Designing a Fun Game Setting

What kind of world the player characters explore depends on the nature of the game. Most fantasy RPGs are quasi-medieval, meaning that they use the more interesting bits and pieces from Europe’s Middle Ages, Baroque, and Renaissance ages for reference but are not entirely accurate depictions of Earth’s past. These games are resplendent with castles, princesses, and soldiers. Some RPGs are steampunk in nature, meaning that—although the game appears faintly historic, it contains fancy technology that is purely imaginary; think of the biomechanical spider tank seen in the movie Wild Wild West, starring Will Smith. Technology in a steampunk universe does not have to have any real scientific basis and can even be said to be powered by magic crystal energy. A few RPGs are modern but steeped in fantasy, like the urban zombie panic games that have become popular recently. And still others take place in a galaxy far, far away, which is almost as fantastic as the medieval ones, except the elves are replaced with aliens, and the steampunk technology is replaced with futuristic technology, like spaceships and laser swords. Regardless of what time period or place RPGs occur in, the writers and artists almost always take artistic license with them, making the locales appear more bizarre or alien than the humdrum Earth we occupy. One reason they do this is for entertainment value. People like to be swept away. Role-playing games, after all, are a form of escape. And what better way to escape than to escape the ordinary world we all live in? In this fashion, games are comparable to theme park rides or exotic tourist destinations—and game designers are closely akin to tour guides.

Game World: A Trip to Never-land

Exploring the game world is an important aspect of an RPG. Players will travel quite extensively throughout the game world, finding objects they need, talking to non-player characters (NPCs), facing terrifying monsters, and avoiding traps. This world, therefore, has to be interesting, complex, and multifaceted. It also must be big enough to encourage exploration but small enough so the player doesn’t get lost in it.

Talk and Trade with Other Characters

Other characters managed by the computer and not the player are called nonplayer characters, or NPCs. This includes enemies and monsters the hero must vanquish, but it can also include characters that make up part of the backdrop and contribute to the player’s journey in small though significant ways. Speak To Me Most RPGs handle conversations between the player and these characters via a dialog tree mechanism. The player selects an NPC in the game world to speak to. A window opens, presenting a list of possible things the avatar can say to the NPC. Most of the time, the options are limited to three or four choices, to keep it simple. The player chooses one, and depending on what option she picked, the NPC replies. Usually all of this conversation is done in text, although many newer RPGs feature audio recordings, too. Asking the right questions or saying the right things elicits useful information from the NPC and sometimes gains experience points for the player. Conversation can further the game story, open up new quests, or lead to other discoveries. Of course, not every NPC wants to stick around and chat. Some of them are little better than window-dressing, helping make the game world look more populated, and their conversations are slim to non-existent. Others don’t want to talk; they want to sell you something! Show Me Your Wares Most RPGs allow players to buy and sell goods with friendly merchant NPCs. The game world often has blacksmiths, apothecaries, farmers, and so on, who run businesses that offer to buy or sell goods and services. The shop interface is similar to the conversation interface mentioned above, with a list or set of images of all the available items on sale. The player can choose to purchase new items or sell an item he already owns to get more money. Items purchased go directly into the hero’s inventory.

Gaining Experience

Although characterization is developed and grows through storytelling, RPGs demonstrate personal growth through the acquisition of experience. Almost every RPG has some version of experience point allocation. The player gains experience for beating challenges and whacking enemies in the game, and she can then spend the experience to increase her character’s attributes or to purchase new abilities. This reward boosts the character’s usefulness in upcoming challenges the player might face. Let’s say Gina’s character Grog the Barbarian just decimated a crew of ten vile goblins. Grog receives 18 experience points for his reward. Gina can either use part of those experience points to raise Grog’s strength attribute to 14, or she can purchase a marksman skill, which will allow Grog to shoot bows and arrows. She decides she’d like Grog to have a ranged attack, so she buys the marksman skill. This decision has immediate ramifications in the way Gina will play through future combat situations. Experience becomes a form of scorekeeping in RPGs, therefore, and amassing a certain sum of experience will cause the character’s level to go up, an act called “leveling up.” RPGs that feature character levels will start the player’s character at level one and go up based on how well the player plays the game and gets involved in the storyline. Some of the finer RPGs today use a training system for experience, such as the system developed for Lionhead Studio’s Fable series. In a training system, the game’s internal programming reacts to the actions players select most frequently and increases the player character’s attributes accordingly. This means that if a player character uses a sword for a long while, the character will automatically become more proficient with the sword. If the player, instead, decides to cast a lot of magic spells, she’ll become better at spell-casting.

The Importance of Avatars

Creator of the romance game Dinner Date, Jeroen D. Stout, released a paper detailing what he sees as a symbiosis between gamer and player avatar. Symbiosis is a concept where two or more entities form a habitual relationship where they each gain something from each other. Sharks are often followed around by tiny fish called remora, which eat the sharks’ leftovers. This is one instance of symbiosis.


In Stout’s paper, he states that human consciousness is not a single organism but something brought about by the collection of related thought patterns working together. And when a person uses a tool, such as a hammer, that tool becomes an extension of the person’s self. A builder swinging his hammer is one identity; a builder who puts his hammer down and decides to sit down to watch a show on the television at home is another person. The hammer forms a symbiosis with the builder when the builder is using it, in other words.


This extension of self is played out every day in the clothes we choose to wear and the belongings we carry around with us. When a person sits down to play a video game, especially an RPG, the player character becomes an extension of that person. When the player pushes a button or mashes a key, and the avatar jumps on the screen, the player doesn’t say, “My character jumped,” they say “I jumped.”


This sense of immersion in a video game through the use of a central figure, the player avatar, is as important to the game’s creator as it is to the player, because the creator can then motivate the player by threatening the avatar. Call it emotional extortion if you will, but the core conflict behind most games depends on it.


One interesting aspect in RPGs about this “extension of self” is that the player avatar doesn’t even have to be human. Lots of gamers prefer playing characters of their own specie, but the majority couldn’t care less. It’s the same mental reasoning we have for why kids love Disney shows and cry when the characters in those shows get hurt, even when those characters are animals. In fact, several RPGs offer gamers the choice of being human-animal hybrids, because many of their gamers are fond of that option.

Character Class and Attributes

Besides movement controls, most of the player actions in an RPG are performed indirectly by the player characters. This means that the player selects an action to undertake and the character performs it accordingly. The success or failure of the action is determined by the character’s numeric attributes. Video games have internal programming that simulates the die-rolling that generates random results in tabletop RPGs. Some attributes in character creation are purely cosmetic, while others give the player benefits to certain actions. Attributes can also depend on a character’s class. Class is similar to a character’s occupation, and different classes have opposing strengths and weaknesses. The most common classes in fantasy RPGs include fighters, rogues, magic-users, and clerics, with sideline classes including rangers, monks, druids, and dual-classed characters, such as fighters who also cast spells. Fighters generally underline combat-ready attributes, such as strength and dexterity, because they need to be tough and show prowess in a fight. Magic-users have to be smart, because they read spell books and comprehend complex magical algorithms, so they stress more powerful intelligence and wisdom. Rogues capitalize on quickness, stealth, and subterfuge, often in the form of attributes such as dexterity and charisma, because they have to be good at getting into places where they’re not supposed to be and equally good at getting out again. And so on. Making a great fantasy RPG character is a bit like baking a cake. Each one will be different, because each contains a different mixture of ingredients.

Characters: So-And-So Has Joined Your Party!

Usually, in a fantasy RPG, players control one or a small number of characters. These characters are often referred to as a party, not because they like to enjoy themselves but because they work together to affect a general end.


The player’s party explores the game world, solves puzzles, gets involved in tactical combat, and generally achieves victory by accomplishing quests. The characters are often designed or customized by the player, making them unique to the player, and grow in power and ability over time spent in the game.


If winning the game is contingent on the survival of a single character, that character effectively becomes the player’s avatar, or in-game representative. Even RPGs that have a party of characters will usually begin with a single character, the player’s avatar, and new characters will join the party as the narrative unfurls.