Day 13 - Evocative Environments

#RPGaDay2024

What makes an environment (and we are talking about a place within a roleplaying game) evocative?

I think it’s the use you put it to. In any roleplaying game, an environment is a place where you have an encounter, or in some cases, multiple encounters.

An environment can make an encounter memorable, but in order to do that it must be unique. Outstanding. Examples include the Earthmaster temple at Anisha and the gloomy Temple Hill cemetery area in Golotha, both on Harn; and Lake Lascha and the Longane Enclave in the city of Fioracitta.

Compare this to the utterly generic Tombs of Chaos / Perfidy / Horrors / Destruction / Madness which line the shelves of DriveThruRPG. When a corridor is a corridor is a corridor, you find that there is nothing more empty than some set that you know looks just the same as all of the other rooms, chambers, and corridors found in every single dungeon module on DriveThru.

Sensory uniqueness, character, association with certain feelings (e.g. The Velvet Curtain brothel of Fioracitta, or the Occhiadero in Lascha District where Folk Magicians gather) and interactivity, all combine to make each individual environment a place worth visiting, passing through, or bumping into villains and duking it out in.