Mapping Quandary

[Supplement Four]

NOTE: I wrote the below as a comment on creating maps for fantasy gaming, but it applies to Traveller world mapping, too.






I don't know why I've never thought of this before. Probably because I haven't created landscape in a populated and tame area for a game in a long, long time.



Background: How I came upon the quandary--

I am creating a map for my upcoming Conan game. I'm setting the game in Argos, which is an old Hyborian kingdom. It's been settled land for thousands of years, ruled over by different peoples, all the way back to the time of the Acheronians (who were overrun by the Bori barbarians, who eventually evolved into the Argosseans, the people who inhabit the land today). The point here being: this is not the frontier. This is land has long been settled, and, in fact, the interior of Argos is generally considered very peaceful, free of bandits and most monsters.

But, this is a fantasy game (well, sword & sorcery, to be more precise), and adventure can be had anywhere during the Hyborian Age. My last campaign centered on the true frontier of the known world, in Cimmeria, and it was primarily a wilderness setting. This time, I wanted to go the opposite direction where I had a mix of races (the cosmopolitan nature of the Argossean port cities) and big cities to explore as well as the wilderness. Plus, there aren't a lot of ruins in Cimmeria, and in for this campaign, Argos is littered with ruins from the various peoples who have conquered the land dating back to the time of the Acheronians. That means, unlike my previous campaign, I'll be able to add dungeons to explore.

So, I've set game (will start the game), in the border region of Argos near the border with Shem. In my game, the region is a bit more lawless than the true interior of the kingdom. This is what passes for the "frontier" in Argos, although it is, in no way, as savage as Cimmeria was/is.





Here's my quandary:

Part of designing a campaign is setting up places to put the PCs in jeopardy. Part of creating jeopardy is isolating the PCs, cutting off any support, so that they have to rely upon themselves. Well, a town of villagers can be quite a resource for PCs, depending on what it is that has them in jeopardy. The villages typically aren't isolated places. They have alliances and are maybe protected by the local lordling. At the least, the village is a safe place to sleep and resupply--maybe even gather NPC help.

Ever seen a map of a fantasy world where the villages and towns were very close together? Typically, no. It's usually a trek to the next town.

Quandary: But, in reality, especially in antiquity and medieval times, towns and villages were usually spaced very close together. You typically can't go 10 miles without hitting some small village. This lattice network of villages and towns provides a support network for populated areas.

Have you ever thought about that? Unless there is some terrain feature to prevent it (even then, in real life, villages will pop up in the damnest places, on the sides of mountains, in the center of swamps, etc), populated areas usually have a town or village every 10 miles or so from each other. And, if I follow that pattern for my roleplaying game, "help" is never going to be that far away.

 

[tjoneslo]

In general, yes, the villages will be pretty close together. But this in normal, pastoral countryside. Just the occasional bandit or troupe of minstrels to contend with.

If you have real adventurers out for adventure, something has happened.

1) Plagues. The Black death cleared many of the small villages in Europe, making it a much longer trek between villages. This era, after the fall of Rome and the plagues is sort of the default Fantasy era. The few people that remained are the dying and the plague ridden.

2) War. Even normal human wars could empty the countryside. When you have a fantasy world, you can have the Orcs or Goblins or whom ever the evil wizard has conjured to drive off those annoying peasants. Alternatively the war may have left the populace very suspicious strangers, especially armed strangers, wandering into their village. (See also the story Stone Soup for how this can be an adventure).

3) At the Border. The place where the adventure takes place the villages could be Orc villages, or villages from another country where no one speak their language, and the party's strange customs marks them outsiders and therefore should be stoned.

 

[Kilgs]

Take a look at Harn maps for more authentic medieval layout. For Traveller, you can reference the maps in Aurore or Kafer Dawn. The important thing to remember is two-parts

1) Lay of the land. Just because a satellite map shows communities close by there could be all sorts of hazards, unexplored areas between them. Roads were built for a reason and folks generally stick to them. Even in the future, especially on low-pop worlds, you'll find oasis of civilization surrounded by complete wilderness.

2) Discovery/Population... We've been earth for a long time and there are lots of us. But go back a hundred years, how much of the planet had been walked over and mapped. Sure, if we had satellites we would have imagery in 1870 of the Amazon... but that's not the same as walking it. Now take a colonial world from 2300 or even 3I world with a population of 10 million. Say they live there for 100 years on a planet the size of Earth... they won't know jack about the world around them. Communities will have roads. They might even have a couple science/research organizations with say... a few hundred people interested in exploring, mapping and discovering. The vast majority of folks are there to work in regular careers.

It's more than likely that communities would remain pretty insular except for expeditions. Reading Kafer Dawn and Aurore really helps to hammer this home. They have names and satellite images for everything but the communities are clustered together and entire regions are basically unknown.

In modern/sci-fi, you have an even worse situation. Air travel, orbital insertion and grav tech can make distances between communities completely viable. Creating "fly-over" territory that never needs to be walked. Even if its just mechanized ground transport, we're moving faster and further so communities can be placed where they are needed (mines, water, arable land etc).

Take a planet with a continent the size of Africa... Let's say there's a big city on the coast with really good fishing or some other natural resource. We'll put it in South Africa. Well, then they open up a mining community say around... the Congo (a thousand miles away). The mine transports material to the city... one long road connects the two. It needs to be maintained and is quite dangerous. Most traffic goes by air. No reason to stray off the path so you have the entire portion of southern Africa that is completely unexplored.

Let's say satellite scans show oil in Botswana. Airlift materials and people in. Build an artery to that main road.

Now we have three growing and large communities located where the resource is but separated by hundreds or a thousand miles. No reason to explore between them except by random companies looking for more resources, the occasional science project (heck, we can barely get funding to scientists to study OUR Africa. Who would care about it on some distant world?!).

Oh and they need food... so someone sets up a community to provide food where some arable land is. Let's say the best place is Wisconsin. Now we have a community separated by thousands of miles...

It requires thinking about it but I definitely believe that its a truism of a grav or space colonization society that has a million opportunities for adventure. A downed plane, a satellite image of a structure, the need to map out a new road through jungle...

Imagine land completely untamed and unexplored. Think Lewis/Clarke with laser guns because someone still needs to walk the ground to make discoveries.

(Yeah, I've been thinking about it for awhile!)

 

[BillDowns]

Just a note on this topic: out here in the Western US, towns tended to be around 30 miles apart except for special circumstances. And really, anymore, a lot of them are getting smaller and smaller as the US gets more urbanized.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I live in England, which has been settled in some form or other since before recorded history (people have been living in the British isles for over 12,000 years, but recorded history starts with the romans, just over 2,000 years ago)

their is a distinct pattern to the settlements, with "proper" market towns about 20 miles apart (i.e. about a good days travel apart, on foot, over good roads), and small villages spread between them, most of which are more "one pub, a church, two stores and three houses" than major towns. I've been around and lived in a few parts of western Europe, which is fairly similar, with a few major towns and a lot of very small hamlets.

while the party may be able to find whatever help they need at a market town, most settlements in ancient and medieval Europe where much smaller, where the only help the party can find is a few willing farm hands.

in a traveller context, it's somewhat different, but it's Friday and the beer is calling, so I will finish this thought another time.......

ps I hope to god the above makes sense, cos I wrote this half-drunk

 

[Vladika]

Here's a though too; The villagers just might be hostile to "outsiders", or, they fear them, or believe they are responsible for______________. They may not only be refused aid, but could be in jeopardy from the villagers themselves.

Also, these villages are going to be mostly small if it's agricultural lands. Small holdings (10-40 acres), grouped for defense and larger animal farms (60-320 acres) further out. Rarely will an actual family crop farm be larger than 40 as that's the size that a family can actually work.

Larger sizes will often be (on earth) divisible by 40 acres as there are 640 acres in a literal square mile. (Drive western Kansas sometime. Flat, boring and an intersection, of sorts, every one mile, exactly.)

I know the units don't matter for off-world or fantasy, but, it's a good guide for logical farm sizes.

 

[Quint]

I think that you just need to remember that the villages are in fact filled with villagers - not adventurers. They are going to risk-averse, combat neophytes, little-or-no magic types with very little to share with the group other than food to possibly sell (and not much meat IIRC).

Now - throw in local laws against staying armed, suspicious lords/sheriffs, untrustworthy hedge mages, and insanely overpriced goods and services and the players may not want to stick around all that much.

Make the town the local equivalent of Innsmouth or Dunwitch and the players may very regret ever going there.

But all that said? Yes, playing in the civilized world has a very different flavor from the wilderness. Instead of the weather you get politics, instead of disease you have religion, instead of wild animals you have the local bullies/Thieves Guild/Town Guard, instead of resource management you have the players instead having to figure out how to do things without killing things and bringing ever increasing forces down on their heads.

D.

 

[robject]

I live in England, which has been settled in some form or other since before recorded history

[...]

"proper" market towns about 20 miles apart (i.e. about a good days travel apart, on foot, over good roads), and small villages spread between them, most of which are more "one pub, a church, two stores and three houses" than major towns.

Now that I think about it, that's about how the agricultural parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana are organized, more or less.

 

[Kilgs]

most of which are more "one pub, a church, two stores and three houses" than major towns. I've been around and lived in a few parts of western Europe, which is fairly similar, with a few major towns and a lot of very small hamlets.

While some of us may believe that a beer will solve everything, I agree with above posters. A bunch of bloodied, armed, disreputable folks show up on the doorstep of a village... not much help in the offering.

 

[agorski]

Just a note on this topic: out here in the Western US, towns tended to be around 30 miles apart except for special circumstances. And really, anymore, a lot of them are getting smaller and smaller as the US gets more urbanized.

A lot of towns were spaced along the railroad lines as water and coal stations. Drive across Nebraska sometime and you'll notice the regularity.

 

[Supplement Four]

Now that I think about it, that's about how the agricultural parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana are organized, more or less.

I don't agree with this. I live in Houston, and it seems that there's a small town every 10 feet. There's tons of small towns that Houston has annexed or just plain grown over (towns from the 20's and 30's).

Using Google Maps on Texas seems to support the 10 mile separation or so.

Used to date a girl from Del Rio, and when we visited her family, I marveled at the several small towns around there.