Difference between a Pure Magical Fantasy World and Realistic Fantasy World

[MTGEmperor]

This is a common area of concern, Farsight. It all depends on the artist.

There are some of us that rely heavily on tectonic action and Earth geology to make our maps (myself included). But for the fantastic ones, they start with that base map and use "magic" to explain certain ground-breaking instances (i.e. deity battles) to explain certain regions.

There are times when you can get extremely creative and use magic as the sole reason. There is an interesting discussion about this in here.
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...pinion-Welcome

[Brian Smaller]

A long legacy of role-playing using Robin Crossby's Harnworld and the fabulous maps by Eric Hotz, Crossby and others has left me a fan of the realistic fantasy world map. Kelestia Games's layered PDF maps of Harn are just fabulous - if you get the chance take a look at them.

[Midgardsormr]

It might also be helpful to consider the "purpose," so to speak, of the world. Most fantasy worlds, particularly those created for roleplaying, are born from the swords-and-horses genre, where the world is very Earth-like. In these kinds of worlds, if something is happening that defies expectations, it should be explained, or at least noted as deliberately unusual. For RPGs in particular, it is necessary that as few of the players' expectations be violated as possible so that the assumptions they make about the world are more likely to be accurate, and their actions therefore more likely to be successful.

On the other hand, there are fantasy worlds that are truly fantastic. Narnia, for instance, doesn't follow many of the typical rules because it is allegorical; the meaning behind the way features are arranged is more important than whether those features would have arisen naturally. Donaldson's The Land is a place where reality itself is so fluid that the properties of substances completely change from one novel to the next. In a world like that, verisimilitude would work against the author because the entire point is that you can take nothing for granted.

[Veldehar]

Consistency is important, in particular for writing, so if you break rules and you know why, and that is consistent, I have no issue with fanciful maps. Some of the aesthetically prettiest maps certainly aren't "Real" and they get heaped with praise. The harshest criticisms I've seen on here (which are generally polite but blunt) is when someone actually asks for criticism on the reality of a project. Or something is just visually jarring. These forums are actually one heck of a combination of art and science, so long as one isn't overly sensitive to criticism on one's baby, LOL.