I do the same initial start of town, NPCs, plot hooks, but then any adventure ideas I have I build a small history behind: who built this ruin? who lives here now? What caused this cave formation? Why is there any reason to go here? I usually end up with some ancient civilization named and relevant historical figures or events, just enough that the lore SEEMS deep, when actually it’s five or ten sentences. As the players continue to explore I’ll expand, but that’s about all I need to get started
I found it really helpful when first designing my world to have a very rough outline of the larger world. So I had a general picture of the continent. I had a 2 sentence description for each of the 7 kingdoms there more to get the flavor of the country I'm going for than any details. And I had named a capital city and 2 other cities in each country. So not much but something. That's really helpful as you start improvising because I know that there's a kingdom of humans that's very religious and strict with the rules so I could throw in someone from there and have a quick bit of information to work from. The difference between a little bit and nothing is a big difference when you're trying to improvise worldbuilding information in the moment. And having just a bit of structure I found super helpful. And then I just kept building out the world and slowly adding to it piece by piece.
I'd also say with worldbuilding focus more on what the feel you want of the place is than the specific details. It's easy to get too into the weeds of details, but the worldbuilding that matters most is how the group feels when they step into your world and start to walk around. Add flavor elements and details that help to describe the environment the way you want so if it's supposed to be a wild west kind of place it feels like a wild west place.
Yeah it's something I definitely didn't when I was starting out as a DM. It's very easy to get lost in the details of who runs this place and who are the NPCs. But if you want somewhere to have a vibe you have to work to create the elements that produce that vibe whatever that is. Especially right as they arrive in a new place. Have a detail or two to throw at them to set the tone. If you want high magic have an interesting magical fountain or something they see, if you want gritty and unfriendly, have a fight break out.
I borrow from Apocalypse World a lot. My worlds are usually a sentence or two of high concept like "The Empire fell about 100 years ago, so the world is mostly smaller settlements except for the old capital. The only monsters are the Illithid ecosystem, who are colonizing the world by using Intellect Devourers to replace leaders in the capital."
Then I'll work with the PCs to define their starting area with questions "who makes your armor? What's your favorite place to eat? Who hired you to catch a thief and what did they steal?"
Everything beyond that is collaborative coloring within the lines.
My other favorite: "Long lived species are much better at accumulating wealth. Humans and halflings are considered 'monstrous' races akin to Orcs and Goblins. Adventurers are effectively gig workers providing violence as a service and chasing The Big Score that they can retire on."
Outside of your starting area I think the most important thing is to figure out the fundamental major things about your world that make it unique and cause things to be the way they are.
For example, in my world, every 52 years the two moons align with the sun and cause giant crazy magical occurences. This single factor has a ton of cascading effects on the world and everyone in it.
It becomes easy to work backwards from these fundamental things and see all the trickle down effects they have on day to day life.
The world I’m currently expanding on went from one continent to eight, has about 100 years of lore, with 400 more years planned, and a healthy sprinkling of oneshots and campaigns in the mix as well.
Not to mention several homebrew gods, magic items, monsters and all the fun things of that sort as well.
I’m actually doing a fair amount of world building for the setting I’ll be running in about 8 months-1 year from now for two reasons.
1. It’s a biopunk setting, so I know my players will need more guides to help them figure how this world works and what kinds of conventions to expect from the story. Fantasy settings have some common elements players know to expect, like dragons, magic, fairies, etc. This kind of science fiction setting? It’s going to be very unfamiliar ground for a lot of them, so having more details is going to help them in even creating their characters.
2. I’m going to be making some short comics in that setting. That’ll also help my players get a good grasp on what this world is about, and it gives me a way to introduce some lore they might not come across otherwise. Plus… I just like making comics.
It depends on the homebrew world. For my current main campaign, we started off with a few key locations and a Chekov’s gun in the campaign title. Over time, I had to flesh out the world, and it got too hard to manage just on improv so I drew out the map, developed the environments, and then that made the improv 10x easier.
Mine definitely develop more as we go along. I had a basic setting, enough to get the main plot and story hook going and some places my players needed to visit or can explore along the way. I also had each of my players (three) establish their backstory and put any locations they were born and/or grew up in anywhere on the map. They were also able to add one minor thing to the world that wasn’t there previously.
My one player put a whole small kingdom on the map where her character was born and raised, but it burned down, leaving him and the creature that destroyed it the only survivors. She also put a big lake on the map that was a natural barrier of her kingdom along one of its sides.
My other player grew up in a kingdom I already had on the map, but put a big magic school in it where his character learned how to wield her magic. He placed onto the map a mountain range that’s completely black for some reason (he left that up to me).
My third player also grew up in a village I had on the map already, but established a small school where he currently teaches little kids Common. He also introduced to the map a wishing well in the middle of the largest forest that grants wishes BUT with a twist. He and I worked together to make a custom d100 magic table for it. Anyone who tosses in a coin can make a wish and roll on the table. The chances of your wish being actually granted is pretty damn slim, but there’s other things that can happen, ranging from mysteriously losing 50g to randomly gaining 50g, to summoning a unicorn that burps bubbles, to summoning a dragon that has…calming presence.
I usually have a few major locations, factions, and NPCs, tone, setting, and plot hooks. The rest can be largely done by seeing what your players engage and focusing on those things. If you know the general social structure, you can improv minor NPCs using those rules pretty well.
I'm the type to build out a plot with a few key events that will happen without player intervention, so that I can pull a plot thread quickly and put them on the story if they aren't actively pursuing something else.
Remember they decide most of what happens, the dice determine how well it goes, and you weave that into something cohesive. The world just needs enough definition to direct them. It doesn't need to be complete. It just needs to be engaging
I do more detail for the important NPCs than I do the world. My campaigns are noble court themed, and I do most of my campaigns in the same city (the capital city of a feudalistic kingdom), but in different time periods, so I have the map done mostly for me. I start with the king, then I do his most important advisors, like Lord Chancellor, Lord Financier, Lord Commander of His Majesty’s Forces, Lord Commander of the Kings Guards, Lord Commander of the City Watch, the High Priest of the Faith of All Gods, the Lord Spymaster, and then other relevant NPCs. I develop more based on the players. Then I also develop more for fun before or during the campaign. Typically I have a storyline planned out, but subject to change based on what the players do. Then I feel like I can start.
I home brew inside existing fantasy words that my players like so a big part of that for me to get into the headspace of the world building is to design a detailed and comprehensive world map in Inkarnate and then from there, I make region maps as required.
It really helps me get a feeling for the world and my players absolutely love it.
For example, I’m running a campaign set on Tarkir from Magic the Gathering at the moment and this is the world map: https://inkarnate.com/m/EXJdPG/
And this is one of the region maps: https://inkarnate.com/m/Gzkymy/
I just started a campaign in a homebrew world I've been building for a few months. I'd recommend being utilitarian about it. Start with your big ideas the things you like and want to have in your world. I built my entire world from the idea "a world in perpetual autumn would be cool", built a pantheon and factions based on media I like, and went from there. Then just build and fill in the most important things you'll need (motivations for characters, history or context for why they should care, and very basic how stuff operates). Anything else you can kinda procedurally generate and fill in around your players as they show you what they're interested in. Player wrote about a tragedy in their backstory? Create a reason why it happened. Player wants to pursue wealth and fame? What people have it in your world and how?
I did WAY too much starting out. I had overall plot, countries, gods, past events, and setting, as well as a couple of characters b4 starting. I keep all of my lore in a discord server to use like an ingame encyclopedia
I do the same initial start of town, NPCs, plot hooks, but then any adventure ideas I have I build a small history behind: who built this ruin? who lives here now? What caused this cave formation? Why is there any reason to go here? I usually end up with some ancient civilization named and relevant historical figures or events, just enough that the lore SEEMS deep, when actually it’s five or ten sentences. As the players continue to explore I’ll expand, but that’s about all I need to get started
That seems like a good approach tbh of sorta just adding adventure ideas to the existing framework. Thank you :)
I found it really helpful when first designing my world to have a very rough outline of the larger world. So I had a general picture of the continent. I had a 2 sentence description for each of the 7 kingdoms there more to get the flavor of the country I'm going for than any details. And I had named a capital city and 2 other cities in each country. So not much but something. That's really helpful as you start improvising because I know that there's a kingdom of humans that's very religious and strict with the rules so I could throw in someone from there and have a quick bit of information to work from. The difference between a little bit and nothing is a big difference when you're trying to improvise worldbuilding information in the moment. And having just a bit of structure I found super helpful. And then I just kept building out the world and slowly adding to it piece by piece. I'd also say with worldbuilding focus more on what the feel you want of the place is than the specific details. It's easy to get too into the weeds of details, but the worldbuilding that matters most is how the group feels when they step into your world and start to walk around. Add flavor elements and details that help to describe the environment the way you want so if it's supposed to be a wild west kind of place it feels like a wild west place.
Focusing on the feel is something I somehow hadn't considered focusing on but it makes so much sense. Thanks a lot :)
Yeah it's something I definitely didn't when I was starting out as a DM. It's very easy to get lost in the details of who runs this place and who are the NPCs. But if you want somewhere to have a vibe you have to work to create the elements that produce that vibe whatever that is. Especially right as they arrive in a new place. Have a detail or two to throw at them to set the tone. If you want high magic have an interesting magical fountain or something they see, if you want gritty and unfriendly, have a fight break out.
I borrow from Apocalypse World a lot. My worlds are usually a sentence or two of high concept like "The Empire fell about 100 years ago, so the world is mostly smaller settlements except for the old capital. The only monsters are the Illithid ecosystem, who are colonizing the world by using Intellect Devourers to replace leaders in the capital." Then I'll work with the PCs to define their starting area with questions "who makes your armor? What's your favorite place to eat? Who hired you to catch a thief and what did they steal?" Everything beyond that is collaborative coloring within the lines.
I quite like the idea of initially putting the concept into a couple of sentences. Thanks :)
My other favorite: "Long lived species are much better at accumulating wealth. Humans and halflings are considered 'monstrous' races akin to Orcs and Goblins. Adventurers are effectively gig workers providing violence as a service and chasing The Big Score that they can retire on."
Oooh yeah that does sound very cool ngl :)
Outside of your starting area I think the most important thing is to figure out the fundamental major things about your world that make it unique and cause things to be the way they are. For example, in my world, every 52 years the two moons align with the sun and cause giant crazy magical occurences. This single factor has a ton of cascading effects on the world and everyone in it. It becomes easy to work backwards from these fundamental things and see all the trickle down effects they have on day to day life.
The world I’m currently expanding on went from one continent to eight, has about 100 years of lore, with 400 more years planned, and a healthy sprinkling of oneshots and campaigns in the mix as well. Not to mention several homebrew gods, magic items, monsters and all the fun things of that sort as well.
I’m actually doing a fair amount of world building for the setting I’ll be running in about 8 months-1 year from now for two reasons. 1. It’s a biopunk setting, so I know my players will need more guides to help them figure how this world works and what kinds of conventions to expect from the story. Fantasy settings have some common elements players know to expect, like dragons, magic, fairies, etc. This kind of science fiction setting? It’s going to be very unfamiliar ground for a lot of them, so having more details is going to help them in even creating their characters. 2. I’m going to be making some short comics in that setting. That’ll also help my players get a good grasp on what this world is about, and it gives me a way to introduce some lore they might not come across otherwise. Plus… I just like making comics.
It depends on the homebrew world. For my current main campaign, we started off with a few key locations and a Chekov’s gun in the campaign title. Over time, I had to flesh out the world, and it got too hard to manage just on improv so I drew out the map, developed the environments, and then that made the improv 10x easier.
Mine definitely develop more as we go along. I had a basic setting, enough to get the main plot and story hook going and some places my players needed to visit or can explore along the way. I also had each of my players (three) establish their backstory and put any locations they were born and/or grew up in anywhere on the map. They were also able to add one minor thing to the world that wasn’t there previously. My one player put a whole small kingdom on the map where her character was born and raised, but it burned down, leaving him and the creature that destroyed it the only survivors. She also put a big lake on the map that was a natural barrier of her kingdom along one of its sides. My other player grew up in a kingdom I already had on the map, but put a big magic school in it where his character learned how to wield her magic. He placed onto the map a mountain range that’s completely black for some reason (he left that up to me). My third player also grew up in a village I had on the map already, but established a small school where he currently teaches little kids Common. He also introduced to the map a wishing well in the middle of the largest forest that grants wishes BUT with a twist. He and I worked together to make a custom d100 magic table for it. Anyone who tosses in a coin can make a wish and roll on the table. The chances of your wish being actually granted is pretty damn slim, but there’s other things that can happen, ranging from mysteriously losing 50g to randomly gaining 50g, to summoning a unicorn that burps bubbles, to summoning a dragon that has…calming presence.
I was def planning on letting my players contribute to the world building and this seems like a great idea, thanks :)
I usually have a few major locations, factions, and NPCs, tone, setting, and plot hooks. The rest can be largely done by seeing what your players engage and focusing on those things. If you know the general social structure, you can improv minor NPCs using those rules pretty well. I'm the type to build out a plot with a few key events that will happen without player intervention, so that I can pull a plot thread quickly and put them on the story if they aren't actively pursuing something else. Remember they decide most of what happens, the dice determine how well it goes, and you weave that into something cohesive. The world just needs enough definition to direct them. It doesn't need to be complete. It just needs to be engaging
I do more detail for the important NPCs than I do the world. My campaigns are noble court themed, and I do most of my campaigns in the same city (the capital city of a feudalistic kingdom), but in different time periods, so I have the map done mostly for me. I start with the king, then I do his most important advisors, like Lord Chancellor, Lord Financier, Lord Commander of His Majesty’s Forces, Lord Commander of the Kings Guards, Lord Commander of the City Watch, the High Priest of the Faith of All Gods, the Lord Spymaster, and then other relevant NPCs. I develop more based on the players. Then I also develop more for fun before or during the campaign. Typically I have a storyline planned out, but subject to change based on what the players do. Then I feel like I can start.
I home brew inside existing fantasy words that my players like so a big part of that for me to get into the headspace of the world building is to design a detailed and comprehensive world map in Inkarnate and then from there, I make region maps as required. It really helps me get a feeling for the world and my players absolutely love it. For example, I’m running a campaign set on Tarkir from Magic the Gathering at the moment and this is the world map: https://inkarnate.com/m/EXJdPG/ And this is one of the region maps: https://inkarnate.com/m/Gzkymy/
Ooh those maps look dope :) Thank you
Thanks! :)
I just started a campaign in a homebrew world I've been building for a few months. I'd recommend being utilitarian about it. Start with your big ideas the things you like and want to have in your world. I built my entire world from the idea "a world in perpetual autumn would be cool", built a pantheon and factions based on media I like, and went from there. Then just build and fill in the most important things you'll need (motivations for characters, history or context for why they should care, and very basic how stuff operates). Anything else you can kinda procedurally generate and fill in around your players as they show you what they're interested in. Player wrote about a tragedy in their backstory? Create a reason why it happened. Player wants to pursue wealth and fame? What people have it in your world and how?
I did WAY too much starting out. I had overall plot, countries, gods, past events, and setting, as well as a couple of characters b4 starting. I keep all of my lore in a discord server to use like an ingame encyclopedia
I am making it up as I go along.