Pokemon Gyms
You can ignore this post. XD.
The reason why I wanted to use my own league was because I didn't know quite enough about Johto and Kanto. In the anime and the games, we only see from one point of view and one distinct route. In "reality", you can travel anywhere - you could probably walk straight from Pallet to Fuchsia if you knew where to go. Those trees that you can't walk through in the game are actually forests, just like Veridian. Ash just happened to go through the Veridian forest, and so did the character in your game, thus it's the only forest that people recognize.
In the anime, there are a lot of cities Ash and co travel through that do not appear to have gyms, but do not occur in the games. The only cities that don't are the starting cities and (in Johto,) Cherrygrove. Plus, Gary (*drool*) collected 10 badges from the Kanto league alone. He didn't get the Earth or Volcano Badge, which means there are at LEAST 12 badges in the Kanto league, and who knows how many cities.
Why don't I just use my own league, then, as I planned to before? Weeeell, I figured I could make everything fit the exact same way if I stuck my story in Johto. Plus, I wouldn't have to make up all the gym leaders and new characters and everything. It'd be really hectic making up so many backstories and have people recognize all of them when they're not even going to be around for very long.
'Course, I could
a) use Johto and conveniently land Azucena in all the cities Ash goes through
b) use Johto and make up cities
c) NOT use Johto and stick with my own league
Right now, I'm researching Johto all I can so that I might pick up a city or two to use. Gyah, this is so hard. ;_;.
EDIT: Also, I found out a few minutes (an hour?) ago that the leagues are based off of different places in Japan. SOCOOLYAY.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johto -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai)
The reason why I wanted to use my own league was because I didn't know quite enough about Johto and Kanto. In the anime and the games, we only see from one point of view and one distinct route. In "reality", you can travel anywhere - you could probably walk straight from Pallet to Fuchsia if you knew where to go. Those trees that you can't walk through in the game are actually forests, just like Veridian. Ash just happened to go through the Veridian forest, and so did the character in your game, thus it's the only forest that people recognize.
In the anime, there are a lot of cities Ash and co travel through that do not appear to have gyms, but do not occur in the games. The only cities that don't are the starting cities and (in Johto,) Cherrygrove. Plus, Gary (*drool*) collected 10 badges from the Kanto league alone. He didn't get the Earth or Volcano Badge, which means there are at LEAST 12 badges in the Kanto league, and who knows how many cities.
Why don't I just use my own league, then, as I planned to before? Weeeell, I figured I could make everything fit the exact same way if I stuck my story in Johto. Plus, I wouldn't have to make up all the gym leaders and new characters and everything. It'd be really hectic making up so many backstories and have people recognize all of them when they're not even going to be around for very long.
'Course, I could
a) use Johto and conveniently land Azucena in all the cities Ash goes through
b) use Johto and make up cities
c) NOT use Johto and stick with my own league
Right now, I'm researching Johto all I can so that I might pick up a city or two to use. Gyah, this is so hard. ;_;.
EDIT: Also, I found out a few minutes (an hour?) ago that the leagues are based off of different places in Japan. SOCOOLYAY.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johto -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai)