TheRPGSite

An old but very useful post from Jeff Rient's blog that I've been thinking about lately: http://jrients.blogspot.com/2011/04/twenty-quick-questions-for-your.html

What would you add to that list to help DMs focus on what really matters?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;770561An old but very useful post from Jeff Rient's blog that I've been thinking about lately: http://jrients.blogspot.com/2011/04/twenty-quick-questions-for-your.html

What would you add to that list to help DMs focus on what really matters?

http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/60581028/Vreegs%20Rules%20of%20Setting%20and%20Game%20Design


http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html
Rob's is another favorite...

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;770561An old but very useful post from Jeff Rient's blog that I've been thinking about lately: http://jrients.blogspot.com/2011/04/twenty-quick-questions-for-your.html

What would you add to that list to help DMs focus on what really matters?

This is great!

I would probably add

What organization can't you wait to tell me about?

Since what the GM is excited about is usually more fun.

I would say where is the bathroom? But where is the tavern pretty much covered that. Seriously it's a solid and obvious list.

QuoteWhat is the deal with my cleric's religion?
Where can we go to buy standard equipment?
Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?
Who is the mightiest wizard in the land?
Who is the greatest warrior in the land?
Who is the richest person in the land?
Where can we go to get some magical healing?
Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath?
Is there a magic guild my MU belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?
Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?
Where can I hire mercenaries?
Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?
Which way to the nearest tavern?
What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?
Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?
How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?
Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?
What is there to eat around here?
Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?
Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with Type H treasure?

How many local languages are there?
Do any other religions have beef with my cleric's religion?

Pretty D&D dungeon fantasy-centric, I'd say.  But I'll bite.

Starting From Scratch (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/10/starting-from-scratch-pt-i.html)

Beyond that, for bulletpoint questions:

* What's the deal with the dominant regional religion?

* What are the races/nationalities/factions the locals hate and why?

* Who's the local ruler?  (This is, after all, the person that the aforementioned mightiest warrior and wizard work for, and to whom the richest person pays taxes.)

* What's the big nasty thing that happened three years ago that the locals just do not want to talk about?

* Who's the most infamous bandit leader/pirate king in the land?

Do random locals msotly have levels?

What level do the PCs have to get to before locals start recognizing them?

Just thought of one perhaps:

What unusual features stand out from the landscape when we scan the horizon?

Quote from: LordVreeg;770565http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/60581028/Vreegs%20Rules%20of%20Setting%20and%20Game%20Design


http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html
Rob's is another favorite...

Bat in the Attic has some interesting stuff sometimes, but who the fuck is actually going to spend time thinking about air and ocean currents? Unless that is somehow central to the underlying theme of the setting, it's pointless and time-consuming.
I'm going to keep reading through his steps just to see if it continues to be as ludicrous as step one.

Quote from: everloss;770726Bat in the Attic has some interesting stuff sometimes, but who the fuck is actually going to spend time thinking about air and ocean currents? Unless that is somehow central to the underlying theme of the setting, it's pointless and time-consuming.

Hell, I'm an anal worldbuilder, with detail that's never seen the light of day and never will, but I saw those charts and went "Eccch."

(This, by the bye, with my campaigns traditionally being heavily nautically-oriented, and me being an Age of Sail fanatic.)

Seriously, the most I bother with is that the prevailing winds in this region come from thataway, and I don't trouble myself with worrying over how that affects the air currents at X-500 nm, X+500 nm, or Y+500 nm.  While I'm not sold on Rient's list, I do appreciate his premise: that you should focus your development time on things about which your group will care, and avoid obsessing over things they'll never notice, or give a damn about if they did.

Quote from: Ravenswing;770824[...]I don't trouble myself with worrying over how that affects the air currents at X-500 nm, X+500 nm, or Y+500 nm.

I read that as X+/-500 nanometers, and thought "shit, dude, you are seriously hardcore".

Quote from: daniel_ream;770827I read that as X+/-500 nanometers, and thought "shit, dude, you are seriously hardcore".

(cackles)

Heh, that's nautical miles, actually.  Apologies; I was lapsing into sailor's jargon.

Quote from: Ravenswing;770909(cackles)

Heh, that's nautical miles, actually.  Apologies; I was lapsing into sailor's jargon.

that made me smile.

Quote from: everloss;770726Bat in the Attic has some interesting stuff sometimes, but who the fuck is actually going to spend time thinking about air and ocean currents? Unless that is somehow central to the underlying theme of the setting, it's pointless and time-consuming.
I'm going to keep reading through his steps just to see if it continues to be as ludicrous as step one.

well, they are very different looks.
My listing is very 'meta'.  His is more detail oriented.

As a bit of an ecology/physical geography nerd, I personally love the attention to weather patterns, but that is completely self serving and needless for actual players.

I guess you could use it to establish what kinds of ecosystems would have developed in a region and how their seasonal variations would take shape.

Quote from: mightyuncle;770999As a bit of an ecology/physical geography nerd, I personally love the attention to weather patterns, but that is completely self serving and needless for actual players.

I guess you could use it to establish what kinds of ecosystems would have developed in a region and how their seasonal variations would take shape.

In 20 years, I don't think I've ever had a player ask me what season it was in game. Obviously, I don't think my experiences mimic anyone elses. I'm just sayin'.

If seasons and weather patterns are important to your game, or if keeping track of such things is important to you or your game, then you should totally do that.

For me, I can't imagine EVER caring even in the slightest about things like that for my games. Just seems like needless work that will never produce anything, to me.

Different strokes for different folks.

My way of designing a setting seems to be different than most everything I've read on the 'net, so I'm probably just the weirdo.

Quote from: everloss;771093In 20 years, I don't think I've ever had a player ask me what season it was in game. Obviously, I don't think my experiences mimic anyone elses. I'm just sayin'.

If seasons and weather patterns are important to your game, or if keeping track of such things is important to you or your game, then you should totally do that.

For me, I can't imagine EVER caring even in the slightest about things like that for my games. Just seems like needless work that will never produce anything, to me.

Different strokes for different folks.

My way of designing a setting seems to be different than most everything I've read on the 'net, so I'm probably just the weirdo.

weirdos are the norm.
however, weather affects matter in a long campaign.  BUt that means your calendars must be posted, clear, consistent, etc.

How the fuck can you have holidays without a calendar?

time is mostly meaningless in my games, beyond travel times, combat rounds, and casting times (and even then I make most things instant).

I usually use holidays sparingly and only in places the PCs probably aren't going to spend a year's worth of time in (ie: the village you just checked in to is celebrating it's annual Wash Underwear in the River Day).

Every time I've attempted to use more strict rulings on time, it's sucked and no one enjoyed it, so I stopped.

The thing about seasons is that they can provide variety in a relatively limited amount of square mileage. Ask any hunter, forager, fisher, mountain biker, hiker, or kitchen gardener about the role weather patterns and seasons play into their passtimes and you'll get a range of responses. The connecting thread is that they will all go to some considerable lengths to adapt to changing conditions whether it's to migrate, change activities, or alter activity to current conditions. That change and adaptation are, to me, great inspirations to change up familiar settings and already semi-traveled regions an adventuring party has come through, or regularly travels through.

Think about it, you've got changing food supplies, animal (monstrous or mundane) migration patterns, harsher/slower travel conditions (possibly more random encounters), heck, even more direct, drastic weather patterns like hurricanes, monsoons, tornadoes, and blizzards could be pivotal mechanisms for an adventure. Would I use every single one of these in my game to painstaking detail? No, but it's a fairly simple and personally fun way to spice up a familiar dish.

Quote from: everloss;770726Bat in the Attic has some interesting stuff sometimes, but who the fuck is actually going to spend time thinking about air and ocean currents? Unless that is somehow central to the underlying theme of the setting, it's pointless and time-consuming.

(http://mit.zenfs.com/1555/2013/04/Eyeball-Earth.jpg)

The above image is what is called an "Eyeball Earth". It is a planet very similar to Earth tidally locked to its parent star, which means one side always faces the star and one always faces away from it giving you a hot pole and a cold pole with a habitable band between the two poles. These worlds may be more common than ones like our own Earth.

I bet that this planet is a more interesting setting for your game than the bog-standard fantasy one. Yup, air and ocean currents might be an important consideration there.

Quote from: jeff37923;771237(http://mit.zenfs.com/1555/2013/04/Eyeball-Earth.jpg)

The above image is what is called an "Eyeball Earth". It is a planet very similar to Earth tidally locked to its parent star, which means one side always faces the star and one always faces away from it giving you a hot pole and a cold pole with a habitable band between the two poles. These worlds may be more common than ones like our own Earth.

I bet that this planet is a more interesting setting for your game than the bog-standard fantasy one. Yup, air and ocean currents might be an important consideration there.

I think its a great concept but and it reminds me of Chronicles of Riddick among many other sources but I have always had a hard time imagining how an atmosphere would survive with no rotation.

Quote from: Marleycat;771248I think its a great concept but and it reminds me of Chronicles of Riddick among many other sources but I have always had a hard time imagining how an atmosphere would survive with no rotation.

Gravity holds it on the surface.

That is where the air currents come in. You will end up with prevailing winds travelling from the hot pole to the cold pole in the upper atmosphere and when the hot air cools, it flows back from the cold pole to the hot pole closer to the surface. Ocean currents will follow a similar pattern.

The winds and currents will be stronger or weaker depending on the orbital eccentricity of the planet, so it will have seasons after a fashion.

I question if it can have a magnetosphere without rotation. Mars and Venus both started out like the Earth, but neither have the dynamo effect for a magnetosphere. Ionizing radiation strips the oxygen-nitrogen, iirc.

Quote from: mightyuncle;771131The thing about seasons is that they can provide variety in a relatively limited amount of square mileage. Ask any hunter, forager, fisher, mountain biker, hiker, or kitchen gardener about the role weather patterns and seasons play into their passtimes and you'll get a range of responses. The connecting thread is that they will all go to some considerable lengths to adapt to changing conditions whether it's to migrate, change activities, or alter activity to current conditions. That change and adaptation are, to me, great inspirations to change up familiar settings and already semi-traveled regions an adventuring party has come through, or regularly travels through.

Think about it, you've got changing food supplies, animal (monstrous or mundane) migration patterns, harsher/slower travel conditions (possibly more random encounters), heck, even more direct, drastic weather patterns like hurricanes, monsoons, tornadoes, and blizzards could be pivotal mechanisms for an adventure. Would I use every single one of these in my game to painstaking detail? No, but it's a fairly simple and personally fun way to spice up a familiar dish.

I agree wholeheartedly. I just don't believe it's at all necessary to think about when creating a setting. That is all stuff that happens during play. Nothing you describe necessitates creating a weather system for an entire planet, as Bat in the Attic wants you to do.

Quote from: dragoner;771311I question if it can have a magnetosphere without rotation. Mars and Venus both started out like the Earth, but neither have the dynamo effect for a magnetosphere. Ionizing radiation strips the oxygen-nitrogen, iirc.

IIRC, but I'd have to check, you can have a planetary core rotating independantly of the crust and outer mantle, the inner mantle acting like a fluid bearing.

Quote from: jeff37923;771434IIRC, but I'd have to check, you can have a planetary core rotating independantly of the crust and outer mantle, the inner mantle acting like a fluid bearing.

Earth's does so it should certainly be possible.

Quote from: Marleycat;771444Earth's does so it should certainly be possible.

Dragoner's got a solid point, though. A good magnetosphere comes from a rotating magnetic core and without that the ionizing radiation from the pimary star will strip the atmosphere right off a world even if there is a huge amount of it. It just takes a longer or shorter amount of time, millions instead of billions of years.

If you are doing fantasy, you can ignore this. If you are doing hard science fiction, it becomes vital. Worldbuilding at this point becomes an art in and of itself because the world you create must be scientifically sound by the standards of that period so that the Players' disbelief suspenders do not get stretched too far.

EDIT: Fuckin' A, I'm sounding like a patronizing douchebag tonight. I gotta quit watching House while posting.

Snip...

Quote from: jeff37923;771450A good magnetosphere comes from a rotating magnetic core and without that the ionizing radiation from the pimary star will strip the atmosphere right off a world even if there is a huge amount of it.

Kind of like how my daughter wears down the inlaws for me...

Seriously though-I've read some stuff on world building. It's what made me decide to try my hand at other fiction.

The lists defiantly bring up things to think about. And as others are doing, building your own is certainly a good idea for reference.

Thanks for posting this.

Quote from: everloss;771313I agree wholeheartedly. I just don't believe it's at all necessary to think about when creating a setting. That is all stuff that happens during play.

Not in your games, judging from your comments about time, though, right?

For my part, I can't imagine gaming without weather; Mightyuncle's laundry list aside, how do you do sea travel as anything beyond "So, okay, you sail for a week, and you're there" handwaving?

Heck, the first adventure for my newest group had them traveling in the mountains in very early spring after a hard winter, and included the various trials and tribulations involved in mountaineering when the high country ravines still are 20' deep in snow (but watch for crevasses and undermining!) and the cliff walls have hanging ice just waiting to tumble down ...  Waitaminit.  You want to go up the ravine wall after those orcs, a half hour before sundown, above tree line, with a 40 mph wind kicking up?

Quote from: jeff37923;771434IIRC, but I'd have to check, you can have a planetary core rotating independantly of the crust and outer mantle, the inner mantle acting like a fluid bearing.

There are three requisites for a dynamo to operate:
An electrically conductive fluid medium
Kinetic energy provided by planetary rotation
An internal energy source to drive convective motions within the fluid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory

So it looks like that is another stumbling block to a shirt-sleeve environment.

Quote from: Marleycat;771248I think its a great concept but and it reminds me of Chronicles of Riddick among many other sources but I have always had a hard time imagining how an atmosphere would survive with no rotation.

A wizard did it.

Quote from: Grey Wanderer;771527A wizard did it.

They're such busybodies those wizards!

Quote from: Grey Wanderer;771527A wizard did it.

This.

I really think something of the, you know, fantasy has been lost from fantasy worlds when every single one of them is supposed to adhere to rigid rules of planetology.

As much as I like to bang the drum of "what-do-they-eat-and-where-do-they-shit" when it comes to dungeon design, there is a point where the hobgoblins tribes over the next ridge start to look a lot like foolish consistency.

The caveat to planetology, is that it could be completely wrong, note that that is the dynamo theory; because most stuff out of immediately testable physics is theoretical. It's why there has been a sea change in astronomy in the last few years.

Or to sum it up scientifically: we don't know shit.

Quote from: dragoner;771535The caveat to planetology, is that it could be completely wrong, note that that is the dynamo theory; because most stuff out of immediately testable physics is theoretical. It's why there has been a sea change in astronomy in the last few years.

Or to sum it up scientifically: we don't know shit.

Which just gives us some wiggle room to cheat. ;)

Are we really contending with the scientific definition of "theory" here?

Quote from: jeff37923;771545Which just gives us some wiggle room to cheat. ;)

Yes, because there can be exceptions to the rule, or even the rule doesn't necessarily work the way we think it does. As long as proof of impossibility doesn't exist, we are good to go.

Quote from: mightyuncle;771547Are we really contending with the scientific definition of "theory" here?

Do you mean such as a non-testable hypothesis? :p

Yes, that's not the scientific definition of "theory."

Thus the smiley.

Quote from: jeff37923;771545Which just gives us some wiggle room to cheat. ;)

Screw wiggle room, I want fantasy worlds that are actually fantastic for a change.  Things like Inverse World, or Sundered Skies, or World Tree.

You know what, leave magic right out of it.  I'd be happy with a ringworld.  SUb-creation delenda est.

Quote from: Ravenswing;771475

Heck, the first adventure for my newest group had them traveling in the mountains in very early spring after a hard winter, and included the various trials and tribulations involved in mountaineering when the high country ravines still are 20' deep in snow (but watch for crevasses and undermining!) and the cliff walls have hanging ice just waiting to tumble down ...  Waitaminit.  You want to go up the ravine wall after those orcs, a half hour before sundown, above tree line, with a 40 mph wind kicking up?

Sorry, I'm still not seeing how that is not something to take care of in pre-game prep, rather than plan for it months or years in advance during initial setting design.

There may be some sort of disconnect, so I will attempt to better portray my position.

Here is what I usually do: At the end of the last session, the players stop at the base of a mountain that a large band of bandits is using to terrorize the neighboring areas from a fort just above the tree line. Two sessions ago (about a week in-game), the first snow fell and has been off and on since. The upcoming session, they want to avoid the trail the bandits use and instead scale the mountain and attack the bandits in the cave about a quarter mile up a sheer cliff face. Between last session and the upcoming one, I determine the following: The wind is blowing at whatever-mph (enough to cause penalties to climb) , it's lightly snowing (more penalties), and with their climbing equipment (if any; there's always that one guy), it will take them whatever-many hours (I don't have a number off the top of my head; that's what rules are for) to climb the cliff at a relatively safe pace. Every hour, you have to make a skill check.  Or, they can wait 3d12 hours for the conditions to clear up (more random encounters).

Of course seasons exist in my games. Day and night are there too. I don't even see how that could have been misinterpreted.

I consider creating Jet Streams, an El Nino, La Nina, a Polar Vortex or two, solar and lunar cycles, position in the galaxy, etc, to be tiresome and not important at all to my games. And certainly not important to creating setting, unless it directly and noticeably influences game play or is the focus of the game. For example; if the world's weather is controlled by storm giant god and defeating it will end the devastating storms that constantly ravage the world.

Or, if it rains anvils from the sky whenever the three moons are in alignment directly above the planet, which happens every 3 months; that would be something you need to come up with in setting design, and track it as the campaign goes on. Or if the fifth high tide brings with it crabmen, this would be important to keep track of if the players are on the coast. Otherwise, why keep track of it?
What I don't think is necessary is the level of detail for what is described in Bat in the Attic (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantasy-sandbox-in-detail-part-i.html)'s post. I consider those to be mundane subjects that distract from more important aspects of designing the setting.

(Sorry if this was rambling or incoherent. It's been a long day)

Quote from: everloss;770726Bat in the Attic has some interesting stuff sometimes, but who the fuck is actually going to spend time thinking about air and ocean currents? Unless that is somehow central to the underlying theme of the setting, it's pointless and time-consuming.
I'm going to keep reading through his steps just to see if it continues to be as ludicrous as step one.

Actually they are ciritical in determining the geography.
The best thing to do is to use the ones we have on earth. So ocean currents say go clockwise in the north and anticlockwise in the south. If you change that it might seem minor but you would also have to make the sun rise in the west and set in the east cos the planet would have to be spinning in an oposite rotation, or its not a planet its a plane and then there is no horizon etc etc etc

So pretty important.

Quote from: Grey Wanderer;771527A wizard did it.

but then some guy is goign to ask when he reaches 25th level - where is the spell to create a planetary atmosphere... or remove one.

Quote from: daniel_ream;771566Screw wiggle room, I want fantasy worlds that are actually fantastic for a change.  Things like Inverse World, or Sundered Skies, or World Tree.

You know what, leave magic right out of it.  I'd be happy with a ringworld.  SUb-creation delenda est.

You can do that but why would a fantasy world look just like an ordinary world but with all the stuff that makes the works work replaced by magic?

Make a world inside a giant orange, make a world make up of pockets of shadowy ether tied together by living chains of monkeys but creating a world that looks just like our world and feels just like our world but you can have ice fields next to tropical jungles because magic is a bit crap.

Quote from: everloss;771703Sorry, I'm still not seeing how that is not something to take care of in pre-game prep, rather than plan for it months or years in advance during initial setting design.

There may be some sort of disconnect, so I will attempt to better portray my position.

Here is what I usually do: At the end of the last session, the players stop at the base of a mountain that a large band of bandits is using to terrorize the neighboring areas from a fort just above the tree line. Two sessions ago (about a week in-game), the first snow fell and has been off and on since. The upcoming session, they want to avoid the trail the bandits use and instead scale the mountain and attack the bandits in the cave about a quarter mile up a sheer cliff face. Between last session and the upcoming one, I determine the following: The wind is blowing at whatever-mph (enough to cause penalties to climb) , it's lightly snowing (more penalties), and with their climbing equipment (if any; there's always that one guy), it will take them whatever-many hours (I don't have a number off the top of my head; that's what rules are for) to climb the cliff at a relatively safe pace. Every hour, you have to make a skill check.  Or, they can wait 3d12 hours for the conditions to clear up (more random encounters).

Of course seasons exist in my games. Day and night are there too. I don't even see how that could have been misinterpreted.

I consider creating Jet Streams, an El Nino, La Nina, a Polar Vortex or two, solar and lunar cycles, position in the galaxy, etc, to be tiresome and not important at all to my games. And certainly not important to creating setting, unless it directly and noticeably influences game play or is the focus of the game. For example; if the world's weather is controlled by storm giant god and defeating it will end the devastating storms that constantly ravage the world.

Or, if it rains anvils from the sky whenever the three moons are in alignment directly above the planet, which happens every 3 months; that would be something you need to come up with in setting design, and track it as the campaign goes on. Or if the fifth high tide brings with it crabmen, this would be important to keep track of if the players are on the coast. Otherwise, why keep track of it?
What I don't think is necessary is the level of detail for what is described in Bat in the Attic (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantasy-sandbox-in-detail-part-i.html)'s post. I consider those to be mundane subjects that distract from more important aspects of designing the setting.

(Sorry if this was rambling or incoherent. It's been a long day)

The answer is accept Earth norms then you can handwave it.

Air currents or ocean currents only matter if you change the norms. So if in your world there is a mountain 100 miles high the gods live on then that should affect stuff it will create air currents it will have implications. If your world isn;t a planet its a plate with a 100 mile high mountain in the middle that is awesome but that ought to affect stuff. What does the Sun do? travel overhead in an arc? What keeps that working? Without a horizon have people developed superior optics to send instant messages 1000s of miles?

We take a bunch of stuff for granted that relies on certain base settings of the position of earth & Sol in the galaxy, the composition, etc etc . If your world sticks to these norms you can handwave all the nitty gritty stuff with common sense. If your world varies greatly in a way then handwaving can create unforseen circumstances.
The obvious answer is to keep it all normal but its not always the answer you are looking for.

Quote from: everloss;771703

The ultimate reason why I would even entertain the idea of wind and water currents is simply because having those established gives me a baseline. From that, I can go ahead and plot out pretty sensible ecosystem locations. Established wind and water currents can also influence where objects (players and their stuff/stuff they want) will most likely get moved to by natural forces. Again, that's only if I really want to get into that level of natural detail for world building and want some sort of model consistency. I could very well just handle it with arbitrary decision making and that'd be completely acceptable.

Quote from: jibbajibba;771706[...] but creating a world that looks just like our world and feels just like our world but you can have ice fields next to tropical jungles because magic is a bit crap.

I don't think you're getting what I'm saying.  I don't want world(s) that look and feel just like our world.  I want fantasy worlds. Hyperborea, Middle Earth and Fake Europe have been done to death. More Scientifically Accurate Hyperborea, Middle Earth and Fake Europe isn't going to help with that.

I think there's an odd disconnect in the OSR where people will pish-tosh any suggestion that dungeons should make some kind of physical sense or obey basic logistics (a.k.a. "what do they eat and where do they shit"), but the second the PCs step outside the dungeon entrance everybody has to be James Lovelock.

Quote from: daniel_ream;771722I don't think you're getting what I'm saying.  I don't want world(s) that look and feel just like our world.  I want fantasy worlds. Hyperborea, Middle Earth and Fake Europe have been done to death. More Scientifically Accurate Hyperborea, Middle Earth and Fake Europe isn't going to help with that.

I think there's an odd disconnect in the OSR where people will pish-tosh any suggestion that dungeons should make some kind of physical sense or obey basic logistics (a.k.a. "what do they eat and where do they shit"), but the second the PCs step outside the dungeon entrance everybody has to be James Lovelock.

No I get what you are saying. I am saying most of the time people don't do that they have a "just like earth" world but with lots of crappy geography and then they handwave the currents being wrong or their being no actually effect of having 3 moons etc etc...

If your world mirrors earth just use the earth standard for this stuff and you are golden.

If your world is totally alien then knock yourself out except where you want it to mirror earth and then pay it some thought. All the winds are senient demi-gods, great. All the sea currents are caused by Poisodon, great. A mish mash of that and incorrect geography with no explanation might end up having unforeseen effects - like currents opposing the rotation of the planet, deserts in the wrong place, etc etc.

Quote from: jeff37923;771450Dragoner's got a solid point, though. A good magnetosphere comes from a rotating magnetic core and without that the ionizing radiation from the pimary star will strip the atmosphere right off a world even if there is a huge amount of it. It just takes a longer or shorter amount of time, millions instead of billions of years.

If you are doing hard science fiction, it becomes vital.

Okay: ionizing radiation strips the atmosphere. But, since it is not scientific realism but science-fiction, what if the planet was terraformed, and then populated with a custom biosphere? (I read elsewhere on the forums, that someone made calculations about giving the moon an atmosphere with having ice asteroids crash on it, and he claimed it wouldn't take thousands of years, but could be done relatively quickly.)  I guess it would comply with suspension of disbelief based on superficial planetology knowledge huh?

Quote from: Turanil;771782Okay: ionizing radiation strips the atmosphere. But, since it is not scientific realism but science-fiction, what if the planet was terraformed, and then populated with a custom biosphere?

Yes, stuff like that could be done, terraforming, and if not creating a dynamo effect, then to have an artificial magnetosphere generator. Spacecraft as well could benefit from a magnetic radiation shield. The idea of using real world weather for planet building is good, but also far more complex environmentally. For example, the Amazon Jungle is fertilized by the dust storms from North Africa, dust that is ocean sediment from millions of years ago.

Quote from: jibbajibba;771735A mish mash of that and incorrect geography with no explanation might end up having unforeseen effects - like currents opposing the rotation of the planet, deserts in the wrong place, etc etc.

I can't think of a single group I've gamed with in thirty years that would notice that sort of thing, nor care.

And even if they did, "the gods made it that way" has worked for every single pre-Enlightenment culture on Earth, so it's good enough for a dungeon fantasy campaign.

One of my personal bugbears is gamers who simultaneously wank on about "immersion" yet have no trouble importing vast amounts of anachronistic knowledge about general science into what is ostensibly a medieval pastiche.  Pre-Enlightenment sailors, merchants, alchemists, and chirurgeons have had various models of the natural world that we know know were crashingly wrong, but that worked well enough for their immediate and daily experience.  

A fantasy world need not match modern notions of planetology perfectly as long as it works well enough for the people who live there.

If that works for you and your players that's totally fine, but I'm admittedly obsessive when it comes to figuring out these sorts of things. And getting into the physical rules of a setting helps ME as a GM get into the setting more. And me getting into the setting more means I can in turn get players into the game.

Quote from: Turanil;771782Okay: ionizing radiation strips the atmosphere. But, since it is not scientific realism but science-fiction, what if the planet was terraformed, and then populated with a custom biosphere? (I read elsewhere on the forums, that someone made calculations about giving the moon an atmosphere with having ice asteroids crash on it, and he claimed it wouldn't take thousands of years, but could be done relatively quickly.)  I guess it would comply with suspension of disbelief based on superficial planetology knowledge huh?

Well, how long do you want the atmosphere to last? Long enough for the terraformers to get a good investment on their work or just long enough for the planetary roofing company to cash their check?

How much or how little science is in your science fiction is up to you. I've just found that the more scientifically accurate, the more plausible, and thus the more playable.

Quote from: mightyuncle;771827And getting into the physical rules of a setting helps ME as a GM get into the setting more. And me getting into the setting more means I can in turn get players into the game.

Well and good - prep is play, after all[1] - but why do those rules need to match modern notions of planetology and geography for a fantasy campaign?  

The Floating Forest is no longer on speaking terms with gravity and so rocks of various sizes drift at various heights from the ground and the larger ones have permanent temperate forest biomes.  Gravity and biology Do Not Work Like That in the real world, so no rock surfing for you.

The Godscar is a blasted badland, flat to the horizon save for drifts of gritty, scouring sand and skin-blistering aridity.  It's not in the rain shadow of a mountain range; it's like that because it's where the gods Dux Falcor and Grolm Ascendant annihilated each other at the head of their respective divine armies a thousand years ago, and the Omnis Pater decreed it should remain as such for eternity as a warning to gods and mortals alike.  But climatology Does Not Work Like That, so no sifting for lost divine artifacts for you.

Seriously, when did slavish devotion to James Lovelock become the be-all and end-all of setting creation?  The Land of Oz and Glorantha must give people fits.



[1] Well, for some people.  I long since stopped caring about detailed prep, but it's personal preference.

This is turning into badwrongfun-ism rather quickly. As I've stated previously, if someone wants mythical explanations for their gameworld, great! If they're consistent with a set of physical rules (which certainly don't have to be based on physical geography or even Newtonian principles) then even better. The only potential problem I see is that when new physical rules are established by a setting and aren't made consistent, unexpected consequences will occur. Maybe that's an ideal, and it would certainly be great fun in certain ways (a truly chaotic setting for instance), but sometimes it's just easiest to go with a fairly stable model as a base.

I think a lot  of people missed the distinction between fantasy and science fiction I made earlier.

Quote from: jeff37923;771916I think a lot  of people missed the distinction between fantasy and science fiction I made earlier.

The only reason I even mentioned anything upthread is that if I am doing something sci-fi I prefer it to at least have a little scientific reality so was wondering if that planet would possibly happen. As for fantasy? Who cares because it's fantasy.