Is random weather in role-playing games too random? Using simple Markov chains to make RPG weather more realistic (Markov Chain Weather Part 1)
Weather is important in role-playing games. This is especially true in wilderness and seafaring exploration adventures, where poor weather can affect navigation, travel speed, and visibility. In this post, I'll describe a method to generate random weather using a simple Markov chain (see the end of the post for the tables). Nearly all RPGs provide some way to randomly generate weather and include its impacts. One of the problems with random weather tables is that they tend to be “too random”. Rolling once a day on a random weather table can result in the weather jumping unrealistically between different types (Storm! Cold Weather! Hot Weather! Storm! etc.). Real weather isn’t completely random all the time. For example, mid-latitude weather tends to flip between regimes of unsettled stormy weather and regimes of settled weather. When the weather is unsettled things do indeed feel random as the passage of storms and fronts bring rain, snow, and strong winds. But when the weather is ...
