the valley to shave a day off
travel time, or take the ridge to avoid flooding, landslides, and other
dangers?
So, while we all want realistic
weather, please do consider in-game consequences your weather will presents to
characters, encounters, adventures, and campaigns.
Hear is one of the easiest weather systems to
use till you work out your weather in your realm.
Step 1: before game day
roll 2d10 one tells you the stating weather the other tells you the starting
wind
Step 2: Every five
candles of game time roll 1d100 use chart below.
If 1d100 = 1or 100 roll of special event weather.
If 1d100 =2-50
minus one from starting weather and wind total
If 1d100 =51-99 add
one to starting weather and wind total
1. nice
and sunny.
2. lightly
raining.
3. raining.
4. raining
heavy.
5. thundering
and lighting while raining.
6. hailing
small hail.
7. hailing
large hail players take damage if not covered
8. lightly
snowing.
9. snowing.
10.
a blizzard take frost damage if not in
shelter.
wind
1. Blowing
from the north.
2. Blowing
from the south.
3. Blowing
from the east.
4. Blowing
from the west.
5. blowing
from the north-east
6. blowing
from the north-west
7. blowing
from the south-east
8. blowing
from the south-west
9. not
blowing
10.
Changing direction every few minutes.
Special weather
1. Animated
clouds
2. Aurora
Borealis
3. Avalanche,
mudslide
4. Ball
lightning
5. Crop
circle
6. Dust
devil, water devil
7. Earthquake
8. Extreme
temperature shift
9. Flood
10.
Raining Icicles
11.
Colored rain
12.
Meteor shower
13.
Methane rain
14.
Radiation
15.
Raining animals, such as frogs or dead
birds
16.
Reverse magnetism
17.
Solar wind
18.
Sundog - illusion of multiple suns
caused by ice crystals in the sky
19.
Tsunami
20.
Whirlwind
