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Weather is something that real people talk about a lot. It's considered one of the safe topics of conversation with strangers or loose acquaintances. And people care about the weather. If it's sunny or rainy has a big impact on your plans for the day and how much you enjoy them.
It makes sense that weather should have a significant effect on game worlds too. Especially for people engaged in outdoor activities like, you know, adventuring. But many GMs never give weather a second thought, nor even a first one. Entire multi-year campaigns happen without the weather ever being mentioned, and the players just blithely assuming everything happens on a warm and sunny spring day.
But if you suddenly try to bring weather into a game like this - let's say you mention that today it's raining, or snowing - the players immediately get suspicious. They assume that the weather is important somehow, simply because it's the first time the GM has ever mentioned weather at all. It must be a nefarious plot by the Evil Weather Wizard to take over the world! But all you wanted to do was make your campaign world a bit more realistic, and maybe have the heroes have to deal with a bit of snow while marching to their next location.
What can a conscientious GM do? The Angry GM wrote a blog post about this situation, with a fantastic series of recommendations for incorporating weather into your campaign world in a consistent and interesting way, without any of the above problems. Highly recommended reading for all GMs.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
I guess Rey hates porgs. Or maybe is trying to decide if she wants to be a hermit, insomuch as a hermit can be on an island with an old mentor-like figure and a bunch of bathrobe fishpeople. It's not exactly a pleasant island on the face of it, but as long as the map wasn't copied, Ahch-To is reasonably secluded to avoid people. Which makes me wonder if that's why Luke came here in the first place. As a hero of the Rebellion, maybe he just got old and tired of the attention, and up and left one day with Lor San.
And that's a pretty good scene transition. I'd thought we'd stick with Rey for a bit longer, but maybe there was more conversation that was cut out between Chewie and Rey. Well. In-universe conversation anyway, unless Chewie's suddenly gotten a translator.
A munitions factory makes sense for a ship of that size. Not 100% sense mind you; blasters and turbolasers for ships never seem to need reloading. But being able to manufacture more ships and weapons (if there are spare crew) and more missiles while on a mission seems sensible enough. And hey, even if there's nothing else going on or if I've forgotten about similar things from the old cut-away ship books, it's still better than the hallways of nothing.
Transcript
Rey: I head outside.
GM: A hard, steady rain lashes the island from a steely grey sky.
Rey: Weather now? This is like the epitome of nothing interesting happening.
GM: Some call it immersive worldbuilding.
GM: Crashing waves splash storm-tossed spray over the rocks.
[SFX]: ksshhh!!
Kylo Ren: While nothing’s happening there, can I do something to liven up this ongoing chase? Get some action?
GM: Roll to see if you’ve completed all your admin work.
Kylo Ren: Ugh. A 1.
[SFX]: ksshhh...
GM: Wow. I was going to let you have that on a 2 or better. Snoke now has you inspecting the on-board munitions factory.
Kylo Ren: What good are weapons if we never actually get to use them?
GM: Depends what you think is more evil, using weapons or selling weapons.
Kylo Ren: I know what’s more entertaining.