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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8133352" data-attributes="member: 29398">This is why I don't use pre-fab settings: to avoid just this, and to avoid 'canon arguments'.One of my big campaigns used FR as the setting, except the core part where the PCs were based and did most of their adventuring (which was pretty much everything north of Water deep and west of the Anauroch Desert) was completely stripped out and re-done.  Which meant yes, I too had players go to Waterdeep; fortunately neither I nor they were steeped in FR lore so no real arguments arose.When they went to Baldur's Gate, however, I ran aground: one of the players had played the video game set there and so I couldn't just make stuff up.Were it me, if the action all takes place in one city I'd want that city mapped down to the nails before ever starting play.EDIt to add: and were I a player running a character in that city, the first thing I'd have my PC do is buy or steal an accurate map of the place.Exactly - and that framework IMO needs to be solid enough such that things can and will make sense not just now but two or five or ten years from now.  Therre's no way I'm going to be able to do this during play and keep play going at the same time, so doing as much of it ahead of time as I can becomes the answer. (which is a large part of why I don't start new campaigns very often as thus far each has represented well over a year of pre-play design and prep)IME players' note-taking is unreliable at best and non-existent at worst; and this includes me-as-player. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Where to me that sort of error is close to unforgivable, and red-flags me that if the GM can mess up something this simple who knows what else is going to be messed up as things progress.Until and unless that correction retroactively affects play; and it's absolutely inevitable that at some point it will.A simple example: an 800' wall takes longer to run along to get around the corner than does a 600' wall, and if a character dies due to not being able to get to cover in time and then it's found later that this was due to the wall's length increasing 200' by mistake - yeah, that game's on its way over the cliff.</blockquote>

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