Not completely SR related but I'm outside Philadelphia while a fraking blizzard still going for another few hours. I'm only a mile from my office because I cannot get home in the snow. I tried and when I realized I was missing major land marks in the snow I realized it was too dangerous for even me. I may be crazy but I'm not suicidal.

So I headed to the hotel where we have rooms booked and I am honestly not sure if I can even get out of here in the morning. I had an ice dinner, sort of, and an open bar on the company card. I've got the better part of a bottle of Irish whiskey in me and I'm sitting in a hotel lobby looking at Dumpshock because my roommate is a Jahovah's witness that is just waiting to have a go at the catholic school girl-ho ho if only she knew.

But this does make me think of SR corps and bene's and all that jazz. What would happen in 2070 when corp officials are fragging stuck by a blizzard and the chance encounters with runners that could occur.

Corp OFFICIALS? Like above middle management? Assuming they even have to leave the arcology... It's gotta be pretty swag. However, I do wonder how often they have security details in general (or better worded - at what level do you get a security detail and what's it like?)

Middle managers get the credit card, the name of some local companies, and a friendly wave

(Sorry about the snow. I've been enjoying almost a full week of no work, paid And have been thinking of very many things other than Shadowrun.)

I've been pretty amused by the storm out east getting so much coverage, it's a little worse then one of ours here in the midwest but not enough not one for the history books. Some of my drives home have been longer then normal and deeply life affirming.

A lot of it depeds on how bad the blizzards are, for example an Ares official stuck in the snow calls for an APC or a helicopter (weather supporting)

It also has a lot to do with how prepared your local area is. My suburb (~8 miles from Seattle) was under solid ice for a week and a half a few years ago, and the roads I needed to get the mile from my apartment to the office were completely shot for the duration. My parents live down near Tacoma, and their town was humming along just fine...although the rookie snowplow drivers managed to scrape every reflective bump off the roads. In the spirit of being 'Green' (and not rusting out the underbodies of our cars) most of Seattle doesn't use any kind of salt or chemical de-icer on the roads...the best we can hope for is regular sand dumpings. My family from the Chicago area can shake off three times as much snow as we get without even slowing down, because those guys are *ready* for it.

Connecting it back to Shadowrun, a blizzard provides lots of interesting game mechanics. Fighting in deep snow could provide movement penalties and camo issues. Enemies in thermal armor (already keeps heat in to block IR vision, right?) could execute a polar bear ambush, where a open field (parking lot) suddenly erupts into dozens of no longer buried commandos. Drive tests should have stiff penalties, and car chases should be particularly brutal as pursuit vehicles spin out and slide off the road...remember that Seattle has a *lot* of elevated freeways. Vision in a stiff snowstorm should count as thermal smoke, and anyone with thermal vision should get bonuses to spot enemies when the weather is clear due to the lower ambient temperature. The streets should be deserted, since nobody who doesn't need to be is going outside - you could even have some paracritters roaming the streets uncontested. Knight Errant could be using Fire Spirits to blast the streets clear, or patrolling in light VTOL craft, or hardly at all.

I love the snow theme, Snow Fox.

There's your corp perk right there.

Man, you should have seen it up here in Mass. "Snow! We're going to snow! Snowpocalypse!" and we got...two to three inches in the worst hit areas. Everyone is pissed at the weather man, because we all stayed home or got out early yesterday (well, I guess the kids wouldn't be upset, but). It's not like a foot of snow would be out of character up here either, but man did they hype the shit out of this.

Saturday was the opposite for us.

"6-8 inches. Nothing to sweat over, just because folks.

<cut to morning>

Uhhhm 18 inches of snow guys. The world is closed."

I live a few miles from SF and I my office was closed so I stayed home. We had a big storm over the weekend and they had not cleared all that off of the roads when this hit. It was not just the amount of snow but it was flying in the wind. The governor closed down parts of the region's highways and even my snow bunny oldest did not want to be out in it.

For a run you cannot plan a blizzard. It is more like an encounter of opportunity. Like you take shelter in a hotel and discover "OMG is that?" "Yep" I like the idea that the person you recognize might have a run against them and you, bored out of your mind and not half in the bag from Irish Whiskey help out the exec/sim star/researcher-what a contact.

oh inless u had a run associated with weather controll experements like the avengers movie then u can garentee there will be blizzard action..... on the RL weather im over in montana and our winter was wimpy this year we had like 1 good snowstorm thats it i havent even goten stuck once this year (isit sad that i expect my little car to get stuck?)

Airspirits sent to lift his car and himself through the storm. Private contractors with their own vehicles required for timesensitive job, cold climate. Flexible attitude to the law a plus, pay excellent. Cyberzombie with a flamethrower. Ritual weather control magic. A version of the Kilimanjaro mass driver that fires corp executives. The poor bastard waits like everyone else, since snowstorms can ground near anything. The Corp Court issues an omega corp on mother nature and obliterates everything, including the atmosphere so the snow storm boils away with everything else.

I respectfully disagree with Joe, here. Weather should be a setting issue, particularly if the GM is going to be making lots of changes to gameplay to account for it. Randomly generating weather systems via a d6 and a chart is fine for things like rain and fog, but if the GM is going to shut down the roads and make flying damn near impossible, it should really be part of a well-considered plan. A blizzard could make a boring run very interesting; ditto earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and wildfires. A simple 'Get X to the Drop Zone without getting killed by the opposition' mission gets much more complicated if both sides are scrambling to work around an angry Mother Nature.

On the up side, all those people that got snow-parking tickets don't actually have to pay them.

But yeah, while this storm really isn't that bad, it's the worst for the area in recorded history (since about 1850 when records started). Keep in mind that Pennsylvanians--despite having to drive in the snow ever winter--don't know how to drive in the snow; so more than a few inches on the ground means its the end of the world.

(In other news: snowiest winter for DC in decades means the Climate Change Bill is dead! Global Warming is a lie! Wait a minute. That's not how it works. Global warming -> climate change -> more extreme weather -> snowier winters).



Reminds me of one of the "End of Term Arenas" our group did. We all agreed on the random weather charts in the DMG for weather conditions and when it was rolled we got very high winds, group consensus via democratic majority vote allows 1 reroll and the only person who didn't like it was the Arrow Demon (the rest of us looked at each other and said, "This affect you? No? Me either. Sorry Bobson, guess your 4 armed arrow firing monster is going to have to suck it up and go melee").

Heh... East cost shut down...

Sorry, had to get that out...

Had 15 inches and 80 MPH wind at my house (southeast Colorado), which is 40 miles from the nearest town. I slapped the plow on the front of my 4WD and chains on the tires and punched through over a dozen 6 foot tall snowdrifts to get to the main road four miles away. Hit a 8 foot tall x 50 foot long "Snow Plateau" north of Keyes Oklahoma, snow plow was sitting on the other side wondering what to do... I punched through it hanging half out in the ditch, and he used the hole I made to guage where the road was... I still haven't missed a day of school this semester...

Dealing with extreme weather is all about preparation and knowing your vehicle's limits. If you're prepared, no problem, if not, it can take you six hours to go six blocks.

A corp would send a plow truck and/or a snow cat to retrieve his (or her) high-executiveness... Everyone else is a dime a dozen to them and not worth the effort.

Good point made earlier, mid-level exec has credit card for use at nearest coffin motel...

Over here in Germany we've got a lot of snow, too. Worst thing's that I've put semi-slicks (and tri-bars) on my MTB.

I reccomend against introducing her to your .32 =P

While it's been fun with not needing to get into the office, the way my agency runs, it means the deadlines are still ticking. Lost productivity? Nah, I know quite a few coworkers who'll be in the office this weekend to make it up, myself included.

As for corp perks, yeah, I can see the high end corp also with advanced warning of the snow getting digs to stay at/near the corp office complex on company dime. I can see everyone else, they have to find their own arrangements, maybe with a corp card. If not, well, good luck. But in the age of telecommuting, there's less of a need of the corp exec and lots of the office workers to physically be there. Place where I work, quite a few folks already telecommute from home so they do not get any time off when the office shuts down, they're expected to keep working.

Heh. 1-2 inches of snow is enough to shut down the Netherlands. It's retarded, we have about a week of snow every winter. And still everybody's surprised.

And myself. We have two projects that need to be revised by the end of today. That deadline didn't change when suddenly everyone was out on Wednesday and I was out Thursday (you try clearing a 200 foot long drive way with 18+ inches of snow on it, even with a 2000 series John Deere) as my dad didn't start pushing the snow around until probably 3pm (he was working from home and there was a crisis).

And then the township didn't plow our end of the street because of a low hanging power line (my dad had to do that too; fortunately it only blocked us and our nearest neighbor in).

So yeah, I'll be working late tonight and likely coming in tomorrow too.

Thank the lord, it's not just Britain...

OP What was up with the Jehovah's Witness? It can't be what my brain says...

I know the feeling, Snow_Fox. I'm on LI, and we got that fr*cking blizzard too. 14 inches. The minute there was a break, my dad & I just got the cars unburied when the second wave hit and all that back-breaking work was undone. The snow-plows were no actual help; they dumped a nice little thick slush--which quickly became opaque ice--barrier that took over an hour to chop into barely-liftable boulders. On top of that, both our dryers decided to konk out, but we got them working.
Surprisingly, the grocery store near me was NOT flooded with pancky people trying to stick up for the "snow-pocalypse" and we were able to get some supplies to tide us over for a few days.

Gods Above and Below, I HATE SNOW.

The east coast is a bunch of wussies. We regularly get that kind of snow here in Northern Indiana in winter.

This thread makes me laugh Then I think about it and it makes me cry Really, I live in Norway, and still when the winter sets in we are all suprised.

However, I've never heard of everything shutting down because of a little blizzard, after a few days people become accustomed and suddenly -10 celcius becomes MILD.

Well to be fair, if you get into a skid in The Netherlands you'll be in Belgium before you stop.

All I have to say is I have to laugh at all the panic in the DC-Balt-Philly corridor. It's a source of endless amusement to me.

Was at work every day this week except Wedenesday where I planned accordingly and took work home w/ me. I don't have chains, just all weather radials w/ good treads & FWD (and have been driving in snow since thanksgiving). And use my brains on which roads are safe and which ones are to be avoided.

I grew up in a snow belt and the biggest thing I notice is that the people here just panic and don't deal with it in a sane manner.


I'm personally of mind w/ my friend from Alaska, she pulled out her X-country skis and had a great time. Winter is the best time of year :).

Haha, I know. I asked a friend of mine who lives in Canada how the weather was and he said, "Oh, its pretty mild today, only -20C or so."

anything from oslo on south may be surprised (but then the big news is always about oslo and southern), anywhere else its just business as usual.

In the Philadelphia region we usually get one snow of 9-12 inches and a couple of smaller snows each winter. and that's pretty normal going back centuries. Valley Forge is near hear and lots of people think of that as constant snow like freaking Siberia, but the truth was they had some snow and a few days later it would be gone and they had lots of mud. That is what it's been here most years. However since Xmas we've had 3 snows of around 20 inches and a couple of small ones. It is on the record as the snowiest winter ever. We are allowed to be a bit surprised, but they say more snow is coming monday night-urgh!

That I like

and for the record I was not half in the bag. I was fullyi n the bag and pulled the draw string in with me!

Quoted for serious truthiness... the first few days of below zero (Fahrenheit) weather suck, then it warmes up to around 35 F and you find yourself wearing shorts and tanktops.

Of course the first fews days of hot weather suck worse IMO. In the cold you can always put on more clothes, but when it's hot, propriety doesn't always let you take enough off... The U.S. is kinda prudish about naked men walking around in public.

heh, you do not need to be a prude to have issues with a beer bellied man in a speedo

*shudders* Okay, yeah, you got a point there hobgoblin. But you see what I meant? Winter might suck, but summer seriously blows.

Damn, I keep getting mental images of big fat dudes in speedos... *points finger* And it all your fault hobgobbie! You shouldn't do that to poeple, it's cruel.

welcome to my mind

seriously, i brain seems able to dredge up the worst possible associations to just about any topic

People from the snowier states always underestimate Washington when they move here. We don't snow often, but it's wierd snow/ice when it does.

A common quote is "Oh, I'm from Colorado (or whever); you guys are a bunch of wimps." They often end up in the ditch shortly thereafter. The thing is that we'll freeze, but unfreeze/refreeze several times during the day, depending on where the sun is shining, windchill, and other factors. So we end up with black ice multiple layers deep, under and/or on top of snow. Multiplied over however many days running the weather holds.

It's wierd.

Chains, man, chains. They got me everywhere last winter, when most of the Seattle-Everett-Renton sprawl got snowed in for a week.

Don't give me that Angelis... I'm from the snow belt NW of DC in the alleghenies originally even though I'm stuck in the DC area now.

Freeze/refreeze is nothing new... and common. (it's one of the reasons PA tends to get lousy marks for road quality because those cycles of ice expanding in the cracks do a real number on the road maintenance schedules compared to the deep south). You go to the eastern shore, and drifting/refreeze/blackice is a common occurrence.



The big problem is
1. local & state governments don't tend to put up an adequate contingency budget for snow removal.
2. Southerners who don't know how to drive being traffic hazards and more common (you get people from all over in DC)
3. Out of practice drivers, who don't drive regularly in those conditions.

And yes the Philly area is just as bad as DC/Balt... they just don't get the snowfall that the west, central and northern parts of PA get. Just like Garrett county in MD lifted it's snow emergency very shortly after the blizzards, even though it got more snow than DC/Balt.

Washington, not DC. We're a State, not a wierd little... whatever DC officially is (besides "Federal").

(But to be fair, I forgot that people do that. Back here, we say "DC" for the capital, "Washington" for the state. My bad.)

Its not the elevated freeways that are the problem its the hills as you get close to downtown. I won't even drive up denny or queen ann in a manual on a nice sunny day. Its as steep if not worse than going 4x4 up in the mountains and in the mountains I dont have stoplights and traffic to deal with. Durring a minor snow a few years ago I called in work and told them I would come in as soon as the cars stopped piling up infront of my apartment. People would gun it to get up the hill then come flying over the top into the pileup right by my apartment building.



The eastside of Washington state gets snow every year... So does a bit of the west side. Seattle area does not because of proximity to the water which keep the tempature cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. I've lived most of my life somewhere in Washington and I've had no problems with the snow. I even parallel park in it. You just have to go slow, avoid hills (as much as possible), and put weight in the back of your car and use all weather tires, studs, or chains. 4x4 is nice to if you get stuck so you dont have to dig your way out.

And if your on the east coast saying Washington means DC. If I'm in Boston I have to say I'm from Washington State, if I'm in Las Vegas I can say I'm from Washington. Once you hit Chicago everything east thinks of DC as Washington where as west of Chicago thinks of Washington State.

District of Columbia.

Ahh, right. It's a "District." That's the organizational term I was missing.



That's because you've grown up here. We don't underestimate our snow; other people do. (And some of them new fangled city folk.)

(It's a District )

In the DC area, we say "DC" for the capital, "Washington" for 'I'm a tourist visiting the capital!'

Try living here in the deep southern USA. We get a mere 1-2 inches of snow and everyone acts like it friggin doomsday or somethin. They shut down the damned interstate 75 because of a little ice (and all the idiots having accidents), sheesh.

I'm down here in Florida and you know, it's never snowed as long as I've been alive here, and I've been here since 1978. Currently it's a nice 45F and tomorrow I'm expecting clear blue skies and a high of 71F.

Hills are the big issue for regular folk, agreed... However, for spicing up a Shadowrun car chase I like the idea of NPCs who failed their drive test flying off an overpass. Way more 'action movie'.

The average temperature has been dropping each month since August 2009, clearly disproving the whole global warming panic.

Heaviest snowfall of the century! Global warming is a myth!

and notice the meida is quiet on global darkening-watch carefully over the next couple of hours and you'll see it is getting less light out!

Today's weather report will be DAY followed by NIGHT. Probably continuing throughout the week.

To many of us, that kind of snowstorm is a fact of life. it may be fun to scoff at the poor bastards in the south who have to deal with something they have never experienced before, but I would like to see how folks here in northern Alberta would handle a typical Florida hurricane.

It all depends on what you're use too. I grew up in New York and now live outside Philly. When hte natives here complain about the summers I tell them it's nothing. In NYC because of all the water it is not common for humidity to be in the 90% = range that makes the heat so much worse. Philly is not as nice a place as New York but Lord and Lady the summers are far more pleasant. There's a great line in a Robert Parker novel from a few years back. His character, Spenser, is based in Boston but for this story is in DC. A snow storm hits, all of 3 inches, the lead character comments that the media was talking as if it was the "apocalypse, in Boston we'd have said the strom missed us."