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Research
A quick note on research. Doing research on the
Setting of your Chronicle, especially a historic Setting,
will provide that all important Continuity for your Epi­
sodes. Below, we provide a list of research categories and
questions that should be answered in the formation of a
Setting. We encourage you to be as detailed as you can
stand to get. On the other hand, we encourage you to be
flexible and put your story first. Accurate historical touches
can really make a Chronicle come alive, while arguing for
an hour over the veracity of some small historical detail,
will be just as sure to kill it.
The World
This is the layout, geography, and history of a
Setting. The questions you'll need to answer to create
your world are ..
¢ History- How has the present world evolved
from its past? What relics and old beliefs are
left from those days of glory or barbary?
¢ Area - How expansive is the Setting? Will it
take place mostly within a single city, a
country, a world, a solar system, a cluster of
stars, or a galaxy?
¢ Population- How populated is your Setting?
Are the inhabitants scattered, or settled mostly
in cities? Is the Setting overpopulated, or
underpopulated?
¢ Technology - What is the technological
level available? Swords or blasters? Do
people still know how to produce the
technology they have? Is technology generally
available, or only in the hands of a few?
¢ Commerce - What level of commerce is
available? Are there small local trade fairs,
or mega-corporations needing large centers
of industry, wealth, and population to sustain
them? How is the wealth distributed? What
are the standards of living like?
¢ Travel - How is travel accomplished? How
fast is travel? How fast are communications?
The difference between travel speed and
communication speed will determine much
about warfare, commerce, and politics within
your Setting.
116 Theatrlx - The Core Rules
¢ Flora and Fauna - What are the flora and
Politics
fauna of this Setting like? This is an important
question because the Troupe's opponents
will often be chosen from among these. Are
there fairies, demons, ghosts, dragons, super­
powered mutants, or galactic aliens?
These are the socio-political structures used by the
various races and peoples of your Setting. The questions
you'll want to answer about these are ...
¢ Systems- What political systems are in use,
Values
and who uses them? The possibilities include
feudalism, city states, democracies,
oligarchies, dictatorships, demagogues,
socialists, communists, and more.
¢ Machinations- How do the political machines
work? Are they ruled with an iron fist from the
top? Are bribes part of the grease that keeps
the machinery running? What role does the
criminal subculture play within theconventional
system? What role does the media play
within the culture?
¢ Power - How is power defined, ie. by the
control of money, industry, land, or labor?
Who has power now? Who had power and
would like to have it back? And what are they
doing to get it back?
¢ Unrest- Who is being oppressed, and who is
happy with the system?
This is one of the most ephemeral, one of the most
overlooked, and one of the most important facets of any
Setting. Different cultures have radically different sys­
tems of values. They're often nothing like the ones we
know. You can create a richly detailed Setting of high
feudal fantasy, but if you simply graft our own cultural
values onto it, you greatly diminish the quality of the
roleplay within it. By attempting to adopt the actual mores
and values in use at the time, you make all that work
you've done on richness and detail really pay off. That's
what roleplay is about.
If you're using a historical Setting, then we suggest
you do some research, and attempt to find out what
values were actually in use at the time. If you're creating
a Setting from the stuff of your imagination, then you
should do some serious thinking about what values your