Settings

The time, place and circumstances of the narrative.

Categories:
 * Abandoned Area
 * Anime Settings
 * Building Tropes
 * The City
 * Fictional Culture and Nation Tropes
 * Hollywood Atlas
 * Hollywood History
 * Home Base
 * Hotel Tropes
 * Major World Cities
 * The National Index
 * Nightlife Index
 * Otherworld Tropes
 * Party At My Index
 * Punk Punk
 * Small Towns
 * Video Game Settings
 * You Would Not Want to Live In Dex

Time If the end of World War II were used as an era, it would be the year 67 as of 2012. A catastrophe - manmade or natural - has wiped out a large portion of the human civilization and/or population. The survivors fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic world. Punks usher in the collapse of civilization; the apocalypse ushers in the age of the punks. It's all the same song and dance, and the punks are here to stay. The Empire State Building is growing moss and most of its concrete is fading away. Is that man wearing a toga, wielding a Katana and listening to an iPod? Obese is slim in 25 years. Iron curtains, nukes and spies. Between the dinosaurs and early human civilization there were dragons, wizards and evil beyond imagination. War's over. We lost. Middle Ages + Spaceships = Star Wars. Happens during Dark Age Britain. They don't come in peace. Humans vs. Humanoid Insects. Operation Desert Storm (1990 - 1991). 1950 - 1953 The Sorcerora fight the Scientists. Robots turn against the creators. 1955 - 1975 1914 - 1918 1939 - 1945 Between Queen Victoria's death and the outbreak of World War I, everybody's upper-class indulgent and foreshadows a lot. Only certain kinds of technology, or a certain level of technology, is allowed. By law, manmade or natural. A zoo, wildlife reserve, or other home for supposedly extinct or mythical creatures. Sub-category of Days of Future Past. 100 - 200 years into the future. Think of how every house in The Jetsons looks. We do not use sufficient lighting in the future. Human Federation vs. Alien Empire. Fight! Sometime between 1918 and 1939. A nastier relative Once upon a time, Kings had wizards as courtiers and knights slew dragons. When everybody got tired of the nukes and spies. We are a few days from extermination. A time out of place. Far distant in space, time or both. They've probably never even heard of Earth. Swords, kings and Tolkienian lore. Technology hasn't changed since 1250. 4000 years later, still no jetpack. A place out of time. When movies set in 1968 look like they are set in 1968. Hollywood Stone Age. All cavemen look Neanderthalish and live in harmony with dinosaurs. When a show is set in the same year it is produced in. The city wouldn't let the production close down streets so our movie set five years ago is full of post-2005 cars and billboards. Ancient Myths (Bronze Age Greek, what-have-you) are not only real, they are mashed together into one time period. Between the 1960s and 1998 in Northern Ireland. Just ahead of the present. That's why you haven't noticed the Alien Invasion. In the year 2015 everyone is a robot and speaks 10 languages. Not a Period Piece, but not quite the present, either. For sequels taking place at an unspecified time, but assumed to be the present day. 9/11 to the Present. Every Spaghetti- and Western. The Wild West gradually gives way to the New Old West. Cowboys Now. Cowboys in space. The Age of Sail.
 * Alternative Calendar
 * After the End
 * The Apunkalypse
 * Ruins of the Modern Age
 * Scavenger World
 * Anachronism Stew
 * Big Fat Future
 * Cold War
 * The Dark Times
 * Day of the Jackboot
 * Days of Future Past
 * The Dung Ages
 * During the War
 * Alien Invasion
 * Arab Israeli Conflict
 * Bug War
 * Gulf War
 * Korean War
 * The Magic Versus Technology War
 * Robot War
 * The Vietnam War
 * World War One
 * World War II
 * Earth Is Young
 * The Edwardian Era
 * Enforced Technology Levels
 * Fantastic Nature Reserve
 * Feudal Future
 * The Future
 * The Future Is Noir
 * Standard Sci Fi History
 * Genteel Interbellum Setting
 * Chandler American Time
 * Here There Were Dragons
 * Hole in Flag
 * Just Before the End
 * Just One Second Out of Sync
 * A Long Time Ago in A Galaxy Far Far Away
 * Medieval European Fantasy
 * Medieval Stasis
 * Modern Stasis
 * Place Beyond Time
 * Popular History
 * Prehistoria
 * Present Day
 * Present Day Past
 * The Soviet Twenties
 * The Time of Myths
 * The Troubles
 * Next Sunday AD
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Past
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Present
 * The War On Terror
 * The Wild West
 * Twilight of the Old West
 * New Old West
 * Space Western
 * Wooden Ships and Iron Men

Space/Place The places of injury, illness, probing and needles can be creepy enough without being derelict. And it's never just because the funding ran out. Likely to be stocked with strange and alarming tools, there was science being done here. Odds are, things have Gone Horribly Wrong (or worse, right). Who even abandons warehouses? Because sewers in real life are at least two meters high and have enough space to hold a castle. In every class you learn to fly and shoot laser beams out of your eyes. The back office that administers the organisation, and is likely to out of touch with the sharp end of the business. Exactly what it says on the tin. Often found in the darkest jungle. May overlap with City of Gold. Travel between towns for new quests. When the globe-trotting hero isn't about his exciting business, he can relax at the club and swap stories with the like-minded. When the US is now called Area 02. Airstrip One was 1984's Britain. Unusually, the Alien Invasion has gone off the Tokyo-New York-Los Angeles-London tourist route to land in Plymouth. Faculty for the freaky and fanged. A colorful world. The biggest jungle ever. It's usually closed and happens during the night. No one has entered in ages and because of that, the place is riddled with traps that kill you. Everyone in Africa has a bone in their nose and hair, dances around a bonfire, and lives in a straw hut. Tombs, burial chambers, sepulchers, mausoleums, charnel houses, ossuaries, catacombs, crypts, sometimes even dungeons. Quiet life in the countryside. A top secret research facility. In the desert. In this setting, less is more. The perfect lost world. Where the paths of two fates cross. Everyone inside is a macho wrestler with an evil look on his face. Lord Wiggleshum of Fozzletop. How is it possible to keep an entire city on wheels that can drive anywhere, even submerge? Beats me. A marketplace in the Middle East. You'll find all sorts of this and that in there. Peaceful, but oddly empty. Asylum on steroids. People living under the crust. Their technology is primitive and they fear the outsiders. Where planes and ships go to enter inter-dimensional rifts (maybe). Because New York is the only city aliens and monsters like to destroy. Much like Big Fancy House, but with more towers. And secret passages. And dungeons. A house on a hill. It's not dirty. It has more rooms than any other house around. A building that looks small - possibly ridiculously small - but opens up into a giant mansion or other area. A huge building consisting of nothing but a maze. The setting for a Long Con. It looks like a business now, but it'll be empty again next week. Strip clubs in all but name Implausible, ridiculous, bizarre architecture. The breeding ground of Sadist Teachers and cutthroat battles for social dominance. Whoa, these guys build and breed fast. Where sci-fi guys go to get to know each other. A single building is the setting. When kids in a High School drama get too old to be believable, expect most of them to go here. Lovecraft Country...in England! What do you do when you're ashamed to be shooting your show in Canada, but can't set it in America? Expect snails, frog legs, temperamental chefs, and snotty waiters with funny accents. There has never been anything outside The City. Beyond its well-policed walls is unknown darkness. A country chock full of wealth and splendor. Basically, your typical city slum, but even more dangerous. Like a city, except it's always dark and rainy, and there are no police officers. All the adventure and excitement you could possible crave conveniently rolled up into a single city. A city where waterways are used as streets. Usually mirrors Venice. Lady Liberty's just a few blocks from the Louvre. City. With Spies. Get it? The writers were lazy when thinking about the location, or wanted it to be anywhere. Tall walls of rock keeping you from your destination. The town clock, the one that everybody sets their clocks to. May be a bell tower you have to ascend. Whether rural, urban, or suburban, a place where everyone knows each other and looks out for each other. Why are there more webs than trees in this forest? Like regular land, but with hammers and sickles. Hollywood, but not Hollywood. A labyrinth of crates or containers in a warehouse, storeroom or dock. An airship, but with lasers. A boat, but with lasers. So great, it's always packed. A garage, but with lasers. A house, but with lasers. A starship, but with even more lasers than usual. Anything that's called a ship and has lasers. It's very soft, and is always center stage. Like Disneyland, if Mickey was a grubby Con Man. Like a regular basement, but with more lasers spiders. The bells are haunting at midnight. The place with the reputation for mass-producing the undead. An isolated group of religious settlers. Hey, I think I saw that house before. And that one too! The Russian home away from home. England between 1700 - 1900 Drinking from the water cooler will burn down the building. Tarzan and co. See also Ancient Africa above. The entourage of the leaders conduct in an ostensibly polite and civilised social battlefield. Watch out for that grass! Rednecks, moonshiners, KKK and all that Where the Mooks and Minions unwind. Ship graveyard No one lives there. Good place to be marooned. Full of Jungle Japes. Is that a skyscraper of wrecked cars? Having lost its reason to exist, the town is largely shuttered and abandoned, home to only those who couldn't move elsewhere. Nothing could ever harm us. A base that has a hangar, silo and laboratory. A secret place where elephants go to die. Hope you don't have claustrophobia! Because Euclidean designs are for morons! To exit: Have epiphany. That tower that's larger than the mountains? Definitely not the Evil Overlord's lair! A tiny island in the middle of nowhere housing a single palm tree. A country ruled by militia. Always in Latin America. A generic Communist country Exactly what it says on the tin. An Eastern European backwater. A creepy Eastern European backwater. An interchangeable Middle Eastern country. When the setting grows, shrinks, adds, and loses features as the plot demands. Where the heroes hang out after hours. Villains are welcome if they behave. A secret, safe place far from the eyes of those other meddling nations. Because normal mazes aren't hard enough, this one changes so you can never leave. contains telescopes, orreries, hidden artifacts, secret passages, tomes of eldritch lore, etc. It stays out of the sun by following the night around the planet. The classic setting for Ten Little Murder Victims. A fictional United States in which democracy doesn't exist anymore. Nothing good ever happens in a parking garage. Heaven on Earth... literally. A city by the sea. A Wretched Hive of seaside villainy. A paradise setting with an unfortunate tendency towards the yandere. A high-security prison where there's lava instead of the ocean and the guards are huge robots. We sell one thing, and one thing only. It may be safe here, but there's got to be a bigger world out there, beyond the walls... Two small towns close by, but that hate each other intensely. Everything looks like identical whitewashed concrete towers with the same odd angles. Lots of large machinery, fiery furnaces, molten metal and heavy objects falling from height The setting used in most Wide Open Sandbox games, particularly the "true crime" ones of the Grand Theft Auto variety.
 * Abandoned Hospital
 * Abandoned Laboratory
 * Abandoned Warehouse
 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer
 * Academy of Adventure
 * Adminisphere
 * Advanced Ancient Acropolis
 * Adventure Towns
 * Adventurers Club
 * Airstrip One
 * Aliens in Cardiff
 * All-Ghouls School
 * Amazing Technicolor World
 * The Amazon
 * Amusement Park
 * Amusement Park of Doom
 * Ancient Africa
 * Ancient Tomb
 * Arcadia
 * Area 51
 * Ascetic Aesthetic
 * Atlantis
 * At the Crossroads
 * Bad Guy Bar
 * Barset Shire
 * Base On Wheels
 * Bazaar of the Bizarre
 * Beach Tropes
 * Beautiful Void
 * Bedlam House
 * Beneath the Earth
 * The Bermuda Triangle
 * Big Applesauce
 * Big Fancy Castle
 * Big Fancy House
 * Bigger On the Inside
 * Big Labyrinthine Building
 * Big Store
 * Bikini Bar
 * Bizarrchitecture
 * Boarding School of Horrors
 * Boom Town
 * The Bridge
 * Bright Castle
 * Building of Adventure
 * California University
 * Campbell Country
 * Canada Does Not Exist
 * Chez Restaurant
 * City in A Bottle
 * City of Gold
 * The City Narrows
 * City Noir
 * City of Adventure
 * City of Canals
 * City of Everywhere
 * City of Spies
 * City With No Name
 * Climbing the Cliffs of Insanity
 * Clock Tower
 * Close Knit Community
 * Cobweb Jungle
 * Commie Land
 * Company Town
 * Container Maze
 * Cool Airship
 * Cool Boat
 * Coolest Club Ever
 * Cool Garage
 * Cool House
 * Cool Starship
 * Cool Ship
 * Corpse Land
 * The Couch
 * Crappy Carnival
 * Creepy Basement
 * Creepy Cathedral
 * Creepy Cemetery
 * Cult Colony
 * Cut and Paste Suburb
 * Dacha
 * Cutesy Name Town
 * Dances and Balls
 * Dangerous Workplace
 * Darkest Africa
 * Deadly Decadent Court
 * Death World
 * Decontamination Chamber
 * Deep South
 * Den of Iniquity
 * Derelict Graveyard
 * Desert Island
 * Domed Hometown
 * Down in The Dumps
 * Drive-In Theater
 * Dying Town
 * Easily-Conquered World
 * Elaborate Underground Base
 * Elephant Graveyard
 * Elevator Tropes
 * Enclosed Space
 * Eldritch Location
 * Epiphanic Prison
 * Evil Tower of Ominousness
 * Extranormal Institute
 * Extremely Dusty Home
 * Fan Convention
 * Far Side Island
 * Fashion Magazine
 * Fat Camp
 * Fictional Country
 * Banana Republic
 * Commie Land
 * The Old Country
 * People's Republic of Tyranny
 * Ruritania
 * Uberwald
 * Qurac
 * The Final Frontier
 * Floating Continent
 * Flyover Country
 * Forbidden Zone
 * Friendly Local Chinatown
 * Garden of Evil
 * Gayborhood
 * Genius Loci
 * Geographic Flexibility
 * Ghibli Hills
 * Gingerbread House
 * Ghost Town
 * Good Guy Bar
 * The Good Old British Comp
 * Grass Is Greener
 * Greasy Spoon
 * Hacker Cave
 * Halloweentown
 * Haunted Castle
 * Haunted Headquarters
 * Haunted House
 * Hedge Maze
 * The Hedge of Thorns
 * Hell Hotel
 * Hell of a Heaven
 * Here There Be Lions
 * Hidden Elf Village
 * High School
 * The Horde
 * Hospital Paradiso
 * Home of Monsters
 * House of Broken Mirrors
 * Hungry Jungle
 * Ice Palace
 * I Don't Like the Sound of That Place
 * Incompetence, Inc.
 * Indian Burial Ground
 * Industrial Ghetto
 * Inn Between the Worlds
 * Inn of No Return
 * Inner-City School
 * Inside a Computer System
 * In the Doldrums
 * Island Base
 * It Came From Beverly Hills
 * The Kingdom
 * Lady Land
 * Landmarking the Hidden Base
 * Last Fertile Region
 * Layered World
 * Legitimate Businessmen's Social Club
 * Level Ate
 * The Library of Babel
 * Lighthouse Point
 * The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday
 * Living Labyrinth
 * Local Hangout
 * Locked in The Dungeon
 * Locomotive Level
 * The Lost Woods
 * Lost World
 * Lovecraft Country
 * Lovers Ledge
 * MacGuffin Location
 * Mage Tower
 * Magical Library
 * Major World Cities
 * Make-Out Point
 * The Mall
 * Malt Shop
 * Martyrdom Culture
 * Masquerade Ball
 * Mega City
 * Merchant City
 * Mercurial Base
 * Micro Monarchy
 * Middle of Nowhere Street
 * Misplaced Wildlife
 * Missing Floor
 * Mobile Maze
 * Moebius Neighborhood
 * Monster Town
 * Monumental Battle
 * Monumental View
 * Mordor
 * Museum of Boredom
 * Museum of the Strange And Unusual
 * My Local
 * Mysterious Antarctica
 * Native American Casino
 * Neo Africa
 * The Neutral Zone
 * New Neighbours As the Plot Demands
 * New York Subway
 * No Communities Were Harmed
 * No-Tell Motel
 * Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here
 * Ocean Punk
 * Office
 * Old Dark House
 * Opium Den
 * Ominous Floating Castle
 * One Degree of Separation
 * One-Gender School
 * One Product Planet
 * Only Law Firm in Town
 * Only Shop in Town
 * Oppressive States of America
 * Orphanage of Fear
 * Orphanage of Love
 * Outlaw Town
 * Parking Garage
 * Patchwork World
 * Penal Colony
 * The Pentagon
 * People Zoo
 * Phone Booth
 * Physical Heaven
 * Planet England
 * Planet of Copyhats
 * Planet of Hats
 * Pleasure Planet
 * Polluted Wasteland
 * Port Town
 * Not-So-Safe Harbor
 * Possessive Paradise
 * Premiseville
 * Prison
 * The Alcatraz
 * Tailor-Made Prison
 * Privately-Owned Society
 * The Promised Land
 * Quirky Town
 * Railroad to Horizon
 * Red Light District
 * The Red Planet
 * The Rez
 * River of Insanity
 * Sapient Ship
 * Scenic Route
 * Sea Stories
 * Secret Government Warehouse
 * Secret Shop
 * Secret Underground Passage
 * Self-Inflicted Hell
 * Setting As a Character
 * Severely Specialized Store
 * Shaped Like What It Sells
 * Shattered World
 * Shining City
 * Shrine to Self
 * Simulated Urban Combat Area
 * Sinister Subway
 * Small Secluded World
 * Run Away Hide Away
 * Small Town Boredom
 * Small Town Rivalry
 * Smart House
 * Smoky Gentlemen's Club
 * Soapbox Square
 * Soiled City On a Hill
 * Southern Gothic
 * Souvenir Land
 * Space Amish
 * Space Base
 * Space Brasilia
 * Spaceship Girl
 * Space Station
 * Spy School
 * Standard Royal Court
 * Star Scraper
 * Steel Mill
 * Stepford Suburbia
 * Strawman U
 * Subculture
 * Sub Story
 * Suburbia
 * Suck E. Cheese's
 * Suddenly Significant City
 * Summer Campy
 * Super-Hero School
 * Super Slave Market
 * Supervillain Lair
 * Swamps Are Evil
 * Sweet Home Alabama
 * Table Space
 * Theme Park Landscape
 * Thirsty Desert
 * Thriving Ghost Town
 * Tokyo Tower
 * Torture Cellar
 * The Tower
 * Town With a Dark Secret
 * Trailer Park Tornado Magnet
 * Traveling Landmass
 * Treasure Room
 * Treehouse of Fun
 * Tree-Top Town
 * Trophy Room
 * Truce Zone
 * Tunnel Network
 * Turtle Island
 * Uncanny Atmosphere
 * Uncanny Village
 * Undefeatable Little Village
 * Under City
 * Underwater Base
 * United Europe
 * Unnecessarily Large Interior
 * Urban Segregation
 * Veganopia
 * Vestigial Empire
 * Vice City
 * Video Arcade
 * Volcano Lair
 * Wacky Homeroom
 * The War Room
 * Watching a Video Game
 * Water Is Air
 * Whitehall
 * The White House
 * Where Everybody Knows Your Flame
 * White Void Room
 * Wild Wilderness
 * Wizarding School
 * World of Badass
 * Wretched Hive
 * Wrong Side of the Tracks
 * Ye Olde Nuclear Silo
 * Youth Center

Dimensions/Universes When an RPG has alternate worlds.
 * Alien Space Bats
 * Alternate History
 * Alternate Universe
 * Alternate World Map
 * Another Dimension
 * Pocket Dimension
 * Bizarro Universe
 * Bloody Bowels of Hell
 * Constructed World
 * Cyberspace
 * Dark World
 * Dream Land
 * Elseworld
 * Fire and Brimstone Hell
 * Fluffy Cloud Heaven
 * For Want of a Nail
 * Giant Food
 * Heaven
 * Hell
 * Hell Is War
 * Ironic Hell
 * Land of Faerie
 * Magical Land
 * Mental World
 * The Metaverse
 * Mirror Universe
 * Mouse World
 * The Multiverse
 * Phantom Zone
 * Place Beyond Time
 * Platonic Cave
 * Role Playing Game Verse
 * Retro Universe
 * RPG Mechanics Verse
 * Shadowland
 * Spirit World
 * The Underworld
 * Warrior Heaven
 * World of Chaos
 * World of Ham

Other/Both When something very much like the past is found in present day, either recreated or preserved. A desert planet, ice planet, ocean planet. A bright, colorful, happy world.
 * Adventure-Friendly World
 * Black and Gray Morality
 * Casual Time Travel
 * Cloudcuckooland
 * Crapsack World
 * Crap Saccharine World
 * Crapsack Only By Comparison
 * Dystopia
 * Dystopia Is Hard
 * Gaia's Lament
 * A World Half Full
 * Wretched Hive
 * Culture Chop Suey
 * Desolation Shot
 * Divided States of America
 * Egopolis
 * Emotions vs. Stoicism
 * Environmental Symbolism
 * Everyone Is a Super
 * Expanded States of America
 * Expanded Universe
 * Expansion Pack World
 * Fallen States of America
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture
 * Fisher King
 * Fisher Kingdom
 * God Is Inept
 * Gotterdammerung
 * Hell On Earth
 * Invaded States of America
 * Legion of Lost Souls
 * Lost Colony
 * Mary Suetopia
 * Matriarchy
 * Matriarchy in Name Only
 * Metro Specific Underworld
 * Mundane Dogmatic
 * Never Recycle a Building
 * New Age
 * One Degree of Separation
 * Past Right Now
 * Place Worse Than Death
 * Planet Eris
 * Planet of Hats
 * Planetville
 * Schizo-Tech
 * Science Destroys Magic
 * Shared Universe
 * Single Biome Planet
 * Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty
 * Small Secluded World
 * "Somewhere" Song
 * Spooky Silent Library
 * Standard Fantasy Setting
 * Standard Sci Fi Setting
 * Standard Superhero Setting
 * Sugar Bowl
 * Television Geography
 * There Are No Good Executives
 * The Unmasqued World
 * Unnecessarily Large Interior
 * Utopia
 * The Verse
 * You Would Not Want to Live In Dex
 * Where the Hell Is Springfield?
 * The Wonderland
 * The World As Myth
 * World Gone Mad
 * World of Symbolism
 * World Shapes
 * Dyson Sphere
 * Flat World
 * Hollow World
 * Ringworld Planet
 * World in The Sky