Locations and the map
Places, how they connect, and what makes one feel different from the next.
A location is somewhere the party can be. Everything else in the game hangs off them: characters stand in them, items sit in them, creatures wait in them.
Image:
docs/locations-step.pngThe Locations step with several locations in the list and one open in the editor overlay, showing its name, description and connections.
What a location carries
Name and description. The description is what the narrator reads to describe the place. Write it as atmosphere, not as a list of contents — the things in the room are tracked separately and will be mentioned on their own.
Connections. Which other locations you can reach from here. This is what the party actually walks along.
Items here and Creatures here. What is lying around, and what is waiting.
Entry requirements. A location can require an item to enter — a key, a permit, a lantern. Leave it as no items required for an open place.
Making a place feel different
Conditional backdrops. A location can look different depending on world state — the harbour before and after the storm — without being two separate locations.
Weather and fog. A location can force fog, or force a particular condition, overriding whatever the world's weather is doing. A cave is not rained on.
Temperature overrides. Min and max °F for this specific place, when the world's climate is not the right answer — a cold cellar in a hot city.
Ambient sound. Each location can carry its own background audio. See Sound and atmosphere.
The map
The Map step lays your locations out spatially and draws the connections between them. If your game shows a map to players, this is what they see; if it does not, the connections still define where the party can walk.
Prompt for the shape rather than dragging every node:
Lay the village out along the shore, with the lighthouse at the far end past the cliffs
Time and travel
Moving between locations takes time, and that time is what
onTravel prices. How fast the party moves is the travelSpeed
formula — editable, not fixed.
Next
- Characters and NPCs — who is standing in these places
- Items and creatures — what is in them