RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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The Legendary Planet Kickstarter from Legendary Games is over $30,000 with a month to go, and today we started previewing maps from the first planet the PCs visit in the adventure path, which got me thinking about how we do maps in fantasy.
When you're creating a fantasy world, how important is a map of the WHOLE planet? The standard is just a regional or continental map, but I wonder: Have people seen settings where the whole planet is actually mapped?
The old Forgotten Realms Atlas is the only example I can think of, and maybe Krynn if the Taladas maps were complete. We've seen a lot of Golarion, but not the whole thing. Any others I'm missing (aside from games just set on Earth)?
I can't remember how much of the world the old Mystara maps covered, but I know they were pretty comprehensive.
Other than the ones you already mentioned the general rule seems to be "only the bits you need".
On the other hand, I do like novels where you get a map of the world (there's a quote somewhere, though, about how if you need a map in your novel, you've not described the world well enough in the text).
Personally I think a map of the whole planet isn't really necessary as long as representative maps of a region or adventure site are provided, along with informations for the GM to extrapolate the rest if needed.
That being said, an overview map in the style of the old Barsoom maps would be a great addition. It doesn't need to be accurate, it doesn't need to have a lot of details, but it would certainly help to convey the mood of the planet and help GMs to flesh out adventures by showing what regions and cities lie next to each other and how far away the polar circle is and stuff like that. I would actually prefer world maps like that over super-detailed, realistic maps in the style of the 3rd Edition FRCS map and the like. Nobody needs to know where exactly all the 489956 villages are, but knowing where that sand storm came from and why nobody seems to be able to locate the burial site of the nomad tribes, that is something I'd like to know :)
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Mystara was entirely mapped, at least on the global level, both inside AND out. :D By no coincidence at all, Bruce Heard's World of Calidar has a pretty darn sweet global map complete with climate zones and wind currents, though only the Caldera region has been focused on so far -- you might ask Bruce and his cartographer Thorfinn Tait for advice. (In fact, just hire Thorfinn Tait! He's got to be in the top five in the RPG industry right now.)
I don't think the Forgotten Realms Atlas actually was complete, if you're referring to the one by the late great Karen Fonstad. At the time it was published, iirc, only Faerun and Kara-Tur and maybe Maztica had been detailed at all, leaving a big blank where Zakhara would go and several smaller continents that may only be outlines to this day.
Krynn... was an easy job of mapping, iirc, as it only had two smallish continents and a few island chains. And Taladas did get covered completely in its boxed set, yes.
Eberron of course has its world map.
Harnworld is probably mapped in way too much detail. :)
Personally I think a map of the whole planet isn't really necessary as long as representative maps of a region or adventure site are provided, along with informations for the GM to extrapolate the rest if needed.
This is true, unless there is a global scale to the adventure (that's probably an AP onto itself, even Paizo's APs are more kingdom scale), you probably don't need a world map. Especially since travel through the Legendary Planets is via gateways and not spaceships.
Even with spaceships, just like on a cruise, you only stop at the ports along the coast and make a little headway inland. Then only relevant regions need be covered.
I would actually prefer world maps like that over super-detailed, realistic maps in the style of the 3rd Edition FRCS map and the like. Nobody needs to know where exactly all the 489956 villages are, but knowing where that sand storm came from and why nobody seems to be able to locate the burial site of the nomad tribes, that is something I'd like to know :)
The 3E Forgotten Realms map only showed cities and major towns, with perhaps a handful of notable villages (typically if the village is the only notable stopping point for miles and miles, or holds some other relevance). The region books give zoomed in maps of the local area that shows more villages, and still not every podunk hamlet.
The 3E FR map was also shortened, losing something like a thousand miles north to south. Going by the proper scale (or even the revised one), the distance between cities on a caravan route is the length of some decent sized European countries.
They ain't even begun to show villages yet.
The only times I recall mapping an entire planet was playing the Traveller RPG.
You can do a planet on ever-decreasing hexmap scales by starting with a d20 projection. No need to do the whole thing in extreme detail, but having the planetary map allows you to zoom in on various locales in a continent-spanning campaign.
What matters is what you are trying to accomplish with your setting. If all you want is a medieval European style fantasy setting than you only need to map that part of the world. If you want bring to light other regions and culture and players to seriously play in them you also map the appropriate regions. It's all about the needs of your game and setting.
Take for example Exalted. Exalted wants you to enjoy and play with the vast diversity of its worlds cultures. It also has a complete map of the world to facilitate this, a flat world that fades to chaos at the edges, but a complete map nonetheless. Exalted doesn't place great emphasis on any particular region to encourage you to play there it simply gives you the world as it is and tells you to go out and enjoy.
If you're not going to utilize your whole world than a complete world map is a wasted effort, but if you actually want to use it, want your players to use it then a world map opens the setting up to the players and vastly increases what the players and GMs have to work with.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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There's a similar interesting conceptual challenge in terms of mapping the galaxy/cosmos. Since travel between worlds and systems isn't intended to be realistically possible (or at least feasible) by direct sublight transit, the fact that this planet or that planet is a certain number of light years away is irrelevant. Getting from place to place is more like a flow-chart of gateways where literal linear distance doesn't matter.
That's a fascinating point. I know that I love a good star map as much as the next guy, but when you're talking about portals as the means to move from one world to the next, a flowchart of connections is more useful. Plus there's the possibility of "hidden" shortcuts, one-way portals, and all sorts of things like that. One twist that I like to see is the established travel mode that everyone knows and understands having an alternative that is a secret, so while (for example) ancient civilisation A were busy setting up their portals because that's the only way to get from one end of the galaxy to the other, ancient civilisation B (while using portals the same as everyone else) found a way to use hyperspace and send larger forces from place to place without anyone knowing about it.
I think for the purposes of the Adventure Path, we'll likely just focus on "points of light" across a regional map of an important area on a given planet to that particular adventure. Yet, when we get around to the actual campaign setting (which wouldn't be until this Kickstarter is completely fulfilled), I could see a new image of a world map (at least with continents and oceans) depicted for each planet. And, in terms of knowing about the stars and the various positions of the planets to one another, I think something like a night-sky map of the constellations visible from a given world...marking the points that its gates can reach...might be a worthwhile endeavor. Regardless, we've got plenty of time between now and then to work that out.