Announcing SEVEN YEARS of FANTASY WEATHER: Medieval England

[oakesspalding]

Well, here's my first "generic" RPG product. It's currently live on Lulu and forthcoming from DriveThruRPG when the gods approve.

Seven Years of Fantasy Weather: Medieval England - "An Almanac of Weather for 5112 Days and Nights" - arose from my dissatisfaction as a referee with other weather generation mechanisms - both paper and pencil, as well as "apps". I think it's actually quite unique, and I hope people find it useful!

Scott Anderson helped with advice and criticism.

Here's the blurb:

"SEVEN YEARS of FANTASY WEATHER gives you seven years of realistic weather for 5112 separate days and nights. Each twelve-hour day or evening entry includes information on temperature (in Celcius and Fahrenheit) weather events - fog, thunderstorm, blizzard, etc. - amount of rainfall/snowfall, occurrence or possibility of lightning, wind speed, wind direction, phases of the moon, effect on movement rates and chance of getting lost. It's an almanac for the fantasy gamer. No more annoying die rolling or consulting an app or online program to generate a random or patternless result. With FANTASY WEATHER you can see all of it at a glance. Whether you're using Dungeons & Dragons 5e, an OSR retro-clone or any other current or past game or mechanic, this is the last word on weather for your roleplaying needs, This first volume simulates the weather patterns of Medieval England, but other volumes will be forthcoming. Good Travels!"



(What am I doing wrong with the picture linking thing?)

(Edited img tag - krusader74 - Nov 27, 2017)

[Scott Anderson]

I've seen it, I saw it in its entirety. It's good. It's excellent. Having seen a sample, my SRP was $7 in PDF and $14 in print. It's really an incredibly useful product. Can't recommend it highly enough. Even if you are only a history nut, this is really fantastic and fun.

The additional section gives great ideas and charts and tables too.

[oakesspalding]

Nov 27, 2017 20:16:17 GMT -6 Scott Anderson said:

I've seen it, I saw it in its entirety. It's good. It's excellent. Having seen a sample, my SRP was $7 in PDF and $14 in print. It's really an incredibly useful product. Can't recommend it highly enough. Even if you are only a history nut, this is really fantastic and fun.

The additional section gives great ideas and charts and tables too.

Thanks!

According to my research and design, the average monthly temperatures and monthly precipitation rates, among other things, of my simulation are pretty much an exact match for southern England - or southern England during the "Little Ice Age" of 1350 to 1700 or so, where it might have been 2˚ F colder. I picked the Little Ice Age, as opposed to the current day or "Medieval Warm Period" - where it was 2˚ warmer - because more cold in a temperate climate makes for more interesting weather. Contemporary London gets almost no snow. Cool it down by, say, 2-4˚ in the Winter, and suddenly you have 2-10 snowstorms a year.

However, I tripled the occurrence of natural fog, again to make things fun. (The whole "London fog" thing is largely a myth, or, to the extent that it has any truth, it's based on pollution.) I also created a chance for powerful sub-hurricane storms that you really don't see, at least in, say, London.

My first pass was to create a completely authentic London climate, but it was just too d--n boring. I think historians might kill me.

[geoffrey]

What a neat idea for a book. Instant weather, no generation required!

[grodog]

Any plans for a print version, Oakes?

Allan.

[oakesspalding]

Nov 28, 2017 9:31:46 GMT -6 grodog said:

Any plans for a print version, Oakes?

Allan.

I'll do it. I just have to make a two-page cover. Not sure of the price, since I've never put together an 8 1/2" x 11" 104 page book before.

But to be honest, I didn't originally think anyone would want that. Then a couple of people mentioned it.

I figured people would use the product on their phones or tablets, or just print the sheets out as they used them to make pencil notes or whatever.

But it sounds like you would prefer it in book form?

[oakesspalding]

Here's a blog post where I explain a bit more about the product.

I hope you don't mind, geoffrey, but I used your quote about "instant weather" - attributing it to an "OSR game designer."

Does anyone have any experience with publishing 8 1/2 x 11 print books? Specifically, for A5 I set the inside/outside margins at .75 and .5. Do I do the same with a larger book?

[geoffrey]

Nov 29, 2017 8:42:08 GMT -6 oakesspalding said:

Here's a blog post where I explain a bit more about the product.

I hope you don't mind, geoffrey, but I used your quote about "instant weather" - attributing it to an "OSR game designer."

[talysman]

Did you include Fortean weather? As I recall, a lot of that was reported in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.

[oakesspalding]

Nov 29, 2017 16:20:26 GMT -6 talysman said:

Did you include Fortean weather? As I recall, a lot of that was reported in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.

No. To be honest. 99% of it was intended to be (or seem) "realistic." I suppose that's a feature and a flaw. The only weird stuff is possibly divinely related rainbows and whirlwinds and waterspouts (which have a 1 in 6 chance of containing Gates to another location or dimension).

[scottenkainen]

Nov 29, 2017 8:42:08 GMT -6 oakesspalding said:

Here's a blog post where I explain a bit more about the product.

I hope you don't mind, geoffrey, but I used your quote about "instant weather" - attributing it to an "OSR game designer."

Does anyone have any experience with publishing 8 1/2 x 11 print books? Specifically, for A5 I set the inside/outside margins at .75 and .5. Do I do the same with a larger book?

If you're still doing this for DriveThru, they have templates for lots of different sizes. Like many things, DriveThru seems to be picky about you having to use their templates; I had submitted a 8 1/2 x 11" book to CreateSpace that worked just fine for them, but didn't pass DriveThru's gatekeepers.

[strangebrew]

Sounds like an interesting idea. Is it 5112 consecutive days, so you start the game (or whatever) on day 1 and have the weather calendar laid out for the next 5112 days? Or is it 5112 entries, and you randomly flip to one to determine the day's weather? Or some other third method?

[Starbeard]

Will the DriveThruRPG version also be laid out for letter size paper? That may determine whether I buy from Lulu now or wait to see what the DTRPG document will be like.


Also, does it make a difference to you whether your customers buy from Lulu or DTRPG?

[oakesspalding]

Thanks, scottenkainen. Yeah, I'm sort of used to my own way of doing things, but they were helpful in sending me those templates.

strangebrew: It's 2556 days in sequence (7 x 365 plus one leap year). The 5112 reflects the fact that day and eve are separately listed. It's meant to be used as is (as there are patterns and they are calibrated to the months and seasons), but obviously you could also flip around or re-use.

Starbeard: Digital versions are the same - 8 1/2 by 11 - and print versions (when I do them) will also be the same. I think it's too much information to put into a smaller booklet page format. I'd say go for whichever site you prefer.

See Previews on Lulu or DriveThru for gist or this google+ thread.

By the way, Vol. 2: The Iceland of the Sagas is now available on Lulu and pending on DriveThru.

Thanks, guys. I've been busy with real-world stuff for there last few days so I've only checked in intermittently.

[countingwizard]

Nov 27, 2017 15:26:46 GMT -6 oakesspalding said:

Well, here's my first "generic" RPG product. It's currently live on Lulu and forthcoming from DriveThruRPG when the gods approve.

Seven Years of Fantasy Weather: Medieval England - "An Almanac of Weather for 5112 Days and Nights" - arose from my dissatisfaction as a referee with other weather generation mechanisms - both paper and pencil, as well as "apps". I think it's actually quite unique, and I hope people find it useful!

Scott Anderson helped with advice and criticism.

Here's the blurb:

"SEVEN YEARS of FANTASY WEATHER gives you seven years of realistic weather for 5112 separate days and nights. Each twelve-hour day or evening entry includes information on temperature (in Celcius and Fahrenheit) weather events - fog, thunderstorm, blizzard, etc. - amount of rainfall/snowfall, occurrence or possibility of lightning, wind speed, wind direction, phases of the moon, effect on movement rates and chance of getting lost. It's an almanac for the fantasy gamer. No more annoying die rolling or consulting an app or online program to generate a random or patternless result. With FANTASY WEATHER you can see all of it at a glance. Whether you're using Dungeons & Dragons 5e, an OSR retro-clone or any other current or past game or mechanic, this is the last word on weather for your roleplaying needs, This first volume simulates the weather patterns of Medieval England, but other volumes will be forthcoming. Good Travels!"



(What am I doing wrong with the picture linking thing?)

(Edited img tag - krusader74 - Nov 27, 2017)

I somehow spotted this a few days ago and bought it along with all your other physical books. I made a spreadsheet about a year ago to create weather states for 7 times of day, for up to a year (Midnight, Early Morning, Dawn, Late Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Dusk). I don't remember exactly how I seeded the initial probabilities, but I remember using existing weather events to determine the next phase of weather would be. I'll definitely have lots to pull from using your charts.

[oakesspalding]

Dec 19, 2017 12:58:03 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

I somehow spotted this a few days ago and bought it along with all your other physical books. I made a spreadsheet about a year ago to create weather states for 7 times of day, for up to a year (Midnight, Early Morning, Dawn, Late Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Dusk). I don't remember exactly how I seeded the initial probabilities, but I remember using existing weather events to determine the next phase of weather would be. I'll definitely have lots to pull from using your charts.

That sounds fascinating. I would love to see your work.

What was your source(s) for how existing weather events would determine or partially determine the next event?

I did it to some extent, but not completely. Most of it is at a fairly simple level - temperatures and events, including storms and cloud cover have a chance of persisting (the chance based on the properties ofthe events and various factors that you can tweak), with randomness at the edges. But I felt that I didn't understand weather patterns well enough to do it perfectly. In Seven Years, there are definite designed patterns, but there are also emergent patterns as well as illusory patterns. Given the complexity of some of the components of different climate types, I wonder how "perfect" one could actually get. But that's moot for me as I don't feel I have the knowledge.

I considered breaking the timing down more finely, as you did, but then rejected it for a few reasons- the main one being not that it would be too complicated to model, but too complicated or lengthy to represent on the charts. For Seven Years, each weather event is internally marked as occurring for a set number of hours. 11 out of 12 times it will begin or end (or both) within the particular twelve-hour interval (and the start and end times are also internally marked), if that makes sense. So a Light Rainstorm doesn't last from 6 PM to 6 AM or whatever, but instead might start at 9 PM and end at midnight, etc.

Originally, I had the start and end times represented on the charts, but then I figured I would give the ref room to finesse it.

If you message me your email, I wouldn't mind trading spreadsheets. My own was actually publicly available for a number of months before i figured that it was too complicated (and too personally quirky) for many people to really use. But it's grown and evolved to such an extent that even I don't completely understand it anymore. . Or, rather, I do, but I often have to spend extra time reviewing the formulas when I want to change things. (Me being me, I was too lazy to label any of my internal columns.)

[grodog]

Any updates on printed versions of the books, Oakes?

Allan.

[oakesspalding]

Feb 6, 2018 0:15:50 GMT -6 grodog said:

Any updates on printed versions of the books, Oakes?

Allan.

Well, I'm going to give you an answer you may not like. I just created a "revised edition" of the work (see other thread) which multiplies the length by a factor of ten. Instead of 7 years x 1 climate type of weather, there are now 8 years x 10 climate types of weather. The new THE ALMANAC OF FANTASY WEATHER: SWORDS & SORCERY clocks in at 1,130 pages, if you can believe it. I think it's a much better product because of it's comprehensiveness and diversity of coverage, among other things, but I just don't see how to market a print version of it that wouldn't be way too expensive. I could be wrong. We'll see how the digital version is received.

[grodog]

That does sound like a serious improvement to the book contents. I'll check it out after GaryCon!

Allan.