Have been mapping out Mauritanja for about a year now, which has involved getting details off any player that would give me them. This has been quite difficult in some respects as people have had some VERY different ideas of where towns / cities / islands should be and there have been upset people, but most of it is placed now and we're writing background for all the towns / cities.
On one hand, it means that we can play the background a lot more, write background for the plot monster that is summoned by a group of shamen in the town of X.
On the other hand, it does mean that any new groups have to play by our background and our rules. If someone wants to come from a town that's next to a river at the bottom of a mountain range where daemons keep opening rifts in the mountains, unless we've got something like that or they can rewirte it, they're stuck with what we give them.
Also, a lot of new groups don't know thbackground and rather than doing the obvious and asking the plot team, they say "We'll be from the island of X. It's south east of Mauritanja." at which point, we don't know to correct them, and they don't know better.
In short, it limits what people can come up with on their own as they have to play by our background, but does mean that they can play by our background and add their own spin on it.
re: mapping
Have been mapping out Mauritanja for about a year now, which has involved getting details off any player that would give me them. This has been quite difficult in some respects as people have had some VERY different ideas of where towns / cities / islands should be and there have been upset people, but most of it is placed now and we're writing background for all the towns / cities.
On one hand, it means that we can play the background a lot more, write background for the plot monster that is summoned by a group of shamen in the town of X.
On the other hand, it does mean that any new groups have to play by our background and our rules. If someone wants to come from a town that's next to a river at the bottom of a mountain range where daemons keep opening rifts in the mountains, unless we've got something like that or they can rewirte it, they're stuck with what we give them.
Also, a lot of new groups don't know thbackground and rather than doing the obvious and asking the plot team, they say "We'll be from the island of X. It's south east of Mauritanja." at which point, we don't know to correct them, and they don't know better.
In short, it limits what people can come up with on their own as they have to play by our background, but does mean that they can play by our background and add their own spin on it.