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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 3438950" data-attributes="member: 463">Within a gameworld culture I like naming conventions to look vaguely consistent, but if they're the PCs home cultures they should also seem familiar & accessible, so Norse, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Italian etc type names are fine.  Barker's approach takes a lot of effort plus either you end up with familiar-sounding names anyway (Tolkien) or creates a weird exotic feel (Barker) that can be offputting to players.  As a player I don't want anything that will make my head hurt! I struggle a bit in the 3e game I play in because it's an Arabic setting with Arabic names.  I play a Frankish-type crusader called Rolan...Population is something that bugs me, and I like it to look vaguely plausible.  Tolkien created a world with massive effort in the languages and a totally implausible "1 per square mile" type population distribution, and many others have followed in his footsteps.  This is not rocket science - if you create a feudal kingdom, just count up the rough area and note a population figure somewhere between 30 and 120 per square mile.  For scattered barbarian hunter-gatherers, say 1-10 per square mile.  Make sure cities have a decent amount of nearby farmland or another good source of food (fishing, tribute states, etc).  Just make it look vaguely plausible. Geology - in a dungeon-based game, a little bit of geology does add a lot to the game.    My wife has a geology degree & I sometimes check stuff with her, like show her a map, she says "Would have to be limestone caves" and I go with that.  Now you can't really have a D&D style Underdark at all with fully realistic geology, but a bit of realism goes a long way.</blockquote>

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