Weather or Not

Beyond what was discussed last time about the weather in games—and this applies to all story telling—there are other factors to consider. The most visible of these factors in indeed visibility. Whether it is heavy rain, driving snow, or clinging mists, the weather does affect how far away things can be seen. This can be an important factor in game combat or in mood creation in fiction. Additionally in both role-playing and stories this helps determine the feasibility of certain actions as well as precipitates the need of other actions.

In a similar manner, knowing the temperature is one thing, but dealing with it as a force that acts upon your character(s) is something else all together. It can dictate right off the bat what clothes will be required. It can present challenges like dealing with heat exhaustion at one end of the scale and hypothermia and frostbite at the other end. More so than rain, snow, or obscuring fog the temperature in a setting can alter the moods of the characters as opposed to the moods of the audience.

Precipitation can be a part of a larger situations as well as working on its own. Watching the news one sees two big scale conditions caused by rain, or its lack. Too much rain and you have flooding. Also too much can lead to deluging rivers, and mudslides. If there is too little rain then there is drought. Drought affects crops and impacts economies and impacts the lives of everyone. It can also be a mitigating factor in wildfires whether they are caused by careless people, or they are caused by another weather factor, lightning.

Carrying over to snow and there are blizzards. They can ground planes, seal off villages, trap people in places they'd rather not be and create situations where they have to deal with other people they would likely not encounter if not for the storm. Heavy accumulations of snow can damage houses as buildings just as unpredictably and suddenly—if not universally—as a tornado. Then lastly there is the avalanche possibility when the conditions or setting is ripe for it. There is a plethora of ways to use the weather in any kind of tale, be it role-played, rolled with dice, or found static in a short story, novel, or movie.

Mood: brainy.
Music: Going Mobile by The Who and Heavy Metal Poisoning by Styx.

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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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Seasons and Spaces in Time

I was just thinking about how I like to specify a timeframe in my stories. Sure you can set the year and affect many facets of the story. What I like even better is to deal with things a bit more specific and that is by choosing a season. The first thing that this affects is the weather. Now I'm not super big on this whole weather and atmospherics should mirror the mood of the story. Certainly at the least I'm more of a contrast kind of guy. However I think the weather, should it be an issue—which it will any time a story takes place outside—should be whatever makes the story more interesting. It shouldn't be just a gimmick or a function of mood already established without it being present.

My personal preference of season is, as many may already know, autumn. Certainly it lends itself to the horror genre even without its connotations that Halloween can't be far away, or far back. I won't go into detail of just what it says with its colour changing trees, or after that's done the dry leaves that skitter with their menacing sound in the stillness of the night. Of course I don't use autumn all the time. That would be against everything I said up above. Again I use what best serves the story. More than the weather, the season expressed in a story is dependent upon the characters with or without the plot. People do certain things during certain seasons. Those things may be a part of the plot or they may not. Certainly I like to mix things up whether they parallel or contrast or just are independent.

Mood: bored silly.
Music: Black Reign by Quiet Riot and Prophecy by Iron Maiden.

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