Setting

The setting of a campaign is, in simplest terms, the game world where it takes place. For a historical campaign, the setting might be the court of King Louis XVI, whereas for a superheroes campaign it might be the fictional city of Metropolis, and for a GURPS Fantasy campaign it might be the world of Yrth.

In RPGs, setting is usually presented as an atlas or encyclopedia of the area that the PCs are expected to be in, with lists of important people and locations that the PCs could meet or explore. The game tries to create a fictional reality and players are expected to create characters to suit it rather than visa versa. More flexible GMs will tweak details fo the world to suit the players' character concepts but the larger and more complete the setting, the more difficult this becomes. On the other hand a deep and well-developed setting such as Tekumel or Glorantha allows the players to feel that their characters are experiencing and exploring something larger than themselves

Many roleplaying game publishers also publish settings for use with their products. These include the Yrth setting for GURPS Fantasy and the World of Greyhawk supplement for Dungeons & Dragons. Most games include setting and rules in the same book. Examples include Vampire: The Masquerade and Star Wars.

Setting and system are commonly held to be the two halves of an rpg, though this dichotomy is soemtimes difficult to apply neatly. Some games such as D&D and Sorcerer have no explicit setting but the rules naturally give rise to a particular kind of game that fails in certain settings. Others, like Nobilis have rules so specific to their setting that they are impossible to use for anything notably different without extensive re-working.