Campaign World - Distances?

[Cor Azer]

How much thought do you put into the area/scope/distances of your campaign worlds (well, for homebrews, I guess)?

Do you focus on a small(ish) island? Somewhere on a continent? Plane-hopping? Do you just draw a map and worry about distances later?

Do you consider various climates within the main area? Do differing climates sometimes seem too close?

I was thinking about my campaign map the other day, and realized that the continent only takes about a week and a half or so for a standard horse to cross it east to west, and only slightly more north to south. East/west is fine, but I realized I have rainy moors in the north (think Scotland/Scandinavia) and deserts and jungles in the south (albiet, sheltered from the northern climes and each other by a mountain range). My players haven't said anything, but it sort of feels... wrong.

That said, I think New Zealand is about that size (warning: wild guess) and I know it has a lot of terrain/climate diversity, so I guess it could work.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Starting out small is fine.

Kingdoms and contienents are surprisingly easy to add. Small villiages are surprisingly harder once the party has already covered the area. In my opinion, a DM is better off channeling creativity in coming up with small stuff rather than big stuff.


happy gaming!

 

[Gez]

My homebrew's main continent is roughly the size of Australia. It has a north-western arctic part, known as the Eternal Winter, and a south-eastern hot&dry part, known as the Fire Desert (an ideal vacation spot for all amateur Spontaneous Combusters!).

Climate is dictated, in decreased order of influence, partly by the land's spirits, partly by local druids, partly by temperamental hags, and partly by actual meteorological laws. Just like in the real world, except the real world has no spellcasting druids or hags nor climate-influencing spirits of the lands, and thus leave all the climate-altering power to those boring laws of physics!

So, yeah, in short -- I don't care. The continent's shape is obviously not a result of plate tectonics, its weather patterns are obviously not a result of similarly mundane mechanisms. There are gods and spirits and spellcasters and outsiders and feys and heroes, for crying out loud! This affects the world much more than any natural mechanism!

Just like the law of gravity doesn't prevent people from erecting tall buildings, the laws of nature doesn't prevent magical beings from controlling the shape and mood of the land.

 

[Gez]

And now, to be on topic, my usual approach is like a Yo-Yo's -- I start top-down (map of the whole continent, rough idea for each region), then bottom-up (detailed map of the starting region and its surroundings), then top-down again (cosmology), then bottom-up again (a single city), and so on.

 

[DragonLancer]

When I homebrew, I always create a single continent and use that. I try to combine the extremes of environment (cold north and hot south) and worry abotu distance after working on the maps. I don't like too much detail (figuring out temperatures and such), preferring to keep things simple.

 

[Funeris]

And I like things complex

I started with a map of the entire world (just vague shapes where I want continents). Then I chose a continent to use for the campaign. The one I chose was in relatively the same position as North America. Its also about the same size (just slightly larger).

Drew the continent. Drew the major geographical features (i.e. Mountain ranges, the near endless forests, gigantic bogs, lakes, etc.). I then looked at this very empty map and said "I want to start here" <point finger at a random spot>

That's where the details come in. I find its good to have a broad view of the world and the continent, but odds are your players are never ever ever going to cover all that ground. The broad perspective lets you keep the small area you actually design compatible with the world.

I also find it helps to keep To Scale maps of everything: broad or specific. Sometimes though a 1" = 300 miles map can be a little daunting. Can you tell I work in the civil engineering field??

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I almost always start small and work my way out. My most ambitious homebrew started out with just a single oppressed kingdom, and I ended up with three continents!

My last homebrew was just an island about the size of the UK. I wanted something that would be limited in scope.

For my upcoming C&C homebrew, there will be no map. Distance and direction will be relative. I'll just have to keep very good notes, lest I end up with teleporting cities...

 

[S'mon]

I usually use 1cm = 100 miles for my continental maps, and smaller scales for local area - previous campaign used 1 cm = 10 miles, current game overview map is 1cm = 30 miles, local map 1cm = 3 miles. The map scale you need depends on the level of the PCs, higher level = bigger distance.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I design the whole continent first, and then focus on an area. For example, in my current game world, the main section where the game is taking place is probably 1500 x 1500 miles. The map as a whole is 4,000 miles wide. However, I like to keep a sense of a local area, so most of the adventures only take place within a roughly 150 x 150 miles area. There have been trips out of that small area, but most of the game is set within that small area.

 

[fusangite]

How much thought do you put into the area/scope/distances of your campaign worlds (well, for homebrews, I guess)?
Do you focus on a small(ish) island? Somewhere on a continent? Plane-hopping? Do you just draw a map and worry about distances later?

I usually use one of three solutions to the geography problem:
(a) Tolkienesque: The world is pretty big but, mysteriously, full of giant empty wastelands.
(b) Limited: There is a big world but something about the world's nature radically circumscribes the adventuring area or the habitable area as a whole. Last time I used an Ice Age.
(c) Real: In my alternate history games, I use chunks of or all of the real world and have a big old obsolete 1966 Atlas that I write and draw all over to indicate game world modifications.

Do you consider various climates within the main area? Do differing climates sometimes seem too close?

I use Aristotelian physics rather than modern physics so this isn't really a concern. Terrain and climate are teleological in that they serve a final cause rather than being independent entailments of ecology. My worlds are only spheres about 70% of the time anyway, and those that are spheres are in geocentric rather than heliocentric systems and rely heavily on Aristotle's ideas of meteorology and climate which gives me way more room to manoeuvre.

I was thinking about my campaign map the other day, and realized that the continent only takes about a week and a half or so for a standard horse to cross it east to west, and only slightly more north to south. East/west is fine, but I realized I have rainy moors in the north (think Scotland/Scandinavia) and deserts and jungles in the south (albiet, sheltered from the northern climes and each other by a mountain range). My players haven't said anything, but it sort of feels... wrong.

Resist that feeling! If physics worked in your world the way it does in this one, there would be no magic and people's hit points wouldn't increase when they leveled. So just relax and worry about your world being consistent with itself and ignore questions of whether it's consistent with this one.