12.1 Setting Overview

Having a good setting is vital for having a good game. Characters cannot exist in a vacuum—they come from somewhere, and more importantly, they have somewhere to go.

A good setting is full of potential, but it doesn’t force the characters to do anything in particular. It allows a lot of freedom for creating a variety of characters, but also ties them all together. Good Anima Prime settings should be painted in broad strokes, so that the players and the GM can fill in the details during play and don’t have to worry about memorizing a whole bunch of stuff. Providing too rigid a setting stifles spontaneous play, because the players are always afraid of forgetting something and “doing it wrong.” That’s why Anima Prime should be inspirations that kick off the players’ imaginations, rather than exercises in scholarly anthropology, history, engineering, and whatnot.

Settings are created from a basic concept, much like characters. Some unifying theme should be present, some basic seed from which the rest grows. That gives the setting a good feel of coherence and lets you add to it during play.

Settings often have specific powers, effects, eidolons, factions, and so on that express the concept. They give a particular feel to the mechanics that matches the rest of the setting.

Finally, settings have setting seeds. They are story seeds like character and group seeds, that is, story ideas that can blossom into many different shapes depending on how play is going. The PCs don’t have to address the setting seed if they don’t want to, but it lends a dynamic vibe to the setting that makes it more exciting. Things are happening, the world is in flux. In Anima Prime, nothing is ever static.

I’ve included some short fiction pieces set in the premade settings, because I often get more of a feel for a setting if I imagine how characters would act within it. You don’t need to do that for settings you create with your group, but you should still always think about this: What are the PCs able to get involved in, and how can I insert more opportunities for adventure and conflict?