ever run a campaign on a real-world map?

[AbeTheGnome]

when i was introduced to Forgotten Realms, i noticed that most of the regions had real-world analogues. Calimshan was very similar to northern Africa, Amn to Spain (Castille), Cormyr to southern France, etc. this got me very interested in European geography/history, and the more i studied, the more similarities i saw. some were more obvious than others, some (like Halruaa, for instance) had no analogues whatsoever. when i studied other campaign settings, i saw the same trend, for the most part. so my question is, has anyone ever just played a fantasy game on a real-world map, complete with elves, dwarves, dragons, and magic? i'm in the process of putting a campaign like this together right now, and i'm curious to hear others' experience with it.

 

[Gilladian]

My current campaign is set on the Chesapeake bay. I use the whole North and South American continents as my campaign world. It means I can use a weather almanac, a world atlas, etc...

I know where all the standard resources and geographical features are, and distances are much easier to handle.

My players don't seem to mind, and in fact are rather pleased to be able to say "I lived in Virginia, and I know the weather is ...."

In fact, right now the town the PCs are based out of is located where the Real-World town of Harper's Ferry is located. I found some old civil war era drawings that have really helped me and my PCs visualize what the town's geography is like.

But I have totally ignored the real world when it comes to races, politics, etc... Elves live just to the west of the Mississippi, dwarves occupy the Grand Canyon and the Green Mountains, Orcs run wild on the great plains, and humans cling to the coasts. I'm happy!

 

[Darth Shoju]

The area I ran my last homebrew in was geographically the Austria-Hungary region. I saw a topigraphical map of it in an atlas and thought it looked pretty neat. It worked quite well and I'd do it again if I needed a map quickly.

 

[Deovalente]

We've played Ravenloft, Cthuhlu, and various super hero games on real world maps,
but I suppose those don't count.

I do have maps of both the moon, mars and venus continental features. but have yet
to actually run games on them.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

At least four, three of which probably don't count (Call of Cthulhu: pretty much across the word; Ars Magica: Medieval France; and Pendragon: Arthurs Kingdom and the Pict Lands0 The fourth was a Robin of Sherwood game based, of course in 12th century Nottinghamshire.

 

[brehobit]

My homebrew D&D game is based in America. Alternative history etc. I find it makes people understand distances and languages much better. Not to mention cultures...

Mark

 

[WayneLigon]

Twice. Once where I was doing a GURPS Wild West, where the world had magic, dwarves, elves, etc. The Savage Worlds 'Conan-esque' game I did used an extropolated map of Europe from the early Miocene, some 25 million years ago (before the Mediterranean dried up; I thought about setting it during that time, though).

 

[Nifft]

Yup. Extreme alternate Earth for my setting.

(As in, Roman conquest did not stop at terrestrial or even prime planar borders... but they fell anyway, and their Visigoths were demons, and it's 2000 years after that.)

Tactical maps without roads and cities are hard to come by.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Huw]

I've done this twice. The first time, I had sea and land mixed up, so the Atlantic ocean became the main continent (yes, I called it Atlantis), island chains became rivers and lakes became islands. Worked pretty well. The party never got to the other side, so I didn't have to worry about the Pacific.

The second time, I took Antarctica and moved it up into tropical regions. For those who don't know, the Antarctic peninsula is an archipelago - they're just all covered by ice in the real world.

 

[RainOfSteel]

A friend of mine has run three, although I was not in those.

The history, nations, and race distributions were original in each.

1: Siberia: An ancient game set in the tundra and northern forests and mountains or northeastern Russia.

2: Greece: A bronze-age game set amongst the isles in a grand struggle to prevent Orcus from taking over.

3: Italy: A renaissance campaign.

I think there was another, too, in Egypt.

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Although the FR map isn't real, I did play in a game where the DM took the Ravenloft nations and plopped them down on top of the Hordelands with all-new borders and different land distribution for the given nations.

We found it to be fascinating.