Making Your Worlds Memorable
Making Your Worlds Memorable
In world design, it is important to give your worlds individuality and a character all their own. If you do not give the players a unique “handle” on each world (a way for them to categorize a world in their minds—e.g., the place where people harvest giant mushrooms and ride around on giant bugs), the worlds will gradually blend together into a hazy morass of basic types: the desert world, the Imperial city world, the big polluted CSA factory world, and so on.
Worlds are sort of like gamemaster characters that way. Just as you give your supporting characters some distinguishing characteristics which separate them from the other gamemaster characters, try to make each world a distinct place with its own feel and flavor.
A simple way you can give each world a unique character is to give it some exotic attributes. Exotic planets appeal to the players’ sense of escapism and curiosity—and remind them that the Star Wars universe isn’t like the one they know.
Look to the movies for your models. Tatooine, meant to be a backwater world where nothing much happens, is still an exotic location to us, filled with interesting alien societies, a water-based economy, and a futuristic yet run-down city. Bespin is a gas giant which features a great majestic city floating in the upper levels of its vibrant and beautiful atmosphere.
Exotic Elements
Making a world exotic can be as simple as tweaking some geological features. Place a world in a binary or trinary star system, or give it an atmosphere so dangerous that humans have to wear filter masks to walk outside. You might set an adventure on a young world subject to constant earthquakes and volcanic activity, or on an ancient, arid planet orbiting a huge red star. But you can get more fancy than that if you like.
Often, you can get away with establishing a single interesting focus to a world, and spin everything else off from that. There isn’t anything particularly special about the forests of Endor, after all. But the dramatic focal points—the stark Imperial landing pad and shield generator dish, and the partially completed Death Star hanging in the sky—effectively establish Endor as a unique location.
You can focus on culture, society, and people to establish character. Maybe the locals wear many layers of scarves and feathers, and only those dressed likewise may conduct business. Or perhaps the citizens are language purists, and treat everyone who does not use their peculiar inverted word order like uneducated idiots.
Some more examples: • Those who do not cover their faces are shunned and regarded with disgust. • All non-citizens must wear caps to distinguish themselves from the privileged locals, who are accorded more privileges. • Only females (of all species) can speak in public. • Wearing the color orange is reserved for the exalted class (this one is fun to pull on Rebel pilots). • No one may openly display a weapon.
Obviously, these examples will impact the characters’ lives in some major or minor way. This isn’t all bad. The players are sure to remember the world where only females can speak in public if their characters landed there for badly needed repairs—and there are no female crew members! And making each world memorable and distinct is, after all, the whole point.
But there is no need to get into the characters’ faces to establish world character. Societal and cultural examples tend to do that, but you can get more into physical aspects of places and things, which provide atmosphere without impacting the characters’ lives unduly. And remember to hit that “wow” button occasionally!
Some “place” examples: • Structures that are out of the ordinary—maybe people live and work in the discarded shells of giant insects, or in great hollowed-out cacti, or in living buildings. • Settings unique to the world, like the dramatic singing spires of the Cathedral of Winds on Vortex, or the great Ithorian ships which cruise over the jungles of Ithor. • Underwater cities.
Some “thing” examples: • Doors dilate open and shut. • Droids are plated with strong ceramics instead of metals and plastics. • Flowers are prominently displayed everywhere imaginable. • People preserve their dead relatives in a clear resin, and place them in the yard to ward off evil.
As you can see, some examples are more far out than others. But all of them help establish the character and uniqueness of the world.
Source: REUP:453