This article is a follow-up to my earlier Campaign Setting Design article. It expands somewhat on the idea of entities (there called ‘features’; I have formalized the structures somewhat).
I will be providing some greater description of the techniques I use to develop settings and scenarios. In order to do that clearly, I need to provide some definitions. There are other terms that will come up later, but these ones will be common to all articles in this series.
- Entities are any story elements significant enough to document, but not purely mechanical elements.
- Scope Levels define and limit how ‘big’ an entity is. An entity with encounter scope (the bandits mentioned below) is unlikely to have impact on the setting as a whole, while an entity with setting scope (such as a god) clearly can.
Edit 2014/04/05: The definitions previously posted below have been updated and expanded in new posts. Normally I might simply update the definitions, or redirect this page to the new definitions, but because I have split the content of this page into two that obviously won’t work.
- Entity Template, Updated and Explained
- Entity Scope, Updated and Explained combines and hopefully clarifies the information below, and adds information from Campaign Setting Design: Scope Level Sizes.
On relationships for scenario design: there are really only three “meaningful” (that is, story-driving) relationships between people: blood, sex, and money. They create and drive the emotional core of a scenario in ways other relationships (say political or group memberships or friends) don’t.
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