Added Realism Moon Phases and Real Weather July 2000

[Cdnwolf]

http://www.calendar-12.com/moon_calendar/2000/july

http://freemeteo.com/default.asp?pid...000&sid=124350

It looked like it rain all month long during July 2000.

[Legbreaker]

Also, http://www.ga.gov.au/bin/astro/sunrisenset

[B.T.]

Well done, Cdnwolf and Leg!

The players in my group will hate this.

[Targan]

In my campaigns we keep campaign logs on double-sided A4 sized paper forms. They are called watch sheets (because each box is one 4-hour watch). Each row of 6 boxes across the page (landscape view) is one day. There are 15 lines of boxes on each side of the page so each double-sided page contains approximately a calender month of 4-hour watch boxes. Every single one of those watch boxes on the logs from our last T2K campaign (covering the time from the Escape from Kalisz scenario to March 2001) listed the phase of the moon (RL) and the weather conditions as well as what occurred (a basic rundown anyway to jog our memories).

The weather was randomly generated using the Northern Europe-type tables from Harnmaster's weather generation system. It generates surprisingly realistic weather patterns. My rationale for not using RL weather for the period was that the "nuclear fall" the world was going through would make RL weather data worthless. The "Butterfly Effect" and all that.

[Olefin]

Well this is a great way to answer my question from last night for our game!

Thank you very much!!

[M-Type]

I'm gonna have to start generating weather, or my player's suspension of disbelief might break!

Also those logs seem like a good idea. Might have to Excel something up.

[Olefin]

I asked in our game because we are looking at a possible night infiltration - and its one thing to try to infiltrate in the dark of the moon and another totally different thing to do it in a full moon!

And even with a full moon - moonrise and set figure in as well.

Its interesting to have historical data now that you can use to go back and use for the actual dates.

As an aside did anyone ever see the movie 1984 that was released in the 80's? It was filmed in 1984 during the actual time the book took place and they actually filmed scenes on the dates given in the book so the actual weather and lighting was part of the movie.

A very nice touch.

Having weather and things like full moons retconned into the game can add historical realism for those playing the game with its original dates.

[M-Type]

I've been using a random weather generator I found online to do the weather a week at a time, so the players can try out their meteorological skills and so I can drop hints like "the dark clouds greet you as you wake up" or "you notice that there's a chill" and such.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by M-Type

I'm gonna have to start generating weather, or my player's suspension of disbelief might break!

Also those logs seem like a good idea. Might have to Excel something up.

Here's mine (attached). Note that at the top right of the first page I've pasted the full and new moon symbols. When we were playing my last campaign I had an entire font set showing the phases of the moon.

[Cdnwolf]

Originally Posted by Targan

Here's mine (attached). Note that at the top right of the first page I've pasted the full and new moon symbols. When we were playing my last campaign I had an entire font set showing the phases of the moon.

Stealing Lol... and will give credit to the Aussie for its creation lol

[Adm.Lee]

AWESOME! Thanks! Weather tables were one of the first homebrew rules I cobbled together for T2k back in the day. My players and I mused about looking up the historical weather at my Origins game, but were only able to turn up the moon for that day.

Also, thanks for the Watch sheet, I should have thought of spreadsheeting that myself.

I have a variation on that kind of spreadsheet, tracking only by day, but each column tracks what the PCs are doing, what important NPCs & enemies might be doing, weather and local rumors and news. It can keep track of stuff happening outside the campaign area (say, the 5th Mech getting overrun in the Baltic Marines game I might be running, or something happening down in Warsaw), which can filter to the PCs over time. That can add to the feeling that the world is moving on and living all around the players.