Moonlight Availability Chart
Moonlight Availability Chart
Last session I ran, the PCs ended up running around in the dark without torches. But I'd determined that there was a 1/2 moon, so in Roll20 I gave them all about a 20ft radius of visibility. But I was wondering about how far people can really see in the dark by moonlight. Well, the Googs found me the pdf of an army research memo about that very subject from 1964. But besides how far you can see in moonlight, you have to determine if the moon is actually out at night. Luckily, to make your own Moonlight Availability Chart, you only need to know the following for your Local Time:
1. End of Evening Nautical Twilight (EENT)
2. Moonrise (MR)
3. Meridian Passage (Mer. Pass.)
4. Moonset (MS)
5. Beginning of Morning Nautical Twilight (BMNT)
oh, and also true azimuths of Moon rise and Moon set.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/438001.pdf
Oooooo!
ReplyDeleteOh is that all
ReplyDeleteNBD
ReplyDeleteCasey G. Night's Better Daylight
ReplyDelete“Luckily, to decide Moonlight Availability, you only need the following: a d6”
ReplyDeleteI fixed it for you!
you can generate a lot of this stuff from this navy site
ReplyDeleteaa.usno.navy.mil - Sun or Moon Rise/Set Table for One Year
it covers an entire year and can be tied to any spot on the globe. it may take multiple reports to cover all this stuff, but it's available.
I’m mildly surprised this isn’t already a thing in some old school RPG.
ReplyDeleteDerek Pennycuff that's amazing. I just wish you could go further back than 1700. I'll probably use it with any year that corresponds to the moon phase I already used. With that, I can make a simple weather generator to determine cloud cover, and from there generalize how much light any night might have between moon phases and how overcast it is.
ReplyDeleteor you could keep it simple. (adjust the distance as you'd see fit from your extensive studies.)
ReplyDeleteRoll a D4 for the state of the moon and clouds:
1. 3/4 to Full moon, no clouds. visibility 30'
2. 1/2 to Crescent moon, no clouds. visibility 20'
3. 1/2 to Full Moon, but it's cloudy visibility 15'
4. No Moon/Crescent Moon but it's cloudy. It's dark - better get a torch or the ghouls will get you!
But now I have a calendar of 456 with phases of the moon.
ReplyDeletetimeanddate.com - Year 456 Calendar – United Kingdom
Casey G. Fine, refuse my sweet sweet (non) chart I spent 2 whole minutes making especially for random roll guy (that's you.) You go ahead and use your science and history and resources.
ReplyDeletethere's an API that returns a JSON version of the sun & moon info day by day. not for the whole year though. aa.usno.navy.mil - Application Programming Interface 2
ReplyDeleteOR...you could just make it up and tell us what it is, since you are the DM. It's not like any of us are tracking this and are going to call BS...
ReplyDelete"No Wait, 17 days ago the moon was waning gibbous so now it obviously is a new moon stage. I should get a +2 to hide form these bad guys!"
James LaManna like I'll ever get around to finishing any of this. This is just to make you think I put a lot of work into it.
ReplyDeleteCasey G. if only someone made you a 1d4 chart.......
ReplyDeleteYou'll never know.
ReplyDeleteTim Other sure, but we're just playing a D&D game.
ReplyDeleteI actually seriously tracked moon phases in a game of D&D I ran.
ReplyDeleteI used a web calendar app, which showed the moon phase and weather as icons on the corner of each day.
That way it could all be pre-calculated, and didn't get in the way of running the game. But I could look ahead a few days if I'm planning.
I mostly used the calendar for chronological note-taking.
The moon cycle really wasn't very meaningful. Nice to have, but it didn't come up often enough and when it did the players just asked "Is there moonlight?" so it might as well have just been a dice roll.
If I did it again, I'd tie game and story mechanics to the moon cycle.
- Opponents who's power waxes and wanes,
- Underdark raids that only happen during the darkest nights,
- rituals that need to be completed at a certain point in the cycle,
- some sort of ticking clock either for the players or opponent so that if a ritual is interrupted and they need to wait until next month that'll be meaningful.
- downtime resource costs and generation ("We spend two weeks training the garrison troops so we'll be ready for the raid next moonless night", "OK, but that costs X. Two weeks later, you've got your garrison in position to ambush and...") ("I really want to stay here and learn this spell." "You can do that, but it'll mean you won't be in town for the full moon blessing ritual.")