Fantasy population centers, motives, and history

[The-Somberlain]

I think that making sense it vital to world design and adventures. Even though magic is a useful thing for DMs, I have been in situations (in my early years) where magic wasn't enough for the players and the whole make-believe was shattered like a tower of playing cards.

I feel that maintaining a strong sense of realism in any world is critical for a successful and immersing RPG session. The players (at least the ones I've encountered) are thrilled when they found out the why's of an adventure, of a place or a villain.

In addition to all this, we have to take into account that our experiences do not involve magic. The way we perceive the world, the way we act and think has nothing to do with magic. Although our imagination is extremely powerful, there are limitations to what we can feel as being "real". Having this in mind, helps develop a setting and an adventure that the characters can relate with and put things in perspective.

On the other hand, it is a lot of work and sometimes it can suck the fun out of the game for the DM. There is a subtle balance which once achieved makes the game shine.

[Juggernaut1981]

Somberlain, don't forget this quote (and I've forgotten who it is originally from and I'm sure I'm doing a ghastly paraphrase).

Sufficiently advanced technology is close enough to magic.

So if there is a technology you'd like to include, or something "far fetched" then realistically making it magically based works within the world. Plus, thinking outside the box can make some great stuff.

Once said that you could make hand grenades by basically having a brass shell with hard packed gunpowder inside the shell and a small glass container of alchemist's fire. Shake the ball and throw, before it blows up in your hand.

[Tom_Cardin]

ohhh "years of no sun" -

I have a world that a group of adventurers traveled to briefly...It has no sun. It is set about 1000 years after the death of the god of the sun for that material plane. Magic and volcanism have kept the planet alive in space, orbiting the burnt out cinder of its sun. All is shrouded in night. Creatures and plants which cannot survive without daylight are no more and the landscape is rampant with fungus, rot, and creatures who would normally only be found deep within the darkest depths of the world. The PC's who adventured there did not stay long...I should dig out what maps I made for this world and scan them in.

[Xyll]

The micro events will work with the macro as long as that is the plot line of you adventures. like i said it is great to have a good background but for playing purposes it is only important as far as it concerns the characters. If your characters are racing around trying to stop the cataclysm then it is important to know what it is and who is building it up if not. Then as a footnote for the world it should be brief and more time spent on what the players are likely to experience. Unless you want to create it to motivate your world and more importantly yourself.

[Xyll]

If you are looking for motivation then you could always use a God of Death/Slaughter waxes and wanes in power and every thousand years the god is at his peak and go from their. With the players trying to stop its minions or in reverse trying to save the "savior" who allows the world to return back to its normal state. I think every 500 years is a bit soon as your long lived races could have lived through multiple cataclysms and the recovery rate would not be that fast.

Another theme could be a multi part artifact/item/spell that the players are racing around trying to keep out of the wrong hands.

Your options are endless.
However I think the time frame should be on the milenium scale not the century scale.

[macbeth]

I'm just beginning to design my first world right now (just drew up the continents today) and I definitely plan on making sure I know the "why" and "how" things are where they are and making sure things make sense. I want my players to be able to use magic and have casting characters without too much predjudice against them, but I want magical items to be a bit rare.

To make this make sense, I'm planning on a world where magic users are pretty common, but magical artifacts and tools are not so much so. However, magical items were a bit more common during a past civilization that had fallen, and even more powerful ones were more common in a civilization before that where the ruins are harder to find, and when found, much less often are they unpillaged.

To explain this, I'm imagining something along the lines of what has been said in many of the early responses to this thread, a waxing and waning of the power and knowledge of civilization through some force, whether it be gods, the irresponsibility of powerful civilizations, etc. One path I was thinking of following is along the lines of while the goodly civilizations gain in power on the surface, those of the Underdark do as well and every few millennia become powerful enough to invade and almost totally wipe out the surface dwellers, while also overreaching themselves and being beaten back into submission by those that remain.

It doesn't have to be the same thing every time either. One time it could be that the civilization was conquered and overrun, another it could be that they over reached their bounds with magic and were punished by the gods and had it, and the basis for their advanced civilization, taken away for a few generations (I like that idea, thanks Bladesake). I know one of my catastrophes, probably one of the most recent two, will be a plague that only targeted elves and wiped out 95% of their population. This is how the humans managed to become the dominant race in the world over a race that is much longer lived and much more wise and knowledgeable than they are.

Anyway, I'm rambling. But yeah, every decision I make to place a city or to populate a general area is going to have to make sense. The hard part is trying to figure out what extra factors come into play in a fantasy world. I know I'm going to have to have city states where the population huddles close to the city because of the nearby goblin infested mountains, and that city state won't be able to advance how it would have in the real world.

[CartoGeo]

A question for fantasy RPG map makers.
How much do you worry about "does this make sense"?

Yes of course, but I think it is more of a reflex and I notice it, that it is a burdon to any form of creativity, which is essentially wanton creativity and a desire to be or influence in a remote way, that is what this whole Fantasy Genre RPG thing is all about, but I find it more and more annoying that the older I get the less 'fantasy' my mind becomes.

I tend not to worry overly if I am considering where to place mountains, I tend to just do the intuative glance and think real quck about what the 'flavor' is for those mountains on the map... what makes them, them...

I am moving more and more away from having anything like some of the serious descusions on this board about populations and such... its fantasy, I like to keep it that way, but not too 'fantasy' and cartoonish.

[Vorhees]

Absolutely Awesome Discussion guys , some very good points made, repping all involved

[terminal]

As far as this goes, I think it is completely paramount that everything makes sense, it is what allows your world to suspend reality.

I have done a guide called Cartographic Demographics and Economics. I use the same method to assign each country and thus hope for uniformity at the end of it. If you stick to a system I believe you can make sure that your world is believable, especially when it comes to matters which general conform to normal statistical distributions such as settlement development.

I think the important thing to ascertain demographics is to get the order in which you do things correct. First work out the position of your country on your planet - climate etc. Then work out the area of the country. Extrapolate the two to work out the population density, from this there is plenty of mathematical theory on how settlements develop. My guide is on medieval settlements. By using a system you work out the amount of cities, towns, villages, universities, castles, ruins, merchants etc. If you don' take this approach and simply delve into using your mind to decide mathematical matters, I find the results are generally not consistent and as complexity increases increasingly irrational.

[rshall89]

I've had this problem with my own story, I don't like heavy magical worlds my worlds are more like Tolkiens, long drawn out with few very powerful magical entities. But finding help with pre-medieval demographics and lifestyles are much harder because so many fantasy are commonly medieval in sense.

My current story I am trying to work out involves a post-neolithic hunter/gather tribe as the first people to enter a land between 2 large mountain ranges. I wonder how they would culturally and demographically develop by themselves culturally and demographically before more groups are introduced in my story. I want to spread them out over the valley over a few decades to maybe a couple centruries and create cultural tension between themselves as they prosper economically and agriculturally while creating a social system beyond a nomadic life.