How big is your world?

[MissHappen]

I'm an avid worldbuilder. My primary campaign setting has multiple continents, and certainly embraces several different campaign 'feels' depending on location. Now, most games I've run rarely leave the 'primary' continent, and I've not completely fleshed out the rest of the world, but I've found that even if characters never visit the other places.... they add flavor. They meet people who have been there, or have come from there. They see the influences of various cultures. It gives the feeling of a living, breathing world. I also think it is fun to watch them visit a new place, knowing only what they were told about it, and finding it rather different than the 'stereotype.'
So, in conclusion, I believe size does matter. And the details as well; if you portray it as a world, the players will feel like they are in a world.

 

[Chimera]

A little bit larger than Earth.

About 15 years ago, I bought a bunch of large hex paper and set to work drawing things out, based on smaller maps done 8-10 years earlier.

But really, I've only used parts of 2 large and 1 small continents for my settings. First games were in the southern parts of the Gan region, which is fairly wealthy. The next one was on a peninsula of a continent to the north.

The last two have been on a continent to the east of that one, roughly 5,000 miles from the initial settings.

The latest map, used for my last game and to be used for my next game (set 20 years after the last one) is roughly 1,500 miles by 1,000 miles, with a total Human population of roughly 300,000 scattered in 4 Kingdom/larger nations and a couple of city/states. With lots of wilderness between and around them.

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As mentioned above, I have a problem with the density of some of the existing settings, particularly Forgotten Realms. The Silver Marches have over 1 million 'civilized' folks in an area roughly 2/3 the size of Minnesota, which has a current, real life population of 4.6 million. With the largest town of 37,000 and a non-modern infrastructure, this means the place is wall to wall farms and settlements.

I'm currently playing in a game set in Sespech and Chondath. Don't get me started on the problems of their alleged populations...

 

[Chimera]

OF course, I've seen the opposite problem too. Sparse population centers so far apart as to be insupportable.

I played on a HB world where one "Kingdom" had just two towns. A capital on the coast with an alleged population of 1200, and a single village of 300, located 200 miles inland. NOT on a river. Supposedly, the village provided most of the food for the "city", but I could never figure out why it was so far away or how they ever managed to get the food to the city in the first place. Obviously, the GM of that world wasn't very interested in logic.

And if that wasn't bad enough, we encountered a "patrol" of their army consisting of over 100 soldiers, then so many guards, troops and sailors in the capital town as to be unbelievable. With a population of just 1,500, I had to wonder how they supported armed forces totalling nearly 1/2 of the TOTAL population.

This same GM vehemently criticized me for having a capital city of 8,000 population in the duchy in which they were playing and a national capital of 15,000. Too heavily populated, he claimed. No way a D&D setting should have towns that large!


I vaguely remember playing on a published setting that was just about this bad, roughly 20 years ago. Scattered towns and villages so far apart as to be unsupportable, NOT connected by anything that could even remotely justify their economic viability.

 

[Agemegos]

OF course, I've seen the opposite problem too. Sparse population centers so far apart as to be insupportable.

Well, you won't have that trouble with Gehennum. Assuming arability and fertility considerably less than those of the (geologically similar) East Indies I estimate its population at ten million in the Archaic Period rising to forty million in the Decadent (400 years later). The largest city in the Decadent Period has well over one million people. And the Army is 112,500 troops, not counting the Navy or private warrior entourages, nor the citizen militia.

The average nearest-neighbour distance for villages is 1.7 km (about a mile) and of cities is 24.2 km (about 15 miles).

 

[Wirefish]

My world is 1200 by 900 miles, give or take. You can see the map at http://wirefish.com/llyonesse/Maps/llyonesse.jpg.

I've thought many times about doing a much smaller setting, either as a group of islands or as a region of a larger continent, but I feel like a certain minimum size is required to get the variety of cultures and geography that I prefer.

 

[D+1]

I vaguely remember playing on a published setting that was just about this bad, roughly 20 years ago. Scattered towns and villages so far apart as to be unsupportable, NOT connected by anything that could even remotely justify their economic viability.

Fortunately we don't need to justify economic viability. We just need to maintain internal consistency. So long as economic viability is considered and dealt with (even if it's just with a handwave) I see no reason to have problems with suspension of disbelief.

Even the "kingdom" with two cities of population 1500 and 300. Is it unrealistic? Undoubtedly. But does the DM actually have some other explanation that would discount real-world influences and dictates?

D&D is not feudal Europe and is only pseudo-medieval at best. Things exist in a D&D world because we simply WANT them to exist - not because they are in any way realistic or logical.

Realism is only for those who can't handle fantasy.

 

[Alhazred]

My homebrew world is roughly the size of Canada, with the eastern seaboard of the US thrown in for good measure - 1800x2400 miles. The climate is roughly equivalent to Canada, perhaps a bit warmer (there's a mountain range which cuts the continent in half, preventing the worst of the northern winds from reaching the south - geologists and geographers need not comment ).

The entire western half is populated either densely (the south) or moderately (the north). The east considerably less so. I find that the setting is large enough to support a wide variety of cultures (western and eastern European, baltic, middle eastern, north African) without being so overwhelming as to mitigate the possibility of exploring the various regions. Recently, I added the idea of the Waygates (from Wheel of Time; I think that's what they're called) to reduce travel times, though finding, securing and utilising a gate is an adventure unto itself.

Most of the adventures occur within a small area, say a kingdom or two, with special quests taking the PCs temporarily elsewhere. This way the group gets to know an area and its inhabitants, forms bonds and watch how their quests shape the local landscape (sometimes literally) while still allowing for adventure in distant and unusual settings, such as the Great Salt Basin, the Isle of the Coiled God or the Frozen Barrens.

Outside of this one continent, I haven't detailed anything. There are the usual cultures (one of which, a pseudo-Chinese culture, invaded 2000 years ago but failed to establish a presence) but nothing concrete. There are enough adventures on the one continent to provide sufficient amusement. I can say that the planet is roughly the size of Earth, possesses two moons, one visible, the other not (and which has yet to be discovered), a half dozen or so other planets orbiting a star similar to the Sun.

This setting has been around, in various forms, since the mid-1990s.