How to create a game world

One of my biggest obstacles I run into in designing a campaign is getting bogged down in the details. Now with Savage Shadows, my original intention was to use a post apocalyptic earth as a starting point. Which frees me up for the problems of languages, maps, currency etc. Which is nice. But every once in a while I think to myself: 'self, aren't you bored with earth?'

And then something comes along like the map I referenced in my last post. And this really spurs my imagination to do something really different, challenge myself and my players. And then 'reality' starts to seep in. What languages do these people speak? Where are they? How does their monetary system work? Basically all of the social and cultural anthropological questions. And then I start to feel overwhelmed, because I just have no idea how to answer those questions.

But then I harken back to the primary motivation of Savage Worlds: Fast! Furious! and Fun! And it struck me, I don't have to create the whole world! I still plan to keep the skeleton of the scenario that I already wrote: how the characters start, and the idea of a post-apocalyptic society. And there is no reason I can't do that in another world. I can drop this group into a new world, and have them discover the world at my own pace. So the initial adventures will all take place in a small area where I can keep the focus simple. Then as they get comfortable I can have them travel. But to start, there is no reason to force travel.

So I basically have to create a geographic area roughly the size of a county, with a large urban center. And since I will be working with an area everyone is a stranger to I won't have to worry about the problem of player knowledge v. character knowledge.

In order to keep it simple and fun, I will subscribe to the Star Trek theory of everyone speaking the same language, even alien like creatures. And the technology level will follow our own, because that was my original goal. The overarching theme of the campaign is roughly Shadowrun meets World War Z meets Wild Cards. And I can still pull that off in a different world.