Is your world round? Do the PCs know it.

[Psion]

Given to thinking about how my game world interfaces with the river of worlds (it's a round world, but the river of worlds is an infinite plane), I was given to wonder if for the tpyical ENworlder, your game world (or GM's game world), the world is flat or round.

It seems to me that if it WAS round, given the general utility and accesibility of magic, people would know the world was round. What do you think?

Any other world configuration? I've played or GMed on ringworlds and bubble-worlds (inverted worlds, the horizon curves up.)

 

[diaglo]

the world is flat. it is played on a battle map.

 

[MonsterMash]

the world is flat. it is played on a battle map.

 

[Stormborn]

The PCs are from an island nation where almsot everythign is based on sea travel. The big event every few years is the fleet that goes to the dwarven continent across the Sundering Sea. So not only do the educated people know the world is round, but the average person does as well.

 

[jerichothebard]

My campaign world is a confluence between the elemental planes - a temporary and somewhat unstable overlapping of the elements brought into being by a god and held in place by the will of the people. So, it is neither flat nor round, but instead just a strange little anomaly.


jtb

 

[Desdichado]

I've got the whole suspended islands in space thing going on, so no.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Well, it's my understanding that in our history it was long known that the world was round. People often get confused between the knowledge that the Earth went round the sun (which - in the West at least - is a relatively recent discovery that could - and did - get you persecuted by the medieval Church) and knowledge that the Earth was round (which was generally accepted by all educated people).

The song that says, "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round" is wrong, wrong, wrong. Most people then (church included) thought that the world was round. They laughed at Christopher Columbus because he said that the world was much smaller than they all thought it was, so much smaller in fact that, according to him, the eastern coast of China lay only two or three thousand miles to the west of Portugal, whereas everyone else said that it was much further away - the other side of the world in fact.

And you know what? He was wrong, and they were right, and they were right to laugh at him, and it was only him getting lucky and discovering America that saved him from going down in history and as a fool.

Anyhow...

The reason why (at least, this is what I've read - I've never actually stood on the shore and tested it) people generally knew that the Earth was round was that when ships sail away, they gradually dip below the horizon, so that after a while you can only see the tops of their masts, and after a little while longer you can't even see that (which one reason is why you have a crows nest - because you can see further over the horizon). And since we know that water is always flat then it holds that if the sea is curved, then the surface of the Earth is also curved.

I'm sure someone has got a lot more detail on this subject than my highly sketchy recall, but the general gist is that knowing that the world was round wasn't as a big a secret (at least among educated people) as we tend to think.

 

[Desdichado]

Even then, the idea that the New World was this vast, mysterious continent that nobody knew anything about is really crumbling quickly. It's quite apparent that the Chinese were familiar with the New World (and called it Fusang), it's becoming more and more accepted that the Viking presence here was much more prolonged and extensive that previously believed, and it's quite likely as a matter of fact, that the Church and a number of Portuguese sailers knew that there were "islands" out in the Atlantic ocean. I doubt anyone had any idea that there was this vast continent or two out here, but that's not really the point.

Uhh... sorry for the OT...

 

[BiggusGeekus]

smart stuff

Yeah! I'm with JN!

There's also a lot of math-type stuff that one can do if one knows math that shows the world is round.

I use a round world. The wackiness that makes the magic go happens far beyond the planet's orbit so the planet and moons are "normal". I did this primarily so I'd have a starting point to explain natural events should I ever need one.

 

[Wombat]

I working from a more-or-less late medieval/early renaissance point of view -- the world is round, but only the educated really know/care about this.

Yes, during the Middle Ages people thought the world was round -- remember, the kind holds an ORB in his hand, the symbol of the world