Game Setting
The Setting
Decide what the world that surrounds the protagonists is like.
You’re probably already familiar with the idea of a setting, but in short, it’s everything that the characters interact with, such as people, organizations and institutions, technology, strange phenomena, and mysteries (crime, intrigue, and cosmic or historical legend). These are the sort of things that characters want to engage with, are forced to engage with, look to for help, or stand in their way.
If you’re using a setting that already exists, from a movie, novel, or other game book, then many of these ideas are ready for you to use. Of course, you’ll also likely add your own spin on things: new organizations or different mysteries to uncover.
Decide how epic or personal your story will be.
The setting might be small or it might be vast, but where your stories take place determines the scale of your game.
In a small-scale game, characters deal with problems in a city or region, they don’t travel a great deal, and the problems are local. A large-scale game involves dealing with problems that affect a world, a civilization, or even a galaxy if the genre you’re playing in can handle that kind of thing. (Sometimes, a small-scale game will turn into a large-scale one over time, as you’ve probably seen in long-running novel series or television shows.)