26 September 2012

GameTalk - Weather (or not)


At what level of game do weather changes matter? If you're playing a tactical firefight game, are you really expecting a meaningful weather change during the engagement? What about seasonal cycles during an operational level conflict? How much weather is too much fiddliness in the rules?

By: Brant

3 comments:

Pete Maidhof said...

I'm all for the effects of weather to be factored into a game or scenario however, a "change" of weather during a tactical scenario, other than perhaps nightfall or day break may begin to stray into fiddliness.

Brian said...

Agree with Pete; first and last light are about the only met items that might change during a tacitcal ground battle, otherwise just assume it's going to rain all day.

Going up a level or two and it does start to matter; any game where the time scale is more than one day is about where it starts, and when the time scale is two weeks to a month or more, then seasons start to matter. The old GDW Europa system with its weather zones was an example of this last, nice variations and not too heavy in the rules.

DomS said...

Agree with the comments above - for some games weather is ideally modeled as an optional rule set, for those who are particularly detail-driven (or have more time on their hands!), or to add a new element to a familiar game.
In naval wargames of course weather is critical in several ways.