Also, it matters on what genre the roleplay happens to be. For instance, if it is a superhero roleplay, at some point, the characters will be in New York City or something similar (Gotham City and Metropolis as examples from DC). Also, it can be tied to the character mythos, too. For instance, on the contrary to what Marvel is doing with Spider-Man under Dan Slott, Spider-Man will almost always be based in New York (exceptions being Spider-Man India, Spider-Man 1602, etc). The Batman will be in Gotham City and Superman will be in Metropolis.

Obviously, you don't have to stick with those cities. Super-heroes can and do visit other cities. It is just that some cities are tied to certain characters and publishers.

Pretty much NYC is America's Cardiff.

Insanely enough, most of those TV/movie scenes were shot in Vancouver. But Canadian laws don't much approve of such shenanigans for a good RP.

Two of the best shows I've seen recently (True Detective Season 1 and The Walking Dead) are set in neither of those places.

I've lived around LA, lived in Tokyo, spent a lot of time in NYC, visited Rome, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, etc, etc, etc.

There's a certain energy to big cities, and the ones you listed are simply the ones most seen in media. And I think that's the key: it's what most people see in media. When deciding on RP locations, you usually pick a place the most people have some bloody inkling about instead of not.

Probably not that deep, and could just boil down to that: it's what the most amount of people "know."

I've lived around LA, lived in Tokyo, spent a lot of time in NYC, visited Rome, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, etc, etc, etc.

Oh, so you've visited HK and SG? And even lived in Tokyo?

For me, I've been to some Southern cities of China, HK, Macau, and most of Japan. I haven't been to any European or the more west side of the globe, but I have a relative who lives in Las Vegas - sometimes when I need clarification on how LV really looks like, I'll get her to send me pictures. :P

Personally I'm more familiar with eastern geography than the west, so most of my works tend to set in Asian countries rather than places in America or Europe. Occasionally I would use Australia or New Zealand (which are the top two countries I plan to travel to on my list).

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I for one would go and see the un-touristy parts of Africa and Central Asia.

I can't believe ya'll are actually still talking about this. I forgot I made this thread.