Sitting at the computer with the window open, I can smell the storm approaching. The wind is picking up and… yes, there is the distant sound of thunder. Huge raindrops splash down upon the window outside.

Experiencing hugely variable and somewhat (for Britain) extreme weather events is memorable. It also triggers all manner of physiological changes to our bodies and, consequently, to our internal experience. The electricity, the pressure of the air, the splashing of the huge droplets of water all impresses itself upon our awareness.

Whether the weather will affect us is not a question worth asking: of course it will. But it rarely affects anyone in my roleplaying game worlds. Sitting here now, as the storm grows, I remember that this is how many a storyteller foreshadows trouble to come. I am left wondering why I don’t bother much with the weather in play.

Perhaps it’s because I am too much focused on the other improvisations that I force myself to make during a session. I am presenting scenes, describing NPCs, conjuring up dialogue, and (in truth) rarely aware of where the game is going much beyond this scene. It seems a trivial detail to describe the wind as it blows the first puff of storm air.

The best advice I have found has been to pre-determine the weather changes and record them, ahead of session, in the calendar for the game world. This way we can drop in those details, especially when they are of the more extreme variety – such as a storm or baking over-hot sunny days.

But then, well, honestly… I’ve not been very good at keeping a calendar either. Does any of this truly matter?

It depends on what we want our players to experience in our game world. Right now, here as I sit at the computer with the window open, the rising force of the storm is certainly impressing itself upon my consciousness.

If I were praying to a deity, I would be tempted to think my prayers were being responded to. If I were working magick, I might believe that the weather is an effect overspilling from my arcane working. Or if I were a warrior on the eve of battle, I might imagine it an omen.

The storms impress themselves upon us. The rain is symbolic. The sun itself a signal of portent.

Game on!