Episode 288: Designing Microsettings

Recorded at Metatopia Online 2020  Presented by Richard Ruane, Brian Yaksha, Zedeck Siew, Amanda Franck, Pamela Punzalan.   Microsettings (settings that focus closely on a specific area, region, or location) can be a powerful touchstone for game design. By focusing their attention and concerns on a small region, city, or even places as focused as a bar, a school, or a shopping center, microsettings give the smaller, more particular stories a space to happen. In the panel, we'd like to discuss how designing and detailing of focused microsettings can evoke a location's multiplicity and diversity, make the world of the game more accessible and real, challenge characters to form relationships within the setting, and invoke curiosity about mundane aspects of setting life.   A thread of additional questions and answers have been prepared by Brian Yaksha, one of the panelists. https://twitter.com/goatmansgoblet/status/1324917649143435265