Monday, June 29, 2009

A simple weather system




For any campaign, I've always felt that a weather system to gives it a real lived-in feel as well as adding a little bit of chrome for a game for very little effort. For my Rampage on the Rhine and Destruction on the Danube Roman/Barbarian campaigns, I devised a useful system I will describe below.
 
First of all, the turns are bi-weekly. This allows me to break up the months into an even amount of turns (more or less). It also works for the movement rates on the campaign map.
 
Of course, I have the months along the top (with their Roman equivalent names for a little added chrome) with the 8 turns per month below that track box.
 
Below those are the two areas I keep track of the weather on a turn by turn basis. The blue months use the Winter track box, while the white boxes use the Summer track box. March and November on their 1st turn have a chance to be either winter or summer, based on a D6 roll.
 
Weather ranges from Clear, Cloudy, Rainy/Snowy, Storm/Blizzard in effect of intensity. Cloudy is really clear but with more of a chance for bad weather in the future. This allows you in the campaign to get a feel for what the next turn's weather might be (if its clear, the next turn will at worst be cloudy, which is as good as clear). Weather of course effects movement rates (including forced marches), reaction moves, and of course the battlefield weather if any battles are to be fought.
 
To get a feel of how it works, we'll assume its the 1st turn of the campaign and its June, so we'll use the Summer Weather chart. The weather on turn 1 starts as clear.
 
At the start of each turn, a 2d6 roll is made to determine the status of the weather. Following the arrows in the appropriate box, lets assume I roll an 8. For turn one, the weather is cloudy. On turn 2, I roll a 9. The weather for turn two is Rain. On turn 3, I roll a 7. No change. Another rainy turn. On turn 4, I roll a 3, so the weather reverts to cloudy. And so on and so forth.
 
Also, note that in Arpil and November boxes there is a +1 to the 2d6 die roll to account for the chance of more inclement weather.
 
All in all, the system works fine and is easy to modify to meet any needs. Now if only I can finally get another full Rampage on the Rhine or Destuction on the Danube campaign going !

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