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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7386466" data-attributes="member: 29398">The risk with making stuff like this up on the fly is that you'll make something up that's geologically or geographically implausible or impossible and not realize it until it's too late, by which time you're stuck with it because it's affected play somehow.&nbsp; If you at least map out your world (or at least the bits of it most likely to see play) ahead of time you can find and fix these errors before they get baked in...or intentionally bake in some implausibilities as you've had the time to come up with good in-game rationales for them (e.g. the 3000-mile-long mile-high cliff in my game world called the Godswall - geologically ridiculous but I've a good in-game reason for its being there which I won't post here as none of my players know what that reason is yet)Also, having a basic map of things that would be known to the PCs allows the players to make informed decisions as you can simply plop the map down in front of them and they can use it just like I use an atlas to plan a road trip.&nbsp; We've got two weeks to kill while the wizard trains up? OK - it's 6 days walk to Karnos (port town) then probably another week at sea to get to Spieadeia (big city) - nope, we can't get there and back in time; shopping will have to wait.I know I as player have looked at a DM's player-side map and wondered what a particular place was all about, even though I'd never had a PC anywhere near it.Lanefan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7386466, member: 29398"] The risk with making stuff like this up on the fly is that you'll make something up that's geologically or geographically implausible or impossible and not realize it until it's too late, by which time you're stuck with it because it's affected play somehow. If you at least map out your world (or at least the bits of it most likely to see play) ahead of time you can find and fix these errors before they get baked in...or intentionally bake in some implausibilities as you've had the time to come up with good in-game rationales for them (e.g. the 3000-mile-long mile-high cliff in my game world called the Godswall - geologically ridiculous but I've a good in-game reason for its being there which I won't post here as none of my players know what that reason is yet) Also, having a basic map of things that would be known to the PCs allows the players to make informed decisions as you can simply plop the map down in front of them and they can use it just like I use an atlas to plan a road trip. [I]We've got two weeks to kill while the wizard trains up? OK - it's 6 days walk to Karnos [/I](port town)[I] then probably another week at sea to get to Spieadeia [/I](big city)[I] - nope, we can't get there and back in time; shopping will have to wait.[/I] I know I as player have looked at a DM's player-side map and wondered what a particular place was all about, even though I'd never had a PC anywhere near it. Lanefan [/QUOTE]

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