I am working on a home brew setting and have been toiling away off and on for well about 10 years on this one world in particular. I showed a map sketch to a friend, and it had a compass and mile marker on it, and he saw this and asked:
"Isn't this a bit to big for a setting?"
The map, as it stands, it roughly 22" by 28" and 1" is equal to roughly 250 miles. Is that to big for a setting? Now by that I mean, does such a large area for the setting break beyond what could be expected for a given region. This isn't a whole continent, but merely a north western portion of a much larger continent. I am fine with it, but would like to here what others would say about the size, and constructive only please, I have enough trolls to deal with during my games.
I'm personally of the opinion that a setting can't be too big. There's always room for more territories, undiscovered continents, and new planes.
What matters is, no matter how big or small, how well the area you do have is designed. If the small area you have worked out is extremely detailed and spreading out would spread you too thin, make it small. Sounds like you've put a lot of work in over a lot of time to make something very big have a lot of content to it, and I applaud you for that, sounds like you've done a lot of work.
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It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it. How dense are the hooks within this region? How much variation among the areas?
One could say that Golarion is too big if you only plan to use Varisia. If this setting is going to be good for multiple games, then it hardly matters if it's too big for a single game.
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If my math is correct, and there is a huge chance it isn't, that section of the map would equal 38.5 million square miles. To compare Asia is 17.2 million. It is almost equal in size to all of North America, Asia and Africa combined at ~37 million square miles. This all doesn't account for any water on your map of course. It's big but if it's too big is a question only your imagination can answer.
If my math is correct, and there is a huge chance it isn't, that section of the map would equal 38.5 million square miles. To compare Asia is 17.2 million. It is almost equal in size to all of North America, Asia and Africa combined at ~37 million square miles. This all doesn't account for any water on your map of course.
Hmm. If this math is right, then there's two ways it could be taken.
1. This world's landmass is very concentrated, Pangaea style, or perhaps in two mega-continents.
or
2. This world is significantly larger than Earth.
Neither's gamebreaking in my opinion, but it's something you might want to consider/keep in mind.
I am working on a home brew setting and have been toiling away off and on for well about 10 years on this one world in particular. I showed a map sketch to a friend, and it had a compass and mile marker on it, and he saw this and asked:
"Isn't this a bit to big for a setting?"
The map, as it stands, it roughly 22" by 28" and 1" is equal to roughly 250 miles. Is that to big for a setting? Now by that I mean, does such a large area for the setting break beyond what could be expected for a given region. This isn't a whole continent, but merely a north western portion of a much larger continent. I am fine with it, but would like to here what others would say about the size, and constructive only please, I have enough trolls to deal with during my games.
Hell no man that's awesome, sounds like old Faerun!
Thanks for the feedback all, and the link the David will deff help with some of the finer details I was wrestling with. As for the world size, I have a map I am working from based on continental shifts, it shows a rough outline of the states and all the immediate areas around it, it doesn't look unnaturally large to me but then again I tend to think of epic scales, never had the nack for small settings.
This is the sit it is on http://panglott.blogspot.com/2009/10/continental-drift.html and if you click on the 325 million years ago link in the first paragraph it will show the map.
With I knew how to post links and all better.
{url=insert link here}text here{/url}
change { } to [ ]
AH thanks Orthos
If you have every possible terrain, every possible module can be dropped in. Mountains, hills, swamps, a dessert, plains, rivers, and lakes? As long as there is good variety, and not just an endless forest, you're golden.
No loss of terrain types or locals for adventure. But it seemed to some people I showed it to, to be too large a land mass, but then when I explained it was a world larger then Mars, they got all technical about various weather, tectonics, and other things.
Some things some people cannot suspend disbelief of I guess.
The same people who give scientists a hard time about Pangea, and the non hollow earth. It's a fantasy world. It can have one big continent, and one ocean. It can be full of underdark. They're just sore because they could not find anyone to play their realistic game.
How about one big chain of volcanoes that will some day break up the landmass?
they got all technical about various weather, tectonics, and other things.
A good thing about fantasy setting, people actually can control the weather if they really want to. And in a land this big there are bound to be some people who want to. If you want to you could add some lakes (I like lakes, and water creatures).
Rivers run to the sea, but streams run to lakes. I've heard of real word desserts that touch on bodies of water, but they cannot argue with a dessert separated from the sea by 2 mountain ranges. Mountain rages tend to milk the clouds of water, unless they get carried over by an updraft. You could argue for multiple jetstreams. You'll have cold, damp air coming off the glaciers, and warm tropic breases. Frost Giants and Ice Hags may be messing with the weather for some evil agenda.
I live in the Delaware valley. We get lots of weird weather trapped by mountains on 3 sides, and the ocean on the forth side.
The real meteorologists will see how it could work, not just try to debunk it.
I explained it was a world larger then Mars, they got all technical about various weather, tectonics, and other things.
Some things some people cannot suspend disbelief of I guess.Earth is larger than Mars.
At 250 miles per inch, a map of the Earth would be 100 inches across at the equator. Mars would be about half that.
Just now noticed that.. er I meant that it is about the size of Jupiter, and then they got all tech about the weather and stuff, good fact spotting, you get a +1.
As things are coming into focus more, they all were getting tech because 2 of the players were looking at 2 different peoples from almost opposite sides of the realm in question and a 3rd player was going "well how can they be in the same region" (etc etc) and that is where it all began I was just informed.But I stand by "Some things people cannot suspend disbelief"
An earthlike planet the size of mars would be somewhat hollow.
Maybe it's a dyson sphere with sunblockers like in Ringworld.
See, I see possibilities.