My campaign started as a "stealth Spelljammer" plot where I used the old Level 0 funnel "Treasure Hunt" from 1e, but rather than having just random pirate slavers kidnap the party, it was a a Spelljamming galleon. When they shipwreck, it's a biodome that is attached to the inside of the Realmspace crystal sphere. Well, to hide the fact from the denizens within, there's a thick mist high in the "sky" obscuring the dome and everything outside of it. As such, whenever my players would ask, "What's the weather like?", I'd answer, "It's overcast." Week after week, session after session they asked this, one person or another (it's a big table that whittled DOWN to 8 players), and I just kept saying "It's overcast." Finally, a buddy of mine joined the table as a PC who lived most of his life within "the dome" and when they FINALLY asked, "What about the sun, do you ever see the sun?" He says, "Well of course, it's right there!", pointing to the hazy, overcast sun behind THICK clouds. "No no no, we mean the sun, with a blue sky!" "Blue sky? No, the sky is black at night, white during the day except where it's bright yellowish around the sun, and then it's really gray and darkish on a stormy day." Damn I had fun with that.
I use the Harnworld 1st edition weather generation tables to determine weather(I like the stuff for Harn, just can't stand some of the more fantastical elements and the naming systems that are a part of the setting). Weather is a huge issue in my games. Disease, equipment damage, and just finding shelter are part and parcel with adventure. The adventure stories of my youth featured weather and the hardships weather brings prominently. Rain is nice for a bit, but traveling in it for any length of time sucks. Morale checks are necessary to get NPC hirelings or henchmen to go out in it, especially when a nice cozy shelter is available. My more antagonistic NPCs are also affected. Bugbears and the like are normally nocturnal, but rain may bring them out in the day to hunt. Certain events like the revelation of new dungeons are also sometimes triggered by weather(random roll).
I’ve got one word friends.. flood! Add persistent rains that flood your hex crawl. The local populace and remote monster lairs, cemeteries (undead), even Fey encounters are all turned upside down by vast swaths of rushing waters. Abandoned hamlets. Desperate refugees. Stranded farm peasants need rescue. Travel becomes a slog with unseen dangers below the murky surface of rushing floodwaters. Exhaustion rules can add more pressures for your party. Fresh drinking water? Have fun! 👍🏼
This comes with great timing, Imma be running a homebrew setting for DCC, Im calling Fimbulwinter island, where its always winter all the time due to a curse by the gods. And now weather, alongside undead hordes, are the biggest challenge that presents itself as players travel to and from their hometown. With even day and night cycles lasting extended periods of time (weeklong day and weeklong night).
Great timing, I just started running my first hexcrawl in my duet campaign. I'm using weather as flavour and kind of a minor hindurance with a bit of game abililty. It's mostly a exposure type thing. If travelling in incliment weather, PCs need to be wearing a travel cloak. If not, they gain -1 to hit and attack rolls until dry. Same thing for rest; if a PC is outside of a tent during the rain they get the same negative effects.. The latter works out nice because I have a scaricity issue with the starting town and there was only one 2 person tent, and there are 3 PCs. Now they have to choose who gets the negative effects in a storm. Though after this video, I wil think more about weather as a story element. I like the idea of a Wizard or portal causing odd weather in the vicinity.
I have an area in my world that has perfectly predictable seasonal beginnings and endings. The people that live there attribute it to the deities of Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall having absolute harmony with one another, but the truth is a much greater adventure.
I mainly use weather as "flavor" and to add some realism to travel. I like the idea of the PCs experiencing the weather. Consider the wet and weary travelers, happy to finally reach an inn to get out of the rain. Also, don't forget that you can have the weather change through the day: "You wake up to fog obscuring everything beyond 100 yards. As the sun rises and warms up the day, the fog burns off." Time saving tip: if you already have a calendar for your game (which you should), just go through and roll up the weather for the entire year at one time, marking it down for each day. Then you have it at your fingertips when you want it and you look like a pro when you rattle off the weather at the start of Every. Day. This also puts you in the habit of verbalizing the weather and makes you more conscious of weather, which may prompt you to influence the weather as part of your ongoing story *("hmm... I want them to experience a harsh storm, so I'm going to narrate a day ahead that the PCs notice a change in the weather ~ the wind picks up, and by nightfall a heavy cloud cover has moved in...") Lastly, if you do pre-roll your weather for the calendar year, consider rolling up about 3 years worth. That way you can almost certainly recycle the weather and the players will probably not even notice ~ *Unless you forget and have that harsh storm hit them again at the same time as last year. ...how odd? Must be a coincidence!
Hi Daniel, great video and ideal format for this topic. It’s taken me 40y to realise the AD&D rules were meant to be used in a modular fashion. So, use weather if you can deal with the consequences: hex crawl yes, heroes have two days to cross the land and save the world then no. Like you I have tried tables. I wrote a great table with d6 rolls for temp, wind and precipitation. Pluses and minuses for desert, arctic, winter, days and night. Used it once. At the end of the day I want something like a 2d6 reaction roll so if I can’t find the page with the table I can wing it. After your video I am gonna try this with The reaction categories affecting just movement, movement plus visibly, or movement plus visibility plus damage. Instead of damage, The much maligned 5e exhaustion mechanic is actually great for weather effects as it is so flexible and can deal with both heat and cold. The other thing to do is tax Hit die instead of direct damage.
I used weather in my Tomb of Annihilation while they were hex crawling across the map. I made a spreadsheet and randomly determined a years worth of weather (and the random encounters). It really helped me track time. The weather wasn't impactful, it just cost them a little extra time on storm days. The player's really didn't care.
@@BanditsKeep - yes, in ToA there is a doom clock with the death curse, but it doesn't directly affect the players. It's more of a nudge. I think it helped make the jungle feel reel.
Interesting timing. Not only am I working on a game that takes place in perpetually muddy 1600s Flanders, but I am working at a second-year Ren Faire in south Louisiana, and we are feeling the cold in Austin & Dallas on top of the persistent rain we've had. Lots of atmosphere going on ... Alot of the difficulty in travel here has involved a lack of want-to, as much as the terrain. However, we musicians have been rolling with advantage, as hot drinks, dry haybails, and decent shelter have been appreciated to our patrons.
I do calculate the precipitation and intensity of the wind when I plot out the calender of the events in my campaign. It doesn't come up except in very extreme cases (severe winds make shooting a bow a risky proposition), but if nothing else it gives extra color to the Realms. I respect any referee who goes all out and makes things difficult for their players to travel long distances or navigating in remote and wilderness areas.
One important effect in hexcrawling is visibility and navigation. Weather that impairs these can be a hindrance too. A sandstorm can make it hard to move but also to see where you are and force the PCs to make camp. A fog doesn't stop people from walking, but it can impair visibility. This might be a good time to make a roll for navigation, using whatever mechanic you choose. Either this triggers a navigation roll to avoid walking in a circle on the spot, weering to the side or making a turnaround. Or you make your navigation roll but it is harder, again depending on how you do navigation. Any sort of encounters gets a much higher surprise chance. This is where you walk through the sleet and find those 50 orcs looking at their maps, and they are most likely just as surprised to see you as you are. It's also an opportunity to avoid encounters, if you leg it how are they going to catch you in the sleet? Visibility into the next hex, if you allow such a thing from vantage points and lookout masts, is gone. You can climb a firewatch tower and see nothing but more fog around you.
Your Gibbering Wizard video inspired me to start using hexflowers to track weather in my games. It transitions between weather smoothly and I usually put dangerous weather events at the top and bottom so they can stack with any random encounters that might happen. I'll usually also roll 2d12 to see how long the weather will stay in a certain hex.
Great video over a good topic! Since I run a 1e style campaign with my rules, checking weather is important (druids gotta call lightning when they can ya know 😀 ). I have the players roll for it on a graduated table. For an example of what I mean by graduated table, if it has been a stormy day today then there'll be slightly higher than usual chances for rainy or overcast tomorrow, though it still could be a sunny day. It just depends on the roll. There are variances for seasonal weather and while the campaign takes place in basically the middle reaches of a temperate zone, there was a different chart used when they found themselves in a tropical zone after going through a portal. Weather adds a lot of atmosphere (pun not intended because how else to put it?) and while I usually have someone in the party roll for the weather I will sometimes roll myself, especially when the adventure requires something other than bright and sunny days. 😀 I don't use too many modifiers for anything other than movement speeds and/or chance to get lost because of weather. Sometimes if the weather is a hard rainstorm/sleet/snow or possibly extreme cold I'll increase the chance for a fumble from a natural one on the d20 to a natural 1 or 2, but that's about as far as I go with it.
I always liked the idea of a weather table, but without modifiers, which have to be fine-tuned, it's hard to factor in current weather and its effects on the future. Then I found a hexagonal table/map, where each hex contains a weather prompt, and you roll to move into one of the adjacent hexes or stay put. So for any weather hex, you have six appropriate weather changes. No die roll modifiers, and built-in memory. Find, or make a table appropriate for your climate and season, and you're set.
I run a 1:1 time scale for my games, time passes out of game in tandem with our real world. It is cold now, and I’ve been trying to find ways to make it feel cold! Excited for this video!
Everyone steps outside for a .. cigarette .. without their coats on. We did that at our gaming shop. Also when the DM or players split up the group and one half doesn't Know what is happening to the other. ( keeping from meta gaming, ) DM says for other players to step outside for a smoke, or go next door to the bar and get her a drink refill of her tea. Party group functions in three or four mini group, where one group in kept in the dark while as the audience knows what happen and will happen to the other PCs. It is a Hitchcock thing. In a few gaming one PC go lost in a snow storm, fell down and hit their head, DM roll Fort save and kept the results for later. Twist in game, PC die from combined head fracture and cold exposer and now is an undead. Roll for wight or ghost. Ghost make great spies.
A good topic one that is skipped over so it was good to see it benefits promoted. For myself I have always used weather in my game as I feel it adds a depth to the campaign so it was good to see others find its value too. Cheers
Timely discussion, I am just getting a 1E/2E mashup Greyhawk game going again (Gold = XP, but things like Proficiencies and Kits from 2E) and one of the things that I love with Greyhawk is the hyper-detailed calendar and weather charts that Gygax made for it. I hadn't really mussed with them much previously, but I'm getting into the use of these elements in my game and the points you made about melee and other additional effects are things that I will definitely be thinking about as I get going in the campaign. In general though, I think having stuff like this, both the weather and a calendar are great for the sake of verisimilitude. If you have charts made up and a calendar, then the actual overhead work is pretty minimal and having some more random elements to throw into the mix, for me, as a DM, is something I like; the tables, the unknown mean that I get some additional unexpected things to deal with aside from what the party is getting up to and I personally enjoy that.
In my West Marches campaign, I’m using the weather table from d4caltrops. The descriptions are fantastically poetic. I don‘t often use the weather mechanically, yet. I might make a survival check a bit harder in bad weather. There are areas in the world where the weather is weird, so I’m looking forward to the party going into one of those and then I’ll find a way to make it matter more. Thanks for the great video, as always!
I've had a lot of fun with randomized weather as I've been getting into it in recent games. I tend to prefer simple d8 roll with 8 being extremely harsh for the season and going from there. I think I've sometimes rolled another die if I wanted a prompt for whether it's rainy or windy etc. But mainly just keeping it simple. One session there were very strong gusts of wind when the group was in the mountains so I made up a scene where they had to pass a treacherous spot on a ledge and it got very tense. I'm another game the rain caused a flash flood when the characters were in a canyon and one character was barely saved when he couldn't get to a safe height and was swept away. Even milder weather has made camping hard and prevented healing for the night.
Even non-extreme weather can be impactful. I had jobs that we worked outside, and it is surprising how much this affects people. I think an important part of this discussion is morale. Even a light rain at 45f, can be down right miserable. The players might think 'We'll just keep tracking along in the flurries' but after 4 hours it might be time for some kind of morale check. Some players might just want to find any shelter, no matter how dire the quest is. Then you get bickering, some want to push on, others just want to sit under a tree and try to get a fire going. Now might be the time for some charisma checks to see who has the strongest will be get the party to make a decision. You're not looking forward to a battle with some goblins that could be in the mountain ranges, when you can't feeling your fingers, or your feet are wet. Suddenly that deadeye archer can't focus cause they are just miserable, sword swings are lazy cause the character just doesn't care anymore, all they can think about is dry blanket and some warm soup. Plans can fall apart quick, and suddenly you have people saying screw the princess she can save herself, this isn't worth even all the king's gold.
Interesting- but I would never have the PCs roll for morale - they control their PCs. I guess that’s why providing some mechanical issue would make sense so the players will consider what you have said and make the choice
I use an oracle method. D100, odd number is a negative outcome (bad weather), even number results in a positive one (good weather). The higher the % the more definite the yes/no answer. A double means an unexpected event (rare weather, major NPC/world event, anything goes). I usually roll once a day and prior to the game if possible.
This probably won't work for everyone, but i grab a real-life location with a similar feel as the place the players are exploring. I check today's weather on the day of the game. Ex. Lendore Isles struck me as similar to Scotland. I check Edinburgh weather before each game.
Unless it's some fantastic location with weird fantasy weather that sounds great. My friends had to make up moon-weather. In hindsight, it could have used more normal weather and not just weirdo magic space winds. I can say "It's dwarf-december" and it works because people know what IRL december is like, if we play in a corner of fantasyland climatologically related to our own IRL region. But this sounds nice if they ever go somewhere else.
I haven't thought of using the weather in a narrative way but I think that would be really cool. My first thought was that maybe if a cleric or paladin type of character had broken an oath a spirit or god of their religion could use weather in order to communicate with them or maybe if they needed help from their god and the cleric was particularly pious then there could be anomalous weather that is beneficial to the party.
I’m starting in a desert with my new campaign, and it will mostly always be sunny 😂 but yeah. I have a hex flower for weather that is fun. We’re moving into winter in my curse of Strahd game and I use it as set dressing, but it will become mechanical soon. So far they are bundled up properly, but they’re headed to the mountains and that will have an effect.
An interesting way to use the 2d6 for weather change might be that you have to roll below/above what it's already at. This means it will become harder and harder to get severely worse weather. The probability of the weather getting better will get higher the worse it gets. If it's already pretty bad it shouldn't be 50/50 if it gets worse. Not sure if that's already how it works and I just didn't understand :)
Windspeed is absolutely a big deal in gunplay, and even more so for bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons. There's a reason that even in casual sports games people take great care to note the direction and strength of the winds.
@@BanditsKeep I'll work my way up to getting all the core books and whatever additional books or content I want eventually. but for now, which one has those weather charts?
In my thinking weather is part of the setting and should impact the adventure akin to how random encounters do. A rainy day changes things the way moving from forest to plains to desert does. And it can be a more "real" part of encounter or more accurately here event tables. Interspersed with monsters I like normal animals and people, and now weather, so if I use the frequent checks it adds diversity and depth, sometimes its just clear weather, the next time the Ogre! Weather should add realism, fun and challenge like every other thing introduced.
Daniel, would you determine the weather for say the week prior? If the ground is saturated from rains or a build up of snow let’s say affects the approaching party.
Hi Daniel and Community, hope I'm allowed to post this here. I'll be running up to 10 consecutive one shots (one per day) from the 18th to 28th Feb. Open table, all welcome for any or all days. OSE system, persistent one shots that all link together for a mini campaign (but not required to participate in all) 3pm EST (can be moved depending)❤️
I've been noodling with some different ways to engage with weather, primarily with the goal of making players think about the world and context they exist in. While it has been moderately successful and adds good hooks for mundane gear and solutions to matter (gear designed for cold weather grants Warm 1, which reduces the severity of Cold effects by 1, etc etc), I've found doing a weather check at the start of every day to be kind of tedious and it somewhat loses its interest to the players, unless circumstances make it matter. I've been finding greater results with having what is functionally a weather change entry on the random event/wandering monster tables I've been building, which then links to what direction is it changing to, how severe it is, and how fast is it coming in. Your forward scout noticing storm clouds starting to gather at the mountain to your west while you are travelling north raises eye brows, but isn't an immediate concern. The clock (BitD style) going up that says The Storm Hits with 4 pips and 1 already filled gets more concern. The call for a weather check the morning after the camp that day now gets all eyes on the roll. If the roll goes the wrong way and another pip fills up while they are a week out from their destination, the players start pouring over their map and asking questions about "do we know if there are caves or other shelter nearby? What about the hills to the west? It will take us towards the storm, but its more likely to have shelter? Wait, I'm a ranger, can I make a survival check?". Ultimately I think Does Weather Matter and How do you Use Weather really ties into the central point you've been pushing across a lot of your videos, in that the answer is ultimately "what are you and your table trying to accomplish as an experience?" If you're not tracking time, resource usage, or travel distance, why even bother tracking weather? The more those things matter to your table, the more weather becomes not just valuable, but necessary. Vanilla Skyrim and Survival Mode Skyrim are both their own kind of fun.
I think GM should make weather tables with encounter tables. PC should be able to roll today's weather, but the results should be sensible for local conditions. D&D is a fantasy game. There are magical weather like blood rain and shark tornados. The extreme weather might be problematic, but we can make it fit into the world we're building.
I have the almanac of fantasy weather. It has 12 years worth of weather for several different regions. So, I just go by what it says. I have tried Hyperboreas system. It is good, but too much rolling.
As a person that shoots longbow when it isn't the middle of winter. Yes wind will definitely have an effect on bow precision especially at longer ranges. You can overcome most of that with a compound bow but still long distance shots in the wind is irresponsible when your hunting. Don't want to wound the animal.
I think, too, that the game system being used mediates the influence of weather. I don't get too caught up in weather, generally. I only use it if it is part of the story itself, such as hex crawl. I guess what I'm saying is that the weather needs to affect something; time, resources, exhaustion, etc. Otherwise, I find it just too much bother. Games like 5e make weather mostly irrelevant in my opinion since the characters have so many options to just get around any obstacles it may present. It is, though, a good narrative tool. Also, you forgot mud. Thick, sticky mud can bring render even a road impassable.
I would keep the extraordinary weather events to a minimum. Tornadoes over the players every day is just not fun, period. Seeing a Tornado off in the distance can be a different story. Blizzards in the Mountain pass is an interesting story element. The Donner party tried to cross over the Sierras during an especially bad winter, late in the season. There are a ton of free weather sites online that show seasonal weather for the entire country. Match your terrain type with one of these areas and you can plot typical weather for the entire year, or seasons to give you averages. Then all you have to do is use a change chart to move up or down from better to worse. I would keep it simple since the players really don't care how much work you put into making the weather, only what it is that day and how it affects them.
Interestingly, I sparred with a sidesword in heavy wind and it definitely affected the sword's handling. On a different note, Fahrenheit, eugh! I have no problem with other Imperial Units, but Fahrenheit suck. Sorry, Liberia.
My campaign started as a "stealth Spelljammer" plot where I used the old Level 0 funnel "Treasure Hunt" from 1e, but rather than having just random pirate slavers kidnap the party, it was a a Spelljamming galleon.
When they shipwreck, it's a biodome that is attached to the inside of the Realmspace crystal sphere. Well, to hide the fact from the denizens within, there's a thick mist high in the "sky" obscuring the dome and everything outside of it. As such, whenever my players would ask, "What's the weather like?", I'd answer, "It's overcast."
Week after week, session after session they asked this, one person or another (it's a big table that whittled DOWN to 8 players), and I just kept saying "It's overcast."
Finally, a buddy of mine joined the table as a PC who lived most of his life within "the dome" and when they FINALLY asked, "What about the sun, do you ever see the sun?" He says, "Well of course, it's right there!", pointing to the hazy, overcast sun behind THICK clouds.
"No no no, we mean the sun, with a blue sky!"
"Blue sky? No, the sky is black at night, white during the day except where it's bright yellowish around the sun, and then it's really gray and darkish on a stormy day."
Damn I had fun with that.
I use the Harnworld 1st edition weather generation tables to determine weather(I like the stuff for Harn, just can't stand some of the more fantastical elements and the naming systems that are a part of the setting). Weather is a huge issue in my games. Disease, equipment damage, and just finding shelter are part and parcel with adventure. The adventure stories of my youth featured weather and the hardships weather brings prominently. Rain is nice for a bit, but traveling in it for any length of time sucks. Morale checks are necessary to get NPC hirelings or henchmen to go out in it, especially when a nice cozy shelter is available. My more antagonistic NPCs are also affected. Bugbears and the like are normally nocturnal, but rain may bring them out in the day to hunt. Certain events like the revelation of new dungeons are also sometimes triggered by weather(random roll).
I’ve got one word friends.. flood! Add persistent rains that flood your hex crawl. The local populace and remote monster lairs, cemeteries (undead), even Fey encounters are all turned upside down by vast swaths of rushing waters. Abandoned hamlets. Desperate refugees. Stranded farm peasants need rescue. Travel becomes a slog with unseen dangers below the murky surface of rushing floodwaters. Exhaustion rules can add more pressures for your party. Fresh drinking water? Have fun! 👍🏼
This comes with great timing, Imma be running a homebrew setting for DCC, Im calling Fimbulwinter island, where its always winter all the time due to a curse by the gods. And now weather, alongside undead hordes, are the biggest challenge that presents itself as players travel to and from their hometown. With even day and night cycles lasting extended periods of time (weeklong day and weeklong night).
Sounds cool!
Im trying to figure out what kind of ecology could develop so players have something to eat…
@@giantdiscopanda1359 might want to look into real world arctic and subarctic climates ecologies for that.
That sounds awesome!!
@@giantdiscopanda1359 Lots of root vegetables!
Great timing, I just started running my first hexcrawl in my duet campaign. I'm using weather as flavour and kind of a minor hindurance with a bit of game abililty.
It's mostly a exposure type thing. If travelling in incliment weather, PCs need to be wearing a travel cloak. If not, they gain -1 to hit and attack rolls until dry. Same thing for rest; if a PC is outside of a tent during the rain they get the same negative effects..
The latter works out nice because I have a scaricity issue with the starting town and there was only one 2 person tent, and there are 3 PCs. Now they have to choose who gets the negative effects in a storm.
Though after this video, I wil think more about weather as a story element. I like the idea of a Wizard or portal causing odd weather in the vicinity.
Awesome
I have an area in my world that has perfectly predictable seasonal beginnings and endings. The people that live there attribute it to the deities of Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall having absolute harmony with one another, but the truth is a much greater adventure.
Nice!
I mainly use weather as "flavor" and to add some realism to travel. I like the idea of the PCs experiencing the weather. Consider the wet and weary travelers, happy to finally reach an inn to get out of the rain.
Also, don't forget that you can have the weather change through the day: "You wake up to fog obscuring everything beyond 100 yards. As the sun rises and warms up the day, the fog burns off."
Time saving tip: if you already have a calendar for your game (which you should), just go through and roll up the weather for the entire year at one time, marking it down for each day. Then you have it at your fingertips when you want it and you look like a pro when you rattle off the weather at the start of Every. Day. This also puts you in the habit of verbalizing the weather and makes you more conscious of weather, which may prompt you to influence the weather as part of your ongoing story *("hmm... I want them to experience a harsh storm, so I'm going to narrate a day ahead that the PCs notice a change in the weather ~ the wind picks up, and by nightfall a heavy cloud cover has moved in...")
Lastly, if you do pre-roll your weather for the calendar year, consider rolling up about 3 years worth. That way you can almost certainly recycle the weather and the players will probably not even notice ~ *Unless you forget and have that harsh storm hit them again at the same time as last year. ...how odd? Must be a coincidence!
Good advice, I did a year at a time when running Hyperboria
Hi Daniel, great video and ideal format for this topic. It’s taken me 40y to realise the AD&D rules were meant to be used in a modular fashion. So, use weather if you can deal with the consequences: hex crawl yes, heroes have two days to cross the land and save the world then no.
Like you I have tried tables. I wrote a great table with d6 rolls for temp, wind and precipitation. Pluses and minuses for desert, arctic, winter, days and night. Used it once.
At the end of the day I want something like a 2d6 reaction roll so if I can’t find the page with the table I can wing it. After your video I am gonna try this with The reaction categories affecting just movement, movement plus visibly, or movement plus visibility plus damage. Instead of damage, The much maligned 5e exhaustion mechanic is actually great for weather effects as it is so flexible and can deal with both heat and cold. The other thing to do is tax Hit die instead of direct damage.
I used weather in my Tomb of Annihilation while they were hex crawling across the map. I made a spreadsheet and randomly determined a years worth of weather (and the random encounters). It really helped me track time.
The weather wasn't impactful, it just cost them a little extra time on storm days. The player's really didn't care.
That’s cool. Was there a ticking clock? If not a guess slowing them down would be less impactful
@@BanditsKeep - yes, in ToA there is a doom clock with the death curse, but it doesn't directly affect the players. It's more of a nudge. I think it helped make the jungle feel reel.
Interesting timing. Not only am I working on a game that takes place in perpetually muddy 1600s Flanders, but I am working at a second-year Ren Faire in south Louisiana, and we are feeling the cold in Austin & Dallas on top of the persistent rain we've had. Lots of atmosphere going on ...
Alot of the difficulty in travel here has involved a lack of want-to, as much as the terrain. However, we musicians have been rolling with advantage, as hot drinks, dry haybails, and decent shelter have been appreciated to our patrons.
I do calculate the precipitation and intensity of the wind when I plot out the calender of the events in my campaign. It doesn't come up except in very extreme cases (severe winds make shooting a bow a risky proposition), but if nothing else it gives extra color to the Realms. I respect any referee who goes all out and makes things difficult for their players to travel long distances or navigating in remote and wilderness areas.
Indeed
One important effect in hexcrawling is visibility and navigation. Weather that impairs these can be a hindrance too. A sandstorm can make it hard to move but also to see where you are and force the PCs to make camp. A fog doesn't stop people from walking, but it can impair visibility.
This might be a good time to make a roll for navigation, using whatever mechanic you choose. Either this triggers a navigation roll to avoid walking in a circle on the spot, weering to the side or making a turnaround. Or you make your navigation roll but it is harder, again depending on how you do navigation.
Any sort of encounters gets a much higher surprise chance. This is where you walk through the sleet and find those 50 orcs looking at their maps, and they are most likely just as surprised to see you as you are. It's also an opportunity to avoid encounters, if you leg it how are they going to catch you in the sleet?
Visibility into the next hex, if you allow such a thing from vantage points and lookout masts, is gone. You can climb a firewatch tower and see nothing but more fog around you.
Great points!
Your Gibbering Wizard video inspired me to start using hexflowers to track weather in my games. It transitions between weather smoothly and I usually put dangerous weather events at the top and bottom so they can stack with any random encounters that might happen. I'll usually also roll 2d12 to see how long the weather will stay in a certain hex.
This is an excellent suggestion, and it looks like there are a ton of resources out there for it, so you don't even need to generate your own!
Awesome
Great video over a good topic!
Since I run a 1e style campaign with my rules, checking weather is important (druids gotta call lightning when they can ya know 😀 ). I have the players roll for it on a graduated table. For an example of what I mean by graduated table, if it has been a stormy day today then there'll be slightly higher than usual chances for rainy or overcast tomorrow, though it still could be a sunny day. It just depends on the roll. There are variances for seasonal weather and while the campaign takes place in basically the middle reaches of a temperate zone, there was a different chart used when they found themselves in a tropical zone after going through a portal.
Weather adds a lot of atmosphere (pun not intended because how else to put it?) and while I usually have someone in the party roll for the weather I will sometimes roll myself, especially when the adventure requires something other than bright and sunny days. 😀
I don't use too many modifiers for anything other than movement speeds and/or chance to get lost because of weather. Sometimes if the weather is a hard rainstorm/sleet/snow or possibly extreme cold I'll increase the chance for a fumble from a natural one on the d20 to a natural 1 or 2, but that's about as far as I go with it.
A mixture of fallen leaves and rain in autumn/fall it can make trails difficult to follow. Less of a problem in spring and summer.
True
I always liked the idea of a weather table, but without modifiers, which have to be fine-tuned, it's hard to factor in current weather and its effects on the future. Then I found a hexagonal table/map, where each hex contains a weather prompt, and you roll to move into one of the adjacent hexes or stay put. So for any weather hex, you have six appropriate weather changes. No die roll modifiers, and built-in memory. Find, or make a table appropriate for your climate and season, and you're set.
Cool - is it like a hex flower?
Very under-discussed topic. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Glad it was helpful!
I run a 1:1 time scale for my games, time passes out of game in tandem with our real world. It is cold now, and I’ve been trying to find ways to make it feel cold! Excited for this video!
Cool! … or cold 🥶 😊
Everyone steps outside for a .. cigarette .. without their coats on.
We did that at our gaming shop.
Also when the DM or players split up the group and one half doesn't Know what is happening to the other. ( keeping from meta gaming, ) DM says for other players to step outside for a smoke, or go next door to the bar and get her a drink refill of her tea.
Party group functions in three or four mini group, where one group in kept in the dark while as the audience knows what happen and will happen to the other PCs.
It is a Hitchcock thing.
In a few gaming one PC go lost in a snow storm, fell down and hit their head, DM roll Fort save and kept the results for later. Twist in game, PC die from combined head fracture and cold exposer and now is an undead. Roll for wight or ghost. Ghost make great spies.
A good topic one that is skipped over so it was good to see it benefits promoted.
For myself I have always used weather in my game as I feel it adds a depth to the campaign so it was good to see others find its value too.
Cheers
Awesome
Thank you for all the different think pieces.
Helps having something to bounce off of the books I'm reading 🤘
Appreciate your content bro
My pleasure!
Timely discussion, I am just getting a 1E/2E mashup Greyhawk game going again (Gold = XP, but things like Proficiencies and Kits from 2E) and one of the things that I love with Greyhawk is the hyper-detailed calendar and weather charts that Gygax made for it. I hadn't really mussed with them much previously, but I'm getting into the use of these elements in my game and the points you made about melee and other additional effects are things that I will definitely be thinking about as I get going in the campaign.
In general though, I think having stuff like this, both the weather and a calendar are great for the sake of verisimilitude. If you have charts made up and a calendar, then the actual overhead work is pretty minimal and having some more random elements to throw into the mix, for me, as a DM, is something I like; the tables, the unknown mean that I get some additional unexpected things to deal with aside from what the party is getting up to and I personally enjoy that.
For sure, I’ll have to take a look at the Greyhawk stuff
Love my old Greyhawk stuff for the same reason!
Love the content based on older editions of DnD. I always run games based on 2nd revised and below and I think I'll never run out of good content.
For sure
In my West Marches campaign, I’m using the weather table from d4caltrops. The descriptions are fantastically poetic. I don‘t often use the weather mechanically, yet. I might make a survival check a bit harder in bad weather. There are areas in the world where the weather is weird, so I’m looking forward to the party going into one of those and then I’ll find a way to make it matter more. Thanks for the great video, as always!
Sounds fun!
I've had a lot of fun with randomized weather as I've been getting into it in recent games. I tend to prefer simple d8 roll with 8 being extremely harsh for the season and going from there. I think I've sometimes rolled another die if I wanted a prompt for whether it's rainy or windy etc. But mainly just keeping it simple.
One session there were very strong gusts of wind when the group was in the mountains so I made up a scene where they had to pass a treacherous spot on a ledge and it got very tense.
I'm another game the rain caused a flash flood when the characters were in a canyon and one character was barely saved when he couldn't get to a safe height and was swept away.
Even milder weather has made camping hard and prevented healing for the night.
Nice!
Even non-extreme weather can be impactful. I had jobs that we worked outside, and it is surprising how much this affects people.
I think an important part of this discussion is morale. Even a light rain at 45f, can be down right miserable. The players might think 'We'll just keep tracking along in the flurries' but after 4 hours it might be time for some kind of morale check. Some players might just want to find any shelter, no matter how dire the quest is. Then you get bickering, some want to push on, others just want to sit under a tree and try to get a fire going. Now might be the time for some charisma checks to see who has the strongest will be get the party to make a decision. You're not looking forward to a battle with some goblins that could be in the mountain ranges, when you can't feeling your fingers, or your feet are wet. Suddenly that deadeye archer can't focus cause they are just miserable, sword swings are lazy cause the character just doesn't care anymore, all they can think about is dry blanket and some warm soup.
Plans can fall apart quick, and suddenly you have people saying screw the princess she can save herself, this isn't worth even all the king's gold.
Interesting- but I would never have the PCs roll for morale - they control their PCs. I guess that’s why providing some mechanical issue would make sense so the players will consider what you have said and make the choice
Clever title Daniel! Another great video!
Thank You!
I use an oracle method. D100, odd number is a negative outcome (bad weather), even number results in a positive one (good weather). The higher the % the more definite the yes/no answer. A double means an unexpected event (rare weather, major NPC/world event, anything goes). I usually roll once a day and prior to the game if possible.
Cool!
This probably won't work for everyone, but i grab a real-life location with a similar feel as the place the players are exploring. I check today's weather on the day of the game. Ex. Lendore Isles struck me as similar to Scotland. I check Edinburgh weather before each game.
Unless it's some fantastic location with weird fantasy weather that sounds great. My friends had to make up moon-weather. In hindsight, it could have used more normal weather and not just weirdo magic space winds.
I can say "It's dwarf-december" and it works because people know what IRL december is like, if we play in a corner of fantasyland climatologically related to our own IRL region. But this sounds nice if they ever go somewhere else.
Very cool
I like. Our weather is usually THE weather.
I haven't thought of using the weather in a narrative way but I think that would be really cool. My first thought was that maybe if a cleric or paladin type of character had broken an oath a spirit or god of their religion could use weather in order to communicate with them or maybe if they needed help from their god and the cleric was particularly pious then there could be anomalous weather that is beneficial to the party.
For sure
I’m starting in a desert with my new campaign, and it will mostly always be sunny 😂 but yeah. I have a hex flower for weather that is fun. We’re moving into winter in my curse of Strahd game and I use it as set dressing, but it will become mechanical soon. So far they are bundled up properly, but they’re headed to the mountains and that will have an effect.
Nice!
An interesting way to use the 2d6 for weather change might be that you have to roll below/above what it's already at.
This means it will become harder and harder to get severely worse weather. The probability of the weather getting better will get higher the worse it gets. If it's already pretty bad it shouldn't be 50/50 if it gets worse.
Not sure if that's already how it works and I just didn't understand :)
That makes sense
Windspeed is absolutely a big deal in gunplay, and even more so for bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons. There's a reason that even in casual sports games people take great care to note the direction and strength of the winds.
Indeed
I think this is my favourite of your videos yet. also, I totally wanna buy the Hyperborea game now.
Thank You! Hyperborea is well worth it!
@@BanditsKeep I'll work my way up to getting all the core books and whatever additional books or content I want eventually. but for now, which one has those weather charts?
In my thinking weather is part of the setting and should impact the adventure akin to how random encounters do. A rainy day changes things the way moving from forest to plains to desert does. And it can be a more "real" part of encounter or more accurately here event tables. Interspersed with monsters I like normal animals and people, and now weather, so if I use the frequent checks it adds diversity and depth, sometimes its just clear weather, the next time the Ogre! Weather should add realism, fun and challenge like every other thing introduced.
Cool
It's -15C here at the moment, so this video is very timely :)
Oh man 🥶
Roll the percentile twice one for degrees and the other for precipitation
Nice!
Exposure could sap hit points, or drive players to seek shelter which could then be a lair or trigger other encounters.
Indeed
Daniel, would you determine the weather for say the week prior? If the ground is saturated from rains or a build up of snow let’s say affects the approaching party.
I have not done that, but it does make sense.
Hi Daniel and Community, hope I'm allowed to post this here. I'll be running up to 10 consecutive one shots (one per day) from the 18th to 28th Feb. Open table, all welcome for any or all days. OSE system, persistent one shots that all link together for a mini campaign (but not required to participate in all) 3pm EST (can be moved depending)❤️
Join the discord and post on the looking for groups room.
Great video name!
Thanks!
I know you’ve used goblin henchmen’s hex flowers before. His weather flowers are great
For sure
In use robust encounter tables that includes weather
Cool
I've been noodling with some different ways to engage with weather, primarily with the goal of making players think about the world and context they exist in. While it has been moderately successful and adds good hooks for mundane gear and solutions to matter (gear designed for cold weather grants Warm 1, which reduces the severity of Cold effects by 1, etc etc), I've found doing a weather check at the start of every day to be kind of tedious and it somewhat loses its interest to the players, unless circumstances make it matter. I've been finding greater results with having what is functionally a weather change entry on the random event/wandering monster tables I've been building, which then links to what direction is it changing to, how severe it is, and how fast is it coming in. Your forward scout noticing storm clouds starting to gather at the mountain to your west while you are travelling north raises eye brows, but isn't an immediate concern. The clock (BitD style) going up that says The Storm Hits with 4 pips and 1 already filled gets more concern. The call for a weather check the morning after the camp that day now gets all eyes on the roll. If the roll goes the wrong way and another pip fills up while they are a week out from their destination, the players start pouring over their map and asking questions about "do we know if there are caves or other shelter nearby? What about the hills to the west? It will take us towards the storm, but its more likely to have shelter? Wait, I'm a ranger, can I make a survival check?".
Ultimately I think Does Weather Matter and How do you Use Weather really ties into the central point you've been pushing across a lot of your videos, in that the answer is ultimately "what are you and your table trying to accomplish as an experience?" If you're not tracking time, resource usage, or travel distance, why even bother tracking weather? The more those things matter to your table, the more weather becomes not just valuable, but necessary. Vanilla Skyrim and Survival Mode Skyrim are both their own kind of fun.
I think GM should make weather tables with encounter tables. PC should be able to roll today's weather, but the results should be sensible for local conditions.
D&D is a fantasy game. There are magical weather like blood rain and shark tornados. The extreme weather might be problematic, but we can make it fit into the world we're building.
For sure
Weather could affect foraging if your game includes that. Mushrooms might be more plentiful following rain for example.
I like that
I have the almanac of fantasy weather. It has 12 years worth of weather for several different regions. So, I just go by what it says. I have tried Hyperboreas system. It is good, but too much rolling.
Nice!
2d6 sandstorm dmg every turn, That's just the way it is!
Yikes! 💨
As a person that shoots longbow when it isn't the middle of winter. Yes wind will definitely have an effect on bow precision especially at longer ranges. You can overcome most of that with a compound bow but still long distance shots in the wind is irresponsible when your hunting. Don't want to wound the animal.
Thanks! Good to know
I think, too, that the game system being used mediates the influence of weather. I don't get too caught up in weather, generally. I only use it if it is part of the story itself, such as hex crawl. I guess what I'm saying is that the weather needs to affect something; time, resources, exhaustion, etc. Otherwise, I find it just too much bother. Games like 5e make weather mostly irrelevant in my opinion since the characters have so many options to just get around any obstacles it may present. It is, though, a good narrative tool.
Also, you forgot mud. Thick, sticky mud can bring render even a road impassable.
Mud can be a very tough obstacle
I would keep the extraordinary weather events to a minimum. Tornadoes over the players every day is just not fun, period. Seeing a Tornado off in the distance can be a different story. Blizzards in the Mountain pass is an interesting story element. The Donner party tried to cross over the Sierras during an especially bad winter, late in the season. There are a ton of free weather sites online that show seasonal weather for the entire country. Match your terrain type with one of these areas and you can plot typical weather for the entire year, or seasons to give you averages. Then all you have to do is use a change chart to move up or down from better to worse. I would keep it simple since the players really don't care how much work you put into making the weather, only what it is that day and how it affects them.
For sure
Interestingly, I sparred with a sidesword in heavy wind and it definitely affected the sword's handling.
On a different note, Fahrenheit, eugh! I have no problem with other Imperial Units, but Fahrenheit suck. Sorry, Liberia.
Very interesting, thanks!