While I did go out this morning, I spent as little time outside as possible (understandably) and otherwise kept myself occupied with non-ttrpg gaming. Anything outside requires layers, hats, gloves, and better footwear unless my time outside of a car or building is less than 30" or so at a time....
When considering gaming and cold weather I'm immediately reminded of the time my gaming group was getting ready to play Annihilate the Giants (HackMaster version of G1-2-3 Against the Giants) and we were told we'd be heading out across the tundra. I think we, ok I, spent hours outside of the game table planning provisioning for the trip. Figuring out what we needed for gear, how many pack animals, and HOW to pack said animals. Since this was HackMaster, I had to assume I needed "extra" gear and I had to figure out how to spread out the gear so losing some pack animals and equipment wouldn't result in losing all of some aspect of the gear (as-in if mule #7 falls into an inaccessible crevasse my Archer wouldn't lose all his arrows). IIRC I actually had "npc" sheets made up for each mule, listing gear, calculating encumbrance, etc. .....
....yeah I can really drill-down on the crunch/details when motivated.
My current group, not that we've played in FOREVER!!!! (hint hint Mr. GM) is pretty much on the far opposite side of the detail spectrum. I think we'd spend 5 minutes getting ready, maybe spend a set amount of coin and any gear we need, within reason, is hand-waived.
I'm not saying either extreme is correct, or even my preference, probably because most game systems I've seen don't do a good job with the provisioning aspect and/or dealing with weather extremes. Now as far as equipment goes, I'm sold on HackMaster's Goods and Gear, and that's not my normal HackMaster bias either. It's a good book, although it has a few issues borne from it's publishing process (In short, Hasbro kept pushing their approval back in a delay to come out with their own, inferior, book and in the end KenzerCo cut it's losses and published as-is without fixing a few errors).
Now as far as figuring out the effects of cold weather.....my eyes tend to gloss over when reading the Wilderness Survival Guide and trying to figure out the saves and "Personal Temperature". Yeah...if anyone has a lead on something easier for figuring out weather effects, send it my way.....
In the meantime......stay warm:
 |
| This is us tomorrow.... |
One of my favorite articles on weather effects in AD&D specifically is "The Role of Nature" from Dragon magazine #108. A lot shorter than the WSG treatment and a lot easier to use. Also, if you're using Thomas M. Kane's article "Meanwhile, Back at the Fief" from Dragon #125 to expand the domain game, he took some of the weather events from "The Role of Nature" but condensed them and there seem to be some editorial errors, so the two articles complement each other well. For weather, Lisa Cabala's article on weather generation in Dragon #137 is probably the easiest to use, a lot better than working out the extensive details of the "Weather in the World of Greyhawk" article that everyone knows, and which served as the basis of WSG's complicated treatment of the topic.
ReplyDelete