D&D General What geographical size is best for campaign settings?

[Umbran]

Small to varies.

The past couple of campaigns I have played in have done really well with all the action happening within an area of approximately 50-mile radius.

 

[TwoSix]

For a campaign setting I've purchased I like big, as I like the sense of scope of having the entire planet open, and I love cool maps and don't have the ability to draw my own.

I don't actually use most of it during any one campaign, so my own homebrew adventure regions tend to be smaller, although I do have a longstanding weakness of going multidimensional with my games.

 

[Hriston]

I’m having some difficulty answering this question because my preference is for the setting to remain largely undefined until interacted with by the PCs, at which point those areas interacted with become “known” so that I, as DM, discover the details of the setting along with the players. For example, in my current game, in which the PCs have only just reached level two, my map of the world only extends one or two roughly three-mile hexes in all directions beyond the city gates of the campaign’s starting location.

BUT how the setting’s details are developed is informed by what I would call the genre of the game. This determines that, beyond the few settled areas and wilderness that the PCs have explored, there is an earth-like fantasy world. As DM, while not explicitly part of the setting yet, I use the multiverse as a framework for thinking about where the gods of the PCs might reside and where the rakshasa NPC I introduced comes from. So “the setting” at least encompasses the world where the PCs are having their adventure and the universe in which it exists, and could reasonably said to be comprised of the entire multiverse of infinite planes. Maybe I’m not understanding what OP actually means by “setting”.

 

[el-remmen]

My current setting has a small focus, one large island holding a struggling republic, a larger area that is "out of focus" from which rumors and some NPCs come from, but that is open to re-interpretation and development through game play, and an area specifically abstract and designed to never be visited, which is where the PCs originally come from.

 

[Gimby]

I've found very small to be good - the most successful game I've run recently had 90% of the action take place on an island about 10 miles by 4. Limiting the scale meant a more focused experience.

 

[Thunder Brother]

My setting, at least the explicitly described portion, is about continent-sized, but for campaigns I generally try to focus on only one small region, usually the borderlands where the weird and interesting stuff is happening.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Expandable, but I need to be able to move in directions I've never considered before, so non-Euclidian.

 

[squibbles]

I’m having some difficulty answering this question because my preference is for the setting to remain largely undefined until interacted with by the PCs, at which point those areas interacted with become “known” so that I, as DM, discover the details of the setting along with the players. For example, in my current game, in which the PCs have only just reached level two, my map of the world only extends one or two roughly three-mile hexes in all directions beyond the city gates of the campaign’s starting location.

I would call that 'small', even if it expands later.

BUT how the setting’s details are developed is informed by what I would call the genre of the game. This determines that, beyond the few settled areas and wilderness that the PCs have explored, there is an earth-like fantasy world. As DM, while not explicitly part of the setting yet, I use the multiverse as a framework for thinking about where the gods of the PCs might reside and where the rakshasa NPC I introduced comes from. So “the setting” at least encompasses the world where the PCs are having their adventure and the universe in which it exists, and could reasonably said to be comprised of the entire multiverse of infinite planes. Maybe I’m not understanding what OP actually means by “setting”.

You raise a good point. If the game takes place in a small region without detailing the wider world but you know about the setting's cosmology and several alternate dimensions, is that 'small' or 'vast'?

I guess it depends on how much detail those dimensions have at the start of the game and whether there is any intention that they will be visited. Just as, for example, I could create a small setting with the general Idea that it exists on a landmass, on a planet, in a solar system without those places being a meaningful part of the setting, I can create a small setting with the general idea that it has infinite godly realms and alternate parallel universes without those places being a meaningful part of the setting.

So, again, I'd probably call that 'small'. But, you know, vote however it suits you.

In my current setting this was very intentional: my initial design basis for the core region was "What do I get if I take a faux-Mediterranean and, using Greece as a pivot point, stand it on its end such that the sea lies north-south instead of east-west?". Answer: a setting that after 13 years still falls into the "so far, so good-and-more" category.

Sounds cool. I'm not against intentionally using Earth geography if it serves a purpose. But, in published campaign settings where I'm outsourcing the creativity to someone else, it feels like a letdown to discover a bunch of faux historical Earth cultures in their normal geographic locations--there's no value added over what I could have done myself.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I want a supercontinent-size setting simply for inspiration.

However I will run my campaigns in the kingdom-level or smaller. Having the wider supercontinent that exists allows me to have had building blocks for population migrations, spanning ancient empires, sources of trade, etc. But the adventuring will all be fairly close by.

 

[aco175]

I'm on my 3rd campaign around Phandalin. One of the campaigns ended up in Waterdeep near the end, but generally small.