Setting Design: Geography & Politics

[Ephraim]

I am working on the design of a new campaign setting and I'm looking for some advice on the theory and practice of setting design.

I've worked out the broad strokes for the geography and politics of this world. I know what the major theme of conflict is going to be. I also know what major sovereign nations will exist as well as a few influential non-sovereign entities. I am having difficulty, however, fleshing out the details.

Part of the trouble is that the final outcome of these decisions will be reflected on a map. Historically, borders coincide with natural barriers like rivers, lakes, and mountains. Therefore, I have to draw a map of the world that includes all of the nations and territories I want in appropriate relation to one another to allow for the political alliances I'd like. For bonus points, the boundaries of nations will largely coincide with natural features.

Notwithstanding that I am a poor mapmaker at best, this task is turning out to be very difficult. How have other setting designers addressed these challenges in the past?

[Blackadder]

Rich already has a good geography drawling walkthrough Here (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/xO3dVM8EDKJPlKxmVoG.html)

Other that that, my own person method is to finding an existing piece of earth area then distort it. Take say Hawii, now quad the size of the island, pull out some land here, lower some land there, sink this bit into the ocean while racing this area here. If you mess around with it for a bit sooner or later you have a new land.

Take this image here
http://satftp.soest.hawaii.edu/space/hawaii/maps/Big_Island_map.552x724.gif
Fifteen minutes effort in MS Paint produces...

This
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/WaWAdder/redoneisland.gif
It's ugly, it's graceless, but it gets the point across and it was all done in MS-Paint in under twenty minutes.

That's the distort method, take any existing land-mass, delete the landmarks, wonk with the coastlines, level a few mountains and bam new world ready to go.

Fill in geo-political details as needed.

[Ephraim]

That's the distort method, take any existing land-mass, delete the landmarks, wonk with the coastlines, level a few mountains and bam new world ready to go.

Fill in geo-political details as needed.

I am going to read the HOWTO that you mentioned. Unfortunately, I think that the distortion method may not work for me. I've already decided that this world is going to be a torus, wobbling around a central star. It results in a roughly rectangular map, but distorting an existing landmass could be a difficult way to fill it in because I need both the top/bottom and left/right edges to mate up.

[Blackadder]

Well Mr Hyperphysics your own your own then. Why not just say your world is a Mobius strip made of candy orbiting around a hyper-intelligent blue star.

Just kidding, it sounds like a map of Sigil is what you need
Go here (http://www.shadowland.org/Planescape/maps.html)
See Sigil, see the wards, see how an old fashion map would work.

[Ephraim]

The HOWTO turned out to be a big help. Although the notion of highs and lows seems intuitive in retrospect, I wasn't applying it. That gave me a good guideline for defining the geography, which in turn will provide a framework for defining political boundaries.

[Dan_Hemmens]

I am going to read the HOWTO that you mentioned. Unfortunately, I think that the distortion method may not work for me. I've already decided that this world is going to be a torus, wobbling around a central star. It results in a roughly rectangular map, but distorting an existing landmass could be a difficult way to fill it in because I need both the top/bottom and left/right edges to mate up.

Why are you making your world a torus?

At the risk of sounding didactic, you should bear one thing foremost in your mind during setting design: Will This Form the Basis of a Good Interactive Scenario?

To put it another way, how will your world being a torus actually affect the way the players play the game?

[Ephraim]

Why are you making your world a torus?

At the risk of sounding didactic, you should bear one thing foremost in your mind during setting design: Will This Form the Basis of a Good Interactive Scenario?

To put it another way, how will your world being a torus actually affect the way the players play the game?

It's a worthwhile question. I did not choose a torus arbitrarily nor to be gimmicky. There are a couple of reasons why I selected it for this world.

One, from a mapmaking standpoint, it is easier to represent a torus in two dimensions than it is to represent a sphere. Start with a rectangle and then make it a little bit narrower at the "equator" and you have a slit-open and unrolled torus. I also like that this model provides continuity in all directions. If you walk off one end of the map, just continue walking in the same direction on the opposite side of the map.

Two, it yields a world in which part of the surface is perpetually sunlit and part of which is in perpetual darkness. This distinction provides an immediately recognizable driver for cultural differences. In particular, it will be a factor in the attitude of different societies toward technology, which I intend to be a philosophical focal point of the setting.