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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8819195" data-attributes="member: 29398">Let's try this again... <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=":)" />I completely get this - it's an extension of the idea of leaving blank areas on the map to fill in later as required.But, one thing I've I've learned (sometimes the hard way) is that the hazard with keeping things too foggy and insubstantial is that things in the game world influence other things, and prior knowledge of something's existence may have caused the PCs to have made different decisions in the past than what they did.For example, at the start of my current campaign there was a big blank area in the map north of what was intended to be the primary adventuring area.  Sure enough, before long the PCs went there, so a few towns etc. appeared on the map and that area has since become quite important in the ongoing campaign.Fortunately, those towns etc. appeared early enough that it didn't matter; but were I to do this now I risk invalidating decisions made ages ago on the assumption there's nothing out that way.Pantheons are something I always want pretty much nailed down before play begins, in that (thinking meta-game here) if a player wants to run a Cleric it's only fair that said player know what all the options are, and the basics of what's involved with each, when looking to pick a deity to follow during roll-up.It's only when play moves to a whole new part of the world that I get to dream up new deities for that area.Where I'd leave those other dungeons out there, waiting for some other group of adventurers - who may or may not be PCs or even have anything else to do with anything - to find and deal with.  I mean, hey, you can never have too many dungeons in a setting, right? <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=":)" />Perhaps worth noting here that I never assume the PCs are the only adventurers in the setting, as such just doesn't make sense in a setting where adventurers need trainers and PCs might need replacing.Neither.  I detail the areas and things and some people the characters might interact with, such that if-when they do it's ready to rock and I'm not making it all up on the fly.  Further-away things are rough-sketched only, and further-away yet doesn't exist except as maybe the vaguest of ideas in my head.So, using geography as an example, at the start of the current campaign I had an area well-mapped about the size of Washington-Oregon states combined; and an area less-well mapped that would cover, on Earth, roughly Baja up to the arctic circle N-S and Denver to the west coast E-W.  Over time those maps have slowly expanded; the less-well-mapped area now goes way into the southern hemisphere and somewhat farther east and west (particularly north-west) than before, while more and more patches of well-mapped area are appearing as PCs and parties spend time there.But I've still got well over 3/4 of the world's surface that has yet to be mapped. <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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