All Up in the Air

Just a note about last Friday (if you missed the addendum): It was reported that 150,000 people (not just motorcycles, since some ride two people) descended upon Port Dover, a town/area of normally 6,000 people!

I spent the weekend, and a couple days around it, in game writing mode. Most of it was work on my fantasy role-playing game, though maybe as much as ninety percent of it will be useful in any other game I decide to write. First off I was working on information dealing with sound and how far away sounds of certain levels can be heard. I started with a borrowed chart from somebody and then I went to town tweaking it and making it my own. The biggest change I did was to remove the effect of sounds that lessen the distance something can be heard. Then I detailed rules how to add those "distractions" back in.

The fantasy game's setting made for a couple out of the ordinary additions to be made to these sound rules, particularly where distance is involved. The sound chart only covers up to certain distances. The reason for this is the curvature of the planet makes the sound essentially travel off into space, if it's loud enough to breach that distance. That is for horizontal sounds. Once you look at vertical distance the sky is the limiting factor, or rather the air. Past a certain point the air is too thin for sound to travel any great amount of distance. Of course once you run out of atmosphere then you get no sound at all because a vacuum doesn't carry sound.

The second thing I was working on—and still am chugging away at—is the weather in games. Here I have breakdowns of things like wind speeds, amounts of precipitation—that being rain or snow—a look at temperatures around my fantasy world, and numerous things that the Game Master can roll randomly. Specifically for the fantasy game I even have monthly norms and a multiple year weather cycle. Some of this fantasy-setting information is on the wonky side compared to the real world, but there is a method to the madness, and such oddities can and will have a social impact on the game.

Mood: level.
Music: Walk Right Back by The Everly Brothers and Last Train To Clarksville by The Monkees.

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