Weather

[Pandatheist]

Hi all. I'm somewhat new to Runequest. While reading RQG there seems to be a lot of reference to weather. How do people tend to use it in their games? As flavor, as portent, etc? Should it be important or just background? I know Orlanth and Yelm in particular are heavily tied to types of weather, but past that I was just wondering how central I should make it. Thanks!

[Psullie]

important or not is up to and your style of play. but the weather is a vital component of daily life for most, it determines planting, harvesting, raiding, magical rituals and trade. In many instances it is actually divine and it's worship or not impacts on your communities survival.

[Joerg]

Weather conditions influence quite a few magics available to Orlanth, Yelm(alio), Heler and others. It also is a significant modifier for travel, combat, climbing and other such activities.

Dry spells (like the one recently suffered in northern Germany) often prompt heroes to undergo the Aroka Quest to banish Daga and bring back the rain.

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Pandatheist said:

Hi all. I'm somewhat new to Runequest. While reading RQG there seems to be a lot of reference to weather. How do people tend to use it in their games? As flavor, as portent, etc? Should it be important or just background? I know Orlanth and Yelm in particular are heavily tied to types of weather, but past that I was just wondering how central I should make it. Thanks!

In my games, weather is set dressing, it's there but not important until its needed as a story element. For example, want to slow the group down - have it rain and make the trails boggy. In my current game, the group waited a season (Fire) so they could begin crossing the Wastes at a relatively cooler time and not die. Rain plays an important part in flash floods, so thats weather as a story element "It's raining ten miles to the east - I'm glad were not in that".

[soltakss]

Griffin Mountain had a weather table that you could use to determine what the weather was going to be, based on the previous weather and time of year. It was very useful, especially when I generated the weather for the next week or so. Orlanthi and Storm Bulls could determine whether weather was "natural" or "magical", using their weather senses, which turned out to help with certain plots.

It would be nice to be able to do the same thing for Prax, Sartar and the Holy Country, but the weather in those places is different and would have different rules.

In my games, weather is ignored, unless it becomes important. So, when travelling,, heavy rain/snow/thick fog and so on makes travel times longer, fog helps with ambushes and that kind of thing. Where there are Yelmites and Orlanthi, Cloud Cover affects certain spells, so it us useful to know. A Cloud Call/Clear contest between Yelmalians and Orlanthi is always fun.

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Psullie said:

... In many instances it is actually divine and it's worship or not impacts on your communities survival.

This, I think.  Is the big wind just "Orlanth being Orlanth" or is there a Sign to be read, a signal or even a command from the god?

"YGMV" (Your Glorantha May Vary) is a longtime standard of the community, so feel free to just leave the weather as window-dressing and/or environmental hazard, as desired; but ALSO feel free to take advantage of how mytho-magical Glorantha is, and make (at least some of) the weather very significant indeed...

[Pandatheist]

Thanks! This gives me a lot to think about. Much appreciated.

[jajagappa]

18 hours ago, Pandatheist said:

How do people tend to use it in their games? As flavor, as portent, etc? Should it be important or just background? I know Orlanth and Yelm in particular are heavily tied to types of weather, but past that I was just wondering how central I should make it.

As others have noted, pretty much as needed/desired.  Mostly it's flavor for the day:  it's hot and humid (i.e. you don't want to wear armor), it's raining (trails are muddy and will slow you down and make wagons useless), it's frigid with strong gales (better have cloaks and fur-lined outfits, otherwise penalize skills such as manipulation).  Sometimes can be portents.  Useful to know if it's clear or cloudy if Yelm or Orlanth want to cast certain spells.

[styopa]

IMO I don't think weather and conditions are given nearly the respect they should be in simulation.  It's too attractive to players to just load up armor as high as can be, the only real negative consequence is in spell casting.  (And RQ was the first to really even try to simulate that.)

Even heavily armored ancient forces from Rome and points south wore as LITTLE armor as they could get away with, suggesting that even if your life/safety was on the line, you had to compromise armor with discomfort.

That said from a theoretical point of view...I too only really use it when dramatically driven.  I've tried lately just using the weather the day we game as what it is in-game, as closely as possible.  Glorantha is by and large astonishingly temperate to subtropical.  Sure, there's Valind's Glacier but if Genertela is the size of North America, if Trowjang/Teshnos is Florida, then Glamour would be somewhere near Minnesota....but which mythical forces have made 'moderate' in weather.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

That said from a theoretical point of view...I too only really use it when dramatically driven.  I've tried lately just using the weather the day we game as what it is in-game, as closely as possible.  Glorantha is by and large astonishingly temperate to subtropical.  Sure, there's Valind's Glacier but if Genertela is the size of North America, if Trowjang/Teshnos is Florida, then Glamour would be somewhere near Minnesota....but which mythical forces have made 'moderate' in weather.

I would like to point out that a map projection like this doesn't really provided a size comparison as the higher reak world latitudes are effectively at a different scale than the lower ones. Glorantha doesn't suffer from that problem, but if you put the Genertela silhouette south of the US map, completely different size and distance comparisons would result.

[PhilHibbs]

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

I would like to point out that a map projection like this doesn't really provided a size comparison as the higher reak world latitudes are effectively at a different scale than the lower ones. Glorantha doesn't suffer from that problem, but if you put the Genertela silhouette south of the US map, completely different size and distance comparisons would result.

Looks like an oblique azimuthal projection to me, though. So long as the change in lattitude is also reflected in the tangency, there will not be a problem. Basically you are saying "if you make a mistake with your scale, then your scale is wrong".

Edited August 22, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Psullie]

That map only (roughly) compares size not location or even weather patterns. Latitude is only one factor in determining seasonal temperature, even on Earth areas with similar latitude have remarkably different climates - palm trees in Cornwall? 

Like styopa said I think weather should be far more important, especially in an ancient setting. People spent far more time outdoors then than we do now

[styopa]

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

I would like to point out that a map projection like this doesn't really provided a size comparison as the higher reak world latitudes are effectively at a different scale than the lower ones. Glorantha doesn't suffer from that problem, but if you put the Genertela silhouette south of the US map, completely different size and distance comparisons would result.

I think it's a size comparison ONLY size-relative between the US (ie for US customers) and Genertela.  Having Canada's outline on there is confusing and misleading.  It's not that (nor did I suggest) that latitude-wise Genertela is north of Toronto....latitude as a concept is pretty pointless on Glorantha, anyway.

Glorantha's flat, so there is no deformation to a flat projection.  The US map doesn't actually deform that much in different projections:

...so the point, if you're not considering that Glorantha is where Canada is, is moot.

13 minutes ago, Psullie said:

Like styopa said I think weather should be far more important, especially in an ancient setting. People spent far more time outdoors then than we do now

Heck man, I live in MN in a 110-yr old house with no airconditioning, and we have an entirely different (not better, not worse, just different) experience of the year compared to people who spend the entire 365 days in consistently 70-degree fixed-humidity rooms.  When my sons started in Boy Scouts, we had a campout where it rained (hard) for an entire week - where even stuff you kept dry was damp.  Their takeaway was a much deeper appreciation for SIMPLY BEING DRY.

[10baseT]

I use it to enhance the mood... convey the setting. Then i also use it sometimes to affect tactics. For example, pea soup fog rolls in and visibility is 5-10 feet. What the PCs don't know is, trolls are waiting to ambush and they're using darksense. Or it's raining/snowing real hard where visibility is reduced and climbing on the rocks is treacherous, and that's when javelins come raining down from the baboons on the rocks, they then move out of site. Do the PCs climb the slippery rocks? It's also been constantly raining and you've had your bow out, or it got drenched when you forded the flooded river... when you go to use it, the bow string is worthless. What do you do? It's not always like that, but i do use it so the PCs take weather into account... or maybe to just keep them on their toes. (it's been fun believe it or not... PCs fear the fog lol)