Campaign Size

[Nightshade]

What size of campaign worlds do people play in? Do they have a couple empires, a single empire (or even city), or are they much bigger than that?

 

My fantasy world is enormous (over 60 empires), with my primary continent about the size of Eurasia and Africa combined. However, I don't know that everyone wants a world that large. I like it, but I am prejudiced

 

Just looking for perspective.

 

Nightshade

[Captain Obvious]

My campaigns tend to run a little smaller than that. Usually it's about the size of Europe, or maybe Europe plus North Africa.

[SirWilliam]

I have to say I haven't fully defined my world yet. Currently there is only one mostly mapped continent, which has one small kindom, some open (tribal) areas, one major empire, some city-state areas, and such.

 

In my "world" there is limited exploration going on currently so people's knowledge of grand-scale geography is not even close to complete. This allows me flexibility by allowing me to fill in the blanks as needed.

[Talon]

I used to run very small worlds, but I've been making them larger as time goes on. My old campaign world was about the size of England, now I'm doing more of a continent-size game.

[SuperPheemy]

My campaign settings often encompass a world, and several dimensions to boot (Heaven, Hell, the Ether, Astral, Limbo, etc...) However, each story arc usually takes place in an area roughly the size of a European Country. I build for consistiency, so even though a group of characters may not travel to distant lands, the players will recognize common elements when their next group of characters adventures in a different locale within the same world.

[AnotherSkip]

Northamericanish sized.

1 "recognised empire"

7 kingdoms

1 principality

2 Duchies (note all are interdependant countries, _not_ kingdom sub Principality, sub Duchie. the kingdoms and Principality and Duchies are all independant mostly ruling families)

the world is much larger that just that (the Barren lands, the Orcish Stepps, the wild lands etc.)

 

but all civilised adventure will be only in the Empire.

[Briguy123]

The map of the known world in my soon-to-be-run campaign covers one continent about the size of the continental United States as well as a few large island that are approximately the size of Japan. There are 2 major empires 8 Small kingdoms, four areas dominated by barbaric tribes, a confederation of city-states similar to those of Greece during the Hellenistic Period, and a number of small independent principalities and city-states. There are also large expanses of unihabited land just begging to be explored.

 

Most of the adventures will take place in or near one of the Hellenistic city-states. The city of Xandrion is a port city and a major trade hub between the Eastern and Western halfs of the continent. It is a melting pot thus allows for me to include a variety of characters from the various cultures of the campaign world.

[Nightshade]

Although I run on a large world, most of my campaigns focus on a single realm. If the plot becomes larger than that, I can make encompass more kingdoms, etc. as the plot dictates.

 

I like having the ability to make characters go to "far off lands" but having them on the same continent, so they do get some influence over each other. It also makes really big events (like the continent being invaded by creatures that were a hybrid of dragons and demons ) that much more momentous when a single kingdom will quickly succumb but alliances have a chance.

 

I also like having the ability to have more than one type of whatever. For example, I have 3 different elves defined, 2 different types of giants, 4 different types of dwarven kingdoms, spiderpeople, a bunch of others and more human empires than non-human. In my mind, the more variety, the better. That way, I can run many different types of plots in the same world and not have any continuity issues.

 

Nightshade

[BlackCobra]

Last fantasy campaign -- one hemisphere and the action moved from country to country in a continent-spanning Epic Adventure.

 

Current fantasy campaigin -- Greyhawk, plus all the planes. Action moves around a lot, as the players have reached Epic.

 

Next fantasy campaign (being built): 3 Earth-sized worlds, in different planes. Plus a number of other planes that may be the target of adventures. I think I may go psycho setting up the big maps.

[Qamar]

My campaign world comes in two sizes. I've got the world mapped out and it is a continent sized place. Over the course of the years (about 15) I've generated most of the prominent NPCs and I keep a story arc going. The PCs, however, rarely get outside of an area larger than say the state of NY. I've never had a campaign turn into a continent spanning, grand adventure.

[keithcurtis]

The actual layout of my world is pretty easy. It's a post-apocalyptic fantasy, so the continents are already there. OTOH, it took quite a bit of prep work, since the apoacalypse tilted the earth so that the north pole lies somewhere between Africa and (once) South America.

It took quite a bit of research to re-do all of the climate types and re-draw the map.

 

As for detailing, I go with the best bang for your buck (BBfyB) philosophy. I heavily detail the campaign city. I heavily detail prominent NPCs. (Not prominent in terms of their place in society, but in how much they interact with the PCs.) The farther you go from the campaign city and the less dramatically important the NPC, the less detail. I have no idea who now lives in the Sahara Forest. But I know the complete line of succession for the campaign city all the way back to the founding.

 

As for history, I'll write just enough to give the current situation a solid underpinning. And I write it backwards. I figure out what I want the world to be and then write a history that leads to that world.

 

All my campaigns have been this way to some degree or another. My first AD&D world was a little uselessly detailed in some ways. I learned my lesson.

 

Keith "BBfyB" Curtis

[Citizen Keen]

I way about two hundred and fifty pounds, and most of that is bullshit. I'm full of it. I can lie like a pro.

 

When I play, I just create stuff off the top of my head, and I take notes. If my players travel, the world can become huge and vague. If my players revisit all their old haunts, then my world is small with a detailed history.

 

Just the way it is.

[Markdoc]

My world is, well, world-sized, with a moon and a couple of planets playing minor roles.

 

That's 3 genuine empires described in detail, 44 assorted kingdoms, republics and wannabe empires described in at least some sort of detail and countless hundreds of tiny little fiefdoms, tribal lands, and howling wildernesses some of which are detailed and some of which are only vaguely described.

 

Frankly, that's enough to keep me busy.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

My world is, well, world-sized, with a moon and a couple of planets playing minor roles.

 

That's 3 genuine empires described in detail, 44 assorted kingdoms, republics and wannabe empires described in at least some sort of detail and countless hundreds of tiny little fiefdoms, tribal lands, and howling wildernesses some of which are detailed and some of which are only vaguely described.

 

You can see some of them here:

 

http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/markdoc/gothick_empires/ge_political.htm

 

but the vast bulk of the material is alas in handwritten notes that I will get around to transcribing at some point. Probably.

 

Frankly, that's enough to keep me busy.

 

cheers, Mark

[tiger]

I'm running a modified verson of the Western Shores from the old FH. So far noone has tried to venture opf the map to see what is beyond, but time will tell.

[Earen]

I actually haven't sketched out terribly much of my campaign world. I was visiting the boards here for ideas, really. Basically, I have a York-like border town as part of a larger kingdom where the PCs will be based to start. It's at the edge of the arable land in the kingdom ... further to the east is arid waste followed by desert. To the north are the elven wilds. To the south and west are human lands. And that's about all I have planned so far

[Guest oddbatt]

We play here!

 

The World of Arteus

 

The world exists as a “Sisterword†to Earth. The campaign is both Crossover (or Transworld as one of the Digital Hero writers called it.) and straight Fantasy, with the exceptions that there are no other races. All of the cultures are based on historical Earth cultures that have crossed over, evolved and mixed with other cultures (ie. Rus/Mongolian, Arabic/African, etc.) The planet is the same size as Earth (almost 13K km diameter) with one large moon.

 

There are four major Empires and countless Kingdoms, nomadic tribes, etc. Though there is a lot of landmass, most of the world is unexplored and a lot of that area is uninhabited... now.

 

To create the maps, I started with the LunaCell Photoshop filter from Flaming Pear

http://www.flamingpear.com/lunarcell.html

And flipped through a whole bunch of random worlds until I found one that matched my own. Not as long as you might think...

 

The nice thing is you can tweak just about every aspect of the world after you found the one you like. Raise shorelines, color your desert purple, whatever. The output files are git-huge (the master arteus file is 20megs) but you can zoom in forever.

 

Here is a more useful map with quick and dirty PhotoShoped labels: Arteus: Cylindrical Projection

 

And a close up of one of the continents with political boundaries: Northern Hathia: Political

 

Once I've mapped the continents out thus, then I'll use another mapping program, taking shoreline topographic info from the master file, and detail the individual maps... when I have time.

 

And that's how that goes...

 

Pax.

[eepjr24]

Lunarcell

 

Oddbat:

 

I am playing with this plugin and I like the options so far. Can you give a bit more info about what settings you found worked best? PM is fine if you think we are too OT for this thread.

 

- Ernie

[Guest oddbatt]

I am playing with this plugin and I like the options so far. Can you give a bit more info about what settings you found worked best?

 

Not a problem. I am going to assume that you know the basics.

 

First things first. Download Flexify from Flaming Pear. Running your finished map through the Flexify filter is the only way you can get other angles on a globe view of your world.

 

The next thing is to decide how big you want your world to be and try to match that with the size of your PS canvas. This way you can easily judge rough distances along the equatorial band and extrapolate from there.

 

An Earth sized world is about 24,000 miles in circumference. So if the canvas is 2400 pixels across, each pixel is 10 miles. The best ratio for appearances sake is about 5:3 (2400 pixels x 1440 pixels). This keeps the continents from looking too squished. The bigger the canvas size, the better your coastline will look as you zoom in, making larger canvases better if you want to map out every inch of your world.

 

When picking the random world you want to use it is far more useful to use the New Seed (leaf… I think) button then the Random (dice) button. This way once you’ve started the filter and made all of your adjustments, you can flip through the seeds instead of having to reset your settings each time. Once you have found the settings that you like, save the LunarCell presets to disk, so you never have to put that time in again.

 

To get a better idea of the world you are looking at, set the cloud cover to 0 and use the Mural view not the globe view. Also be sure that the Lighting Sphere is somewhere in the corner angles (45, 135, 225, 315) to get the best light and shadow for the textured surface. I prefer 315 or the upper left.

 

If you find a seed that you like but the continents aren’t in the right spot, play around with the Axis setting. A little move will make a whole lot of change.

 

Once you have found the world you want, save the presets again and this will become the world master file.

 

The last step is to open a new file, run LunarCell and choose the Ocean Map View. This will give you just the coastlines to work with. Saves time when you want to export the coastlines to a mapping program. Still takes some work in PS, but it’s a better place to start than your master file.

 

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

Pax.

[Shaddakim]

In my game, the main continent is Asia-sized on a planet that is slightly than Earth and started with one major empire, three subserviant kingdoms, an area of highlander clansmen (Scots, not immortals), and three independant city-states (only one of which is not hidden from the Empire). I have continent outlines for two other continents and some major island achipeligos, but nothing more detailed on them than that.

 

Currently, the Empire is facing two seperate rebellions and an invasion by three affiliated hordes (two of goblinoids and orcs and one of lizardmen). The players are based in the one independant city-state and have participated in its defense against one of the hordes. They have just finished a major quest that covered about half the continent. They may eventually travel to one of the other continents and when they do, I'll detail it out then.