Thursday 14 June 2012

Weather

Hurricane? What are the chances?
Weather is either important or not important.
  1. It can be important in its own right - eg, a hurricane.
  2. It can be important because the players need something from it - eg, a favourable wind.
So, for an area, make a set of encounter table sub-table for weather rated by uncommon, rare, and very rare. Stick "roll on weather sub-table xxx" as a line on the appropriate encounter charts to cope with #1. If you're doing something where weather comes more to the foreground for some reason, then put the contents directly on the main charts. This means weather will alert you when it has become important.

For #2, when the players ask what the weather's like, roll a weather encounter directly and judge accordingly. If the weather indicated is "common" then it is not note-worthy - not unusually hot or cold, wind in the prevailing direction etc. Don't bother making an actual encounter chart for common weather.

If it's not important, don't waste time on it. Do not come up with a massive table which you roll on each day. The weather is "normal for this time of year in this place" unless the tables alert you otherwise.

Also: "earthquake" is not weather, not even in Greyhawk.

1 comment:

  1. My players often complain about it always being rainy in my campaign, must be a result of my upbringing in the North-East!

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