Jack the Reaper wrote:For many years I thought that the core is indeed too small, but eventually I figured that without cars, trains and planes, the original size is quite enough for everything you want to put in, and the characters won't have to travel for months just to get from one domain to another. Looking at my country, it's so small that on most global maps there's no space to write its name on it, and yet we have here room for everything... Why, I haven't even been everywhere in my small town!
More important than the size of the domains is the population, which must be at least 10 factors greater than the original, if not 100, or else you'll have more predators than prey...
I tend to like epic stories which require IMO a big stage. A hero that can effect the lives of millions of people accomplished something more impressive than someone who saved a village of 100 including their cows.
As far as population goes, yes the population is much higher. I like urban areas for certain areas and so I have cities with populations of 100,000+ which of course require a large area to support.
brilliantlight wrote:I never had claustrophobia or anything like it so that feeling is meaningless to me. Close, tight spaces never upset me in my life.
But claustrophobia might be an issue for your players. In which case, it might be worth investing some time into how that would affect your party, as opposed to dismissing it out of hand simply because it's something that's never affected you.
brilliantlight wrote:I never had claustrophobia or anything like it so that feeling is meaningless to me. Close, tight spaces never upset me in my life.
But claustrophobia might be an issue for your players. In which case, it might be worth investing some time into how that would affect your party, as opposed to dismissing it out of hand simply because it's something that's never affected you.
Even if it is it is something I don't like. Small spaces= small stories. If all you do is save a handful of shepards and their sheep it isn't as impressive as saving a city of 100,000.
brilliantlight wrote:
Even if it is it is something I don't like. Small spaces= small stories. If all you do is save a handful of shepards and their sheep it isn't as impressive as saving a city of 100,000.
But even a small story can have a big effect. Ever see the "Batman: the Brave and the Bold" episode "The Last Patrol!"?
Joël of the FoS wrote:You can see it the other way : danger is never far away from you.
And you have no place far away to hide. Kind of cool too.
What’s the point of such a large area ?
Big Core allows for more habitat for wildlife, which makes the wolf populations of certain domains a lot more plausible.
It also makes a geographical variation in CLs more plausible, if you assume some wilderness and wasteland between advanced and primitive zones. Travel times become longer.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
But Small Core might be my preference if I ran a 2E based game with no CLs (in effect, the Core would share a single CL).
The Mists would drag in new beasts and people to replace dead ones, and often.
A vampire world, stealing creatures from other worlds, too small to sustain itself by wholly natural means...
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
Since the Dark Powers can manipulate everything, an in-character revelation that the populations and feeding rates don't add up sustainably could be the beginning of the investigation into what is different about the Dread Realms.
Wolfglide wrote:Since the Dark Powers can manipulate everything, an in-character revelation that the populations and feeding rates don't add up sustainably could be the beginning of the investigation into what is different about the Dread Realms.
The horror of statistics!
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
brilliantlight wrote:
Even if it is it is something I don't like. Small spaces= small stories. If all you do is save a handful of shepards and their sheep it isn't as impressive as saving a city of 100,000.
But even a small story can have a big effect. Ever see the "Batman: the Brave and the Bold" episode "The Last Patrol!"?
No, but Batman takes place in the US. Gotham City is basically NYC under another name IIRC. Hardly small , insignificant areas. The canon core is the size of Kansas which makes the domains the size of US counties.
Joël of the FoS wrote:You can see it the other way : danger is never far away from you.
And you have no place far away to hide. Kind of cool too.
What’s the point of such a large area ?
Big Core allows for more habitat for wildlife, which makes the wolf populations of certain domains a lot more plausible.
It also makes a geographical variation in CLs more plausible, if you assume some wilderness and wasteland between advanced and primitive zones. Travel times become longer.
This is part of it also. How many werewolves can you have in an area that consists a few small villages? 7? 8?
Also I like the fact outsiders might not figure out for a while that they entered an entirely different world when they entered the Mists. If Ravenloft actually existed and I , myself, were dropped into it from the real world I would soon figure out something strange is going on if by walking 20 miles natural scenery suddenly changes drastically and does so again 20 miles further along the road .
No, but Batman takes place in the US. Gotham City is basically NYC under another name IIRC. Hardly small , insignificant areas. The canon core is the size of Kansas which makes the domains the size of US counties.
This story is tangential to Batman and Gotham. It's mainly about the Doom Patrol, who in the story end up sacrificing themselves to save a tiny island town of 14 people. The villain had hoped they would look incompetent (or better, cowardly), but instead the whole world remembered and honored them.
Who's to say in a small core that stories about the heroes won't spread? Won't bring hope?
My probably unhelpful answer is that the Core is as big as I need it to be. I usually don't even consider official size at all. My domain is as big as I need it to be for the town, the dungeon, the Vistani tribe in the woods, whatever I want to put into the adventure. Same philosophy when it comes to writing about domains and such. In reality most domains are probably too small to be treated as the discreet countries we like to use them as. But I do it anyway. My Core is as big as I need it to be to get the PCs from point A to B in however much time I deem appropriate for the story and atmosphere. And the Core frankly probably shrinks and grows between adventures, especially if I need an area isolated one session and for them to reach the town with the evil overlord the next.
No, but Batman takes place in the US. Gotham City is basically NYC under another name IIRC. Hardly small , insignificant areas. The canon core is the size of Kansas which makes the domains the size of US counties.
This story is tangential to Batman and Gotham. It's mainly about the Doom Patrol, who in the story end up sacrificing themselves to save a tiny island town of 14 people. The villain had hoped they would look incompetent (or better, cowardly), but instead the whole world remembered and honored them.
Who's to say in a small core that stories about the heroes won't spread? Won't bring hope?
In the end they saved only 14 people as opposed to 14,000 or even 14,000,000 which is more common in comic books IIRC. That , by definition, has far less influence on the world no matter what fame it gives you.
No, but Batman takes place in the US. Gotham City is basically NYC under another name IIRC. Hardly small , insignificant areas. The canon core is the size of Kansas which makes the domains the size of US counties.
This story is tangential to Batman and Gotham. It's mainly about the Doom Patrol, who in the story end up sacrificing themselves to save a tiny island town of 14 people. The villain had hoped they would look incompetent (or better, cowardly), but instead the whole world remembered and honored them.
Who's to say in a small core that stories about the heroes won't spread? Won't bring hope?
In the end they saved only 14 people as opposed to 14,000 or even 14,000,000 which is more common in comic books IIRC. That , by definition, has far less influence on the world no matter what fame it gives you.
-Only- saved fourteen people? Hardly heroic and indeed far less influence on the world...unless you're one of those fourteen and/or a family member/loved one living in or connected to those fourteen worlds...
Argument could be made that such smallscale heroics is more likely to inspire benevolent change in others (reciprical heroism, altered outlook on life, etc) than largecale heroics due to its narrowed focus, point of view/spotlight, whatever you want to call it. Individual versus mass. You can interact emotionally, verbally, and physically with 13 other survivors (thus increasing/exaggerating/reliving a more symbiotic importance of the event) like you can't with fourteen million...I like to think anyway.
"Wow. We were saved."
"Wow. I was (one of a lucky few to be) saved."
Also, fourteen or fourteen million...an entire community is an entire community no matter how you slice it. A world within the world. Etc.
Two cents down.
"A very piteous thing it was to see such a quantity of dead bodies, and such an outpouring of blood - that is, if they had not been enemies of the Christian faith."
- Jean Pierre Sarrasin, "The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville"
To save 1 life is to save the whole world. That said, in a big world there is space for all, big towns and small hamlets. In the plus there is the minus.
