Two weeks ago, Bartoneus asked about how frequently you visit your friendly (or not so friendly) local game store. 26% of you said several times a year, indicating many of you who just pop in when you need to (perhaps around the holiday season for gifts) but aren’t regulars. However, 19% of you go several times a month (and presumably buying something at least some of those times.) I really have to salute the 2 of you that go every day to your game store: either you work there, or it’s an awesome place to hang out.
Wizards of the Coast is running a contest to design a winter Holiday-themed encounter. Without giving away what I did (I’ll share when it’s done), I ran a playtest of it on Saturday as a session of my campaign. The bad guys were fought on a wintery map, complete with thin ice to slide on and fall through. I’ve run a few adventures in wintery climes (they go hand in hand with frost giants, after all) and it does add an extra flavor above and beyond the normal temperate adventures. Heck, they even did a whole book about it.
That’s my way of using gaming to introduce this real world question:
[poll id=”149″]
Justify away. And if you want to say which is your favorite to run a game in… you can do that too.
Here’s some previous winter questions, should it strike your fancy:
Easiest question yet. As someone who has a winter landscape as his screen saver, I fully embrace the colder months of the year. In fact, while it is not written (and likely never will be) I have worked on a winter vs. summer list in my head at times. Currently, the tally stands at 1,345 for winter vs 3 for summer and I don’t see that ever changing.
Considering my city, Edmonton, Alberta, was the second coldest place on EARTH yesterday morning (and I am not friggin’ kidding), I’m going with summer. 🙂
@adamjford –
Ha! Yeah, anyone who says winter obviously isn’t from Edmonton or Winnipeg (me), and doesn’t have to deal with super-harsh winters.
A couple years ago, we hit about what you had yesterday. The only difference was that on that day, we had 500 engineers from across Canada out racing concrete toboggans down a hill.
…Man, that was a dangerous day. Only the prairie folks (Edmonton to Thunder Bay at the most) knew how to handle themselves in -55C weather. …or how to get a concrete toboggan’s pneumatic brakes working in such weather. Everyone else huddled inside.
That said, Summer’s too warm/humid. Autumn.
.-= Graham´s last blog ..CriticalAnkleBites and ChattyDM pretend to be journalists =-.
Gentleman (Graham and adamjford),
I voted winter even with it being 0 last night and after having seen a foot of snow and 50 mph winds last week. Yes, it’s not as cold as Canada, but it was certainly cold and I needed every warm piece of clothing to survive.
However, it was relatively easy to be comfortable. Yes, it was cold, but with my hat, gloves, fleece, and jacket, I was satisfyingly warm. In summer, you’re forced to sweat with little relief other than air conditioning, which always made me fatigued.
And being from the midwest, where autumn and spring last about a week each, it was down to winter and summer, and as I said before, a no contest win for the colder months.
To answer my own question:
I picked summer, because it’s the only socially acceptable season to wear Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and sandals, which is my preferred fashion.
@TheGame: You can always wear Hawaiian shirts IF you’re a big fat party animal.
@Joe –
0 Fahrenheit, I assume? So about -20 Celsius.
See, that’s a nice winter. Not too cold, though the wind can be a PITA for sure. If we had that weather, I’d probably say Winter, too.
But when you come from a place where it gets to -50 sometimes, and -40 for at least a few weeks each year (for reference, -40 Celsius = -40 Fahrenheit, and -50 C = -58 F), you just can’t choose that season anymore.
Heck, in adamjford’s Edmonton, it was -58 C (or something like that) just a couple days ago, which is -72 Fahrenheit.
This is the sort of weather where you can’t possibly be comfortable. Skin freezes almost instantly, and you’re still cold under any layers you might have on (though they keep you from instantly freezing to death). Breathing with an uncovered mouth can actually damage your lungs in this weather, as the water inside can freeze.
So I’m sorry to say, but zero degrees? That’s a balmy day.
(Though if that was my winter, again, I might say winter, too. But that’s my autumn.)
.-= Graham´s last blog ..CriticalAnkleBites and ChattyDM pretend to be journalists =-.
@Graham
Alright, I’ll concede that that’s really cold. While I have experienced cold like that, it’s not a fond memory, either for me or my body.
However, I do remember surviving with a bit of hot chocolate, a heater, and maybe a fleece or two. And it was still more enjoyable than the 100+ degree summer days with 85% humidity where your clothes stick to you and you start to sweat even in the air conditioning. Where you refuse to move because your legs and arms refuse to operate in those conditions. Lots of place have dry heat, and I guess that’s somewhat enjoyable, but my summer has always been hot, humid, and sticky.
So when it comes down to freezing cold vs. a heat wave (because as I’ve said, autumn and spring are always a week long and indistinguishable from summer and winter), I will always pick winter. Even with the snow, the wind, the ice on my windshield in the morning, and bone-chilling cold, I will pick winter. Yes, it’s cold, but at least there’s always hot chocolate.