The art and science of building an adventure setting can seem overwhelming. The LBBs give only the vaguest of directions for what to do (vagueness is how they roll after all) and figuring it all out on one's own can be a daunting task. It has taken me many years to feel comfortable knowing what to do when designing a setting. I have been borrowing ideas from this referee and that, from one source and another for decades in order to formulate my philosophy of how to run a game.
Rifts is a role-playing game by Kevin Siembieda published by Palladium Books set in a post apocalyptic future where the release of atomic weapons and resulting death energy introduced ley lines that forced open various dimensional "rifts" in time and space which now connect Earth to lots of other realities. As a result, high tech enclaves still exist alongside very primitive populations, aliens and demons have invaded Earth, and many other planets and dimensions are accessible if one uses the rifts to travel off Earth. Magic now exists and players can choose from a plethora of character types, some wearing flying powered armor, some hopped-up on stimulants, some capable of tapping into the new magic and others who are much less powerful. Rifts is everything all in one setting and it is frankly overwhelming at first.
A quick study of Rifts however will reveal that it is probably unwise to use everything all in the same campaign. The referee, together with players, should make some choices about the the game they are interested in using Rifts for. What to include and more importantly, what to leave out. And this is where Rifts starts to teach us how to be better referees of any system.
What kind of narrative are you hoping to create through the game you will run? Is this to be an investigative/intrigue adventure or one of exploring the unknown? Will there be lots of combat? What power level are you preparing for? When running a Rifts campaign, the referee generally makes decisions about what to focus on and what to avoid among the many available options in order to promote the desired and agreed upon type of game everyone is expecting. Is the game about powered armor Glitter Boys flying around pounding huge monster space robot invaders or is it about a vampire haunting a village? With Rifts, almost anything is possible, but Glitter Boys can be out of place in a sleepy, back country village and their firepower isn't needed if the biggest threat is a Bram Stoker variety vampire who can be killed with a wooden stake.
To a lessor extent, these same concepts apply in White Box and most every other system ever designed. What gets included and excluded from the current campaign, where to set the power level, when to add elements to the rules (or take away) or customize systems, all with the intent of setting the game up to deliver the experience everyone expects and is most likely to enjoy, all this is a big part of referee preparation.
This discussion also underscores the importance of having some dialogue with your players before the campaign starts. The longer I game, the more I am finding a session zero where the referee and players discuss the details of a coming campaign face-to-face (and perhaps create characters together) to be very helpful in this regard. Nothing trumps sitting down for some conversation about the coming campaign to get everyone on the same page and excited about the game (and don't forget to take notes!). I believe it is time well spent and helps avoid all kinds of potential pitfalls that can occur when everyone isn't a part of the initial creative process.
Learning to referee Rifts is a good way to organize your thoughts on campaign creation and running just about any kind of game. Making choices about scope, power level, PCs, monsters, rules to include and exclude, and where the game may need customized are the choices a good referee makes when designing any campaign using any rule system. The enormous amount of options available in Rifts pretty much forces the referee to focus and make choices. I think it is a good habit to get into. It is almost a bonus that Rifts is an excellent game with a great setting.
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