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RE: Think Small, Adventure Big
I've done this several times, and it definitely works !
The only issue I've found is maintaining scale consistency as the map grows. After a few years, the initial area looks small compared to the whole map, but with a lot going on inside it. But (and maybe it's just my own personal flaw) if I deliberately constrain the initial area by making it in some way completely self-contained (an island, space station, elemental sub-plane or whatever), I soon get frustrated with the inability to introduce new themes and expand the world.
0.00020880 BEE
The way I look at it, even if not self-contained (which I've done many times), it does translate to real life in a way. A lot of people will have explored the woods around their hometown growing up, and ventured into the next city. If you look at it from a fantasy lens, of course the person is going to know the area around the beginning really well, but not know much about the next place they go.
It's completely fine to make the start area hyper-detailed and it gets sparse the more they venture out. Once the characters are on the world stage, they care not what happens in the little forest outside the keep if they are worried about two rival kings going at each other's throat.
Good point ! My main homebrew world has definitely moved from the local events stage, and I sometimes find it hard to focus back to the local level when a new low level party starts off.
After more than 40 years of play (on and off), about 50% of the Northern hemisphere has been adventured in. But it's D&D, so if they go off the edge into an unexplored bit that says "Here be dragons", they'd better believe it means what it says 😁
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