What would make for a more fun setting...

>>Floating shark archipelago
>>Not sharkipelago
For shame

well, In some fantasy settings there are weird cosmological differences to how the world really works. you can essentially either expand world to "Cosmos" using weird magic transportation to get to unexplored worlds or planes. or you have a super large not round world that doesn't allow for satellites in some way.

this

also spellforce had this in someway, just that a magic war basically torn the world asunder and the pieces left are islands "floating" around, connected by portals. magic and stuff still available but connection between islands basically cut off so stuff can happen

not connection, meant communication cut off...

Kek, what a missed opportunity.

Unexplored settings in general.
Human superiority.

I fucking love Hunter x Hunter

Somehow have a planet as habitable as Earth with the surface area of Jupiter. Tons of continents the size of ours, but also with truly massive ones. Huge varieties of life and customs and languages.

The only trick is finding a way to handwave the impossibility of the thing ever existing

>Somehow have a planet as habitable as Earth with the surface area of Jupiter.
>The only trick is finding a way to handwave the impossibility of the thing ever existing
If you're going to handwave away how planetary formation works, why bother making a spherical planet at all? Make the world an endless flat plane.
Hell, make it an endless hyperbolic plane - who's going to stop you?

Define "unexplored". The world's a big place. You think there are no mysteries left because you can look at lines on a map and claim you know the lay of the land? Lord only knows what you'd find if you wander off the beaten path in a modern magical setting.

Mu doesn't appear on any maps because the magics concealing it won't allow it to. Eldorado is still there, a single step sideways in time and Vegas gets real interesting. You can't even see Shambala on satellite feeds without the permission of the High Lama.

Do You know what's buried under the Rocky Mountains, or hidden in the valleys of Appalachia? Have you walked every inch of the Canadian tundra? What's down the road? What's around the bend? What's staring at you from the window of that abandoned building? How deep are the sewers and storm drains of your hometown?

Do you know the name of the shaman living in the third largest village on the second largest tributary of the Congo river? You better learn it, because he's the only one who has the cure for what was just put in your drink.

Because balls look the coolest when you're flying over em

>Because balls look the coolest when you're flying over em
You should look up hyperbolic geometry. Flying over that would be a real trip.

This is my go to solution

Why does everyone have to compulsively make the world larger first thing? There is rarely enough material written to fill an earths worth.

>A medieval fantasy one where the world hasn't been fully explored and people still get enticed by strange phenomena in far-off continents? Or a modern one where magic has grown up alongside technology?
Why not both?
I've been running a campaign since 2008 that's roughly equivalent to the 1700's. The party has just traveled to the not!American continent and is wreaking delightful havoc between all the colonies.
>Somehow have a planet as habitable as Earth with the surface area of Jupiter. Tons of continents the size of ours, but also with truly massive ones. Huge varieties of life and customs and languages.
That's my world.
>The only trick is finding a way to handwave the impossibility of the thing ever existing
My players haven't figured it out yet, but they're really adventuring inside a Dyson Sphere.

a medieval fantasy world that hasn't been fully explored in which a piece of a modern world where magic has grown alongside technology got dropped.
sort of like sci-fi colonization but without getting bogged down in space travel details and atmospheric concerns

A modern setting of humans only where magic has grown up alongside technology, in their version of the space race, figures out how to send capsules to to another world: specifically one that is still medieval fantasy and hasn't been fully explored. In the lower tech world, humans are either a minority or do not exist natively at all.

So you have a small number of isolated outposts of people with magitech they brought with them, but beyond that is swords and sorcery. To keep things interesting, have the swords and sorcery magic be much different in nature from the magic the magitech runs on.

Like, magitech is studying electricity and using that understanding to build computers and shit. Its impressive, but its the TOOL that is impressive. Sorcery is just straight up calling lightning down from the sky and frying your enemy, or turning into a bolt of lightning to cross distances near instantly. Its not as complex and applicable as the magitech is, but its a raw power that magitech used to consider impossible. That should be the difference.

So as a civilization, magitech has most of the advantages. But a single powerful individual running on swords and sorcery rules can cut through unprepared magitech dudes like a knife through butter. Magitech armor is great at using force redirection to pull bullets away from you, and the helmets scramble attempts at magical mind control. But they do not have, for example, a defense against the aptly named "Bones to Lava" spell.

>Why does everyone have to compulsively make the world larger first thing?
Because it's an easy justification for having unexplored lands in a setting with modern-ish tech.

Well then you're going to have to do some major handwaving, the moment a planet gets even slightly larger or smaller than earth you run into serious gravity changes making baseline humans almost impossible. Not to mention the changes in jump rules, flight, ocean physics, weather...

Just making a planet huge means totally different physics.

I have a huge boner for "unexplored frontiers" in a fantasy setting. The concept of "you are literally adventurers, beyond those hills is untouched land, we have no idea what the fuck is out there"

You never need to address gravity at all in a fantasy setting, no one but you will give a shit about the supposed impact this would have on physics
The only people who would care are physicists and the autistic and if they can't suspend their disbelief long enough to enjoy a game set in a fantasy universe with magic and monsters then they shouldn't be playing the game in the first place

You could run it like Stargate. Evil Wizards and Dark Gods have been colonizing world's with human slaves at various levels of development for millenia. The Military discovers and reactivates one of the ancient portals, and sends teams of explorers through it to track down more ancient magic. Hijinks ensue.

Or you can just say "it just works" It's fantasy, doesn't have to make total sense

>The world was once a single planet
>Due to a magical calamity of untold proportions, the planet was shattered into dozens of pieces
>It is only in recent times that magic engineering has allowed our chunk of the world to open bridges to the other chunks
>It is now an age of exploration, as the races of the world set out to explore the chunks of the planet that have not been touched in millennia
Would you be into that kind of setting?

Might as well post because I'm here to begin with...

There was a vidya I played called Battle Garegga where petrol engines are only 20 years old and powered flight has only existed for 10, so as a result most of the world is uncolonized and nature is still pristine. However, technology is advancing so quickly that people can't even keep complete track of it themselves, and over the course of the game a war breaks out. I was thinking something like that where the "natural" part is a bit crazier would be pretty cool. There's no magic though, just dieselpunk stuff.

It could work, but you'd need to make sure that actually impacts how things play out. Otherwise it's just wasted detail.

>Hey here are these two options for a thing, which one is better?
>LOL BOTH! COMBINE THEM XD

...

A somewhat confused setting that you are enthusiastic about is almost always preferable to a well-designed setting that you aren't. If you like things, you may as well try and combine them.

In what way do you mean?

I came here to post this.

Shit, man, we're just now finding entire networks of abandoned cities and undiscovered species on a regular basis. You think a world laden with horrible magics, pocket dimensions, and god knows what else wouldn't have a few nooks and crannies that haven't been fully mapped?

>other races
>suffering the xeno to live
>ever
disgusting senpai

>What would make for a more fun setting? A medieval fantasy one where the world hasn't been fully explored and people still get enticed by strange phenomena in far-off continents? Or a modern one where magic has grown up alongside technology?
Between the two, I prefer the former for running games, and the latter for telling stories.

Also, is a world where Humans are the only race better than one where other races co-exist with them?
Former for storytelling, latter for gaming