In Crime Drama, Schellburg (or Hellburg if you ask the locals) is your city. But the version you'll start with is just the bones- filling in the details is up to you and your group. Because crime stories have taken place in basically every locale imaginable (from Fargo to Miami, from New York to New Mexico) we don't want to give you a single pre-made world with every street mapped out and every faction established. Instead, we want to give you the tools build it, shaping Schellburg (and surrounding Washington County) into the kind of setting that fits the stories you want to tell.
Before the campaign begins, and just after character creation (though we are debating about switching this around), you'll go through an organized but flexible process to build the world. First, you'll choose the era, locking in the time period and aesthetic. Next, you'll set the city's color palette, because a crime story isn’t just about what happens, it’s about how it feels and what it looks like. Then, you'll choose the county’s law level and population, shaping everything from how corrupt the cops are to whether crime is a desperate struggle or a naked, booming industry. And finally, you'll dive into the details, answering key questions about the city’s geography, its power players, the relationships that define it, while creating numerous NPCs and locations along the way.
No two versions of Schellburg will ever be the same. One group’s city might be a neon-drenched tourist trap full of vice and sin, where organized crime runs everything behind the scenes. Another’s could be an old steel town on its last legs, where desperate people make bad choices just to survive. The important thing is that it’s your Schellburg, built to tell your story. In the coming posts, we’ll break down phases of the process, similar to how we did with Character Creation, of giving you the tools to bring your own Washington County to life.