Is Your Setting Pretty Much Earth?

[VirgilCaine]

Well, IMC, the "sun" is really a huge portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire that cartwheels around the world. It spins off many smaller portals in it's wake which remain as burning embers in the night sky. So even though the "constellations" are ever-changing at night, there is a distinct "trail" or cluster of portals from which sailors can navagate by at night.

I thought that the sailors navigated by the positions of specific stars and constellations?

The stars are the language and voice of the first god. He spoke, and they sprang into existence. Those who become knwoledgeable in the stars can learn to read them and catch glimpses of the past, present, and future.

Coooool. This might work well with my oh-so-original world creation premise of "It just sort of happened. Everyone explains it differently, but no one really knows how."

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As for my world (s), yeah, they're pretty much Earth. I don't really like mucking around with moons and space and stuff when players are really not going to care so much about it--they want the BLOOD to SPILL!

Except for the higher amount of carbon dioxide in the air, which explains the faster plant growth, which explains why Large/Huge sized predators can get enough to eat and why farmlands aren't quite as big as on Earth.

I had a campaign based on the thought I'd had that it's highly unlikely that an Earthlike planet would also have an Earthlike moon. Since binary systems are kind of rare.

So the moon in that campaign was actually the abandoned colony project's space station. Since it was big, round, and silvery, no one questioned it's moon-ness.

This is the same campaign where one cleric PC discovered his goddess (Brione, goddess of the dawn) was actually in control of the orbitting laser platforms. One divine intervention roll, and there was a large crater where a dungeon used to be.

Nifty! I have a world idea somewhat like this, but I want to be subtle about showing the origin/past of the world. Basically, standard D&D, but there are small hints and such that can be put together to support the idea that the world used to be entirely different.

 

[A'koss]

The sun is a portal (huh, guess I'm not the only one with that idea) to the inner planes, which are known collectively as the 'Realms of Creation'. Travel to the inner planes is impossible for living matter, though souls do go there to be rejuvinated before returning to the world in new form (all living things are reincarnated). There are no outer planes. There is a demi-plane (Hell), constructed by a divine power where chaotic/demonic souls are held so that they can not rejuvinate and cause further distress in the world. Travel there is generally one-way, and not pleasant.

Hunh... Oddly enough I also have just one "Hel/Hell" comprised of different regions with extremely varied and inhospitable environs. Basically a vast, vast (but finite) realm divided by warring gods and "demons" (any fiend essentially). It's fun keeping all my evil in a single basket, it cultivates that friendly, neighbourly feeling I miss in the D&D Lower Planes...

I thought that the sailors navigated by the positions of specific stars and constellations?

True, but I just assume they can take a reading at sunset against the the "sun" and one of the trailing, now stable "stars" and work it out that way. Navigation isn't my strongpoint but I assume there's a way to figure it all out.

A'koss.

 

[Tonguez]

True, but I just assume they can take a reading at sunset against the the "sun" and one of the trailing, now stable "stars" and work it out that way. Navigation isn't my strongpoint but I assume there's a way to figure it all out.
A'koss.

Celestial navigation works by tracking the rising and setting points of stars so your suggestion of taking a fix on the sun and then tracking the star rise points from there could work provided that the daily pattern is relatively constant (within a few degrees). Its not an exact science but it does work

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

In the campaign that I just finished playing in the party had to go to the moon to recover an artifact. It turned out that the moon was just a really cold place that you could fly to (on giant bats!). It sounds strange, I guess, and maybe too sci-fi the way that I'm presenting it, but it was actually quite cool and very much fantasy.

The current campaign is in a awesome home brew that I won't reveal too much of because I'm not sure how the DM would feel about it. It's a flat-world that goes off infinitely in every direction. There are elemental moons that have differing effects on vision, magic, etc. It's quite kooky, really.

NCSUCodeMonkey

 

[arscott]

Who knows? Nobody in the setting has a good enought grasp on physics and astronomy to tell how the earth is structured. And the various religions all have their own Ideas.

And for the record, learning that a planet is round because it has a horizon isn't as easy as it looks. For one thing, you need a flat, distinct horizon for it to work. I'm betting the horizons most of us see on a day to day basis exist because of hills, mountains, or buildings, not because of our planet's shape.

 

[Terwox]

My favorite world, Dream Not-Dream, had no sky, no bodies of water, no visible light sources, and no coherent sense of geography -- each locale was connected to each other locale through walking a certain way, and distance travelled and time spent were not relevant.

When the characters dreamed, they were different people, albeit in complete, relatively mundane worlds in a geographic sense.

It was fun.

 

[IronWolf]

My world is Faerun!

 

[fusangite]

In other words, is it an earth-sized sphere orbiting a sol-like star?

Nope. I've never run a world in a heliocentric universe. Most fantasy games I run, including three on alternate historical earths take place in geocentric universes.

Generally speaking, do the rules of physics of the real world apply to your fantasy world?

In the sense that non-magical physical phenomena work generally the same way as in our world, yes. In the sense that the Newton's, Einstein's or quantum physics are in effect, no. Aristotelian physics, my preference, were, after all derived by observing phenomena in the natural world.

How do you feel about flat worlds? Worlds where the sky is actually a demi-plane hung with crystaline lanterns. Worlds where sailing east will eventually result in falling off the world. Worlds where the sun is actually a burning ship drawn across the sky each day by magic flying condors.

They sound great to me. But even if I made worlds like that, day to day physical laws would still basically be those to which we are accustomed. These special things would probably only affect things outside everyday human experience.

Are there worlds out there that actually reflect medieval "science" and superstition?

That's my favourite kind to design. I personally find them more compelling and believable in that they explain the existence and operation of magic better than the kinds of worlds people seem to like to make for D&D.

Do you think it would be cool to game in such a setting, or would it strike you as "wrong?" Why do we have such a proliferation of "mundane" worlds in a magical/fantastic gaming genre?

Don't expect easy answers on this one. I've been asking this question here for two years and getting no closer to understanding people's aversion to my kind of fantasy world.

 

[Laman Stahros]

My homebrew setting is set on a Dyson Shell. Yes, I know how big that is. I get a new idea, and I've always got room for it!

 

[The Shaman]

I've been asking this question here for two years and getting no closer to understanding people's aversion to my kind of fantasy world.

Do people really express aversion for your game-world or others of its ilk? I find that surprising. Speaking for myself I think what you described is very good.

Going back to the original question, "mundane" and "fantastic" are really in the eye of the beholder, aren't they? To me, a world doesn't have to be flat or inside a sphere or composed entirely of a magical wasteland or occupy another plane of existence or incorporate Aristotelian physics or non-Euclidean geometry in order to be fantastic. My recently-ended Modern tabletop game was our Modern Earth with the added element of necromancers and bioengineered super-soldiers - it was plenty fantastic, IMHO. I imagine GMs who run games set in medieval Western Europe or ancient China with the addition of magic and monsters probably feel the same way.

None of this is a knock against those who choose to set their games on chunks of land suspended like islands in a endless void or on a gigantic, plane-spanning tree, for example. I do think that fantastic comes at a variety of scales however, from the few things that are out of sync with our 'known world' to those that would rival the most exotic creation stories.

I suppose I would argue that a world with magic and monsters is not, by definition, mundane, even if it bears a close resemblance in form or function to the world we know.