Is weather too much to seriously track?

[TheYell]

I'm building a tropical continent with desert and savannah and steppe and mountain and jungle.

I was thinking the coldest weather would be the mountains, a straight D100, then D100+10, then D100+20, then D100+30, and finally D100+40 in the desert. Rolled daily by the GM.

And I rated the armor ingame to account for heat effects, from gaining 5F for quilted cloth, to +15F for banded mail.

Having written it all out...is it too much to bother with? Does it make you go "Oh neat, tropical heatstroke" or are you pining for the fjords to read it?

[brian 333]

I'm building a tropical continent with desert and savannah and steppe and mountain and jungle.

I was thinking the coldest weather would be the mountains, a straight D100, then D100+10, then D100+20, then D100+30, and finally D100+40 in the desert. Rolled daily by the GM.

And I rated the armor ingame to account for heat effects, from gaining 5F for quilted cloth, to +15F for banded mail.

Having written it all out...is it too much to bother with? Does it make you go "Oh neat, tropical heatstroke" or are you pining for the fjords to read it?

There is a line between useful and not, marked out by each DM, based on as many factors as the DM deems important.

In most games I never tracked weather. If players asked I would roll the dice and decree what I thought thematically appropriate no matter what the dice said, (though the dice usually decided how I described it.)

In my nautical campaign I had daily weather checks with a D12/D6 roll to determine the time of day the weather changed. It was heavily die-modified and cross-referenced based on location, proximity to land, and a hundred other factors. A greatly reduced version of that was used when my adventurers crossed the Ashaggstagg Mountains.

So, the question is really, how important is weather to your campaign? A simple random 2d6 chart is enough for background, with severe weather at the extremes, if all you want is flavor. If you want detailed 'realistic' weather, you may need more elaborate mapping of global weather patterns. The latter is only necessary if your game really needs it.

So, what does your game need? That question answers yours.

[TheYell]

thanks Brian 333

I think.... it matters, I want them to catch a serious weighty impression of this continent as a seething cauldron of trouble. Dodging its weather and its tropical diseases will be a part of the adventure.



Climate Zone Winter Spring/Fall Summer

Mountain 0+2d20 40+2d20 50+2d20
Steppe 30+2d20 50+2d20 60+2d20
Savannah 50+2d20 70+2d12 80+2d12
Jungle 60+2d12 80+2d10 90+2d10
Desert 0+2d20 70+2d20 90+2d20

giving the following ranges

Mountain 0-40F 42-60F 52-90F
Steppe 32-70F 52-90F 62-100F
Savannah 52-90F 72-94F 82-104F
Jungle 62-84F 82-100F 92-110F
Desert 0-40F 72-110F 92-130F

[aimlessPolymath]

Temperature is relevant (particularly high or low temperatures), but precipitation and cloud cover might be more directly impactful and visible to players. Getting soggy socks feels awful.

Other sources of general discomfort to bring in:
-Mosquitos or other insects.
-Humidity.
-Fog.

[Notafish]

I'm curious what the systems for heatstroke and diseases are.

As far as the weather goes, it sounds like heat is for sure going to be part of this game, and it does make me wonder whether other weather effects might be cool to add, if only to enrich the verisimilitude. If you are in the mountains, is there a chance of a blizzard or thunderstorm with little warning? Do some regions have a monsoon? If you are on the savannah, can you predict the weather in advance by reading the clouds? The neat thing about background effects like this, is that they don't necessarily need to take table time unless you have a tradition of rolling for everything in front of the group.

[brian 333]

In The Hobbit the only time it rained was the time Gandalf refused to do anything about it. (It served a narrative purpose.)

Why you want weather is the most important consideration. Everything else should flow from that. If you want it for flavor, complex tables with lists of deleterious effects are unnecessary and potentially annoying for players.

If weather is plot relevant or an inescapable aspect of the campaign, such as per round fire damage on the elemental plane of fire, then by all means, use it.

I advise that there should be positive effects, such as windy days aiding stealth or still days aiding listen checks to offset the negative. Perhaps a warm afternoon adds the effect of doubling rest time, so four hours of lazy afternoon equals an 8 hour rest. Whatever. Just avoid thinking of weather as just an obstacle.p

[TheYell]

I wanted to tell a story of a looming continental war.
Magical climate change would be a great mechanism. Somebody Done Things to the weather, and populations are being uprooted and tensions are high.

I like the idea of a balmy weather day that heals faster. The nomadic tribes would chase those paradise zones and trespass doing it. This serves the sinister ends of the weather wreckers.

Roll d100, 1 is
Mountain blizzard
Steppe cloudburst
Savannah brushfire
Jungle mosquito swarm
Desert sandstorm

100 is balmy Eden weather

[Lacco]

I'd suggest looking into the whole Weather Hex Flower thingamajig.

The best thing is that you can have some unpredictability, but you can also slowly simulate the climate change by 'moving' the whole table up/down/sideways.

[LibraryOgre]

My very simplified weather system is to roll two d10s, one designated Pressure, and the other designated Temperature. The relationship between those tells me the general weather for the day.

[TheYell]

My very simplified weather system is to roll two d10s, one designated Pressure, and the other designated Temperature. The relationship between those tells me the general weather for the day.

That, taken with tables to decide the immediate temperature, should do nicely I think.

[brian 333]

A linear die roll, such as a single die or multiple dice generating an equal chance for any result, tends to generate wild swings.

Example: a d100+20 for temperature F generates temps between 21F and 120F. So far, so good. But on Day 1 I roll 100F, and on Day 2 I roll 30F, Day 3 I roll 119F, day 4 43F, and so on.

If wild swings are desired there you are. If you want temps to change more rationally, a deviation scale might be better, such as a d20 with numbers from 11 to 20 indicating how much hotter and numbers from 1 to 10 indicating how much colder than the current temperatures it becomes.

Dice which generate bell curves are better for setting absolute scales. Say, for example, you want your average temp to be 90F. Your coolest temp of 80F and warmest temp of 100 allows the generation of a thermometer you can use to generate any temp in that range using a 3d6 roll which will average 90, but give possibilities of any temperature on the scale, with decreasing odds of the extremes and increasing odds of the median. More dice in the roll tends to more median results, while fewer tends to result in more extreme results.

So, how radical you want your weather to be can be scaled by the number and size of the dice used to generate the result.

[Ionathus]

Why you want weather is the most important consideration. Everything else should flow from that. If you want it for flavor, complex tables with lists of deleterious effects are unnecessary and potentially annoying for players.

This is my answer too.

Whenever I consider a worldbuilding/narrative decision that isn't covered by explicit rules₁, I default to my personal DMing axiom: will this force the PCs to make an interesting choice? If not, I skate by it with only a little bit of flavor to set the scene:

"The day is warm, warmer than normal, as you make your way towards the Mountains of the Lost. Your sweat is carried away by the dry winds coming down off the mountains, chilling you in short bursts that punctuate the heat."

The only time I do any significant rolling, mechanics-building, or effects on the PCs is if it will actually force them to make an interesting choice. For example: "Your metal armor is baking in the sun; you'll have to take it off or it will be like you're affected by the Heat Metal spell once per hour." This is only interesting if the PCs taking their armor off is likely to become relevant. If you just make the PCs stop to do bookkeeping about their Armor Class and then nothing comes of it₂, that's boring. But if it's a decision they have to make while they're worried about ambush, then that's a real tradeoff.

Same thing for travel time. I see a lot of new DMs worried about how long travel time should be between destinations. It's the same answer: "exactly as long as it takes to make for an interesting decision." Obviously you should strive for some consistency, but nobody at your table is gonna pull out the Pythagorean Theorem to question your mapmaking skills. Roads can be good or bad, weather can slow you down, detours happen, etc. It's all in your hands as the DM.

Again it's the same: will the amount of travel time you establish force an interesting choice? If not, then don't worry about it and fast-track them to the next thing. If so, then clearly establish the decision. "It's 5 days back to Cromperton by the main road, but as you discovered earlier, that road is crawling with bandits. You can instead take the back roads and get there in 8 days, but that puts you back in Cromperton with only hours left before the Mayor drops your contract. Even a single delay on the road and your pay might be docked, severely."

TL;DR - when designing non-combat encounters, I always try to measure in number of PC decisions. If it's 0, it's not good for anything but flavor, and I try to keep things moving (unless the PCs want to slow down for some RP chatter).


1. which comes up a lot in 5e, the system I play, I assume you're talking about 5e too
2. You can also create the illusion of danger where none exists, of course. The important thing is that the PCs consider both outcomes to be significantly bad, enough that the decision is worth worrying about.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Yes +1 more for "only if it impacts the game play with meaningful player choices".

The only time I seriously tracked the weather was in a sailing ship game - I heavily modified the standard weather tables, adding trends of weather, prevailing winds, etc, and plugging it all into XL to generate days of conditions in advance.

Of course, this was because the weather at sea can be an encounter in itself.

Once the game moved inland, I kept the tool (I'm not throwing all that work away!), but only used it for flavour descriptions.

[TheYell]

Sounds like I should publish average temperatures in terrain types for the seasons and let the GM add weather for narrative effect.

I confess. I want the players to be Sam Neill. I want them to crouch in the dust over a spent arrow and growl "Lufhi Orcs. Out the desert on a summers raid. We ain't gonna catch'em less we lighten our armor.". Not because I tell them about heat and armor but because they lived it in character.

[Thane of Fife]

I confess. I want the players to be Sam Neill. I want them to crouch in the dust over a spent arrow and growl "Lufhi Orcs. Out the desert on a summers raid. We ain't gonna catch'em less we lighten our armor.". Not because I tell them about heat and armor but because they lived it in character.

By and large, if you want people to think and care about things, they need to matter on a mechanical level. For example, in Breath of the Wild, people care about the temperature and climate because they affect your ability to do things; in Skyrim, they don't matter, so people don't care. In most tabletop RPGs, people don't care about the date or what kind of trees are nearby; in Fantasy Wargaming, those sorts of things affect a wizard's ability to cast, so now people care.

So if you want people to think the way you describe, you need a system that makes temperature and armor encumbrance important.

[brian 333]

Buy in and opt out options are necessary.

When the players buy into the rule, they anticipate something fun, or snometting interesting.

I once mentioned the jackelopes in my Badlands region. The players nodded and thereafter never mentioned them again. My players did nothing with it. I had ideas that a horn would be useful as a magic component, extra soft fur, listen potion ingredients, etc. but the players never bought in and so my jackalopes never amounted to anything. The players didn't buy in.

Opt out options include a variation of the airy water spell. Once players figure out how to get around the weather penalties, the weather won't matter any more.

Get the players engaged in the idea, let them figure out advantages and how to manipulate them, and your idea will work.

[TheYell]

To encourage people to explore and make friends, the map is full of tribes who each know some of 30 dancing & singing rituals. The rituals will do things like boost ability scores, grant immunity to damage types, boost skills, permit rerolls, for up to 8 days. The more tribes you befriend the more magic you get, because once you know a ritual, you can duplicate it when you want. Gonna go after a lich king? Do the ritual of immunity to negative energy first.

But this requires trekking through the heat to find the tribes.

I think, I will publish a higher than usual temperature as the average for each terrain type, and leave it to the GM to create extreme weather for a narrative hook. That way fatigue and heatstroke can be factors people experience but not erratically and for its own sake.

[Yakk]

Tracking temperature at granularity of 1 degree (I assume F?) is (a) not something PCs are likely to be doing, and (b) too much detail for the simulation level you are typically playing an RPG at.

I'd care about hazards.

1. Appropriate clothing for the weather. You'll have typical weather for a given climate and season. You probably only need a few of these.

2. Extreme weather situations. Storms, etc.

For most situations, "Hotter than normal", "Colder than normal" and "Normal" cover the temperature ranges for a given Season, Place and Time of Day.

Then add in Cloud (clear, overcast, hazy, fog), Rain (none, light, heavy) for most areas, with some areas (like Deserts) getting instead Wind. In fact, the sub-weather table can be different.

We then define a bunch of temperature bands with mechanical effects; you can describe them in degrees F or C if you want, but the important part is the mechanical impact.

Maybe use a modifier an adjective.

Arctic +/- 1
Cold +/-1
Moderate +/- 1
Hot +/-1
Searing +/- 1

Arctic -1 is midnight at the south pole, so like -50.
Searing +1 would be like death valley on a hot day, so like +50 C (or 130 F).

As this is 100 C and 5 steps, each is about 20 degrees C. It is also 180 F, so 36 F each step.

In C, I'd make the bands overlap. So Arctic +1 is the same as Cold -1, and each step is about 10 degrees C.

Then have (half) daily and weekly modifiers that are [-1, 0, +1]. Roll 1d4 (1 or lower is -1, 4 or higher is +1, 2 or 3 is +0) adding the previous modifier to the roll (weather is sticky, usually). At night, most areas are 1 step colder. If you don't have a previous value? Just roll flat.

So a Hot +0 baseline seasonal temp could hit Searing (Hot+2) or drop down to Moderate (Hot-2), or even Moderate -1 on a cold night.

Areas with a more stable climate can use 1d6 instead (1 or lower is -1, 6 or higher is +1) or even 1d8 or more.

Dunno if this is too much.

[LibraryOgre]

For most situations, "Hotter than normal", "Colder than normal" and "Normal" cover the temperature ranges for a given Season, Place and Time of Day.

Then add in Cloud (clear, overcast, hazy, fog), Rain (none, light, heavy) for most areas, with some areas (like Deserts) getting instead Wind. In fact, the sub-weather table can be different.

That's the basics of my 2 ten-siders... one for relative temperature, one for pressure.

Arctic -1 is midnight at the south pole, so like -50.
Searing +1 would be like death valley on a hot day, so like +50 C (or 130 F).

As this is 100 C and 5 steps, each is about 20 degrees C. It is also 180 F, so 36 F each step.

Hackmaster does it in 20*F steps.

Polar -20*F
Arctic 0*F
Winter 20*F
Normal 40-80
Hot 80+

Go below -20, and even polar-rated clothing won't protect you from the Con loss to frostbite.

[Yakk]

That's the basics of my 2 ten-siders... one for relative temperature, one for pressure.




Hackmaster does it in 20*F steps.

Polar -20*F
Arctic 0*F
Winter 20*F
Normal 40-80
Hot 80+

Go below -20, and even polar-rated clothing won't protect you from the Con loss to frostbite.

Huh? At -40 C (equal to -40 F) you don't want to *sprint* or *get wet*, but in good clothing you aren't gonna catch frostbite.

It drops under -20 F every winter around here. I mean, it did prior to global warming speeding up; now it only drops under -20 every 2 years or so.

And people go outside without frostbite.

[Telok]

Huh? At -40 C (equal to -40 F) you don't want to *sprint* or *get wet*, but in good clothing you aren't gonna catch frostbite.

It drops under -20 F every winter around here. I mean, it did prior to global warming speeding up; now it only drops under -20 every 2 years or so.

And people go outside without frostbite.

Mostly it's about duration. Often an hour or four isn't an issue, but overnight or 12+ hours can do it. Modern times we just don't do those 12 hour bits without modern extreme weather gear and specific prep.

Fully on topic, what's I'm planning on doing at some point "soon"^TM is to grab a year of historical general weather (temp, rain, cloud, wind, general stuff) for assorted terrains at assorted latitudes. Just stick those into a spreadsheet/printout and every time the question of weather comes up take the next day/current date weather for the local terrain/climate mix. No rolling & figuring, just a quick lookup.

In theory if a game went a whole year in one area it could be an issue for repeats, but most games end up bopping around a fair bit (or being 100% inside a controlled climate for stuff like Paranoia).