World Building

I have written about 90% of the ‘core rules’ at this point, and they are firming up quite well. Without art and without layout, they come in at about 26 pages. I would think that art and layout are going to push that to maybe 30; I have to put in a character sheet, index, and a little more GM stuff, so that puts me close to 36 pages accounted for.

That leaves me 12 for world building, campaign setting, and characters. I have a few approaches I am thinking of:

1. Keep it centered on Doc Stalwart. I use him as the model character at the beginning, and the game (and era) are basically named after him. I see him closer in spirit to Captain Marvel/Shazam (he’ll always be Captain Marvel to me) so giving an overview of his city, his allies, and his rogue’s gallery seems like a decent solution. I could really focus on one ‘corner’ of the world. I could also throw in a 2-page introductory adventure at the end.

2. Focus on adventures. Create a format that I want to use going forward for adventure modules (because that is the plan – release regular adventure modules) that present that format and also provide three opportunities for adventure. I will talk about module building soon (maybe as early as today – you never know); this would mean I create three different teams of heroes, three different scenarios, and three different sets of specific villains for those adventures.

3. Pick a smaller city. In the core rules, detail a smaller city (akin to one of the secondary cities of DC like Central City or Fawcett City). Detail that particular city’s heroes and villains, and include a starter adventure. This would introduce a format for ‘city guides’ that I can use later on, and a rogue’s gallery. This would be Doc Stalwart’s ‘home town’ (not the biggest city by far) – but a place that has no local hero anymore. This puts the game on the periphery of the ‘big’ superhero world, and leaves lots of room for expansion later on. I can then get relatively nuanced and detailed with a smaller starter location. This builds on option one in a very specific way. I actually like this a lot – it gives me quite a bit of freedom to develop the larger game world with few restrictions set in place by the core rules. The rest of the world is still a pretty blank canvas. The core city could still have a ‘big bad’ out there, with tendrils into the city. This could still be some sort of other-dimensional threat to suggest that the larger scale of the game is out there, and to give a bigger thing to build on beyond the core rules later on.

Upon further reflection, I’m going to go with the “Three Nights In Echo City” template. My first superhero adventure was a series of three short interconnected adventures covering three days in that city. I could do the same thing here – three adventures, theoretically over three days, where the heroes emerge as the ‘defenders’ of the starter city (a mid-sized city in the middle of the Americas). This is Doc's home town, but how the city is ready for new heroes to step up. This is the game's default starter location; it can grow from here, but it accomplishes everything I need it to.