This is a same scale map comparison of Texas vs. Europe. I think it might surprise a lot of people (it did me).
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Phs1eZkXEMs/U5zLGP0f4yI/AAAAAAAAA60/EiooxkZP778/s1600/TEXAS+EUROPE+SIZE+COMPARISON+MAP.jpg)
Texas is just flippin' huge. People don't comprehend really how big it is, and I wouldn't use that as a comparison point for most Americans, since most Americans also don't really comprehend how big European countries are.
Quote from: robiswrong;758228Texas is just flippin' huge. People don't comprehend really how big it is, and I wouldn't use that as a comparison point for most Americans, since most Americans also don't really comprehend how big European countries are.
Yep, Texas is around 1200 klm to say Germany's 900 or so klm
Confused on where you are going with this? European countries are roughly comparable in size to US states. France and Texas are basically the same size.
There's a map I saw of the US somewhere where damn near the whole thing is shaded blue.
The blue parts are places in the US where, from some point in Texas, it's closer to that point than at least one point in Texas.
I believe the point alludes to how much driving American designers are used to nowadays and how that skews distances to rather unreasonable pre-industrial distances.
Remember, our hobby is at least 15-20 years separated from USA's National Highway project, where great byways crisscross the land with at least 4 and 6, 8, and 10 lanes being not uncommon. Those who created these games were saturated in a world where hopping on the road to truck 40+ miles was becoming an average commute. Nowadays rural to ex-urban areas do that or double for fucking groceries.
If this hobby was created in the 1920s through 1940s I imagine distances would be related by the average streetcar on through to sleeper car train distance. What we sometimes unfortunately have are freeway and airplane distances tenuously attached to medieval settings. Note how readily available skipping over into the next exotic culture, let alone the next country, is taken as standard (i.e. blasé cross-pollination of cultures, races, and tech levels with no appreciable respect to distance; egalitarian cosmopolitan everything, parties, towns, and country).
I wouldn't say pre-industrial. The Romans had a very impressive road system, and was one of the reasons they had their empire.
I'd say it was fairly system to the US road system. Mile markers, rest stops every 15-20 miles or so.
There is a thing called a Tabula Peutingeriana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana), basically it was a map of the Roman road system. The picture of it is huge
Quote from: robiswrong;758233There's a map I saw of the US somewhere where damn near the whole thing is shaded blue.
The blue parts are places in the US where, from some point in Texas, it's closer to that point than at least one point in Texas.
Ok, I just
had to google it...
I couldn't find something
blue but was it this?
(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/newsroom/img/mt/2014/04/X3wcL5G/lead.png?n3s73b)
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/whats-closer-to-texas-than-texas-is-to-itself/360433/
http://yestotexas.com/a-map-the-finally-shows-how-big-texas-is/
Yes they did. Did they think absolutely nothing about commuting 20 to 80+ miles roundtrip to get groceries though? No.
A good phaeton on roads or good boats along well-traveled sea lanes makes distances shorter — they are still nothing to our modern daily lives.
I'm lucky that I only have to travel 3+ miles roundtrip to get gallon/s of milk, and it is a thoughtless task of less than 8 minutes. People even today travel that repeatedly for water and lose hours. One's a menial task, another's a taxing chore. Scale matters.
That you couldn't possibly carry enough rope?
I guess the basic question is, "Is the adventure about the journey or the destination"?
You could have an entire campaign about travelling from one end of the Roman Empire to the other.
=
Brazil is frickin' huge too. Or Europe's fricking tiny, I dunno.
At school they loved showing us this:
(http://lusotopia.no.sapo.pt/brasilEuropa.jpg)
Quote from: Opaopajr;758241I believe the point alludes to how much driving American designers are used to nowadays and how that skews distances to rather unreasonable pre-industrial distances.
Remember, our hobby is at least 15-20 years separated from USA's National Highway project, where great byways crisscross the land with at least 4 and 6, 8, and 10 lanes being not uncommon. Those who created these games were saturated in a world where hopping on the road to truck 40+ miles was becoming an average commute. Nowadays rural to ex-urban areas do that or double for fucking groceries.
If this hobby was created in the 1920s through 1940s I imagine distances would be related by the average streetcar on through to sleeper car train distance. What we sometimes unfortunately have are freeway and airplane distances tenuously attached to medieval settings. Note how readily available skipping over into the next exotic culture, let alone the next country, is taken as standard (i.e. blasé cross-pollination of cultures, races, and tech levels with no appreciable respect to distance; egalitarian cosmopolitan everything, parties, towns, and country).
Ah yes, this I totally agree with. Professional campaign settings seem to have no concept of walking.
Quote from: robiswrong;758233There's a map I saw of the US somewhere where damn near the whole thing is shaded blue.
The blue parts are places in the US where, from some point in Texas, it's closer to that point than at least one point in Texas.
Which just goes to show that Texas is just too big.
One of the reasons that the West was able to thrive is because there were so many geographical features creating natural boundaries within such a small area. People in Europe became very good at war. Wars innovate and spread ideas. People didn't have to go unbelieveable distances between "parochial" and "cosmopolitan."
This is only one of many reasons why Europe was the cradle of prosperity, but it's important.
Also: Texas is mostly empty. Even though it's the second most populous US state, it's still a ton of empty space.
For example, Texas has only eighteen times as many residents as the smallest state by area, Rhode Island. And there are plenty of wild spaces left in Rhode Island.
Come to think of it, most of the world is mostly empty in terms of human population. We have seven and a half billion people, more or less? All those people could be squished into a cube one mile on a side.
Quote from: Scott Anderson;758293Come to think of it, most of the world is mostly empty in terms of human population. We have seven and a half billion people, more or less? All those people could be squished into a cube one mile on a side.
Sadly however, the infrastructure to support them all doesn't...
Quote from: Opaopajr;758241Remember, our hobby is at least 15-20 years separated from USA's National Highway project, where great byways crisscross the land with at least 4 and 6, 8, and 10 lanes being not uncommon. Those who created these games were saturated in a world where hopping on the road to truck 40+ miles was becoming an average commute. Nowadays rural to ex-urban areas do that or double for fucking groceries.
Geez. My commute is only about 20 miles, and people think that's a long way (...but it's not even as long as some of my colleagues; one guy, coincidentally a Texan, is about 45 miles each way).
On the other hand; my gran could probably name every time she's been more than 20 miles away from where she was born.
This reinforces the notion that you can start a campaign, even a hex crawl, with one town and one dungeon, both inside the same six mile hex.
In fact, draw a circle with a 45-mile radius around your starting location. That's really all you have to think about for a good long while.
Quote from: Scott Anderson;758317This reinforces the notion that you can start a campaign, even a hex crawl, with one town and one dungeon, both inside the same six mile hex.
In fact, draw a circle with a 45-mile radius around your starting location. That's really all you have to think about for a good long while.
Here's a chart comparing the size of some video game worlds (http://i.imgur.com/xJU7Q.jpg), demonstrating how you can fit a ridiculous amount of content in some relatively small spaces; Just Cause 2 or FUEL's maps feel huge, even traversing them in off-road vehicles. On foot? There's enough in those maps to keep you playing for years.
As the old saying goes: To a European, 100 miles is a long way. To an American, 100 years is a long time.
Quote from: Werekoala;758341As the old saying goes: To a European, 100 miles is a long way. To an American, 100 years is a long time.
Huh. Never heard that way of expressing the obvious superiority of Americans over Europeans, but I'll take it. :D
Quote from: Scott Anderson;758345Huh. Never heard that way of expressing the obvious superiority of Americans over Europeans, but I'll take it. :D
Aw, how cute, that American made a joke. Almost like a person!
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;758245Ok, I just had to google it...
I couldn't find something blue but was it this?
Yup, that was it, I think. Gives a sense of scale.
Quote from: Scott Anderson;758317This reinforces the notion that you can start a campaign, even a hex crawl, with one town and one dungeon, both inside the same six mile hex.
In fact, draw a circle with a 45-mile radius around your starting location. That's really all you have to think about for a good long while.
Yeah, it's not really about how many miles you say are between places so much as it is about the interesting things that happen.
This is why, I try and explain to people how I can't go game with my friends who live in the same state...its a HUGE distance. Relatively.
I live in Massachusetts and I won't go "anywhere in the state" for a game. LOL
Quote from: Premier;758349Aw, how cute, that American made a joke. Almost like a person!
Actually, if you take the roughly 1.249 nanoseconds it takes to process the joke, it cuts both ways, therefore making it really funny on either side of the pond. ;)
Once you get a horse options change, sometimes dramatically.
What modern people also miss is just how mobile people could be back then too. Just at a slower pace. Travelling tinkers, smiths, entertainers and craftsmen were an example pointed out to me way back. They covered alot of ground moving from town to town and job to job. Just as often on foot.
How much of that your have on a wilderness frontier I am not sure though.
But it is factors like these that decided me to go with 6 mule hexes.
V
Quote from: Werekoala;758341As the old saying goes: To a European, 100 miles is a long way. To an American, 100 years is a long time.
Bingo! I'm American of course but have worked and lived in Europe and to me it's positively tiny. Getting across a large country in 4-5 hours maximum is mind boggling. Even now it takes that amount if you get lucky, to cross my average size state (Missouri) and far longer to cross my home states which are no bigger (Oregon and Washington).
Quote from: Scott Anderson;758384I live in Massachusetts and I won't go "anywhere in the state" for a game.
Well ... New Englanders have an innate European sense of distance. Your average Bostonian doesn't have a mental scope much past Rte 128 -- for those of you not native to the area, the innermost circumferential highway around Boston, about 20 miles from the city -- and Worcester, 45 miles out, is pretty much the frontier. I live 90 miles from Boston, in a county seat no less, and one of Massachusetts' two major east-west highways starts just north of Boston and goes through my town, but your average Bostonian gasps with horror at the thought of making that trek in (shudders) a
single trip. As the journalist Joel Garreau put it, the only place in North America with that sense of distance is West Virginia, and at least West Virginia had the excuse of having every road built on a mountain slope.
One of my favorites is in California visitors would make a layover in either SF or LA and wonder if they can visit the other in their spare time. We'd explain that of course you can — if you take a 1 hour commuter flight, or 5 to 7 hours if you drive real fast, each only one way — they might see the outer exurbs of the other city just in time to head on back so they don't miss their flight. Once that distance sinks in you start to see eyes widen at the sheer scale.
We also like taking visitors to Las Vegas to view gluttony and excess on a mind boggling scale. Multiple 4,000+ room hotels, one right after the other, with oceans of buffets and entertainers and slot machines, tends to humble B&B and hotel owners from out of country. Like army divisions trying to manage a 24/7/365 endless party. But like LA, LV is best consumed in 72 hour increments; grotesqueries soon lose their power once the victim slips into shock.
I think sometimes people forget how big certain states are as well. For example I live in mid-michigan. I can drive for 9-10 hours and be in the northern most point in the Upper Peninsula (Copper Harbor). Or I can drive that same amount of time and be in Washington DC.
Living in Spain for a few years, I had the opportunity to visit Portugal, as well. I'm from a relatively small U.S. state (Indiana), but it was about the same size as Portugal. South Korea, too. It's interesting to see how your perceptions of distance change with where you are. When I was stationed in Texas, driving 2.5 hours to run to to the nearest shopping center was no big deal. Back outside of Indianapolis, I couldn't imagine driving that far now just to go shopping.
At the same time, it’s amazing how much a landscape can change in just a short distance. Where I currently reside is mainly flat farmland and light prairie. In Indiana, I can drive two hours and be in the middle of a bunch of windswept, sandy dunes on the lake. I can drive an hour and a half the other way and be in the middle of a hilly, lightly-populated woodland. I drive just a bit more and I’m among a bunch of old river port towns on heights overlooking the Ohio River. That's all in a not-very-large state.
Quote from: Omega;758433But it is factors like these that decided me to go with 6 mule hexes.
I have never heard of a map scale measured in mules. How does that work exactly? Is kind of like horsepower only with mules? :p
Quote from: Exploderwizard;758510I have never heard of a map scale measured in mules. How does that work exactly? Is kind of like horsepower only with mules? :p
Well 60 mule train divided by 10. Works every time!
It always saddens me that Americans never study geography at school, especially speaking as a former geography teacher.
Quote from: jibbajibba;758582It always saddens me that Americans never study geography at school, especially speaking as a former geography teacher.
It depends on the school system. Where I grew up we had geography classes.
Quote from: Ravenswing;758484Well ... New Englanders have an innate European sense of distance. Your average Bostonian doesn't have a mental scope much past Rte 128 -- for those of you not native to the area, the innermost circumferential highway around Boston, about 20 miles from the city -- and Worcester, 45 miles out, is pretty much the frontier. I live 90 miles from Boston, in a county seat no less, and one of Massachusetts' two major east-west highways starts just north of Boston and goes through my town, but your average Bostonian gasps with horror at the thought of making that trek in (shudders) a single trip. As the journalist Joel Garreau put it, the only place in North America with that sense of distance is West Virginia, and at least West Virginia had the excuse of having every road built on a mountain slope.
Going past 128 is like going to Mordor. Going into Boston itself from the North Shore a little less bad than that.
I have to laugh, as I scale whole areas of space with sci-fi.
As far as America vs Europe goes, go to Russia, it isn't postage stamp sized.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;758586It depends on the school system. Where I grew up we had geography classes.
Same here; I had some geography in school. However, I sure have met a ton of people that would not know where a foreign country was if it bit them on the ass.
In all fairness, I certainly don't know the exact name and place of every country, but I do know where Kurdistan is supposed to be.
Nobody here has seemed to mention that Texas isn't even the largest state. Alaska is nearly 2.5 times the size of Texas.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;758589Going past 128 is like going to Mordor. Going into Boston itself from the North Shore a little less bad than that.
Asked of Isabella Stuart Gardner:
"How are you getting to California, Mrs. Jack?"
"Why, by way of Brookline!"
If you are actually *from* Boston, this is hysterical, I assure you.
-clash
I lived in Arizona. Driving cross country scares me not even a little. BUT-- love the convenience of the Valley
Quote from: jibbajibba;758582It always saddens me that Americans never study geography at school, especially speaking as a former geography teacher.
It's not just Americans. Most everyone has seen versions of the "Dumb Americans try to identify European countries on geography test with hilarious results" riff, right? A couple months ago I saw a similar test from the UK of students trying to identify American states, with similarly wacky answers.
Quote from: Ravenswing;759015It's not just Americans. Most everyone has seen versions of the "Dumb Americans try to identify European countries on geography test with hilarious results" riff, right? A couple months ago I saw a similar test from the UK of students trying to identify American states, with similarly wacky answers.
That kind of implies that US states are as important as other people's countries. :D Would you expect US or UK students to be able to identify the states of other federal nations like Mexico or India?
Quote from: Ravenswing;759015It's not just Americans. Most everyone has seen versions of the "Dumb Americans try to identify European countries on geography test with hilarious results" riff, right? A couple months ago I saw a similar test from the UK of students trying to identify American states, with similarly wacky answers.
Because no Americans ever use "England" to refer to the entire mainland UK, right? ;)
Quote from: Ravenswing;759015It's not just Americans. Most everyone has seen versions of the "Dumb Americans try to identify European countries on geography test with hilarious results" riff, right? A couple months ago I saw a similar test from the UK of students trying to identify American states, with similarly wacky answers.
Actually it started as "dumb Americans cant identify their own states on a map". God forbid they had to identify something from outside the US.
I'd be surprised if UK students are that dense.
Quote from: Omega;759044Actually it started as "dumb Americans cant identify their own states on a map". God forbid they had to identify something from outside the US.
I'd be surprised if UK students are that dense.
I dunno. We're not taught American states in school (Because, why would we be?), so for the majority of people, anything they know will come from cultural osmosis - the ones with big international influence, fine, people will probably learn them, but the rest are just kinda "there", we don't need to learn the details.
Basically, I think calling people "stupid" for not knowing something irrelevant to their life is kinda unfair.
Juno Alaska is slightly bigger than Rhode Island in terms of area.
Published settings are generally much too small anyway. Big enough to get some detail, but for an actual world, they seem a bit titchy.
Shadow World for Rolemaster is big, but i can't think of too many others.
Quote from: Ravenswing;759015It's not just Americans. Most everyone has seen versions of the "Dumb Americans try to identify European countries on geography test with hilarious results" riff, right? A couple months ago I saw a similar test from the UK of students trying to identify American states, with similarly wacky answers.
Yes but American states would compare to say English counties in terms of international exposure.
You can compare British folk try to label US states - http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat
with US folks try to label European countries -
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/americans-try-to-place-european-countries-on-a-map
But the winner is when an American VP candidates thinks Africa is a country :D
Quote from: One Horse Town;759054Published settings are generally much too small anyway. Big enough to get some detail, but for an actual world, they seem a bit titchy.
Shadow World for Rolemaster is big, but i can't think of too many others.
could we worse though could be a scifi TV show. The Enterprise arrive at BlahBlah -4 and there are what 200 people in one town and no one else on the whole planet.
Star Wars - he must be on Tattoine which apparently is about the size of the Albuquerque metropolitan area but with far fewer people.
Firefly - she controls the terraformed moon of so and so with 6 people and a couple of horses.....
Quote from: jibbajibba;759055Yes but American states would compare to say English counties in terms of international exposure.
:D
The US also has counties within its states.
But to bring this back to gaming, it probably shouldn't be surprising to anyone that folks in the US and Canada make worlds that look different than folks in France and the UK. Not sure it is bad either. They just bring very different different assumptions and historical influences about these things to the table. I would imagine a fantasy world created by someone from China or Russia would also look very different.
When factoring the size of a setting i also think that most games over-estimate how far people can generally travel.
In 17th century Ottoman Europe it took merchant caravans 50 days to travel from Macedonia to Vienna.
Quote from: S'mon;759034That kind of implies that US states are as important as other people's countries. :D Would you expect US or UK students to be able to identify the states of other federal nations like Mexico or India?
(shrugs) Seven US states would be in Europe's top fifteen nations by population. California's economy alone would be something like seventh in the world if it were independent. The state I live in is only 14th in US population, but has more people than a full 26 independent European nations. (Heck, the municipal limits of my state's
capital has more people than ten European nations do.)
And sure, knowing the states of (say) India is as important as knowing any country. Uttar Pradesh alone is nearly
half again as populous as any nation in Europe (and that's if you count Russia as being wholly in Europe). If you count only those nations entirely within Europe -- leaving out Russia and Turkey, say -- only Germany is populous enough to crack India's top seven states.
Looks like at least one of the new maps is going 5 mile hexes.
Quote from: Ravenswing;759282(shrugs) Seven US states would be in Europe's top fifteen nations by population. California's economy alone would be something like seventh in the world if it were independent. The state I live in is only 14th in US population, but has more people than a full 26 independent European nations. (Heck, the municipal limits of my state's capital has more people than ten European nations do.)
And sure, knowing the states of (say) India is as important as knowing any country. Uttar Pradesh alone is nearly half again as populous as any nation in Europe (and that's if you count Russia as being wholly in Europe). If you count only those nations entirely within Europe -- leaving out Russia and Turkey, say -- only Germany is populous enough to crack India's top seven states.
But if they don't have political power, it doesn't matter globally. What matters is the entity they are part of.
Quote from: jibbajibba;759055Yes but American states would compare to say English counties in terms of international exposure.
You can compare British folk try to label US states - http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat
with US folks try to label European countries -
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/americans-try-to-place-european-countries-on-a-map
But the winner is when an American VP candidates thinks Africa is a country :D
Or believes an island can capsize and flip into the ocean.
Or someone whom refers to their own nation as having 57 states.
Or the guy a few years ago, supposed a top foreign policy pol, who suggested Iraq and Pakistan share a border.
Or talking about Phoenix being in California.
Or talking about the importance of ports on the Gulf of Mexico, and only naming Atlantic ports.
Or the U.S. senator who last year claimed South Dakota bordered Canada.
Politicians seem to be as befuddled as the general public when it comes to geography. It's one of the reasons I like having things a bit vague in my games. I dislike when Joe Blacksmith from the Village of Toadsuck knows with perfect clarity where the far-off realm of Wherever is and just where the city of Portburgtownville sits. Ballpark is ok--realistically, it's the best most of the population can hope for.
Quote from: Zachary The First;759295I dislike when Joe Blacksmith from the Village of Toadsuck knows with perfect clarity where the far-off realm of Wherever is and just where the city of Portburgtownville sits. Ballpark is ok--realistically, it's the best most of the population can hope for.
Bemusingly a blacksmith might be one of the more likely people to know about far ranging cities. A blacksmith would be one of the places travellers would stop at for repairs to wagons or re-shoeing horses. Along with the tavern could be great sources of gossip depending on how oft the town gets visited from other locales.
But yeah. Exacting data. Not so likely. But. If the blacksmith in a town in the middle of nowhere did know about that far off city, in detail. Then that raises the question of exactly how hes come by that knowledge.
Quote from: Omega;759337Bemusingly a blacksmith might be one of the more likely people to know about far ranging cities. A blacksmith would be one of the places travellers would stop at for repairs to wagons or re-shoeing horses. Along with the tavern could be great sources of gossip depending on how oft the town gets visited from other locales.
But yeah. Exacting data. Not so likely. But. If the blacksmith in a town in the middle of nowhere did know about that far off city, in detail. Then that raises the question of exactly how hes come by that knowledge.
Actually, that's a really good point, and a good game idea, too. Let's say "Joe Fieldhand" instead, for the above example. :)
hah! Farm hands could be a bad example too. Farmers may range fairly far to sell wares or pick up supplies.
Better example is the relatively isolated frontier town on the edge of the wilderness. The general peasantry would likely know maybee the nearest trade down. At least what road leads to it. Merchants, Taverns and Smiths would know more, depending on the traffic. Farmers would either know very little as they are the peasantry, or about as much as a merchant if they are the sort that sells their goods on the next town or port.
Nobles are in the same boat as the farmers. Depends on if they travel abroad or are very localized. Scribes and sages will be the wildcard. They might have originally hailed from elsewhere and know alot. Or they may know something of a city with something there that pertains to their expertise.
It all depends on how isolated the town is. Even a trickle of visitors is going to get info to the town in bits and pieces.
One fun twist there is. The info the NPC gives may be very out of date.
Podunksville may now be Podunkastan City, or Podunk Crater. Logging may have totally obliterated the Elven Freehold. And now theres alot of displaced and pissed off elves in the area.
Quote from: Omega;759649hah! Farm hands could be a bad example too. Farmers may range fairly far to sell wares or pick up supplies.
Better example is the relatively isolated frontier town on the edge of the wilderness. The general peasantry would likely know maybee the nearest trade down. At least what road leads to it. Merchants, Taverns and Smiths would know more, depending on the traffic. Farmers would either know very little as they are the peasantry, or about as much as a merchant if they are the sort that sells their goods on the next town or port.
Nobles are in the same boat as the farmers. Depends on if they travel abroad or are very localized. Scribes and sages will be the wildcard. They might have originally hailed from elsewhere and know alot. Or they may know something of a city with something there that pertains to their expertise.
It all depends on how isolated the town is. Even a trickle of visitors is going to get info to the town in bits and pieces.
One fun twist there is. The info the NPC gives may be very out of date.
Podunksville may now be Podunkastan City, or Podunk Crater. Logging may have totally obliterated the Elven Freehold. And now theres alot of displaced and pissed off elves in the area.
It depneds if the frountier is expanding or contracting.
If the forountiere is expandinfg them most of the folk will have come there from outside. So if you are in SanFransico in 1830 or Deadwood in 1865 chances are you can;e from somewhere else.
If you are in the middle of empire and in a small town so say you live in Stoke in 1860 chances are you have never been more than 30 miles make that a village say in the Appenines in 30AD and chances are you have never traveled more than a days walk in any direction.
I've always found it funny when people insist on making their game settings enormous when there's a huge amount of space for adventuring available in an area the size of little old England. Likewise, when people want to stretch out the span of timelines to cover something like 30000 years, not grasping just how impossible a history that would be to really fall back upon.
On the other hand, my current DCC setting is currently something like a million times the size of the earth, and has a history dating back trillions of years; technically speaking.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;761218I've always found it funny when people insist on making their game settings enormous when there's a huge amount of space for adventuring available in an area the size of little old England. Likewise, when people want to stretch out the span of timelines to cover something like 30000 years, not grasping just how impossible a history that would be to really fall back upon.
On the other hand, my current DCC setting is currently something like a million times the size of the earth, and has a history dating back trillions of years; technically speaking.
RPGPundit
Its like in movies where they do a remake and the original ship is now ten times bigger, or its been 10000 years since XYZ happened. You have to travel wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the fuck over THERE to fight the enemy army who was on your doorstep yesterday.
Scale kids. Scale. Those big numbers look pretty on paper and when you invoke it in the credits. But it looses meaning real fast.
In a way the Tyranny of Dragons feels a bit "too big" for something right out the gate. Though depends on the final scope and ramifications for later events.
Could be great, setting the stage for something to come. Or. Could be too bombastic too soon.
Quote from: Omega;761224In a way the Tyranny of Dragons feels a bit "too big" for something right out the gate. Though depends on the final scope and ramifications for later events.
Could be great, setting the stage for something to come. Or. Could be too bombastic too soon.
They talked about scale and the adventure yesterday.
http://www.koboldpress.com/k/front-page18186.php#.U6pPDI1dW7o
Quote from: RPGPundit;761218I've always found it funny when people insist on making their game settings enormous when there's a huge amount of space for adventuring available in an area the size of little old England. Likewise, when people want to stretch out the span of timelines to cover something like 30000 years, not grasping just how impossible a history that would be to really fall back upon.
God, the arguments I've been through on this issue.
There was a MMORPG I was in that had exactly this: a giant sweep of history going back many tens of thousands of years, and very little in the last century that wasn't the timeline of actual gameplay (which started in 1989). It wasn't merely that people actually based their RP on events that happened 5000 years before, but screeched that everyone should.
Screw that. This isn't even like claiming that all Americans should hate all Japanese because we fought a war seventy years back -- this is like claiming that the wars between Egypt and Assyria in the 24th century BC ought to have a material and identifiable effect on our personalities and culture. To paraphrase myself from elsewhere (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/10/starting-from-scratch-pt-i.html), no PC gives a rat's ass who was the empress who led the Vallians to victory over the Avanari in Some Battle Or Other two centuries ago. What they want to know is that Vallia and Avanar are traditional enemies with a heavily militarized border, and that the last full-scale war was less than 20 years ago.
Quote from: One Horse Town;759058When factoring the size of a setting i also think that most games over-estimate how far people can generally travel.
Absolutely. Most RPG maps get practical distances spectacularly wrong. You'll have a small prosperous village 30 miles away from the next nearest village. That's a four day walk, assuming a path and decent terrain. A village that far from the nearest other settlement would be a beleaguered outpost in the howling wilderness, full of inbred, barbaric yokels.
Quote from: RPGPundit;761218I've always found it funny when people insist on making their game settings enormous when there's a huge amount of space for adventuring available in an area the size of little old England.
England? You could run an entire campaign, with dozens of towns and cities and castles and lairs, in Cumbria.
When you consider the limited scope of a typical D&D campaign, I don't know why vast game worlds are so much more popular than regional sandboxes. And the grand-daddy of them all - Greyhawk - is one of the worst offenders. I had the gorgeous map pinned to my wall for the duration of my adolescence, but at the scale depicted (30 fucking miles per hex!), it had no practical play application. Imagine how much incredible play value a double-poster map of a section of the Wild Coast at 1 mile per hex would have.
Quote from: Haffrung;761507When you consider the limited scope of a typical D&D campaign, I don't know why vast game worlds are so much more popular than regional sandboxes. And the grand-daddy of them all - Greyhawk - is one of the worst offenders. I had the gorgeous map pinned to my wall for the duration of my adolescence, but at the scale depicted (30 fucking miles per hex!), it had no practical play application. Imagine how much incredible play value a double-poster map of a section of the Wild Coast at 1 mile per hex would have.
Some games present a big region simply to allow you the freedom of choice WHERE to start. Want a region of mountains? Over there. Vast forest? That one. Swamps? Here and here. etc. Or to give options for culture you might want to base in or have as neighbors.
Personally I think presenting a broad canvas with more choices is a good thing. Why I posed for a world map and got it when I was doing a IP related game.
Also helpfull if theres teleports, portals or other weird means to cross alot of distance fast.
Once set down it may become just background or never used again. Its the start point.
My original Gamma World campaign was localized to Ohio 90% of the time with one foray into Michigoom that went messily... Then we ended up on the Moon when someone pushed a button in an E-Car... oops...
I spent a year adventuring in one city in our current Spelljammer campaign.
Well ... I think the fault is where the fault lies in so many of these things. How very many threads do you see bemoaning some aspect of gaming that leads right back to D&D, 1974? Travel time screwed up? Blame Greyhawk. The "monsters ought to hurt" thread? Blame hit-die-every-level. Gamers have been presuming that the way things work in the D&D manuals represent accurate depictions of the way things work -- or ought to -- in real life almost since Day One.
That Gygax's goal was to create a fun individual-level "fantastic" wargame, instead of an accurate simulation of medieval life, got lost in the shuffle.
Hell, as far as things like combat went, who knew any better in 1974? The SCA was still in its first years, they were still fighting with cut-down freon tanks for helmets and "carpet" armor ... and the first veteran SCAdian bigwig to write a major game was years in the future.
I entertained hopes, for quite a while, that people'd snap out of the paradigm, but forty years on, it's pretty futile.
TEXAS TOURIST (in conversation with Irish country farmer): "Back home it takes me the best part of a day to drive from one side of my ranch to the other"
FARMER: "Ah sure, I had a car like that once...!"
Quote from: Ravenswing;761514Well ... I think the fault is where the fault lies in so many of these things. How very many threads do you see bemoaning some aspect of gaming that leads right back to D&D, 1974? Travel time screwed up? Blame Greyhawk.
I've always assumed Greyhawk was created by Gygax as a setting for fantasy miniatures warfare. Knowing that Almor has 500 heavy cavalry, 1,500 medium infantry, and 2,000 light infantry would be quite useful in that context. Playing D&D? Not so much.
Quote from: Haffrung;761580I've always assumed Greyhawk was created by Gygax as a setting for fantasy miniatures warfare. Knowing that Almor has 500 heavy cavalry, 1,500 medium infantry, and 2,000 light infantry would be quite useful in that context. Playing D&D? Not so much.
Its usefull info if you get up to the "domain" level and are considering taking over someones country.
Also usefull for gauging how well the militia can possibly handle an invasion from XYX. And ties into or are holdovers from Chainmail/Battlesystem.
Quote from: Haffrung;761580I've always assumed Greyhawk was created by Gygax as a setting for fantasy miniatures warfare. Knowing that Almor has 500 heavy cavalry, 1,500 medium infantry, and 2,000 light infantry would be quite useful in that context. Playing D&D? Not so much.
It'd make sense, but according to the Wikipedia article, no; it grew out of the "Castle Greyhawk" Gygax created for his early dungeoneering sessions. OG would likely know more.
One interesting tidbit is that many European visitors are more familiar with particular cities in the US than the state in which they exist. Most seem to know California as a distinct place, and they know Chicago, but most don't seem to have heard of Illinois. I suppose that makes sense - I've heard of a number of cities in France but don't know which Department they're in.
Quote from: Ravenswing;761514Well ... I think the fault is where the fault lies in so many of these things. How very many threads do you see bemoaning some aspect of gaming that leads right back to D&D, 1974? Travel time screwed up? Blame Greyhawk. The "monsters ought to hurt" thread? Blame hit-die-every-level. Gamers have been presuming that the way things work in the D&D manuals represent accurate depictions of the way things work -- or ought to -- in real life almost since Day One.
I'd agree with this. There's a lot of things in D&D that have been copied *without critical though* and have become assumptions of gameplay.
Quote from: Ravenswing;761514That Gygax's goal was to create a fun individual-level "fantastic" wargame, instead of an accurate simulation of medieval life, got lost in the shuffle.
And this is key, too (and I'm pretty sure OG harps on this one once in a while).
Quote from: Ravenswing;761514and the first veteran SCAdian bigwig to write a major game was years in the future.
Well, about four years. RuneQuest was published in '78.
Quote from: Ravenswing;761514I entertained hopes, for quite a while, that people'd snap out of the paradigm, but forty years on, it's pretty futile.
There's lots of games that have snapped out of the paradigm, but D&D is still the 800 pound gorilla, and shapes a lot of the thought space, to the point where its assumptions have become "generic RPG assumptions". I mean, how many CRPGs even use the basic concepts of D&D math, even if they use nothing else?
Or MMORPGs. The aforementioned one I played in for years had a damn point-buy skill system ... except there were still character classes and levels. Because, after all, RPGs are supposed to have character classes and levels.
Ive been working on my Keep on the Borderland project fairly steadily now and I can say that you do not get a good appreciation of scale untill you have to trudge back and fourth across it all, Build the damn thing or right now, Lay the !@#$%^& road!
5 klm may not seem like much. But even at the MC walking speed it takes around 20 min. (Minecraft people zip along at about 15 kph) About 15 minutes running or 10 min by horseback.
And that is about the size of a single hex on the new starter map!
I don't particularly want half-mile hexes or something like that. I want space to do my own stuff at that level.
The Volga Trade Route shows that there were exceptions.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/volga-trade.html
=
Here's a hex-scale I came up with for the sandbox/hexcrawl world I'm working on. It's based on the 6-mile hex concept, with the first hex being 6 miles top to bottom (2 miles per hex) and scaling it up to planetary hexes.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/60656499@N00/14562661215/in/photostream/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/60656499@N00/14562661215/in/photostream/)