I've been running plot since 1998, I've seen a lot of pretty horrendous event weather during that time period - temperatures over 130 with the heat index, horrible humidity, frigid temperatures, rainstorms, etc. Sometimes, players will brave the elements and continue on, sometimes not so much.
I'm not a big fan of shutting down plot/the event for any reason unless absolutely necessary. For example, someone is injured in the middle of town and an ambulance is called. We stopped running at Lumberton ONCE that I can remember because of a huge lightning storm, which took about 45 minutes to pass. Otherwise, for the most part, we keep going, and going, and going.
No, we are not abusive to our NPC's, we just tailor the speed of the game to match the weather. Read on for tips/suggestions for both pc's and npc's in inclement weather.
It's hot and humid!
- drink lot's of water, as well as stuff with electrolytes in it
- take breaks - if you don't feel well or are overheated you don't need to keep going, it really is okay to stop
- know your limits
- as plot, make sure your npc's are hydrating and that you are rotating npc's while others take a 15 minute break -- in the case where it was 130 with the heat index, we kept going, but went at a slower pace (instead of constant randoms, we encouraged pc's to come to us more, randoms in slower intervals, moved puzzle mods/less combat intense mods up in the timeline, etc.)
It's raining!
- always be sure to bring several changes of socks (and clothes!)
- waterproof boots really should be a must (if you don't have them/can't afford them, I sprayed mine down with waterproofing stuff from walmart and then when that failed utterly spent several events with plastic bags around my feet IN my boots. There's no breathing involved, so you'll have to change your socks regularly, but your feet with be mostly dry and warm.)
- if there is lightning and it's close, call it for a time or run things inside
- if it is just rain, suck it up:-) If you prefer not to play in the rain, that is TOTALLY cool and acceptable. You really don't have to, but plot is probably not likely to shut down
It's snowing! Ermaghed.
- Mostly everything for "It's Raining!"
- Extra clothes and layers
- It's easy to get wet (from snow OR sweat) and keeping your core body temperature on par is super important. Don't sit around after being all sweaty, you'll get a huge chill. Pace yourself and if necessary change your shirt/pants once in a while.
- Under Armor - if you haven't heard of this, google it. It is amazing, badass, awesome.
- Cover your head - keep the heat in!
- Bring Extra Blankets
So, I've gone over a few pointers for crappy weather at events....what do you do as plot/players to handle the weather? Do you think plot should shut down for inclement weather?
So, for the most part, I don't think plot should shut down for inclement weather. Like you said, *most* kinds of inclement weather can be dealt with if you have a bit of forethought and are careful.
ReplyDeleteFor cold, pay some extra attention to where the NPCs are staging out of. Try to get them in a place where they can be warm while waiting for the PCs to show up. If there is no warm place around, usually I hook the PCs first, then go retrieve the NPCs from whatever warm space they were in. The 5-10 minutes the PCs might have to wait in the cold for the NPCs to be retrieved is almost always less than how long it will take for the PCs to be hooked and get to the encounter. Have also had some remarkable success with having heaters of various flavors in unheated mod buildings or even on the field for long fights in the cold.
I can think of three times games I was involve with called off plot (either shutting down the game entirely or just running something else) due to inclement weather. Two of them involved driving 40-degree rain on top of what was supposed to be hour-long outdoor encounters (one of these, plot just started running other stuff in the slot where the major fight had been scheduled, the other time, game just shut down until the morning because IG reasons kept us from being able to run plot), and the other involved calling an event at midnight Sat night because a blizzard took an unexpected swing towards our campsite and we were predicted to get 2-3 feet of snow between Sunday morning and Monday night.
So yeah, I do think there are times inclement weather should put off plot... but they're fairly few and far between.