About maps.

[missmvicious]

I wish I could find a world-map of (at least) the material plane in D&D. The best way to create a sandbox that feels convincing is to put it in a consistent setting with predictable outcomes (like physics, distance, climate, etc). And the easiest way to put all that together is with a map.

Sometimes I take Earth, invert it so land is water, and water is land, and call it a day. Sometimes, I turn Earth upside down (south pole facing north) and use anagrams of the continents to rename them (Africa becomes Cari'fa or Ra'Cifa). But most of the time, I prefer to use Torin, because Forgotten Realms really did a great job mapping out their world and there are a million resources on what one can find (population, power structure, laws, religion, and popular shops, pubs, and inns) in each town. But Torin doesn't translate perfectly over to D&D and I'm not really interested in learning the Forgotten Realms rules, since none of my friends whom I play with want to learn them either. Plus, while it is similar to Earth in design, it's not so identical to Earth that the PCs don't have the luxury of getting lost and being forced to explore their way through the world around them.

Did anyone ever map out the D&D world? Is there a resource for this out there that I don't know about?

[Flickerdart]

Do you mean Greyhawk? Because while that is the standard D&D setting, there are many other settings.

[missmvicious]

I just pulled up a link to it on Google. Is this it?
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=greyhawk+map&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

It doesn't seem complete though, but that's the closest thing to an actual map of the D&D world I've ever found. Where do you find your maps?

[Siosilvar]

I'm having a hard time believing that Toril doesn't convert over to D&D well, because Forgotten Realms is (probably) the most well-known D&D setting, but that's probably due to the influence of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Only Greyhawk might be more widely known.

As for Forgotten Realms rules... you can just ignore the campaign-specific classes/feats/etc if you like.

EDIT: And my maps? I like to draw my own. Not perfect, tend to change over time, unexplored and unspecified areas... feels like the era of adventure to me!

[Flickerdart]

This (http://www.greyhawkonline.com/duicarthan/oerth.jpg) is an overview of Oerth, the world of Greyhawk. You can find more detailed maps of particular regions on Google though.

[Yora]

Those names of the lands are real? :smallbiggrin:

Man, the 70s and 80s were a different time. Today you'd never get any second glances with names like those.

[EccentricCircle]

Greyhawk is the original setting created by Gary Gygax. It is set on the planet Oerth, At least one continent of it is mapped out in great detail (the Flanaess which the links in previous posts show). and I would imaging that others have been as well, albeit not in more recent (3.5/4e) books. Greyhawk was considered to be "The D&D world" throughout 3e but they didn't release much information on the specifics of the setting. the Greyhawk Gazeteer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Greyhawk_Gazetteer) is the most detailed 3.5 book on the setting, but is a relativly thin paperback which doesn't measure up to other 3.5 campaign settings such as Forgotten Realms and Eberron. Greyhawk has never been revisited in 4e although it is occasionally mentioned.

4e took the philosophy that the "D&D world" should be poorly defined. they mapped out a small area (about the size of one country) which is presented in some detail in the DMG, and alusions are frequently made to the history of that world and the other parts of it.
to my knowledge the only work that presents a grand map of the new D&D world is the relatively new board game "Conquest of Nerath" (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/338060000) I don't think that details of the new D&D world exist, at least not in the lavish detail that forgotten realms has.

a variety of other worlds have also been presented, 4e has books on Forgotten Realms, Eberron and Dark Sun. 3e had a large number of Books on both the Realms and Eberron, as well as single book works describing a few other settings (Oriental Adventures, Ghost Walk, Dragonlance, and the aforementioned Greyhawk book).
some present world maps and gazeteers, I'd say forgotten realms is the best supported of them all with eberron in close second. (at least in recent editions, Dragonlance had a lot of material in earlier editions)

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you refer to "Forgotten Realms Rules" all of the forgotten realms stuff works fine with D&D as written, some books present realms specific classes, feats etc, but you could theoretically run a game in the realms with nothing but the D&D core rulebooks and a general idea of the world, from reading the novels or playing the video games.

I really like your method of inverting the continents and oceans, i'll have to play about with that some time! and making up anagrams is always fun. I find that creating an interesting fantasy world is one of the best bits about DMing. I read a lot about the existing worlds and freely borrow interesting ideas from them. but if I create my own settings then the players will never know quite what to expect.

[missmvicious]

Toril is what I know, and honestly, I should've learned to play Forgotten Realms rather than D&D, because I love that world. Ever since I picked up The Crystal Shard, I've been a slave to The Realms as a reader, and their characters are just awesome: Elminster, Cadderly, Artemis Entreri, and let's not forget, Drizzt Do'Urden. Part (but not the main reason) of why I use Toril in my campaigns is so that the player's may get the off-chance of meeting one of these characters.

But I use a lot of religion and philosophy in my campaigns, and the god-systems clash a lot. I know that's majoring in the minors, but it's why I want to use a D&D system map.

Toril isn't a bad fit; it's just an odd fit... not like putting a square peg in a round hole so much as putting a square peg in a rhombus hole. You can mash it in there and make it work, but in the end, you feel like you did it wrong. I just feel like I'm being lazy and self indulgent by using Toril, and I want to make it right, but until now (and I know your going to think I've been living under a rock) I had never even heard of Greyhawk. So, I'm guessing it's a D&D exclusive world, which is perfect! But the map I found only looks like 1 continent, which is a great start, but I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the complete world map. The picture looks like it came from a book, so I'm hoping there's a book resource (or downloadable PDF) of those maps somewhere. I'm going to build all future 3.5 and 4e campaigns off of it.

[Flickerdart]

Toril is what I know, and honestly, I should've learned to play Forgotten Realms rather than D&D
Um.

FR isn't a system. It's a setting that has appeared in several editions of D&D.

[missmvicious]

This (http://www.greyhawkonline.com/duicarthan/oerth.jpg) is an overview of Oerth, the world of Greyhawk. You can find more detailed maps of particular regions on Google though.

You get 1,000 XP!

Thank you, kindly.

[Yora]

Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are both D&D exclusive worlds. So are Eberron, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Planescape, plus a couple more that few people have heard off.

[missmvicious]

Um.

FR isn't a system. It's a setting that has appeared in several editions of D&D.

Well, maybe I don't understand, or I'm not using the right terminology. I've got 32 PDFs on the subject of Forgotten Realms as a dice game, and frankly, I find it a bit intimidating. I never look at them; it seemed to me like it was it's own system (same company, I know, but companies can make different games).

I played a little D&D 2.0 as a kid (like 3 or 4 sessions), and then was reintroduced to it in v3.5 a couple of years ago, and was overwhelmed by how complicated it had become. It took me long enough just to understand the 3.5 rules well enough to DM my own campaign, I just didn't want to bother with Eberron, Forgotten Realms, or DragonLance, especially when I found out that, in my area at least, 3.5 is being pulled off the shelf and 4e was taking over. Talk about frustrating... I poured hours of my life into trying to understand those freaking 3.5 books... and that was just the core books. But now I'm ranting.

[Yuki Akuma]

Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons. It's Dungeons and Dragons. There is no separate game, and there never has been one.

Campaign settings like Forgotten Realms or Eberron rarely contain any new fundamental rules. Usually, just new races, feats, spells and/or prestige classes to fit the setting. It's still the same game, and the content is fully cross-compatible.

For instance, Artificer is technically an Eberron class, but you'll often find people playing them in games that aren't set on the planet Eberron.

[missmvicious]

Well, that makes the setting seem less imposing then.

Even so, I've got my map of Oerth now, and have already started looking up some of the vital statistics of the region. I'm pretty satisfied.