New Roleplay location/focus question

[CaptainGrue]

I've been interested in creating a new roleplay that's set on modern day Earth with all the necessary quirks and an overarching 'the world might end' plot.

I'd like people to create characters from any country, but I'm not certain if I want to put them into the one city or if I should just create a basic Earth structure for the places. I worry that doing the latter would spread people out too much, limiting roleplay. But I worry that putting everyone in one city would limit the scope the story can take.

Hopefully I made this simply enough so that whoever's reading can understand my dilemma. What do you think?

Thanks for any advice, yo.

[HelplessBystander]

Personally, as a seasoned IRL GM, I would reccomend creating side-quests and a rough idea of NPC Groups before designing specific characters. Use throwaway sheets form literally any RPG site as the base foundation and then go from there, because the characters are basically that at the beginning: throwaways. If it doesn't work; discard them.

Find specific places where you want events to take place and create NPCs around it. Saves time and, by using prebuilt templates, effort as well. It's fine to start generic and develop complexity over time. Hope this helps.

;)

[CaptainGrue]

This was actually in reference to my Manic Mind of Man thing before i started it :P

Initially it was going to begin in reality, on Earth. But then I realised that I would either have to restrict it to a city to make sure interactions occurred but at the same time i wouldn't want to set it in a particular geographic place.

Eventually I came up with my three act plan, the first of which has all the characters begin in the Source so I don't really have to worry about Earthly geography for a while. And even then, I can have characters 'portaled' from the Source to a specific location so they can remain in proximity. Not sure if that goes against my idea of space in the Source being metaphorical as opposed to physical, but I don't think it matters a whole lot.

All in all, nothing is real. Everything is a sham. Thx.

[HelplessBystander]

No worries, captain.

[LawOfTheLand]

There's two main ways to flesh out a world.

If you're basing it on the real world or an established fictional one, it's possible to build the entire thing starting out or a portion thereof in arbitrary detail, and then you're ready for whatever players may want to do.

If you're making a setting out of whole cloth, it might be better to start in a major location that you want the action to start in and build out as the plot takes you. Make sure you take careful notes so that you don't end up foreshadowing events in a place you haven't made yet!

These two approaches can even be combined. If you expect the players to go north but they go south instead, time to develop a region that you didn't think you would have to, but here goes anyway.