Why the focus on *geography* in RPGing?

[gamerprinter]

Seriously: started with the Lord of the Rings (other original sources like Howard didn't bother with a map), and everyone went from there because it's fun to draw maps for a lot of people. The left-justified fantasy map trope starts because of the European origins, but people have pointed out Greyhawk looks kind of like the Upper Midwest.

I've made plenty of right justified or top justified maps - maybe it's because I'm ethnically only half European, and half Japanese, so I don't have any cultural justification preferences... granted this map intentionally emulates the American east coast, even if it's not.

 

[gamerprinter]

In the published things Howard did describe the layout and history in broad strokes
Is there a Howard-canon map of Conan's world?

And apparently had a sketch for his own use ("secret DM info"?):View attachment 250683

Certainly more than a bit European inspired.

Hyperborea is supposed to be post Flood Earth, but still 10+ thousands of years ago.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’m late to this party, so sorry if this has been gone over before, but I think part of the reason for the focus on geography is that it creates boundaries. In a game with a premise based on one person creating and maintaining the parameters of a shared play space in which many other people can (theoretically) free to go anywhere and do anything they want, the physical space is an easy thing to focus on for the establishment of those parameters. Where can they go, and what happens if they go there? If gameplay significantly focuses on the exploration of a well-defined physical space, the GM can key events to specific locations within that space, effectively making those events into if: then rules. If the PCs go into room 23, then these events occur there. If the PCs search hex B12, they find these things there. Etc.

 

[pemerton]

players don't create the geography, even when establishing a setting. They aren't gods.

I don't think my players are gods, but they do sometimes create the imagined geography.

For instance, when we started our Traveller campaign the players first rolled up their PCs, and then I rolled a random starting world. It was one of the players who suggested that it was a gas giant moon. In the same session, the PCs journeyed to another world, with a high hydographic percentage and a low population. I had already decided it was some sort of scientific research outpost. The PCs purchased some trade goods there. It was the same player who suggested it was probably something like ambergris, gathered by the scientists from the animals of the world in the course of their research.

In a Cthulhu Dark session it was a player who decided his PC was lodging at the Forlorn Trap. I can't remember if it was me or him who decided it was south of the river Thames.

In our 4e D&D campaign, a player invented the fallen city of Entekash, from which his PC was a refugee; another player invented the Dwarven hold in the mountains to the north.

I provide the facility, even if it isn't used.

This doesn't require that you be a god!

What follows from player-authored geography, and whether maps are used to record what they've decided, is a further thing. The starting world in Traveller appears in our star map. We never placed the Forlorn Trap on a map of London, and from memory didn't use any maps at all in that game. Our 4e D&D game used a map to represent part of the imagined world - the one on the inside cover of the module Night's Dark Agents - but I don't think we ever placed the Dwarven hold on it, and Entekash was somewhere to the north of it with a map never drawn of its location.

 

[pemerton]

Nearly all wargames feature forces on a map moving and fighting and D&D is, conceptually, a wargame. The popular way of playing that wargame is with a DM who sets up the fights in secret, and writes a script about why they matter, but that hasn't changed the move-and-fight model.

So we could define a linear adventure as one in which the GM determines what the characters will be doing at the macro level.

That's different from the definition I'd landed at coming out of the upper thread. It's closer to by maybe not the same notion as "railroad" as I used it in the other thread, which to me had ended up being distinct from "linearity": eg node-based design of the Alexandrian sort isn't linear as I'd ended up thinking of the term but is a railroad (and is linear in your sense); whereas The Green Knight is linear as I'd ended up thinking of that, but isn't a railroad in my view (and may or may not be linear on your account - we'd have to discuss more to work that out!).

With the purpose of the characters set by the GM, there has to be a micro decision space for the players. And given that it's a wargame, that decision space is 'where to move our forces' whether that's in terms of a tactical decision about which five foot square to occupy relative to those hobgoblins, or choosing a route route through the wilderness to a town the GM says you need to get to, or mapping the dungeon the GM has sent you to.

The GM controls all the macro, so the geography - at whatever scale - combined with the enemy forces create the decision points for play.

This is an interesting analysis: geography as a framework for decision points. And on the wargame model, the geography would then factor immediately into action resolution - distances, terrain, hidden enemy forces in one hex/square but not another, etc.

I think part of the reason for the focus on geography is that it creates boundaries. In a game with a premise based on one person creating and maintaining the parameters of a shared play space in which many other people can (theoretically) free to go anywhere and do anything they want, the physical space is an easy thing to focus on for the establishment of those parameters. Where can they go, and what happens if they go there?

I guess another way of framing the question in the OP would be Why is this a strong, perhaps predominant, conception of RPGing?

@chaochou's answer is because it is wargaming.

 

[Charlaquin]

I guess another way of framing the question in the OP would be Why is this a strong, perhaps predominant, conception of RPGing?

I mean, it’s not a very exciting answer, but because that’s how D&D does it, and D&D is the predominant conception of RPGing. To me, the question is ultimately why D&D did it that way. I suppose “because D&D is a wargame” is a valid answer, but then… why are wargames that way?

 

[gamerprinter]

I don't think my players are gods, but they do sometimes create the imagined geography.

This doesn't require that you be a god!

Well Traveller does allow you to whip up a planet on the fly, and that doesn't require being a god. In D&D or most other game systems, there aren't rules to whip up geography on the fly, in cases where it occurs, sure players can get involved with the geography. But in most every other instance, the GM has to make it possible, whereas on-the-fly-geography is not a thing for most games. Again, I've published rules allowing you to create entire star systems and all it's planets - but most games don't have such facility.

 

[pemerton]

Well Traveller does allow you to whip up a planet on the fly, and that doesn't require being a god. In D&D or most other game systems, there aren't rules to whip up geography on the fly, in cases where it occurs, sure players can get involved with the geography. But in most every other instance, the GM has to make it possible, whereas on-the-fly-geography is not a thing for most games. Again, I've published rules allowing you to create entire star systems and all it's planets - but most games don't have such facility.

You can just make things up. I gave examples from 4e D&D, for instance.

 

[Lanefan]

I mean, it’s not a very exciting answer, but because that’s how D&D does it, and D&D is the predominant conception of RPGing. To me, the question is ultimately why D&D did it that way. I suppose “because D&D is a wargame” is a valid answer, but then… why are wargames that way?

Er...because without a battlefield there's not going to be much of a battle?

 

[gamerprinter]

You can just make things up. I gave examples from 4e D&D, for instance.

I don't know 4e - is that done in 4e? I've looked at 5e, but I've only played 1 - 3.5, I was committed to Pathfinder, when I was developing my setting for publication at the time, so never got to 4e.