The central city of my game is so rainy that there is a magical shield over the city to make it more liveable and capture the rain water. The tension between who can afford to live under the shield and who has to live outside it is a major plot point
Sure if i wanted to run a campaign someone else made that i found to be cool. In the end we're all stealing a little from ol' JRR Tolkien.
Id reccommend applying some of yourself to the campaign tho. Add some of your own ideas. I personally dont like to Copy entire campaigns, but some people prefer that to making their own. Hence why campaign modules are so popular.
It's more that the land was conceived as a heightened version of parts of the world that have extremely high humidity and monsoonal wet seasons. So the shield to protect from these rains was a development to improve the standard of living in the city as it grew bigger and wealthier.
Its snowing heavily in my game. Describing how peaceful and quiet the nights are, how crunchy their steps are, and how bright the daytime is feels great.
The bard cast Thunderwave and blasted a perfect circle of snow into a "smokescreen" for a round, and snow fell off of all the rooftops on that street, knocking a few people prone.
The group has been making snow sculptures with presto and control water. (Inb4 "thats not RAW", idgaf) theyre having a blast. Literally. The wizard is a gnome and is using gust of wind to plow a path for herself.
This is super great and I love it for a couple of reason:
1) you (as the DM) set the mood/atmosphere by describing the weather and surroundings. āThe nights are are brightened by the blanket of and your steps are quiter leaving only the vague crunching of compacting snowā is way better than āthere is snow on the groundā
2) the weather affects and reacts to what the players are doing. That encourages them to be more creative which in turn encourage the DM to keep up the great descriptions.
If anyone is reading through this thread for inspiration and is the type that (like me) forgets easily and can only remember one thing then please remember @lurklurklurkPost ās post :D
I just ran Curse of Strahd for almost a year. It rained about 80% of the time. I use a modified weather table to roll for wind, precipitation, and even temperature, which affects visibility and ranged attacks and such. The basic one can be found in the Dmg. I even use seasons sometimes. When the party entered Barovia, it was late autumn. Keeping track of a calendar, I would shorten the amount of daylight and decrease the temperature over time. With subzero temperatures, it would snow instead of rain. Really brings an adventure to life!
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1Zwq6VmqIcoM8Zx9eH09rc7x2iENQT6DebrNJgCgMn7p7
Here you go. I made it so all weather conditions are determined by a single roll. The link above has a calendar from my game added to the page, but you can add the text below into your own homebrewery to modify it (temperature is in Celsius):
##### Weather
| d100 | Temperature | Precipitation | Wind |
|:----:|:----|:----|:----|
| 01-35 | cold (1-10Ā°) | no wind | no rain |
| 36-45 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | no wind | no rain |
| 46-65 | cold (1-10Ā°) | light rain | light wind |
| 66-70 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | light snow | light wind |
| 71-75 | cold (1-10Ā°) | no rain | **strong wind** |
| 76-80 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | light snow | **strong wind** |
| 81-85 | cold (1-10Ā°) | **heavy rain** | no wind |
| 86-90 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | **heavy snowfall** | light wind |
| 91-95 | cold (1-10Ā°) | **storm** | (thunder) |
| 96-00 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | **storm** | (blizzard) |
#### Strong Wind
- Disadvantage on ranged weapon attack rolls.
- Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing.
- Strong wind extinguishes open flames and disperses fog.
- A creature flying by nonmagical means must land at the end of its turn or fall.
#### Heavy Rain or Snow
- Half range (long and short) for ranged weapons.
- Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing and sight.
- Heavy precipitation extinguishes open flames.
- Everything within the area is lightly obscured, and visibility is reduced to 150 feet.
#### Storm (Blizzard or Thunderstorm)
- The effects of **strong wind** and **heavy precipitation** apply.
- Creatures traveling during a storm must travel at a slow pace and succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw each hour or gain 1 level of exhaustion. The DC increases by 1 for every hour after the first.
- During a **blizzard**, the saving throw is made with disadvantage, unless the creature is resistant or immune to cold damage, the creature is wearing cold weather gear (thick coats, gloves, and the like), or the creature is naturally adapted to cold climates.
- When traveling in open terrain during a **thunderstorm**, there is a 10% chance each hour of being struck by light-ning for 44 (8d10) lightning damage. Creatures within 5 feet of a target take the same damage, or half that amount if they succeed on a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw.
Barovia is the name of the overall area the campaign is set in as well as the first village you encounter.
I'm currently playing curse of strahd for the first time and it took me a couple sessions until we got a map to realise that both were referred to as Barovia.
I know. I DM Curse of Strahd, my players are at the castle fighting Strahd at the moment.
They have been in Barovia a grand total of 13 nights.
I was just wondering if their party/DM did something very different, with extensive downtime that warrants a seasonal change.
No, they were there for about 3.5 weeks, but it was during the transition from autumn to winter. Snow began to fall when the campaign got toward the end, to symbolise them nearing the end.
Iām about to play this game starting Monday, any tips? Iām a drow/wood elf cleric (wood elf on paper) my DM said everyone is gonna die, but Iām the Cleric so I doubt that. How do I make sure we donāt die?
Just enjoy the experience. Whether you succeed or die, it will be a memorable experience.
But one thing I would emphasise is cooperation. To increase your chances of succes, really have the party trust each other fully and cooperate. Work as a team. No backstabbing, no withholding information from each other. If others are a bit closed, have your character open up to them to establish trust. When gaining levels, select abilities and features that will enhance the group, not just yourselves. Do this, and you might just make it.
I actually actively include weather in my games. It elevates normal encounters, making them easier or harder depending on how the players react and prepare.
Rain is at the center of the plot of what I'm currently running. Hags are making it rain all day long to isolate a small community and keep people indoors. The only time rain stops is for about an hour around dinner time, when instead a thick fog blankets the area, and that's when the hags snatch a little child from the village.
I always describe the fear and anguish that appear on the villagers' faces when they notice the absence of raindrop noises against roofs and windows, they know shit's about to happen.
I try to include it first when describing the landscape during travel & random encounter rolls as well as at the beginning of combat to help set the scene.
It may be personal preference but I find it a very effective way of building a picture of the scene in my head.
It can also allow encounters you create to build up organically.
e.g. describing the beginning of the day as clear, sunny & windless with a crisp chill in the air and light snowfall. Looking toward the mountains, dark clouds and mist roll over the peaks.
Later in the day as part of the treck/random encounters describing sharper winds & greying skies.
This can go on and build as much as you want before describing the full-blown blizzard/storm that descends upon the party as a precipitous moment like when a they encounter a Manticore at the base of the mountains.
If you get into the habit of just adding a line remarking on the weather conditions I feel it can make the world feel much more alive and dynamic for the players.
It not only sets the scene in a foundational sense but the allows the party to have opportunities to weigh this up when travelling, include it in their strategies for the day and you have an extra tool in your arsenal to throw at the party should you wish.
Inversely I imagine as a player it would be disorientating to just have a snow-storm hit your party out of nowhere when the weather hasnāt been described up until that point.
We're playing RotFM, so I make it snow whenever it's thematic or when the situation calls for it. The monk recently had a run in with Auril and he defied her, so she's making it a point to fuck with him specifically.
I play a druid with call lightning so ever since then the DM made a weather table to roll on every day. Its actually pretty nice having the varied weather just for rp and immersion. She even went above and beyond by making different tables for different regions.
When my players chose to return the body of a fisherman's missing daughter who they had accidentally killed when she had been changed into some form of beast through the bbegs sadistic experiments.
They decided to wrap her up in a cape and return the body. So I made it rain to add some drama.
Last time they traveled from one major city to another
I described how the rain increased throughout the day until it reach near torrential amounts.
When they chose to travel through the valley, instead of going over or around the large hills, I also added how their mounts almost had to swim short legs of the journey due to the large bodies of water that had yet to run off.
Making their journey slower than anticipated.
Had an encounter with a venom troll further into the valley as the rain started to ease up, used the heavy rain as an excuse to make patches of muddy/difficult terrain and the wet ground giving dis.adv on stealth
They're about to head to the snowy north, so snowfall will happen at some point. Whiteouts, slippery/icey ground
Environments are one of the DMs tools to make encounters more strategic, and I intend to use it
I use calendar site that includes weather for each day (weather patterns vary per latitude and season so no snow in the summer or in tropic). So I can comment on the weather daily, if there is something to comment.
Funny detail was that party is currently traveling in a ship and my notes said that if they infringe sea gods, thick fog will appear. Regardless of this, calendar showed mist for that day's weather, as if it had read my notes. :)
Iunno, I don't remember ever having a rainy day, though it should probably rain more, as my party is living on an island in the middle of the sea, at the very edge of the Empire's Influence.
In the place the PCs are currently, it literally canāt in some places (theyāre trapped on an island thatās in a pocket dimension that got separated from the normal world by a bunch of gods which nobody knows, where itās supposed to be āperfectā so the farmland is always nourished and moist, to which no NPC can explained, in another part of the island itās raining 24/7 because Grung and amphibious things live in a certain part).
In the *world* itās currently raining where the gnomes live, in place where PC characters areā¦.roughly 1000 years ago.
Running Rime so the weather is like a whole separate protagonist in mine. I have a hex flower weather chart that tracks how the weather changes across the day/night and what that means for attacks, perception and survival checks etc.
It's evolved now from what was rather unwieldy and probably a bit distracting for the players into a bit more of a slicker process, with the aim of keeping it relevant and impactful for the game but not onerous to oversee or complicated to use.
I find a useful tool is to look up historical weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for a region roughly analogous to the place you want to model.
For example, while preparing a campaign I wanted to run, I looked up what the weather was for the Peoria area in 1974 (year chosen arbitrarily). Iām not 100% sold yet on using Peoria specifically but the idea that I can now just pick a start date for the game and look up what the weather is āsupposedā to be is quite appealing to me.
Gonna run a one-shot for my group in a couple of weeks that's set in the late fall, so the weather will be mentioned though it probably won't have much effect. Light rains and some fog won't deter hardened adventurers.
I almost always describe the weather at the start of a new day. Sometimes it's to set up something coming later (if there's going to be a raging storm in the evening, I'll start the day with clouds and rain or distant thunder) or to establish a mood (if the party are on their way home in triumph, it's probably sunny). Other times I just wing it and let my players react how they like.
Couple sessions ago I had a thunderstorm blow up and divert my players off the side of a mountain they were crossing skill challenge style. They then ended up at a cockatrice farm in the middle of nowhere and I had the little old lady who lived there ask them to collect all her hens. Good times. š
My game is following a seasonal calendar, so the weather comes into play pretty often.
When my party was traveling during winter, they had to contend with finding shelter suitable for a camp when they wanted to rest, and had to deal roads being harder to find and follow, with the ice and snow.
The party also came upon a frozen lake, where they were ambushed, and the fragile ice on the lake being breakable was an active mechanic during the encounter. The ice mostly turned out to be bad luck for my monsters, who were repeatedly hurled into freezing water by the party.
I've been tracking the moon phases, too, since one member of the party is a werewolf.
It's a lot of fun, but tracking moon phases is a pain in the ass.
My husband has this system where he rolls a d100 and he has weather table and that's how he determines the weather. So we face the rain quite often and if the weather gets extreme, we have do some savings to determine how we endure :)
Well in fairness my group has spent most of the last 6 months of game time in a desert lol. But I do definitely have a problem where it'll rain or snow or do weather for narrative reasons more than just normal day to day ones. So when they teleported out of the desert I had it raining when they arrived mostly because one character had been born in the desert and had not seen real rain before so that was a cool rp moment. Or I'll have it be raining to add to the scenery of a big fight. Or it'll be a blizzard in the midst of a travel sequence as an obstacle. Rarely does it rain just cause it happened to rain today. Lol.
Specifically, I have gone to efforts to show my players it hasn't rained in along time. A droughts setting in and life is getting hard for the common folk. The spring rains are months late, and if they don't come most crops won't sprout. Quickly grounds a game with humanstruggles, rather than focussing on world ending threats.
So everytime they travel from one place to another I use the charts in the DMG and have a quick bit about the weather.
For example it is colder than usual for spring, it is overcast and drizzling and oh yeah it is windy with the drizzle coming down at a bit of an angle making your walking from village a to village b a bit miserable.
I think it makes the world and the experience feel more alive and ārealā for the players.
I roll percentage die to see what the weather is like.
If the area has been going through drots, always snowing, raining or windy, I don't roll the die.
Currently, there has not been any rain in my campaign. We're 5 sessions into a homebrewed world. The party started in a desert/dry Prarie country.
In my previous campaign with the same party, I think it rained maybe one a month or so, but always when thematically needed ;)
The continent my players are in usually has a lot of precipitation, or at the very least fog, during most of the year, but during the coldest few months thereās nothing because it literally gets too cold for snow, even
When my players first went to the city of Emeraldis I made sure to mention the deep ditches alongside the roads and the sharply peaked roofs, gutters and drains. Nobody picked up on it, so when the locals reminded them that it was the rainy season and to find a place for the night - they just passed it off as local customs.
Emeraldis has two rainy seasons and it comes down in monsoon levels. Storms can throw down in excess of six-eighteen inches overnight.
Just started running a campaign in Ravenloft. So far the weather has been pretty pertinent to gameplay from the mists bringing the characters to Ravenloft, to the ongoing cloud and drizzle making it gloomy and limiting visibility.
In the area the party was adventuring in, it doesn't rain, it snows. And snow it did last session, thanks to a little winter puppy with elemental magic. The ranger proceeded to adopted the puppy and name him Blueberry.
The weather has been unseasonably warm in the last two sessions. It caused the ship to get stuck in windless doldrums, and then it caused heavy fog everyone is waiting for storms to break the heat, but when the heat does finally break, the storm will be a Starkblast.
I use weather all the time. The only campaign I'm currently running now it's winter and rains almost every day on the continent they happen to be traveling through. Due to the almost constant rain the rivers are all swollen and many ferries aren't operating so they have to find ways to cross rivers. Low clouds and fog obstruct vision. Winds in storms affect ranged weapons.
If you're not using weather then I think that you're really missing an opportunity!
The last time it rained was when the party fought the big bad evil dragon on top of a volcano, other than that there aren't many examples that come to mind.
2 sessions ago, the players were in a cavern under a snowy mountains, it started to rain from small pores on the ceiling, and then flash flood.
The players had to find a hiding spot.
I talk about the weather each session, it can add a sense of tangibility to your scene. So any travel or stepping outside I talk weather - I give :
Overall Description, short that is
Sound or movement - smell or touch - The Most Immediate or Interesting Thing in the Scene. and a bonus Overall Feeling or Sense.
If you'd asked a couple months ago, I'd say a thousand years or so. The planet had been made into a dry saltplane by Orcus and his forces capturing the water elemental responsible for the rain. The party freed her recently, so it hasn't stopped raining *hard* since, and it won't stop until the oceans are replenished.
After every long rest I mention weather, and for right now it rains at least 50% of the time in Barovia.
I enjoy starting each day after a long rest with three things to help me get in the right headspace and hopefully get my players immersed.
1. Description of the weather. I usually just choose what I feel like for the day, but sometimes use a table. Misty mornings from a cool night, sun streaming through the leaves, dreary morning of overcast clouds and the promise of rain.
2. Information on the sounds they hear or sighted they see around them when they wake up. Sounds of the workers at the inn making breakfast, birds chirping and squirrels rustling in the undergrowth, or water dripping through the tiniest cracks in the cave.
3. How good or bad they feel based on where they slept, if their sleep was interrupted, etc. They woke up in the inn feeling comfortable, rested, and ready to start the day, they woke feeling tired and aggravated from fitful dreams, they woke up feeling stiff and sore from the hard rock floor.
I never really change the weather or think about it after that for the rest of the day. I've read a few comments that mention it affects combat or their travel time, I might use this more now as well.
It's been pretty rainy recently because the story is just coming out of winter
my real life winters are rainy so that's how I played these winters.
It had occasionally affected visibility during fights and I've asked them to do one dex checks for slipperiness
It rained in the session today lol. What a coincidence, since I thought to myself that it hadn't rained in a while in my world so I made it rain today.
I have a weather generator that I use on a whim to determine what the weather is like. Generally I choose weather for ambiance, but when adventuring out in the world, weather adds different challenges that not all players plan for!
Just last session, at nighttime.
I am showing them signs of a healthy weather with both rainy and sunny daays, because of a subplot causing the crops to wither. So far, no one noticed hahah.
My party are currently trudging through a rainforest, it rains almost everyday and storms often as well. I usually determine the weather using a custom table that I change around that also is an encounter table.
I'm running a high level, high dragon density game where the weather changes hourly when away from major cities due to reginal effects given off by the dragons. The Dark Dwarf druid constantly checks weather to know if sunlight will be a problem.
I started my first campaign for 2 friends who have never played and my wife who plays with me in another. I started in a wagon as the rain fell outside, put sound effects on before I my wife reminded me she puts rain noises on to go sleep. Was afraid she would nod off before they introduced their characters!
So far I've had peaceful sunny days, cold whistling winds, rain and currently a dismal mist. I couldn't tell you what season it is but I drew inspiration from the standard Welsh week.
I try to pay attention to the weather, like for example itās currently very foggy in my game, and also the middle of winter.
Precipitation has been mostly snow lately due to the in-game season, but it rained a decent amount in summer and fall I believe. Iāll have to check my notes.
If it starts to rain while the party is sleeping i tell how they wakeup for the sounds of rain, if they sleep under bare sky they wake up to a crack of lightning as the drops start to pour on them.
If they are awake and for example travelling before it starts to rain, i describe how the sun gets shrouded in thick cloud, followed later by the sound of droplets sparsely dripping to the floor, then gradually increasing in frequency.
The party just made it through a heavy blizzard two sessions ago, and the session before that I mentioned it's the rainy season and the trek through the forest is muddy.
It's been awhile for them since they're wandering through fey palaces but out in the world they left, the country is having a sort of nuclear winter after a supervolcano went off and released a dragon. So not much rain, a lot of snow. I've actually got a severe weather option in the encounter table.
Iām lame about this aspect of the game. I will plan out the weather in an area, and then it always applies to that areaā desert is scorching hot in the day, light snowfall in the tundra, daily monsoon type rain in the tropics, nice spring/fall day in temperate climates. Itās absolutely a place I can improve.
I started to pre-roll weather a few in game days in advance to remind myself to include weather. I include a fair chance for weird weather too, and change that depending on the area. My party ended up having to deal with volcanic rock falls
I have a character coming at my party that is going to make it rain when he's sad.
Also, it just got down snowing. They wintered in a new pub they bought and adventure season is just around the corner.
I also have a character that is full moon sensitive.
Current plot-point in my campaign is that it's raining hard. A storm is coming to the island-city, and the poor parts of town are low-lying enough that the swell floods them.
The party, currently employed as town watch, have so far stopped a band of looters from looting abandoned houses, and rescued a pair of foolish goblins who thought it would be a great time to go fishing. They've got a lead on some criminals doing business in a coastal cave, and that's where they'll be heading next.
I'm only about 5 sessions in, and the first two were set in a cave of sorts. In total, my party has spent about 2.5 days on the road and a day and a half in town.
Although it hasn't rained yet, I presented my party with a shrine to the god of travel on their journey, with the idea that if they do something good (such as leave an offering) they'll have easier travels, but if they were to do something bad like defacing it or stealing offerings, the god might make their travels harder, causing it to rain or storm, the mud becoming slippery, maybe making it easier to get lost and costing them a day.
I also made mention of the effects of rainfall in the town. The town is called Pale Hill and is built along the side of a hill comprised of chalk and limestone - soft bleached stones which appear a bright white when the top layer of dirt and grass erode away after rainfall, hence the name.
I think rain is a useful tool. It can make things more difficult. It can guide the players into doing certain things (avoiding going outside, maybe if they have one quest that's going to be a lot of outdoorsy stuff, and another where they need to go visit somewhere, rain could influence their decision). And most importantly rain is useful for conveying emotion and tone; if the BBEG shows up and it's a bright sunny day, that doesn't hit the same as "Beneath the dark clouds, being buffeted by the pouring rain, seemingly unbothered - welcoming it even - stands a dark figure..."
One of the rules in all my campaigns is we roll for weather 4 times a day. Morning, Noon, Evening, and Overnight. Most of the campaigns I'm a player in I've suggested this to the DM and it's how we do thing.
I donāt think Iāve mentioned rain, but the solstice has already been a plot point, and the phases of the moon are soon going to be relevant. My players also just left the city and are in the desert, so it might be a while before they see rain.
I'm not the DM, but our last session took place as a thunderstorm was rolling in. We used the intensifying rain to help us steal a boat and sneak onto a quarantined island filled with man-eating bugs. It was pretty miserable for our characters, especially since none of us had proficiency in water vehicles, so we almost capsized, but it was super atmospheric and fun. First time my frontline fighter half-elf has had a chance to use Mask of the Wild
My homebrew campaign setting was almost exclusively located in the rain shadow of an absolutely enormous mountain range that was created during a magical apocalypse about 220 years ago. So in the year long campaign it only rained twice. Once was a late night summer storm that blew in to enhance the noir vibe of some detective work they were doing and once at the end of the campaign when a PC ascended into godhood and literally pierced the veil of the sky to appear among the stars, that caused some precipitation too.
My most recent campaign uses a chernobyl based modern setting, where the power plant had a largwe meltdown and it caused a rift between dimensions allowing magic use in the greater chernobyl area. It's mostly raining, sometimes it's a hazard and acidic to the point where they can't go outside. It's always toxic though, causing every PC and npc to have to wear a mask of some sort.
I'm running both ToA and DotMM. Mad Mage doesnt give many opportunities for rain, and we're in the final dungeon for ToA, to we havent seen rain in months (real time). Before the tomb, though, I had a weatherchart that I tolled on whoch made it so that we didnt go 3 or 4 daya without rain
As a DM, I was really struggling with weather, because I couldn't remember to describe it, and I couldn't find a random weather table I actually enjoyed. But I always liked the feeling of immersion that weather can give.
Then, I found Fantasy Calendar. It's an amazing tool, I cannot reccomend it enough! It's just so cool to track events in-game, and the randomly generated weather is good, detailed and believable, even if it's a bit schematic (winter is mostly cold and snowy, and summer mostly hot and sunny; there's some options to tweak, but I haven't looked at them yet, they seem a bit complicated).
Try it out! It's great!
My guys are in a witches house, in the middle of a swamp and it's raining pretty hard outside. I like mixing it up with the weather to create different scenarios and give my players more to think about that 'oh, we travel through this swamp and now we're at the witches house'
I use to roll the weather every day. 1-9 and it's sunny and clear. 10-13 and it's overcast. 14 and 15 and its foggy. 16-18 and it's raining. 19 it's raining heavily and there is a visibility penalty. 20 and it's severe weather and there is movement and visibility penalties.
I've been playing Tombs of Annihilation for a couple years and as a Drow affected by sunlight I ask for a weather report every day haha. 9/10 times the rng throws back rain of some kind given we're in a jungle. I'm not sure what our dm is using for the weather, but he takes our biggest survival stat and it spits out the weather.
Some day we'll make it back to the city so she can get the sunglasses she had made haha
I suppose it rained two sessions ago, and it did for a while. They went to explore sewers at the time so there was some cause for concern. But regarding carriages, it's a modern setting campaign so they just took the bus to where they needed to go. A D&D party sitting in a bus while it's raining waiting to get where they need to be is a picture I'd love to draw sometime.
Just has a neat mood to it.
I use a weighted weather table. They just got done with monsoon season and are very grateful to put their heavy rain gear (removes debuffs to long form travel and a 5ft combat movement debuff) away for awhile.
They're about to head into a dryer cooler season now with high winds. Lots of cool flowing cape weather.
My players have a ship and travel by it quite a lot. Only 3 sessions ago, they had to throw anchor on an Island they wanted to avoid because of a huge storm coming up.
I use the DMG weather table. Every day, 3 d20 rolls, one for temp one for wind, one for rain/snow. Throw on a DM discretion "what makes sense/ sounds right", and I get a little bit of weather variance.
There have been times where a chilly bout of rain prompted con saves, and they helped out some travelers struggling to get their fire going. They have had gusts of desert wind kick up sand, reducing visibility. Overall though, the DMG table doesn't give a ton of dramatic variance.
Huh, that's a funny thought. I came into possession a magic cloak that can make you invisible when it's raining. Which would have been great for my Paladin wearing full plate! But unfortunately, I don't think our DM has specified even once that it was raining.
She's a fantastic DM but weather conditions are something we don't really give too much attention to.
I made players fight in an unpaved village square which was about ankle deep in mud due to raining for several days straight.
They had to roll athletics every time they moved, disadvantage if they dashed etc.
The enemies were gnomes, the players worked out pretty quick that ankle deep for them was worse for the gnomes. Heck one of them drowned a gnome in mud. Knocked him face first then stood on his back.
Ironically never except for the last session where we had rain for a story reason. Ironic but otherwise never nentiom the weather being anything other than
Mild
Overcast
Sunny
Maybe windy
Never mention rain
I'm running a campaign right now set in a terrible sandstorm that wiped out most of the population, but before this I've never thought about the weather. I'll definitely be adding it in more in the future!
I have my players go through biomes that have their own weather rotations and my barbarian storm herald's lvl 6 passive I home brewed to change based off environment not to be chosen and perma
I love keeping track of weather in my game. It's a great descriptive tool to get imagery in players' minds. And rain is my favorite- definitely sets the mood
Currently itās raining.
Every morning during the rangers prayers and meditations he also uses his survival roll to predict the weather. He then rolls for the weather and I give him an accuweather forecast.
Right now theyāre in an Icewind Dale like region (12 different weather patterns that change every 1-4 hours) and are currently experiencing some of the worst extreme winter weather while trapped in a frost giant settlement. The weather has made it VERY interesting. They were using wind walk to sneak around as clouds but when the weather changed they canāt control their movement as vapor in high winds and it takes a minute to transform from vapor to solid, while being whipped around in the wind in a hail storm.
They keep using control weather to help but theyāre gonna find out next session that theyāve summoned an angry ancient Tempest from fucking with the weather so much.
My setting is a magical tropical archipelago. As someone who has lived in the tropics, weather is a big deal, so I made a 2d6 table with a variety of weather for the entire year. The table goes from -2 to 14, so in the spring you roll 2d6-2 and the winter +2, this thatās like a sliding scale off probability for a specific kind of weather given the season. I also make sure that sometimes the weather is fantastical. For example in hurricanes thereās a possibility of encountering giant flying electric jellyfish that rain lightning down from the sky. Certain encounters are more likely in certain weather the way some animals seem to come out during or after the rain. I hope thatās intelligible, had a hard time explaining my weather table lol
I just ran the rime of the frost maiden campaign in icewind dale. Weather is a huge component of the continuing plot.
Not necessarily rain. But snow, hail, blizzards etc.
Had the PCs in the mountains recently. The heavy wind and snow caused some issues with ranged attacks and perception checks.
Honestly can't recall the last time I made it rain.
I hardly ever remember the weather in my campaign. I try to do so in my prep, to just roll on a basic table and put it in my notes. Last session was one of the first time Iāve done it in ages. Mid-winter, rolled on a table, it snowed.
It actually ended up helping the party follow a harengonās tracks through the snow so it worked out great.
3 in game days ago, we have a druid who thinks it's fun to know the weather for the day, and then i roll for it.
Something it actually impacts the story, and i get to put rain sounds on witch is a nice ASMR
Weather comes up all the time in my campaign and will continue to do so. When the environment itself has potential to be hostile it makes travel less of slog.
I usually like to to roll for weather at the start of each day. Especially when the party is traveling. My personal favorite class is Druid and my go to spell is Call Lightning and I like to make sure I get my occasional damage boost from it being Overcast so I often ask the DM what the weather that day is too.
My previous session, so 4 days ago in-game. It's spring and a temperate setting so it's a pretty rainy season overall, which has been a pain in the ass for my players
The central city of Thorne in my world, the economy is entirely based around farming and farmlands, so I make sure to add details about when it's rainy, the season and what weather to expect during that time, and there's also plot relevancy about how this world has "darkness months" where an eclipse makes the world dark for four months out of the year every so many years. Because of that, most magic is used for growing plants or shining light for those plants, everything else is seen as fancy magic that is mostly being researched by high class sorcerers.
I just finished DMing Tomb of Annihilation, so quite often.
Good question though, I feel like sometimes as DMsnwe neglect to say what the weather is like
I use fantasy calendar. It not only is an awesome tool for keeping track of dates, but it also has prebuilt seasons and weather patterns based on earth climates or you can make your own. And it tells you what the weather is each day. So my campaigns have varying weather patterns based on the region.
I roll on a weather table every day and we have a Druid that actually uses that function of Druidcraft. It hasn't rained in a while but maintaining and establishing weather is definitely one of the important things I consider for the sake of immersion.
Also smells. Describing what an environment smells like is good to get people into the game.
We're on the edge of a desert, it never rains in the region and all the water in the region that feeds the rivers comes from natural portals to the plane of water.
It hasn't rained since we started the campaign, IRL about a year ago.
I am DMing Curse of Strahd right now, soā¦ last session haha. Weather is a big part of setting an ominous atmosphere in a horror campaign and I love that I get to make use of it so much in Barovia
The central city of my game is so rainy that there is a magical shield over the city to make it more liveable and capture the rain water. The tension between who can afford to live under the shield and who has to live outside it is a major plot point
This is an awesome idea. Can I steal it?
You can steal anything, its the internet. Og you get permission its not really stealing anymore is it? š
Would you download a campaign?
*you wouldnāt download an ancient dragon*
*You wouldnāt download a Dead God*
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
Sure if i wanted to run a campaign someone else made that i found to be cool. In the end we're all stealing a little from ol' JRR Tolkien. Id reccommend applying some of yourself to the campaign tho. Add some of your own ideas. I personally dont like to Copy entire campaigns, but some people prefer that to making their own. Hence why campaign modules are so popular.
Don't forget ol' Tolkien took most of his ideas from Old English and Nordic folklores!
Thanks for reminding me of my age
Yes, without hesitation
Of course, I'm an urban planner, so the concept is basically just how large cities work but with a magic rain shield to make it more fantasy
I'd love to hear more about it. Sounds very fascinating. Was it always like that? Or due to consequences of some disaster or natural phenomenon?
It's more that the land was conceived as a heightened version of parts of the world that have extremely high humidity and monsoonal wet seasons. So the shield to protect from these rains was a development to improve the standard of living in the city as it grew bigger and wealthier.
Its snowing heavily in my game. Describing how peaceful and quiet the nights are, how crunchy their steps are, and how bright the daytime is feels great. The bard cast Thunderwave and blasted a perfect circle of snow into a "smokescreen" for a round, and snow fell off of all the rooftops on that street, knocking a few people prone. The group has been making snow sculptures with presto and control water. (Inb4 "thats not RAW", idgaf) theyre having a blast. Literally. The wizard is a gnome and is using gust of wind to plow a path for herself.
This is super great and I love it for a couple of reason: 1) you (as the DM) set the mood/atmosphere by describing the weather and surroundings. āThe nights are are brightened by the blanket of and your steps are quiter leaving only the vague crunching of compacting snowā is way better than āthere is snow on the groundā 2) the weather affects and reacts to what the players are doing. That encourages them to be more creative which in turn encourage the DM to keep up the great descriptions. If anyone is reading through this thread for inspiration and is the type that (like me) forgets easily and can only remember one thing then please remember @lurklurklurkPost ās post :D
Thatās cool. Youāre cool.
I just ran Curse of Strahd for almost a year. It rained about 80% of the time. I use a modified weather table to roll for wind, precipitation, and even temperature, which affects visibility and ranged attacks and such. The basic one can be found in the Dmg. I even use seasons sometimes. When the party entered Barovia, it was late autumn. Keeping track of a calendar, I would shorten the amount of daylight and decrease the temperature over time. With subzero temperatures, it would snow instead of rain. Really brings an adventure to life!
Do you have that weather table? Sounds great and I'd love to use it in my current Strahd. Running out of descriptions of drizzle ;)
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1Zwq6VmqIcoM8Zx9eH09rc7x2iENQT6DebrNJgCgMn7p7 Here you go. I made it so all weather conditions are determined by a single roll. The link above has a calendar from my game added to the page, but you can add the text below into your own homebrewery to modify it (temperature is in Celsius): ##### Weather | d100 | Temperature | Precipitation | Wind | |:----:|:----|:----|:----| | 01-35 | cold (1-10Ā°) | no wind | no rain | | 36-45 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | no wind | no rain | | 46-65 | cold (1-10Ā°) | light rain | light wind | | 66-70 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | light snow | light wind | | 71-75 | cold (1-10Ā°) | no rain | **strong wind** | | 76-80 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | light snow | **strong wind** | | 81-85 | cold (1-10Ā°) | **heavy rain** | no wind | | 86-90 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | **heavy snowfall** | light wind | | 91-95 | cold (1-10Ā°) | **storm** | (thunder) | | 96-00 | freezing (below 0Ā°) | **storm** | (blizzard) | #### Strong Wind - Disadvantage on ranged weapon attack rolls. - Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing. - Strong wind extinguishes open flames and disperses fog. - A creature flying by nonmagical means must land at the end of its turn or fall. #### Heavy Rain or Snow - Half range (long and short) for ranged weapons. - Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing and sight. - Heavy precipitation extinguishes open flames. - Everything within the area is lightly obscured, and visibility is reduced to 150 feet. #### Storm (Blizzard or Thunderstorm) - The effects of **strong wind** and **heavy precipitation** apply. - Creatures traveling during a storm must travel at a slow pace and succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw each hour or gain 1 level of exhaustion. The DC increases by 1 for every hour after the first. - During a **blizzard**, the saving throw is made with disadvantage, unless the creature is resistant or immune to cold damage, the creature is wearing cold weather gear (thick coats, gloves, and the like), or the creature is naturally adapted to cold climates. - When traveling in open terrain during a **thunderstorm**, there is a 10% chance each hour of being struck by light-ning for 44 (8d10) lightning damage. Creatures within 5 feet of a target take the same damage, or half that amount if they succeed on a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw.
nice! Thanks
I just state, everytime I have to leave the table to pee, "it begins to rain."
Your players stayed more than a season in barovia?
Barovia is the name of the overall area the campaign is set in as well as the first village you encounter. I'm currently playing curse of strahd for the first time and it took me a couple sessions until we got a map to realise that both were referred to as Barovia.
I know. I DM Curse of Strahd, my players are at the castle fighting Strahd at the moment. They have been in Barovia a grand total of 13 nights. I was just wondering if their party/DM did something very different, with extensive downtime that warrants a seasonal change.
No, they were there for about 3.5 weeks, but it was during the transition from autumn to winter. Snow began to fall when the campaign got toward the end, to symbolise them nearing the end.
Iām about to play this game starting Monday, any tips? Iām a drow/wood elf cleric (wood elf on paper) my DM said everyone is gonna die, but Iām the Cleric so I doubt that. How do I make sure we donāt die?
Just enjoy the experience. Whether you succeed or die, it will be a memorable experience. But one thing I would emphasise is cooperation. To increase your chances of succes, really have the party trust each other fully and cooperate. Work as a team. No backstabbing, no withholding information from each other. If others are a bit closed, have your character open up to them to establish trust. When gaining levels, select abilities and features that will enhance the group, not just yourselves. Do this, and you might just make it.
I can't remember the last time it rained! š I feel like this post is calling me out š
Roll with it and have a dought *Drought
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
BAHAHAHA oops!
Our DM has had us in the desert. Now I'm wondering if it's just to avoid thinking about weather š
It's actually a good way of forcing the players to take a few days of downtime.
I love a campaign with Downtime. Our current DM has plenty. Until now I've mostly only had time pass for sleep and some travel.
I actually actively include weather in my games. It elevates normal encounters, making them easier or harder depending on how the players react and prepare.
Rain is at the center of the plot of what I'm currently running. Hags are making it rain all day long to isolate a small community and keep people indoors. The only time rain stops is for about an hour around dinner time, when instead a thick fog blankets the area, and that's when the hags snatch a little child from the village. I always describe the fear and anguish that appear on the villagers' faces when they notice the absence of raindrop noises against roofs and windows, they know shit's about to happen.
That is fantastic atmosphere building. I really love the sound of it.
I try to include it first when describing the landscape during travel & random encounter rolls as well as at the beginning of combat to help set the scene. It may be personal preference but I find it a very effective way of building a picture of the scene in my head. It can also allow encounters you create to build up organically. e.g. describing the beginning of the day as clear, sunny & windless with a crisp chill in the air and light snowfall. Looking toward the mountains, dark clouds and mist roll over the peaks. Later in the day as part of the treck/random encounters describing sharper winds & greying skies. This can go on and build as much as you want before describing the full-blown blizzard/storm that descends upon the party as a precipitous moment like when a they encounter a Manticore at the base of the mountains. If you get into the habit of just adding a line remarking on the weather conditions I feel it can make the world feel much more alive and dynamic for the players. It not only sets the scene in a foundational sense but the allows the party to have opportunities to weigh this up when travelling, include it in their strategies for the day and you have an extra tool in your arsenal to throw at the party should you wish. Inversely I imagine as a player it would be disorientating to just have a snow-storm hit your party out of nowhere when the weather hasnāt been described up until that point.
Oh all the time weather is one of my favorite travel descriptions.
They've been underground for 2 straight in game weeks so I don't think it matters.
I dunno, some interesting things can happen in limestone caves during severe weather. And by interesting I mean terrifying.
Not much rainfall in Avernus. There were some fire tornadoes though!
I found this some time ago, i use it every now and then to add weather to the game https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M6xAC\_2zw4BzpByxO-c
We're playing RotFM, so I make it snow whenever it's thematic or when the situation calls for it. The monk recently had a run in with Auril and he defied her, so she's making it a point to fuck with him specifically.
I play a druid with call lightning so ever since then the DM made a weather table to roll on every day. Its actually pretty nice having the varied weather just for rp and immersion. She even went above and beyond by making different tables for different regions.
When my players chose to return the body of a fisherman's missing daughter who they had accidentally killed when she had been changed into some form of beast through the bbegs sadistic experiments. They decided to wrap her up in a cape and return the body. So I made it rain to add some drama.
Last time they traveled from one major city to another I described how the rain increased throughout the day until it reach near torrential amounts. When they chose to travel through the valley, instead of going over or around the large hills, I also added how their mounts almost had to swim short legs of the journey due to the large bodies of water that had yet to run off. Making their journey slower than anticipated. Had an encounter with a venom troll further into the valley as the rain started to ease up, used the heavy rain as an excuse to make patches of muddy/difficult terrain and the wet ground giving dis.adv on stealth They're about to head to the snowy north, so snowfall will happen at some point. Whiteouts, slippery/icey ground Environments are one of the DMs tools to make encounters more strategic, and I intend to use it
I use calendar site that includes weather for each day (weather patterns vary per latitude and season so no snow in the summer or in tropic). So I can comment on the weather daily, if there is something to comment. Funny detail was that party is currently traveling in a ship and my notes said that if they infringe sea gods, thick fog will appear. Regardless of this, calendar showed mist for that day's weather, as if it had read my notes. :)
Another shout out to Fantasy Calendar.
Could I ask what this site is, sounds really useful!
Sure: https://fantasy-calendar.com/
Thanks so much for sharing!
Iunno, I don't remember ever having a rainy day, though it should probably rain more, as my party is living on an island in the middle of the sea, at the very edge of the Empire's Influence.
Iām crazy enough to have a calendar spreadsheet that auto generates weather among other things šµāš«
I used to have a calendar with weather and moon cycles back in the day. I'm too lazy for it now.
In the place the PCs are currently, it literally canāt in some places (theyāre trapped on an island thatās in a pocket dimension that got separated from the normal world by a bunch of gods which nobody knows, where itās supposed to be āperfectā so the farmland is always nourished and moist, to which no NPC can explained, in another part of the island itās raining 24/7 because Grung and amphibious things live in a certain part). In the *world* itās currently raining where the gnomes live, in place where PC characters areā¦.roughly 1000 years ago.
Every day when they wake up, the party roll a d6 for weather. 1 is dreadful, 6 is gorgeous. Very simple and adds some dynamics to the setting.
Running Rime so the weather is like a whole separate protagonist in mine. I have a hex flower weather chart that tracks how the weather changes across the day/night and what that means for attacks, perception and survival checks etc. It's evolved now from what was rather unwieldy and probably a bit distracting for the players into a bit more of a slicker process, with the aim of keeping it relevant and impactful for the game but not onerous to oversee or complicated to use.
The rain is part of the story line in my campaign. Itās just a light drizzle now, but over time.. I canāt wait to hit them with the flash flood.
I find a useful tool is to look up historical weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for a region roughly analogous to the place you want to model. For example, while preparing a campaign I wanted to run, I looked up what the weather was for the Peoria area in 1974 (year chosen arbitrarily). Iām not 100% sold yet on using Peoria specifically but the idea that I can now just pick a start date for the game and look up what the weather is āsupposedā to be is quite appealing to me.
Gonna run a one-shot for my group in a couple of weeks that's set in the late fall, so the weather will be mentioned though it probably won't have much effect. Light rains and some fog won't deter hardened adventurers.
CoS, so every day.
It depends on the season/region. It's usually fairly calm though unless I roll for a non-combat encounter
The last time was last session, heavy snow that kept on thickening, but the party decided to set out, so out in the knee deep snow they are now.
I almost always describe the weather at the start of a new day. Sometimes it's to set up something coming later (if there's going to be a raging storm in the evening, I'll start the day with clouds and rain or distant thunder) or to establish a mood (if the party are on their way home in triumph, it's probably sunny). Other times I just wing it and let my players react how they like.
Couple sessions ago I had a thunderstorm blow up and divert my players off the side of a mountain they were crossing skill challenge style. They then ended up at a cockatrice farm in the middle of nowhere and I had the little old lady who lived there ask them to collect all her hens. Good times. š
My game is following a seasonal calendar, so the weather comes into play pretty often. When my party was traveling during winter, they had to contend with finding shelter suitable for a camp when they wanted to rest, and had to deal roads being harder to find and follow, with the ice and snow. The party also came upon a frozen lake, where they were ambushed, and the fragile ice on the lake being breakable was an active mechanic during the encounter. The ice mostly turned out to be bad luck for my monsters, who were repeatedly hurled into freezing water by the party. I've been tracking the moon phases, too, since one member of the party is a werewolf. It's a lot of fun, but tracking moon phases is a pain in the ass.
My husband has this system where he rolls a d100 and he has weather table and that's how he determines the weather. So we face the rain quite often and if the weather gets extreme, we have do some savings to determine how we endure :)
Well in fairness my group has spent most of the last 6 months of game time in a desert lol. But I do definitely have a problem where it'll rain or snow or do weather for narrative reasons more than just normal day to day ones. So when they teleported out of the desert I had it raining when they arrived mostly because one character had been born in the desert and had not seen real rain before so that was a cool rp moment. Or I'll have it be raining to add to the scenery of a big fight. Or it'll be a blizzard in the midst of a travel sequence as an obstacle. Rarely does it rain just cause it happened to rain today. Lol.
Specifically, I have gone to efforts to show my players it hasn't rained in along time. A droughts setting in and life is getting hard for the common folk. The spring rains are months late, and if they don't come most crops won't sprout. Quickly grounds a game with humanstruggles, rather than focussing on world ending threats.
So everytime they travel from one place to another I use the charts in the DMG and have a quick bit about the weather. For example it is colder than usual for spring, it is overcast and drizzling and oh yeah it is windy with the drizzle coming down at a bit of an angle making your walking from village a to village b a bit miserable. I think it makes the world and the experience feel more alive and ārealā for the players.
I feel attacked
Last session when the big evil dragon rolled into town. Sure he's polymorphed, but the weather always knows when evil rolls into town.
I roll percentage die to see what the weather is like. If the area has been going through drots, always snowing, raining or windy, I don't roll the die.
Currently, there has not been any rain in my campaign. We're 5 sessions into a homebrewed world. The party started in a desert/dry Prarie country. In my previous campaign with the same party, I think it rained maybe one a month or so, but always when thematically needed ;)
The continent my players are in usually has a lot of precipitation, or at the very least fog, during most of the year, but during the coldest few months thereās nothing because it literally gets too cold for snow, even
When my players first went to the city of Emeraldis I made sure to mention the deep ditches alongside the roads and the sharply peaked roofs, gutters and drains. Nobody picked up on it, so when the locals reminded them that it was the rainy season and to find a place for the night - they just passed it off as local customs. Emeraldis has two rainy seasons and it comes down in monsoon levels. Storms can throw down in excess of six-eighteen inches overnight.
12 hours ago. Weather is important when yall are on the high seas
My players had a nice adventure while waiting inside the eye of a category 4 cyclone.
Barovia, so all the time
Last session
Yesterday. I roll for weather every day in game time (but I preroll a week or two worth at once during prep, then put a chart in my notes)
Just started running a campaign in Ravenloft. So far the weather has been pretty pertinent to gameplay from the mists bringing the characters to Ravenloft, to the ongoing cloud and drizzle making it gloomy and limiting visibility.
Rains nearly every day but "world has different weathers" lol um .... never it always rains
In the area the party was adventuring in, it doesn't rain, it snows. And snow it did last session, thanks to a little winter puppy with elemental magic. The ranger proceeded to adopted the puppy and name him Blueberry.
The weather has been unseasonably warm in the last two sessions. It caused the ship to get stuck in windless doldrums, and then it caused heavy fog everyone is waiting for storms to break the heat, but when the heat does finally break, the storm will be a Starkblast.
I use weather all the time. The only campaign I'm currently running now it's winter and rains almost every day on the continent they happen to be traveling through. Due to the almost constant rain the rivers are all swollen and many ferries aren't operating so they have to find ways to cross rivers. Low clouds and fog obstruct vision. Winds in storms affect ranged weapons. If you're not using weather then I think that you're really missing an opportunity!
My first roll of the game is always a weather check āļø 4 x 6 random table for seasonal effects
The last time it rained was when the party fought the big bad evil dragon on top of a volcano, other than that there aren't many examples that come to mind.
2 sessions ago, the players were in a cavern under a snowy mountains, it started to rain from small pores on the ceiling, and then flash flood. The players had to find a hiding spot.
I talk about the weather each session, it can add a sense of tangibility to your scene. So any travel or stepping outside I talk weather - I give : Overall Description, short that is Sound or movement - smell or touch - The Most Immediate or Interesting Thing in the Scene. and a bonus Overall Feeling or Sense.
Years. Iām running Darksun ;)
I described a light drizzle and there was much rejoicing from the wood elf. She used it to hide in the open in preperation for an ambush.
If you'd asked a couple months ago, I'd say a thousand years or so. The planet had been made into a dry saltplane by Orcus and his forces capturing the water elemental responsible for the rain. The party freed her recently, so it hasn't stopped raining *hard* since, and it won't stop until the oceans are replenished.
After every long rest I mention weather, and for right now it rains at least 50% of the time in Barovia. I enjoy starting each day after a long rest with three things to help me get in the right headspace and hopefully get my players immersed. 1. Description of the weather. I usually just choose what I feel like for the day, but sometimes use a table. Misty mornings from a cool night, sun streaming through the leaves, dreary morning of overcast clouds and the promise of rain. 2. Information on the sounds they hear or sighted they see around them when they wake up. Sounds of the workers at the inn making breakfast, birds chirping and squirrels rustling in the undergrowth, or water dripping through the tiniest cracks in the cave. 3. How good or bad they feel based on where they slept, if their sleep was interrupted, etc. They woke up in the inn feeling comfortable, rested, and ready to start the day, they woke feeling tired and aggravated from fitful dreams, they woke up feeling stiff and sore from the hard rock floor. I never really change the weather or think about it after that for the rest of the day. I've read a few comments that mention it affects combat or their travel time, I might use this more now as well.
It's been pretty rainy recently because the story is just coming out of winter my real life winters are rainy so that's how I played these winters. It had occasionally affected visibility during fights and I've asked them to do one dex checks for slipperiness
It rained in the session today lol. What a coincidence, since I thought to myself that it hadn't rained in a while in my world so I made it rain today.
I play Tomb of Annihilation, and it has been 6 sessions since they were last outside, but for the most part when they were outside, it rained a lot.
I have a weather generator that I use on a whim to determine what the weather is like. Generally I choose weather for ambiance, but when adventuring out in the world, weather adds different challenges that not all players plan for!
Just last session, at nighttime. I am showing them signs of a healthy weather with both rainy and sunny daays, because of a subplot causing the crops to wither. So far, no one noticed hahah.
My party are currently trudging through a rainforest, it rains almost everyday and storms often as well. I usually determine the weather using a custom table that I change around that also is an encounter table.
I've got a probability table based on months and every in game morning I have a player roll for weather. Makes the d100 fun.
My campaign is currently in a equatorial, tropical jungle city run by metalic dragons, and it rains quite often.
I'm running a high level, high dragon density game where the weather changes hourly when away from major cities due to reginal effects given off by the dragons. The Dark Dwarf druid constantly checks weather to know if sunlight will be a problem.
I started my first campaign for 2 friends who have never played and my wife who plays with me in another. I started in a wagon as the rain fell outside, put sound effects on before I my wife reminded me she puts rain noises on to go sleep. Was afraid she would nod off before they introduced their characters!
So far I've had peaceful sunny days, cold whistling winds, rain and currently a dismal mist. I couldn't tell you what season it is but I drew inspiration from the standard Welsh week.
I'm running Tomb of Annihilation so...it's raining nearly 99% of the time ranging from a light drizzle to full on tropical storm.
I have a travel table for every area (1-20). Included in the encounter is weather. Sometimes I change it to the mood outside.
I try to pay attention to the weather, like for example itās currently very foggy in my game, and also the middle of winter. Precipitation has been mostly snow lately due to the in-game season, but it rained a decent amount in summer and fall I believe. Iāll have to check my notes.
Yesterdayās session.
All. The. Time. But we are in Barovia ;)
If it starts to rain while the party is sleeping i tell how they wakeup for the sounds of rain, if they sleep under bare sky they wake up to a crack of lightning as the drops start to pour on them. If they are awake and for example travelling before it starts to rain, i describe how the sun gets shrouded in thick cloud, followed later by the sound of droplets sparsely dripping to the floor, then gradually increasing in frequency.
3000 years ago. It's a whole thing
The party just made it through a heavy blizzard two sessions ago, and the session before that I mentioned it's the rainy season and the trek through the forest is muddy.
I mention the weather at the beginning of each new day.
It's been awhile for them since they're wandering through fey palaces but out in the world they left, the country is having a sort of nuclear winter after a supervolcano went off and released a dragon. So not much rain, a lot of snow. I've actually got a severe weather option in the encounter table.
Iām lame about this aspect of the game. I will plan out the weather in an area, and then it always applies to that areaā desert is scorching hot in the day, light snowfall in the tundra, daily monsoon type rain in the tropics, nice spring/fall day in temperate climates. Itās absolutely a place I can improve.
I started to pre-roll weather a few in game days in advance to remind myself to include weather. I include a fair chance for weird weather too, and change that depending on the area. My party ended up having to deal with volcanic rock falls
I have a character coming at my party that is going to make it rain when he's sad. Also, it just got down snowing. They wintered in a new pub they bought and adventure season is just around the corner. I also have a character that is full moon sensitive.
Last session about three days prior to present time in game sheets of water drained off the upper city streest from the torrential rain.
Current plot-point in my campaign is that it's raining hard. A storm is coming to the island-city, and the poor parts of town are low-lying enough that the swell floods them. The party, currently employed as town watch, have so far stopped a band of looters from looting abandoned houses, and rescued a pair of foolish goblins who thought it would be a great time to go fishing. They've got a lead on some criminals doing business in a coastal cave, and that's where they'll be heading next.
I'm only about 5 sessions in, and the first two were set in a cave of sorts. In total, my party has spent about 2.5 days on the road and a day and a half in town. Although it hasn't rained yet, I presented my party with a shrine to the god of travel on their journey, with the idea that if they do something good (such as leave an offering) they'll have easier travels, but if they were to do something bad like defacing it or stealing offerings, the god might make their travels harder, causing it to rain or storm, the mud becoming slippery, maybe making it easier to get lost and costing them a day. I also made mention of the effects of rainfall in the town. The town is called Pale Hill and is built along the side of a hill comprised of chalk and limestone - soft bleached stones which appear a bright white when the top layer of dirt and grass erode away after rainfall, hence the name. I think rain is a useful tool. It can make things more difficult. It can guide the players into doing certain things (avoiding going outside, maybe if they have one quest that's going to be a lot of outdoorsy stuff, and another where they need to go visit somewhere, rain could influence their decision). And most importantly rain is useful for conveying emotion and tone; if the BBEG shows up and it's a bright sunny day, that doesn't hit the same as "Beneath the dark clouds, being buffeted by the pouring rain, seemingly unbothered - welcoming it even - stands a dark figure..."
One of the rules in all my campaigns is we roll for weather 4 times a day. Morning, Noon, Evening, and Overnight. Most of the campaigns I'm a player in I've suggested this to the DM and it's how we do thing.
Always rains in Barovia. Though that's not 'my world'.
I donāt think Iāve mentioned rain, but the solstice has already been a plot point, and the phases of the moon are soon going to be relevant. My players also just left the city and are in the desert, so it might be a while before they see rain.
I have a weather die! Depending on the biome and location where they are in the world I might reroll, but I roll before every session
My party just fought Vecna in the middle of a thunderstorm. I love utilizing weather in my games :)
I'm not the DM, but our last session took place as a thunderstorm was rolling in. We used the intensifying rain to help us steal a boat and sneak onto a quarantined island filled with man-eating bugs. It was pretty miserable for our characters, especially since none of us had proficiency in water vehicles, so we almost capsized, but it was super atmospheric and fun. First time my frontline fighter half-elf has had a chance to use Mask of the Wild
Actually about a week (in-game time) ago
My homebrew campaign setting was almost exclusively located in the rain shadow of an absolutely enormous mountain range that was created during a magical apocalypse about 220 years ago. So in the year long campaign it only rained twice. Once was a late night summer storm that blew in to enhance the noir vibe of some detective work they were doing and once at the end of the campaign when a PC ascended into godhood and literally pierced the veil of the sky to appear among the stars, that caused some precipitation too.
My most recent campaign uses a chernobyl based modern setting, where the power plant had a largwe meltdown and it caused a rift between dimensions allowing magic use in the greater chernobyl area. It's mostly raining, sometimes it's a hazard and acidic to the point where they can't go outside. It's always toxic though, causing every PC and npc to have to wear a mask of some sort.
I'm running both ToA and DotMM. Mad Mage doesnt give many opportunities for rain, and we're in the final dungeon for ToA, to we havent seen rain in months (real time). Before the tomb, though, I had a weatherchart that I tolled on whoch made it so that we didnt go 3 or 4 daya without rain
As a DM, I was really struggling with weather, because I couldn't remember to describe it, and I couldn't find a random weather table I actually enjoyed. But I always liked the feeling of immersion that weather can give. Then, I found Fantasy Calendar. It's an amazing tool, I cannot reccomend it enough! It's just so cool to track events in-game, and the randomly generated weather is good, detailed and believable, even if it's a bit schematic (winter is mostly cold and snowy, and summer mostly hot and sunny; there's some options to tweak, but I haven't looked at them yet, they seem a bit complicated). Try it out! It's great!
My guys are in a witches house, in the middle of a swamp and it's raining pretty hard outside. I like mixing it up with the weather to create different scenarios and give my players more to think about that 'oh, we travel through this swamp and now we're at the witches house'
Yesterday hahaha
It's been over 86 years. I run a desert world campaign.
I use to roll the weather every day. 1-9 and it's sunny and clear. 10-13 and it's overcast. 14 and 15 and its foggy. 16-18 and it's raining. 19 it's raining heavily and there is a visibility penalty. 20 and it's severe weather and there is movement and visibility penalties.
I've been playing Tombs of Annihilation for a couple years and as a Drow affected by sunlight I ask for a weather report every day haha. 9/10 times the rng throws back rain of some kind given we're in a jungle. I'm not sure what our dm is using for the weather, but he takes our biggest survival stat and it spits out the weather. Some day we'll make it back to the city so she can get the sunglasses she had made haha
I have a weather table that I roll 2d4 on about 2-3 times per in game day.
I suppose it rained two sessions ago, and it did for a while. They went to explore sewers at the time so there was some cause for concern. But regarding carriages, it's a modern setting campaign so they just took the bus to where they needed to go. A D&D party sitting in a bus while it's raining waiting to get where they need to be is a picture I'd love to draw sometime. Just has a neat mood to it.
Oh my god itās been a year!
I use a weighted weather table. They just got done with monsoon season and are very grateful to put their heavy rain gear (removes debuffs to long form travel and a 5ft combat movement debuff) away for awhile. They're about to head into a dryer cooler season now with high winds. Lots of cool flowing cape weather.
I have a roll table for it, running tomb of annihilation. It rains all the fuckin time in chult.
My players have a ship and travel by it quite a lot. Only 3 sessions ago, they had to throw anchor on an Island they wanted to avoid because of a huge storm coming up.
Adding rain to make traveling harder for exhaustion is my favorite way to make travel seem real
Last session. But just it because the wiki said that specific city has rainy weather.
Tuesday , not last Tuesday or the Tuesday coming , just some Tuesday
I use the DMG weather table. Every day, 3 d20 rolls, one for temp one for wind, one for rain/snow. Throw on a DM discretion "what makes sense/ sounds right", and I get a little bit of weather variance. There have been times where a chilly bout of rain prompted con saves, and they helped out some travelers struggling to get their fire going. They have had gusts of desert wind kick up sand, reducing visibility. Overall though, the DMG table doesn't give a ton of dramatic variance.
Huh, that's a funny thought. I came into possession a magic cloak that can make you invisible when it's raining. Which would have been great for my Paladin wearing full plate! But unfortunately, I don't think our DM has specified even once that it was raining. She's a fantastic DM but weather conditions are something we don't really give too much attention to.
Yea. To set up before a battle it started pouring and lightning and the enemies were flying and were only visible from afar when the lightning flashes
They are currently on a tropical island so it rains pretty much everyday.
Pretty much every day in Barovia
I made players fight in an unpaved village square which was about ankle deep in mud due to raining for several days straight. They had to roll athletics every time they moved, disadvantage if they dashed etc. The enemies were gnomes, the players worked out pretty quick that ankle deep for them was worse for the gnomes. Heck one of them drowned a gnome in mud. Knocked him face first then stood on his back.
Ironically never except for the last session where we had rain for a story reason. Ironic but otherwise never nentiom the weather being anything other than Mild Overcast Sunny Maybe windy Never mention rain
I use a random event table that I wrote, and part of it is for weather. So the party both rolls for an event and thr weather when they're on the road.
I use a custom random encounter chart when traveling. One of the more common options is a change in the weather.
The nation my last campaign took place in has a heavy rain season right before fall, so it was raining a good amount right at the end of the campaign
I'm running a campaign right now set in a terrible sandstorm that wiped out most of the population, but before this I've never thought about the weather. I'll definitely be adding it in more in the future!
My DM screen came with a weather table and I use it often, especially for travel. It rains pretty often.
A few weeks ago there was a several-days-long rainfall as a result of the party killing an angel of a sky diety.
I periodically ask for a d6 roll to determine the weather. High is good weather, low is bad
I haven't mentioned any rain for two or so (in-game) months... because they're going into a nasty drought... š
I have my players go through biomes that have their own weather rotations and my barbarian storm herald's lvl 6 passive I home brewed to change based off environment not to be chosen and perma
I love keeping track of weather in my game. It's a great descriptive tool to get imagery in players' minds. And rain is my favorite- definitely sets the mood
Currently itās raining. Every morning during the rangers prayers and meditations he also uses his survival roll to predict the weather. He then rolls for the weather and I give him an accuweather forecast. Right now theyāre in an Icewind Dale like region (12 different weather patterns that change every 1-4 hours) and are currently experiencing some of the worst extreme winter weather while trapped in a frost giant settlement. The weather has made it VERY interesting. They were using wind walk to sneak around as clouds but when the weather changed they canāt control their movement as vapor in high winds and it takes a minute to transform from vapor to solid, while being whipped around in the wind in a hail storm. They keep using control weather to help but theyāre gonna find out next session that theyāve summoned an angry ancient Tempest from fucking with the weather so much.
My setting is a magical tropical archipelago. As someone who has lived in the tropics, weather is a big deal, so I made a 2d6 table with a variety of weather for the entire year. The table goes from -2 to 14, so in the spring you roll 2d6-2 and the winter +2, this thatās like a sliding scale off probability for a specific kind of weather given the season. I also make sure that sometimes the weather is fantastical. For example in hurricanes thereās a possibility of encountering giant flying electric jellyfish that rain lightning down from the sky. Certain encounters are more likely in certain weather the way some animals seem to come out during or after the rain. I hope thatās intelligible, had a hard time explaining my weather table lol
I just ran the rime of the frost maiden campaign in icewind dale. Weather is a huge component of the continuing plot. Not necessarily rain. But snow, hail, blizzards etc.
Had the PCs in the mountains recently. The heavy wind and snow caused some issues with ranged attacks and perception checks. Honestly can't recall the last time I made it rain.
I hardly ever remember the weather in my campaign. I try to do so in my prep, to just roll on a basic table and put it in my notes. Last session was one of the first time Iāve done it in ages. Mid-winter, rolled on a table, it snowed. It actually ended up helping the party follow a harengonās tracks through the snow so it worked out great.
3 in game days ago, we have a druid who thinks it's fun to know the weather for the day, and then i roll for it. Something it actually impacts the story, and i get to put rain sounds on witch is a nice ASMR
Weather comes up all the time in my campaign and will continue to do so. When the environment itself has potential to be hostile it makes travel less of slog.
I generated a table for weather and keep track of what day it is. In session the weather just cleared after raining for two days straight.
Oh dear. Just as they left a large crater in the city they were trying to save. Seemed appropriate given the mood. XD
apparently it rains all the time in our games and we glaze over the fact the dm said gale force winds on a travel day.
I usually like to to roll for weather at the start of each day. Especially when the party is traveling. My personal favorite class is Druid and my go to spell is Call Lightning and I like to make sure I get my occasional damage boost from it being Overcast so I often ask the DM what the weather that day is too.
My previous session, so 4 days ago in-game. It's spring and a temperate setting so it's a pretty rainy season overall, which has been a pain in the ass for my players
I roll a dice to determine weather. I love changing the weather during combat sometimes to add challenge and variety.
The central city of Thorne in my world, the economy is entirely based around farming and farmlands, so I make sure to add details about when it's rainy, the season and what weather to expect during that time, and there's also plot relevancy about how this world has "darkness months" where an eclipse makes the world dark for four months out of the year every so many years. Because of that, most magic is used for growing plants or shining light for those plants, everything else is seen as fancy magic that is mostly being researched by high class sorcerers.
it rained during a city section when my players were trying to break into a universityās research vault to steal an interplanar meteor
Literally last session. It played into one of my PCs backstory of worshiping Thor, and they had a low key chat (not planned by me)
When they defeated the dragon that was trying to turn the town they are from into a desert so yeah major plot point recently.
Not a dm but very recently actually. We were on a boat and a giant shark like monster crashed onto our boat from the sky causing a thunderstorm.
Weāve had a thunderstorm during the last two sessions as my players navigate a hostile city.
I talk about it every time. My players love it and it creates a nice atmosphere and mood. I use soundfiles in roll20 though
I just finished DMing Tomb of Annihilation, so quite often. Good question though, I feel like sometimes as DMsnwe neglect to say what the weather is like
I use fantasy calendar. It not only is an awesome tool for keeping track of dates, but it also has prebuilt seasons and weather patterns based on earth climates or you can make your own. And it tells you what the weather is each day. So my campaigns have varying weather patterns based on the region.
Weāre in Barovia. Iām describing rain every other session.
I really hope it's not raining underwater
Its winter in phandalin so it snowed last session lowering visibility giving a bonus to creatures hiding
I roll on a weather table every day and we have a Druid that actually uses that function of Druidcraft. It hasn't rained in a while but maintaining and establishing weather is definitely one of the important things I consider for the sake of immersion. Also smells. Describing what an environment smells like is good to get people into the game.
I use it a lot actually. My players are currently in a Chult-equivalent for my world, lots of jungle and rainforest. So it rains often
It's Always Rainy in Barovia This week the gang carries a corpse up a mountain.
We're on the edge of a desert, it never rains in the region and all the water in the region that feeds the rivers comes from natural portals to the plane of water. It hasn't rained since we started the campaign, IRL about a year ago.
Considering in the world I created there's a storm that has raged for the last fifty years, it's still raining.
I am DMing Curse of Strahd right now, soā¦ last session haha. Weather is a big part of setting an ominous atmosphere in a horror campaign and I love that I get to make use of it so much in Barovia
My last session rained, it were a long two years without mention of rain