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

[Helldritch]

It completely depends on the campaign and the scope I want it to take. Some will be small, some will spawn a whole continent or more and others will span the planes.

 

[Hriston]

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

Here you seem to equate "setting" with how much of it has been mapped. If the map expands, the "setting" expands. Is that correct? If so, then yes, I prefer a small "setting" comprised only of places that have been established to exist within the game-world, mostly by me telling the players about them. When a place is introduced into the shared fiction, it is added to the map. I started this game with only the starting hex and the six hexes immediately surrounding it on my map, which was the area I described to the players at the start of play as that which was commonly known about. Included in this area is a road that leads off the map to the rest of the world outside the bog that surrounds the starting city. What specific locations to which the road leads has not been established in play so is not on my map, but presumably such places are part of the setting, or will be once and if they are arrived at. There are other parts of the established setting that are also not on my map. There is a sky and a sun, moon, and stars, so presumably those things exist, however far away they are, as part of the setting. Another aspect of the setting not on my map is the game-world's history.

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.

There seems to be an unspoken assumption about DM prep here in focusing on level of detail at the start of the game and intention (who's?) that a place will be visited, like a "setting" has to be something prepared by the DM before the game begins. Surely, if a location figures, as a place where the PCs are, anywhere within a 20-level campaign, then that location is part of the game's setting. As a DM, this is why I like to keep the setting undefined as much as possible, especially at the start of a campaign, because it gives the players the broadest leeway in choosing to what kind of places their characters go within the broader setting.

 

[jmartkdr2]

My previous answer was about what I do for myself when I'm prepping a game. But if I re-frame the question as "what would I want in a campaign book?" the answer is closer to "all of the above."

I want a couple of highly detailed villages and city neighborhoods to get started in. A few kingdoms and full cities with enough detail to get involved in politics and enough culture to make fleshing out new neighborhoods and villages easy to do. At least one semi-complete continent, and a sense of the rest of the planet and the cosmos that planet exists in.

But I don't want too much: I need to be able to make my own additional villages and cities and kingdoms, and want at least one continent vague enough to put my own stuff there. I need space to include things I want that the designer didn't think of, like a whole civilization of centaurs or whatever.

 

[Bupp]

My best experiences have been with medium sized. Focused on a kingdom or region, but with at least some bullet points about the surrounding area, that way if the players want wo wander farther, they already have some ideas what's around them (and I only have to really work on what interests the players).

 

[Plaguescarred]

It varies based on the need of my campaign, but i like to start small scale where the party start in a village or small town, explore the area around throughtout adventures, eventually travel far and wide visits big cities and capitals, other countries Underdark etc... and in betweem, may even change continent or plane of existance with planar tarvel.