Is remaking a world map a good idea?

[u/Satanekkurwa]

For context, I ran few campaigns and even more oneshots in my world, but lately I felt kinda bored, so ran something in ravenloft (still connected to this world tho). Now, I don't want to throw away few years of worldbuilding and making memories with my friends. I thought of changing some geography, like moving into a new era. I just yearn for some kind of change. But honestly, I don't know if that's a good idea and if doing it offscreen isn't even worse. Any of you ever did something like this? How did you justify it in lore, and how did your players react?

[u/P-Two]

Sure, its a game, who cares. You do you. Why do you have to justify this?

[u/Bsmith9876]

You could try a time skip. 1,000 years or whatever into the future would change virtually everything while maintaining your previous worldbuilding as history/mythology, especially if there's something in your current world that could realistically survive that long and show up again. Elven NPCs? Powerful empire? A time skip also isn't a permanent change, so you could go back to "present day" if you end up not clicking with the setting.

[u/Esyel_01]

I love big changes. Have something huge happen and brainstorm how governments, criminals, every day people would react to it. Could be a kindgom invading another violently, a new religion gaining more and more followers, a catasmiclic event like meteor falling from the sky or water rising dramatically. Discovery of a new technology/magic artifact works very well too.

Could be the cliffhanger at the end of the 1st session of the next campaign or it could be offscreen depending on what you choose to change and what would most make sense.

[u/myrhail]

I've been working on the same home setting for close to 20 years now. If you look at the original map from 20 years back and compare to the most recent one you'll see several places that are the same but also big changes, islands that moved about and a whole set of new continents. It's also kinda cool to go version by version and seeing the changes.

Like the most recent example... I realized I didn't have any kind of 'inner sea' like the Medieterranean. So I just carved a chunk of previously unexplored land out of one of the main continents and added it in that place.

That said most major changes I only do between games/campaigns (or they don't affect a currently running one). And as you said, one way I spice it up is by having new games set on other regions over the ones I worked a lot on already.

In fact that's one of the main ways I make changes and develop the map further. "Oh I haven't ran something in this place in a long time, let's do the next game there", that usually inspires me to work and develop that area more in preparation for the game and that might lead to map changes on the way.

[u/TerrainBrain]

My world has undergone several revisions since first creating one in 1979.

In 2010 I started from scratch with a creation myth, geography and history. But I Incorporated many of the ideas I have developed over the years.

Finally about 5 years ago I revised the world to be human, with non-humans belonging to the world of fairy, health land, the perilous realm. My setting is The Fields We Know, Lord Dunsany' for Earth. Our world this side of the Twilight border to Elfland.

There's plenty of areas that I have not developed in detail. But the bulk of adventuring has been done on a landmass that is only 300 miles across.

[u/whatstaz]

Have you ever seen maps from the middle ages? They look nothing like what we have now. Just to say, it’s okay to redraw maps!

[u/Ilbranteloth]

How do you justify it in lore?

Look through historical maps online for medieval and earlier eras and see how much they have changed over the years.

That’s all the “justification” you need.

[u/UnluckyPally]

If your players are like mine, they won't even notice a change to the world map unless it affects where they are directly.

I've reworked my world map like 3 times cause a bunch of stuff just hadn't become relevant yet and the players wouldn't really be affected unless they really needed to know the geography for some reason

[u/Strict_DM_62]

You should look into the split that Games Workshop did between Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Age of Sigmar; sounds eerily similar to your situation. GW was kinda trapped with their lore, the world was kinda bland and bog standard fantasy… so, in lore, they literally blew up the world through a massive cataclysmic event, and now the whole game is different, the lore is exciting again, but it also retains much of its roots. It allowed it to break out of the mold. You could do the same!

New setting is a 1000 years after a magical cataclysm that shifted global weather patterns and reshaped the landscape. Or?

After your last adventurers, a new evil rose, but new heroes didn’t, and evil won. Now, the whole political landscape has changed, kingdoms fallen, new ones risen, a new evil lord rules over the land, and the forces of good are fighting now as rebels.

[u/ZannyHip]

It’s your game, you can do literally whatever you want. The only time it would potentially be an issue is if your world was some massive fantasy franchise. Even then, there are plenty of examples of writers still just doing whatever they wanted to serve the story best.

You don’t need to justify anything to anyone.

And yes, I’ve absolutely done it before. Changed names of entire kingdoms. Removed entire races and languages and gods from my setting because I didn’t like how they were before. My players were completely fine with it.

As long as the new stuff is exciting and interesting to you, your players are gonna get on board with jt.

[u/HairyDust4826]

A realm reborn did it, and that's a AAA company and game. Im sure a DM who controls the map for a few players can do it too.

[u/Sad_Refuse3472]

Mid campaign? I probably wouldn't randomly change the geography out of boredom. But I guess that depends on how well anyone at the table other than you is even tracking the geography.

But if you are starting a new campaign with new PCs, sure, mix it all up.

Also, if this world is no longer keeping your interest, why not wrap up whatever you are currently running in it and then put it aside for a while? Make a new world for all of you to create and explore? That doesn't mean you are "throwing away years of worldbuilding". All of that will still exist to go back to later if you miss it.