Thorn in My Side

Of all the elements of creating and describing a setting, the most difficult is surely the weather.  Most manage the problem by pretending that the game world maintains a perfect 72 degrees at all times, that rain hardly ever happens, that the climate everywhere is more or less southern California and that there's no need to worry about it.  Players don't come to experience weather.  If they want weather, they can play outdoors.

For me, the issue that's plagued me these last ten years arises from conveying the proposed weather, or temperature, to the players.  Consider just this part:  the players wake on a morning with overcast skies; the temperature is a brisk 43° F, or 6° C.  In some measure, we have an idea of this temperature, but it must be admitted that it's easier to relate to such in October or November than it is in July.  In fact, that temperature feels very different in July.  Moreover, as I've said elsewhere, how does the player character know it's 43°?  There are no thermometers in a medieval setting.  Daniel Fahrenheit was born in 1686.  Even if someone had created settings for a tube filled with mercury or alcohol (and it hadn't caught on), that scale wouldn't have matched Fahrenheit's.

Put that aside.  Take a moment, just now, and describe 43° F to another person.  If you want a real challenge, do it without the number ... but in fact, having the number gives very little help in describing that temperature.  In general, without the physical evidence of the weather, you're sure to do a poor job.  Worse, I dare anyone to make a distinction, in words only, the difference between 43° F and 53° F.

Finally, there are many, many people in the world for which 43° F is so unlikely that they've hardly ever encountered it.  I had a friend once in Australia who lived on the edge of civilisation about 100 miles southwest of Brisbane, upon a stretch of land he'd owned.  Once, he told me, he'd woken up one morning and there was a skein of ice atop the water bucket on his back porch.  That was the closest he'd ever come in his life to experiencing snow.

So, for those living in such parts, or the reverse where they've never experienced a temperature above 37° C (for no one in such parts uses Fahrenheit), how does D&D address their needs?  How does the DM explain Sahara-like temperatures to a player in Hammerfest, who's never left Norway?

This, of course, falls into the category of Things Alexis cares about but no one else does.  For ages I've wanted to provide even a baseline of descriptions for 10-degree gradations (using Fahrenheit, since Celsius doesn't divide easily into distinctive categories) and been utterly stumped.  There are no pre-existing descriptions for weather at various stages, because, as academia would probably ask, what would it be used for?  What purpose could that serve?  Writers creating stories don't need that sort of specificity.  It's sufficient just to say, "It was a cold morning; Derek felt his flesh arise in goosebumps as he zipped his jacket closed."

Too, for a lot of DMs, the actual weather can fit into three categories: it's cold, it's pleasant, it's hot.  Nuance is unimportant.

The problem has been a thorn in my side for about 12 years.  I started using "temperature grades" in my online campaign back around 2012, having divided the thermometer into gradations just before.  I've posted these on the blog before and on the wiki, but here they are again for convenience.  It's an old picture and some slight changes were made in the base temperature, but nothing meaningful has been altered.  Those who are confused by Fahrenheit numbers can find the celsius equivalents on the wiki.

The point, however, is to escape the use of numbers altogether ... to be able to tell players it's "chilly" and have them understand what the weather's like without needing to add that the temperature is about 35° F.  That's next to impossible, however; we're far too dependent as folk upon the use of numbers to equate temperature, as I've found — which is odd, of course, as for 2 million years human beings used their senses alone.

Over the years, I've spent too many hours trying to research out a description for each of these.  It's amazingly hard, as language isn't designed for the purpose ("cold" covers everything on the chart in blue) and as I said, there's no effort to describe the feel of weather on the human body in any categorical fashion whatsoever.  There are materials on how temperature affects the ability to work, but these pay no attention to temperatures below balmy on the chart shown.  There are details about clothing, or the insulation provided according to "CLO," but that pays little attention to anything above warm.  It's a part of human experience that academia has chosen to ignore entirely ... and my own attempts to build a series of descriptions based on my own experiences have been unbelievably difficult and impractical.  Thus, the problem has sat, like staring out into the rain.

"So all we could do was sit, sit, sit.  And we did not like it, not one little bit."

This last summer, I began to suspect that chatgpt might manage the problem.  It has, conveniently, much of generalised human experience at its beck and call and doesn't give a good gawddamn about the "usefulness" of a bit of knowledge or material to constrain it's usefulness — unlike, say, anything produced by a university.  I thought about what parameters ought to be considered in producing a set of descriptions and beginning with my slow onset of health on the weekend, began running some tests.  Then, last night, in the space of about 75 minutes, I created a complete list of 19 different temperature grade descriptions.  They can be seen on the live links of the wiki page linked above ... though no doubt, some readers here have already been there.

There's still work to be done on each, as the descriptions are sweeping in scope.  Necessarily, in many cases, the distinction between two different temperature grades on various descriptions are unchanged or nearly so.  Let me demonstrate, with the subject of "community gatherings," for four different temperature "conditions" between "chilly" and "pleasant":

Chilly. In the social realm, community gatherings gain prominence as people seek warmth and social interaction in inns, taverns, or communal spaces. Trade and commerce might experience fluctuations as markets witness reduced footfall due to the cold, necessitating adaptation of goods to suit the weather conditions. Character interactions deepen as the weather fosters closer ties within communities, emphasizing reliance on one another for warmth, resources, and safety.

Brisk. Community gatherings continue to serve as focal points for social interaction, but trade and commerce witness a resurgence as markets experience increased activity due to the milder weather. Adaptation of goods to suit the temperature becomes less stringent. Character interactions maintain their closeness within communities, emphasizing cooperation and mutual support.

Cool. Community gatherings continue to thrive as social hubs, fostering interactions in pleasant weather. Trade and commerce experience increased activity in markets due to the comfortable conditions, allowing for a wider range of goods without strict adaptation requirements. Character interactions retain their cooperative nature within communities, fostering stronger bonds amidst the agreeable weather.

Pleasant. Community gatherings continue to be lively social events in the agreeable weather. Trade and commerce flourish as markets witness increased activity, offering a diverse array of goods suitable for the climate. Character interactions maintain their cooperative nature within communities, fostering camaraderie and mutual support amidst the enjoyable weather.

Each gives a nuanced sense of what it's like to shop or move about an urban area given the approximate weather, in a meaningful way that can easily be applied to a D&D campaign.  Still, a lot relies on the DM to make sense of the above and extrapolate some description of his or her own ... as in, what products are available for purchase or what sort of "lively" social events might be taking place in pleasant conditions but not in cool.   "Agreeable" weather isn't "enjoyable" — but seriously, when was the last time we made a distinction like that for the purpose of game play?

As I said, these are things I seem to care about, though no one else does.  It's unquestionably difficult for a DM to make the adaptation being suggested here.  Apart from even being able to say what the temperature actually is (as most DMs have no rules whatsoever for such things, preferring the "SoCal" model), this approach asks for constant addressing of moderate descriptions and then remembering those descriptions in addition to all the other things a DM must know.  Is it worth it?  I think it is, if the DM is sufficiently invested in the concept and can properly invoke the distinctive material on demand.

But here again, we are moving forward into a very different world.  Just look at how in a very simple manner, with less than two hours work, I've been able to generate the material provided.  Consider the advancement of this material into a more interactive framework, where during a game I merely need to say to the Chatbox sitting on my D&D table, or nearby, "Tell the players what the weather is like," and the device is able to reproduce my voice, my cadence, while giving a full and indepth description, while I give my attention to other things.  I can pause and say, "Give them a little more description about what sort of stalls are included due to the city and temperature where they are," and the Chatbox does that.  Get ready, 'cause it's coming.

According to Nick Cave, supported in this reading by Stephen Frye, chatgpt is supposedly a "threat" to creativity.  What a bunch of hokum.  My contribution of creativity in this post is in no way threatened.  I saw the flaw in describing temperature.  I outlined the problem.  I foresaw the possible solution.  I selected the parameters.  I'm the one able to use the information provided for further creative ventures.

But without the technological advancement made here, without the tool, I'd still be dead in the water.  We make TOOLS as human beings to solve problems.  It stuns me that bright, capable people, standing in front of other tools and inside buildings that were invented to solve other problems can have their head so far up their ass they can't see the good of something.  That's the death of creativity, not chatgpt.

_____

If you wish to comment, please write questions, ideas or opinions to alexiss1@telus.net and they will be posted on Saturdays.  Feel free to introduce new subjects or present your own work. 

If you wish to make a donation to Patreon, it will be greatly appreciated and help with costs for illustrating the Streetvendor's Guide.