GM makes a campaign map for the new group

Jesus you faggots, rivers aren't that fucking hard. Did you not fucking learn this shit in elementary school?
They flow downwards. That is ALL you actually need to fucking know. Do you not actually know how fucking water flows? Why is this such a problem? It's frankly pretty disturbing that this is a constant issue around here.

How big of a town was it? Because, to be fair, either they would build their own, shittier road to connect to the main at a later date or it would be built to help accommodate them since their success lends itself to the general wealth of the area. Unless, of course, they've intentionally done it to avoid further interaction with others and remain somewhat isolated which is completely fair.

brainlet

>They flow downwards. That is ALL you actually need to fucking know.
In that case i'm going to have all my rivers split into at least 3 different rivers at multiple points in their stream.

It's probably mostly people bitching about how most rivers don't appreciably split in two going downstream with relatively few exceptions aside from islands I guess.

>party comes across a river in the desert
>it flows inwards from the ocean
>uphill
>into the mountains
>party rides river raft uphill for miles
>terminates in a lake at the top of a mountain
>there are whales in the lake

That's just surreal enough to work.

>In the language of the natives, it's name is "First River"
>According to their creation myths, it was the first river created by their god before he really got a hang of things
>They avoid bringing it up because it just embarrasses Him..

P.terry? is that you?

I like it

A RIIIIIIIVEEEEEEER
IN A DRY LAND

>the whales control the water sapping it from areas nearby
>new quest is the kill the whales

River splitting, coast-to-coast rivers, lowlands-to-highlands rivers, rivers getting thinner as they flow... All that shit. You see it all over the place, and it is pretty damn pathetic.

Well it is possible for the river to get thinner in a specific region due to topography or soil causing a drastically deep segment opposed to wide. But yeah, I mean there are some basic things that should be thought of, but at the same time, we have magic and monsters to explain it so just blame water elementals or something for a low-high ground river

Just blame it on a wizard and call it a day.

Yes, you could explain the obvious lack of most basic intuition about how fucking water works by water elementals.
Or you could NOT FUCK IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I once had some dude tell me that my map was weird and didn't really work or look realistic.

It was a map of fucking Britain with the names changed.

People critisize anything.

But user.... what if I PLANNED the water elementals from the start?

Op, I'm just here to give you props for using a Kurosawa gif. Kurosawa gifs should be more popular.
Also, sorry you have to deal with that guy.

Someone post the upside down Europe

Gotchu

Depends on the setting.

If it's a pulpy Conan yarn, then geographic accuracy is far less important than atmosphere. Have fun and concentrate on trampling jewelled thrones beneath your sandalled feet.

If the GM wants us to take the setting seriously, then it helps to have some sort of clue about map-making. There are degrees of accuracy, and being overly nitpicking is not fun although where the line is will vary between groups and individuals. More detail is nice but not required for every game or setting. It's not unreasonble though to expect the GM to at least get the basics right so it's not totally jarring and nonsensical.

The biggest frustration is that 30 minutes of searching "fantasy worldbuilding tips" would solve so many common map problems with fractal rivers or random deserts or whatever. If they can't even do that level of effort then they should not be surprised when people notice.

Put some thought in, make sure everyone knows what to expect from the setting and is onboard, don't be afraid to ask for help. If you are going to use magic to explain unnatural features then make sure it feels consistent with the rest of the world, and not blatantly "A Wizard Did It" as an excuse for lack of fucks given.

as a forever DM, I feel blessed i play with people who would never notice something like this.

Mainly a problem of wannabe worldbuilder.
My players don't care in the fucking least and the average joe will never notice someone like it. I swear, the only people complaining about fucking rivers are people making rivers on theirs map

What the hell is hard about rivers? They flow from high places to low places. They meander along the way (or get braided) and if the place they flow through is wet they get bigger, otherwise they get smaller. Like, seriously. What the hell is hard about rivers?

While on the topic of non-realistic map designs. For my campaign I'm going with the idea that a large portion of the world (at the minimum the region the game is going to be set in) is going to be a honeycomb of mountains surrounding plains/deserts and such. Ignoring the science of tectonics and how that many small plates is unlikely, is the idea of a honeycomb like that viable with having dwarf kingdoms being the gatekeepers to the plains between the different plains to change up the geopolitical landscape from the more standard you'd see?

It depends on how autistic you want to get

>OMG why does this river doesn't branches here instead of back there?, how come theres nos a settlement here?, this flora doesn't grows near rivers, etc.

Honestly one of my player work is to create map and studying the topology of the world
Luckily he's kind enough to not force push his knowledge
I even asked him some tips

I have zero problems with crazy geography. Hell, I like it. The more bizarre, the better. Give me multiple Mordors, zigzag rivers, and upside down mountains.

Well he was right about a few things.
No one in Britain works, they are weirs and its unrealistic how much they want to be exterminated by invading forces.

Depends on just how honeycomb you want to get, but large parts of Iran and the Caucasus are networks of mountain ranges and valleys/plains/deserts. Control over mountain passes becomes very important and it encourages political divisions and decentralisation which would be perfect for your patchwork of Dwarf holds. Highland Persia and Armenia, and maybe the more mountainous portions of the Silk Road in Central Asia might be good inspiration. Have a major trade route network snake through the mountains and you have lots of plot and reasons for heavy interaction between states rather than grumpy isolationists hiding in their valley.

>they are weirs
I've been accused of many things, but never of being a piece of aquatic infrastructure.

Are they trying to become the Pirate King?

What? Dude. His point was that a map of Britain, a real country, didn't look like a real/believable country.

I'd replaced a lot of the names on the map, but I think there was literally a town called London on there. He was just not super observant.

He was making a joke ripping on the people of Britain, relax.

>Make a Rogue Trader game
>Enter new star system
>That's not how planets work
>Get a class in physics and atmoshperic science for an hour
>Nevertouchspaceagain

I'm not even super knowledgeable about it, but after as little as playing some Kerbal Space Program you tend to realize how fucky space travel depictions are in most scifi media. I'm not saying you should be calculating multiple slingshot transfer maneuvers, but at least realize you you don't leave the engine on after you get up to speed and that after entering a solar system you tend to aim for an orbit around *something*.

I had a GM run games for us in a setting like this for a while. The two continents were basically big ovals with random shit placed everywhere.

I didn't question it though because he wasn't a super artsy type and making the world was a huge effort for him, and the world map itself though it didn't look very good was the product of years of effort for him.

Basically to all those guys out there, just don't be a massive sperg and enjoy the game this person went out of their way to put time and effort into writing for you.

>remember playing with an old GM before he went off to do other things
>wake up in a desert, GM describes it "PCs, you wake up in a dead flat, barren, desolate, wasteland with absolutely no defining features"
>PC "Are there any trees around?"
>GM "It is a barren, desolate wasteland."
>PC "What about buildings?"
>GM "As I said, it is a BARREN, desolate wasteland."
>PC "Any rivers around? Any hills, or mountains in the distance?"
>GM "It is a BARREN, DESOLATE WASTELAND user"

This went on for some time much to everyone's amusement. Sometimes you just gotta admit you're stuck in the elemental plane of barren desolate wastelands.

Agreed. that's wacky enough to really get my interest.

Fug. I wish I could say I was only pretending to be retarded, but I wasn't pretending. My bad user.

I hope you know that you're a good person user and as a forever GM, I would have shot myself long ago if it weren't for people like you.

Yeah, I have severe autism and do a fuckton of research and overdo everything, but I realise that others don't actually have serious mental disorders like me so I keep my mouth shut most of the time when I notice some inaccuracies

The kingdom of squarelandia is attacking the kingdom of circlevania. They are connected by a very long bridge.

If it's a setting with magic, terraforming tech and other worldshaping shit it doesn't really matter, now does it? As a matter of fact, it should shine as a point of interest to players, asking themselves "why does it look like that?". That is, if they are really interested and don't want to just piss you off with little bullshit.

Whenether my players come across something that they don't understand or that seems bullshit to them, I just smile and shrug. Because there are things they don't know yet... or things I haven't improvised yet. They learned that it means they haven't connected all the dots yet and that I'm not trying to make up something after messing up. And even if you did mess something up you should NEVER admit it, because it will be the beginning of them watching your moves and considering that everything may be a fail on your end.

Unless messing up is related to mechanics, then yeah, you can't hide that from rulelawyers.

>Playing with That Guys
Show them the doors

>player comments about a feature of your map
>spill your spaghetti and scream at them and tell them to leave

wew

It's the reverse, you faggot. The lower the terrain, the more water assumulates in lowest existing point, thus less and less branches.
It's like you never saw a fucking river basin on a map, you fucking moron.

>Player throws autistic tantrum over procedurally-generated map
>Not throwing such person out before they start being truly autistic
Here is a raw deal - if someone starts the game with complaining about "unrealistic map", chances are they are going to keep on going with nit-picking of shit that doesn't matter in the slightest, non-stop derailing the game. I'm playing since '98. Saw my share of this shit and I'm simply tired of this at this point. It was passable when we were teens, but when you have 30+ people at the table and someone starts to bitch about map design, you get rid of them ASAP. I don't have time for that shit, because having a regular game in the first place is rare event when you are trying to fit 5 different scheludes

>someone politely comments on your map
>you can't take criticism and see it as "autistic tantrums"
>continuously call people autistic
>there were autists in the base
>I must fight the autists
>no user you are the autists
>and then user was a chris-chan

>Let me further dwell into imaginary scenario that didn't happen
Not even him, but are you retarded or just trying too hard?

Last time I've checked, this thread was dedicated to That Guy bitching, and not "player politely commenting".
Here, grab the (You), apparently you need it really bad

Reverse mountain is a pretty cool concept

>thread about tabletop setting maps that violate real life geological norms without any in-setting reason
>sperg spergs about spergs sperging about sperg maps
>posting about the thread topic is bait

57493348

>Reverse mountain
Explain

>that guy immediately starts questioning the geography of his rivers and placement of his mountains in relation to the climatography
>MAGIC

THE LAST ACE IN A LOST HAND

An alternative response, instead of going "aw shit my rivers are wrong, gonna have to re-draw them", is to go "no, the rivers _are_ drawn right, the players just don't know _why_ the river is ruler-straight for the last third of its length".
Hell, ask the person criticizing the map to voice some ideas about why the river or the road or whatever might be doing what the map shows it's doing. There are straight rivers in real life when the underlying geology forces the issue. Maybe there's a giant fucking forest where there should be a desert because a second-dynasty elf decided to magic a giant fucking forest there.
Maybe an ancient epic wizard made the coastline perfectly straight in a fit of autism and there are still sages studying the lingering magic to this day.
Maybe that river that doesn't seem to have a logical source really doesn't, and the source is a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water that someone forgot about sealing up.

At the end of the day you're not making a world that must abide exactly by all the same principles as ours, and you're the GM, so if you say something is the way it is, the players can suck it up.

This is the point where you just RELENTLESSLY start ripping on any character they make as stupid, unrealistic, not fitting the setting, etc. I mean keep this shit up for several days, so that they get the point. Ideally, you do this until they leave the group entirely, because whether or not they learn their lesson, they're still gonna be a disruptive cunt.

(The best part is? You're in complete control of the setting. By definition, you're right, and he's wrong, at all times and in any conflict. After all, it's you who can declare "Yes, but you're in a setting with magic and terraforming," not that cunt.)

The real hard part for me is the map's geology :
Is there porous material where rivers will flow ? Is there subduction and other movement of the terrestrial crust in this setting ?

For the climate, I'll just use a west to east wind.

wow you sound like a fun guy

Ripping on assholes is pretty fun, yeah.

oh dear god what ever shall we do to explain this physical impossibility in a world full of FUCKING WIZARDS

Go 2 minutes in

youtu.be/jYyiwEvgniQ

I would fug pre-timeskip Nami.

I would fug Nami any day of the year

Holy shit you're retarded. Follow the fucking chain you dumbass. I was being facetious in response to some asshole making sweeping claims you autist.

Wakfu had the best response to this problem. Ignore it, and actively make the map as wacky as possible.

>You step out of thick foliage of the swamp, greeted by a hot dry wind from a desert stretching past the horizon. You look to either side, and the world is split into flat brown plains and thick jungle.

>who designed this, an alien?
Gets me every time.

why did the creator fuck up black sea

Nothing's hard about rivers, but it's when people get stupid as user rightly points out.
>WOAH HEY that river wouldn't branch here and hey that flora wouldn't be there why is this bridge here and not there what is the topography what is the geological history of this landmass

>player's first response to you making them a map is to nitpick it in every possible way for minor details because they don't have a bachelor's degree in cartography

Show them the doors.

>climatography
Why the fuck did he make a climatography as well?

I've found that telling players the map has been hand-drawn by an in-character mapmaker works well, because a medieval mapmaker wouldn't be concerned or knowledgable of the exact angle and progression of a river down to small details. He'd just draw a squiggly line and call it a day.

That actually makes a fair bit of sense, it’d also be fun to have issues arise due to this, meaning the characters would have to still figure out the lay of the land

I'd rather defend than counterattack like this, desu.

And Iceland

Not him but fucking up on purpose is still fucking up

It didn't explain shit. How is it a reverse mountain? It lools like a more or like regular mountain with retarded rivers.

To fuck up any point he could have had and to miserably fail at the attempt to hide that it's obviously Europe.

Isn't that a good thing?
Make a session 0, and if someone has a problem try to work with them to fix it

The Idea I was going for was mountains completely surrounding the middle flat zones. The dwarves are relatively neutral to who passes through their great tunnels to other zones in theory, but the kingdom my players would be from are not happy with the inhabitants of their plain and work with the nomads of a neighboring region to clear it for expansion.

>World where gods are actual beings, fireballs can be slung from the hand, weapons can glow light and zombies, golems, demons, and other monsters exist.

>Rivers don't work that way

>whales get their power from their luxurious beards gifted to them by the First Gods.
>campaign slogan is Shave the Whales

I hate it when people use the old "There is magic in this world so fuck your realism" argument. The thing is that in fantasy worlds everything is just like in our world except the things that are clearly stated to be different. Otherwise you'd have to describe even the most basic shit like gravity and, yes, the way rivers work .

Ho boy, bridges. Don't get me started on bridges. The bottom line is: bridges before riveting were little marvels of technology. If it isn't some important trade route and the river is biggish, you will see barges and not bridges.

>play with a different group.