Fantasy world maps and real world geology

[Father of Dragons]

Uh... okay. Are you suggesting that the worlds described in Runequest, Exalted, LOTR, etc. are somehow significantly more consistent with the physical laws of this world than D&D is?

There are still a lot more fantasy settings in novels than there are in RPG settings, and they tend to be fairly conservative about the look of their worlds.

Because I'm just not seeing it.What you guys seem totally unable to grasp is that I do too. I'm just working with different criteria for realism that you are. And nothing that has been said in this thread indicates to me that your criteria are better or more logical than mine.

That is not the impression that I got from your earlier posts in this thread, where (as far as I could tell) you were talking about about the effects of D&D cosmology on the nature of the physical world. And I think you might have missed my point: I like the maps to be physically reasonable except where there is a reason in the nature of the background for them to differ from default physical reality, and those differences are set out somewhere. If the world has reasons for looking different from ours, that's cool, as long as there is an adequate explanation somewhere. Of course, the definition of "adequate" may be a matter of personal taste. But then, we started with a poll here...

There is also an aesthetic reason too: while fantasy worlds are certainly allowed to differ from base reality, I prefer for them to differ only where explicitly specified. So if the author/GM doesn't tell you trees are actually warmblooded and walk, you can assume trees in the fantasy world are pretty similar to trees in our world. This is, of course, a personal preference. But since I've spent a certain amount of my life looking at maps, and sort of have ideas what terrain should look like, I prefer it to look like real world terrain unless there is a specific reason in the setting for it to look otherwise. But that's me.

 

[fusangite]

See, I think you're making a better arguement for dropping the silly four elements approach in D&D than anything else. Let's face it, most players interact with your typical campaign setting as if it were the real world with the add-on of magic and monsters. Wouldn't it be better for the general ruleset underlying the whole thing to inherently mate up with the vast majority of what the players expect?

For most of the past 4000 years, people believed that the universe was composed of 4 or 5 elements. Yet they still expected water to run downhill, apples to fall from trees and swords to cut people. In many respects, our expectations of the natural world are actually closer to the 4/5 element physics described by Aristotle. For instance, we continue intuitively to expect heavy objects to fall faster than light objects.

The great thing is that most of an average person's expectations of the natural world, to this day, more closely resemble Taoist or Aristotelian physics than they do contemporary quantum mechanics. It continues to look like the sun is revolving around the earth.

I've tried to put together a framework in my head for how you would generate most real-world phenomena with four elements and it fails every time.

Then read some Aristotelian or Taoist physics; there's a reason they remained so popular for so long. No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Let's face it, most players interact with your typical campaign setting as if it were the real world with the add-on of magic and monsters.

BTW, when is someone going to post a reply accusing us of engaging in clomping nerdism?

That's a broad assumption. Most players I know are interested in killing things and taking their stuff, and having "phat buildz" for their PCs.

It's not only clomping nerdism, but very presumptuous nerdism and very cloying.

 

[jgbrowning]

Why is it "realistic" for a world with widespread magic, an Elemental Plane of Earth, interventionist gods and only four elements to look like a world that doesn't have any of those things? How can plate tectonics, for instance, operate in a world in which earth is an element, as opposed to a highly variable amalgam of compounds made up for 50+ elements?

Having a realistically designed world that includes magic is just as logically consistent as having a non-realistically designed world that includes magic. The existence of magic doesn't have to mean that "real life physics doesn't work any more" to be logically consistent.

That being the case, I find it a superior design choice to use realistically designed maps that include magic because using realistic geography to build worlds has rarely resulted in someone saying "That map isn't magical enough for me! I want rivers that flow uphill!" Most of the time, you'll have someone say, "Tundra and tropical rainforest don't abut each other in the real world." If you have to choose between "Logically consistent map that uses real world physics and magic" and "Logically consistent map that doesn't use real world physics" I'd prefer the former. However, I don't believe that choice is necessary.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

For most of the past 4000 years, people believed that the universe was composed of 4 or 5 elements.

And with magic, there is no need to assume that the universe isn't composed of those 4 or 5 elements and that realistically designed worlds/maps don't also exist. They're not exclusive.

joe b.

 

[helium3]

It's not only clomping nerdism, but very presumptuous nerdism and very cloying.

Cloying? I think that's the first time I've been accused of tasting or smelling sickly sweet.

 

[jgbrowning]

Cloying? I think that's the first time I've been accused of tasting or smelling sickly sweet.

Usually you just make everyone sound like a chipmunk.

joe b.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Cloying? I think that's the first time I've been accused of tasting or smelling sickly sweet.

Well it is cute.

 

[GreatLemur]

Personally, I have more of a problem with campaign maps that don't make sense in context. Such as having a trade hub on the circumference of a reasonably round continent and all the other major settlements also on the circumference. The shortest distance between two points is not on the edge of a circle.

This is a pretty weird argument. It's generally a hell of a lot easier to move very large amounts of cargo by sea than by land. I'm pretty sure most of the real world's major tade hubs are coastal cities for exactly this reason. A ship can carry a hell of a lot more than a wagon, and oceans don't tend to be quite so full of other people (such as bandits, enemy soldiers, and tariff collectors) as continents do. Explorers have spent a hell of a lot of time and lives trying to find sea routes to places they could already get to by land.

 

[Eltharon]

I have a high school level of geography/geology, and try to make my worlds look like they could make sense (Rivers flow from high ground towards a large body of water, mountains aren't artfully placed to dramatically ring the Kingdom of Evil), but I'm not good enough at geology to have a campaign map that, if made real, would "work" perfectly. I try, though. Then again, if your campaign world is high magic (mine isn't), strange geographical thingies are fine.