mother nature on a rampage

[flykiller]

in honor of hurricane irma, how many of you include extreme weather or other natural events in your games, and what are the effects?

for example you jump in and there's a hurricane sitting right on the starport. or there's been an earthquake and the local governor decides he needs to confiscate all personal weapons and ammunition in reach - including your ship's turrets. what say you?

 

[aramis]

in honor of hurricane irma, how many of you include extreme weather or other natural events in your games, and what are the effects?

for example you jump in and there's a hurricane sitting right on the starport. or there's been an earthquake and the local governor decides he needs to confiscate all personal weapons and ammunition in reach - including your ship's turrets. what say you?

I've been known to.

More in Star Wars & D&D than Traveller...

My current SW game is set on Hoth, so weather is an issue often.

 

[Timerover51]

When I had a real-time world weather program on my computer in the early 2000s, I would figure out about what part of the world resembled the area I was using, and use that weather for the day.

Mission to Mithril does have a means of adjusting daily weather that is not too bad a table. It does need some longer periods of above freezing weather when near the equator though.

I do use weather event cards when running my Axis and Allies games, which do, at times, have a major effect on the game. After one experience, the Russian Mud card was ruled off limits for the first card drawn in the game, as it proved disastrous for the German Player. Storms in the North Atlantic or English Channel and North Sea, or the Monsoon in South-East Asia also have had major effects. Basically, my experience is that you have to be careful not to overdo it, and also it helps to have some beneficial weather too. The Chinese Player really likes the Good Weather Over the Hump card, while the Japanese Player tends to get a bit grumpy about it. Good Weather Over the North Atlantic increases the convoy yield for the US and the UK, unless the German Player has some subs in the North Atlantic as a counter-balance. So far, the Hurricane in the Atlantic has only been drawn once, and fortunately for the Allied Players, none of their ships was caught. The Typhoon in the Pacific has not been drawn so far. The cards are the Spades in a standard 52 card deck, except that to preserve the mood of the game, I use the WW2 Aircraft Spotter Training Cards.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

I noticed several weather articles on Freelance Traveller, covering storms, tornadoes, "matterslips," and tsunamis.

 

[The Pakkrat]

Traveller Inclement Weather

On Cunnonic (Spinward Marches 0822), our landing pad suffered a tsunami, a cyclone, a distant volcano eruption and fearful, migrating fauna spilling over the perimeter fence while we off-loaded a platoon of Darrian-Aslan. Cats do not like rain. Tree Kraken, beach worms and a hot LZ.

Sandstorm on Zamine (Spinward Marches 0421) in the desert belt.

Meteor swarm upon jump breakout nearly destroyed our Broadsword in Bowman (Spinward Marches 1132).

The acid rain and thunderstorm on Wypoc (Spinward Marches 2011) was where the real fun started.

Some desert tumbleweeds on D'Ganzio (Spinward Marches 1920) marked the beginning of the Fifth Frontier War.

So, yeah. I've made life hard on players as their Referee. Extremely hostile weather was a credit-sink forcing Travellers to purchase proper survival gear for each instance or expend copious amounts of ammunition against fauna.

Does a tac-nuke on a retirement community peninsula on Darrian (Spinward Marches 0627) count? Localized nuclear winter? Fallout anyone?

From the 5FW Ares Adventures Archives, this is the Pakkrat for Net-7 News!

 

[Spinward Scout]

Wasn't there an earthquake in Shadows?

 

[Timerover51]

Wasn't there an earthquake in Shadows?

Yes, there was.

In the last few seconds before lift-off, however, a seismic tremor shook the field, disrupting the count-down. AIthough lift-off took place on schedule, the possibility remains that the ship sustained damage from the tremor.

Then there is also the Tarsus adventure, with climate and wind extremes.

Tarsus: Tarsus is the innermost of the planets. It orbits Hote with a period of 91.25 standard days and at a distance of 50.0 million kilometers. Its axial tilt of 61 makes the planet subject to extremes of climate and weather, but its dense atmosphere and water make the world habitable and capable of supporting agriculture.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Oh, just the usual random events when you roll a 10 on 2D...

Avalanche, Blizzard (Arctic or Winter), Dense Fog, Electrical Storm, Falling Rocks, Flash Flood, Forest Fire, Freezing Weather, High Water Levels (Flood), Lengthy Storm, Magnetic Fluctuation, Meteor Shower, Monsoon, Mud Slide, Noxious Gases, Prairie Fire, Radiation Zone, Recent Lava Plain, Seismic Quake, Sink Hole, Stellar Flare (Vacuum), Storm (Land), Violent Rainstorm (Land), Violent Sandstorm (Land), and Volcano Eruption.

(Sources: CT LBB3: Worlds and Adventures - 1981; CT S02: Supplement 02 Animal Encounters - 1979)

 

[Blue Ghost]

I've always wanted to take a group of players through a series of mega-storms on a jovian world. I wrote a script a few years ago about a rescue mission on an Ice giant that had high mach winds with shards of ice as hard as diamonds.

The gas giant adventure would have been interesting because deep inside the atmosphere, miles down, it's black except for mega-arcs of lightening arcing between clouds. Deeper still and not only do you have to deal with tornado forces, but also submarine like crushing pressures, and they only develop from there. Deeper still and nothing we can build would survive, but in the OTU I can imagine some Ancient technology that can take the players down to the glowing blue metallic hydrogen ocean, with mega-tsunamis as tall as mountain ranges.

 

[flykiller]

Does a tac-nuke on a retirement community peninsula on Darrian ... count?

nope, has to be natural. 'course, if the old high-medical-tech geezers get mad that could be an adventure in itself. "attack of the radioactive living zombies" has a ring to it ....

I've always wanted to take a group of players through a series of mega-storms on a jovian world. I wrote a script a few years ago about a rescue mission on an Ice giant that had high mach winds with shards of ice as hard as diamonds.

could run it as a pbp here, use this rescue boat. could make it a contest between two different groups here, points for timeliness / pax rescued / difficulties overcome, see who gets the furthest.

 

[Carlobrand]

I've got uncles and cousins in Puerto Rico. I fear I'm about to get a more intimate lesson in extreme weather effects than I'd like.