As others have pointed out, I think this has been more of a statement from individulas ("...I don't want Sartar mapped dpwn to the last tree...") rather than a statement of policy from Issaries.
And even if it wasn't the two are not necessarily related. Maps are made for showing to players, to help them get a feel for where they are - it becomes difficult if you have changed every detail for your own campaign - NPC's are "invisible" to players except when you choose to let them interact. If you don't want a given NPC to be chief of a Clan in your campaign, or want to give him a different set of skills the players need never know - they might spot you describing a mighty river in full flood when the map shows an open plain.
>> of providing useful narrator characters. I do not seem them as
>> fillers. Do you not want narrator characters in your settings
>> supplements?
>
>NARRATOR characters, not necessarily pregenerated NPC's. I quite
>like some NPC's from the game authors, but frex L5R suffered from
>having far, far too many at the expense of actually useful
>information. The question is not whether I want pregenerated
>characters - the question is, is a pregen character an effective and
>valuable use of page count?
L5R suffered from mostly including Stats for people that the average PC was unlikely to meet /interact with in a way that needed the stats. The NPC's given in BA are people who you might meet. Under the L5R model we would have had Leader Sheets for Kallyr, Harrek, Broyan and Termatain...
>
>>I was hoping for a better map with the new full-size format.
>>However as the BA material is set at clan level, and most activity
>>will take place on your or your hostile clan's tula it is not the
>>obstacle it might seem at first. Our game has survived for the last
>>18 months without any more detailed official maps that are
>>avialable on the website.
>
I'd settle for a good map of a typical/sample Heortling Tula. I don't need a detailed map of, say, the route from "my clan" to Jonstown, it is enough to know it is x days travel, and the needs of the story can largely determine the rest of the details (If all I care about is the destination then it can be dealt with in a sentance or two. If part of the object of the journey is to meet potential allies or enemies then they will be there at the apropriate time).
>
> > There was certainly nowhere near the cultural information made
> > available by Storm Tribe or Thunder Rebels for these supplements.
>
> But how much cultural information IS there really?
Loads
> The avoidance of material culture - population distribution, proper
> mapping, mechanisms of production, common sets of tools - have been
> touched upon but probably less deeply than in almost any other RPG
> I possess (given that I no longer possess any D&D).
I'd say we have far more cultural information in ST/TR/BA than the whole of the L5R product line, for example, since AEG is more interested in selling us a story than a setting. With the exception of City of Lies, most of L5R's cultural information is like much of its original history - throw a load of random facts at the page and hope no one looks too deeply... (or compares one page with another)
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