What if your players had an innate knowledge of your setting?

[painandgreed]

It sounds to me like you're using modern political maps as-is instead of creating your own political boundaries? I'm still struggling with finding the appropriate map landscape where I can mold the political landscape to my choosing. After doing the normal RPG resource routes, I've been trying my searches through National Geographic, the Smithonian, etc. What have you been using?

I chose the modern political maps so I wouldn't have to figure out new political boundries and so even though I don't try to use the real world too much, if the players know that Capetia is supposed to be France and Cherusci is supposed to be Germany, they can form images of the flavor I can't fill in. Otherwise, I doubt if The Kingdom of the Franks or The Holy Roman Empire would really inspire any sort of flavor to a player who wasn't a history major.

For period political maps, my favorites are the ones at Euratlas. 1200 for Example. I do go through those and pull out some ideas and names which I look up on Wikipedia for the history where I dig out more ideas and names.

 

[fusangite]

I'm a big fan of using real world maps even if I use nothing else from the world. At the geographic scale of a campaign, one can grab big chunks of the globe and borrow their topography without the players having any idea the game is borrowing earth geography.

Of course I also run RPGs, not D&D obviously, in alternate parts of the historical past. I'm currently having a blast with an alternate 13th century America.

As for the actual problem you're trying to solve, don't use settings or adventures your PCs have read. Make your own. Failing that, buy something less popular.

 

[howandwhy99]

I feel your pain. My own preferences lie in both directions paradoxically enough. In the past some of the best games I played in were in known worlds. It made it easier to imagine fun things to do and the shared feeling of the world made it all that much better. Everyone was in on the joke, in a way. Having a shared context/mood/whatever helped us relate in character. (i'm thinking star wars here)

But I'm also big on fantasy adventure being an act of exploration and learning. As PCs go through the world new discoveries and experiments help them learn more about it. I like this as it shakes up old thinking and keeps new ideas percolating like when you start a new job or assignment. (learning things the first time being when you ask "why?" more often than making assumptions)

I feel your pain 'cuz I got me an VERY old-school GH player, a player who knows more about GH than most anyone around, and an extremely active RPGA player who knows the whole "new world" Greyhawk. I predicted a potential nightmare, (even tho the players are all open-minded). So now we're playing in Greyhawk 643CY. About 50 years in the future depending upon your point of reference. So far it's working.

 

[Xaositech]

I chose the modern political maps so I wouldn't have to figure out new political boundries and so even though I don't try to use the real world too much, if the players know that Capetia is supposed to be France and Cherusci is supposed to be Germany, they can form images of the flavor I can't fill in. Otherwise, I doubt if The Kingdom of the Franks or The Holy Roman Empire would really inspire any sort of flavor to a player who wasn't a history major.

For period political maps, my favorites are the ones at Euratlas. 1200 for Example. I do go through those and pull out some ideas and names which I look up on Wikipedia for the history where I dig out more ideas and names.

I did come across that Euratlas link a couple of weeks ago and remembered to bookmark it. I definitely like the scale involved, but wasn't sure how well I could appropriate it using my own political boundaries given its resolution. I've been toying around with Google Maps, but I admit it doesn't scale on a single screen frame the way I've admired with the Euratlas site.

 

[Rothe]

I think it is a great idea to use real world geography and maps. Players will have an instant feel for the landscape and distances. I personally wouldn't duplicate the current political boundries. Some places just make great locations for a city so London for example could be maintained but called something else.

 

[painandgreed]

I think it is a great idea to use real world geography and maps. Players will have an instant feel for the landscape and distances. I personally wouldn't duplicate the current political boundries. Some places just make great locations for a city so London for example could be maintained but called something else.

For the most part, in the minds of American players, political boundries are going to be cultural boundries and it will give players an instant feel of the people also. I didn't keep them exactly the same but split them up as I saw fit. Ireland became whole while Britain was split up. Italy is wilderness inhabited by undead and monsters except for a few city states. Russia is just wilderness. Other countries also got combined or split apart as I felt it should go from there.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

The potential problem I see with this is twofold. First, it might harm suspension of disbelief for obvious reasons. Second, depending on your group's maturity and sensitivities, it might restrict your options. It's a lot more sensitive if you're staging a war between the US and China, even if they are only those countries in names, as opposed to staging a war between two random fantasy countries you made up. Additionally, your choice of racial population could be construed as racism. Not many would think being depicted as orcs to be flattering, after all, but someone's gotta be the orcs.

I did this and there was no issue. As long as the "orcs" are portrayed with the honesty and nobility that every individual should have anyway, why would htere be a problem?

If you still have qualms, why not make the non-Earth species to be some kind of magical invaders? Like a kind of terraforming only the worlds factories and skyscrapers are replaced by trees and rivers? That acutally could make the orcs out to be the good guys because they are trying to restore Earth to it's former technological base.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

One other point, if I may. It occured to me a long time ago that if the party is going somewhere we haven't been to before, we immediately go looking for someone who can sell us a map. Preferably several of various scales, including one that shows where we are and where the other place is. (Of course, if its just a few miles up the road, we don't bother.) Medieval cartographers were actually pretty accurate, assuming the information they had to work with was. So if there's much trade, there are going to be maps. If the place is far enough away that the details are suspect, we stop in cities along the way and buy more accurate ones. We assume that not only are our characters not idiots, neither are the people who are making money in the world. Traders who make money want maps! (As do military commanders, politicians, and others.)

 

[The_Gneech]

I heard about a GM who had a terrain map of Mars, put oceans in all the low-lying areas, and made that his map. I always thought that was a cool idea for an organic-yet-not-Earth map.

-The Gneech

 

[eris404]

Well, my (D&D) campaign world is Earth, specifically Earth circa 1888, history and all. Let me tell you, it is a great shortcut and makes for a great game: research is a snap for both me and the players and I often play upon their knowledge of real world history, languages and culture. I recommend this idea highly.

However, the other two DMs in our group run in homebrew worlds and they do something very simple that helps so much: they make detailed maps which they show us at each game. Every game. Several times per game in fact. I know that sounds so obvious, but I have seen some of those maps so much that I can almost picture them perfectly in my head.