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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 246888" data-attributes="member: 1125">Characters Characters are everything makle usre that your PCs have backgrounds and personalities, families and memories.Make sure that both your players and yourself as DM 'know' that characters. Work the character histories into your story, make family members and other aquaintances into NPCs.Remember that NPCs are characters too and the important ones should be as well developed as PCs. Purpose: Get the players (including DM) to decide how they know each other and why they are together now in this setting. Define a purpose for the PCs being together now,  cooperating to overcome challenges and achieve goals. Once this purpose has been defined and clearly understood then the whole job of developing the story is much easier as every interaction with the setting will be guided by the groups purpose for being thereSetting Stories arise when Characters interact with the world around them so make sure that the world is interesting and 'alive. keep it open and dynamic and remember that NOTHING exisits in a vacuum. Remember also however that EVERY setting is a Dungeon with various 'rooms' whether it be an underground tomb, a city, an expanse of forest or a ship at sea -  Video games usually divide their settings' into zones or stages and this should be done in rpg settings too. Each dungeon/setting' features 3 things a monster a treasure and a secret that is each room is a discrete area in which the PCs can interact with:the enviroment/special sitesmonsters/NPCs/puzzles/challenges treasure/information/plot hooks  secretsNever be linear allow PCs to go where and do what they want in each 'area' of your setting. If it is well designed and has a 'monster', a 'treasure' and a 'Secret' then the PCs can interact and from this creater a storyScenario Encounters and Events should be planned and sprinkled throughout settings in order to give characters a reason to act. Some encounters and events are important and will lead to adventures, others may be of little obvious conseequence (until later) and some may never be discovered by the PCsGolden Thread A setting should have some overriding rationale or 'ethos' which links the various areas of the setting and the encounters and events together. This may be an overarching plot, or simply a 'theme'. This however is very important in making sure that there is consistency and flow</blockquote>

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