[quote=Bufotenina]Well to be fair D&D isn't known for the consistency or the structured background (that's one of the reason a miriad of rpg followed this one).
Ok let's try to think about it another way...
The first act's map is something like what ? 1km2 ?
On 1km2 you have :
- a village
- a druid grove
- a swamp
- an inn
- an outpost
- a forest
- an ancient temple
- a goblin's camp in another ancient temple (or something like that
- 3 or 4 entrance to the underdark.
-...
On this 1 km2 you have tons of different creatures.
There are no usual wolves that would have make sense but there are lots of unsusual creatures.
Some of them are here for story events, that's fine... But lots of them are supposed to live in this km2 even if they don't have any place to...
That's something I find strange and inconsistent. That's nothing related to D&D, that's related to the world and map design.
Even the gnolls are just dropped there... Maybe I miss something but where does these hyena comes from ???
A colony of hyena in the 200m between an inn and an outpost on a trade route ?
This world don't look alive at all... Everything looks completely static with things just dropped one after the other without any reasons and consistency.
.
First, your perception of geography is way off - the druid grove alone is probably at least quarter to half mile radius in size - it is no smaller than an average district in the city of BG, which presumably took an hour or two to cross in game time.
So the area we are talking about is at least 5 to 20 km in size.
Let's look art real world USA, in say the 1800's mid-west
In an area of say 5 to 20 km you might find:
- a Fort (outpost)
-a small settlement or two growing to support the outpost, given the protection it affords (a village)
- a tavern/inn/pub, cause where there are settlers and soldiers, there is booze and woman (an Inn)
- a tribe of indigenous native americans (your goblin camp)
- a group of bandits, rustlers, ...( gnolls/minotaurs)
-a mission intent on converting said indigenous native americans (a temple)
-a forest/lake/river/ because people settle where there is water to drink, wood to build with and animals to hunt
-a tribal shaman (druid grove)
- a cemetary/totem pole/sweat lodge/fill in the place of religious significance - because where people are, there is ALWAYS such a place ( an ancient temple)
-caves leading to coal/iron/gold/silver etc. mine -again where you have mountains you have caves, where you have caves and people you have mines ...(entrances to the underdark)
-An isolated farm, ranch, mill or cabin (your haglands)
- wolves, bears, bobcats, snakes, spiders, eagles, bison, and maybe a shark or three in the water.
I can point out plenty of places even in NY as an example, where in the 1700's you had a granite mine alongside the water, serviced by an ironsmith and a wheelwright, manned by folks from town, who drank in a tavern, went to church, which would try and get the local tribal natives to convert and protected by a garrison in a fort.
And that is before you take into consideration some group or other consolidating groups into an armed force for one reason or another.
As for the different "philosophies" of druids, thieflings, goblins, gnolls etc all in one area, I give you my block - democrats, republicans, independants, liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians of various races, religions, etc. - just in a tine piece of my neighborhood - say 50 houses.
So no, I don't see a problem with how Larian stocked the area.
