Worldbuilding

Creating a world for a campaign might mean putting a castle in the Crawley Hills between Northminster and Holdenshire, including a new settlement or region in another existing setting, or building an entire world for the adventurers to discover and explore. Whether the scope of the undertaking is small or grand, clarifying the goals of worldbuilding and the approach being taken makes the task much more manageable.

Guiding Principle: Player Experience First

Like creating a campaign, keep the player experience at the forefront of the worldbuilding process. This focuses development on elements that players will interact with and enjoy rather than on tangential or superfluous details. 

Approaches to Worldbuilding

Level Up presents two approaches to worldbuilding but there’s no single right way to go about it, and these aren’t the only methods. In practice, most worldbuilders do a mix of two or more approaches, depending upon their time and preferences. When deciding upon the functionalist and simulationist approaches, consider the workload that they both require before making a decision. 

Functionalist Approach

A functionalist approach is only concerned with the elements necessary for the story or set of stories that will be told inside the setting. The narrative of a campaign identifies aspects of the world that need definition—if it doesn’t appear ‘on stage’ or ‘on screen’, there’s no need for it to exist. History is important only insofar as it serves setting and character motivation (whether an adventurer’s or NPC’s). Geography and current events exist to support the plot by creating conflict or highlighting characters.

A functionalist approach to worldbuilding is similar to setting a stage. History, lore, culture, and politics are backdrops. Adventure sites and geography are stage props, and NPCs only matter if they ever make it on stage.

The functionalist approach works well when it is able to draw on broader genre conventions. Many fantasy authors take this approach because it’s flexible and efficient. Do you need a mountain range filled with ruins? Make it. Unless he’s going to play a significant role in the campaign, who cares how the Queen’s cousin impacts her rule? The challenge to a functionalist approach is verisimilitude, particularly if a group of players is prone to sudden turns. Consider adding rumors or stories that imply events from beyond the scope of the game without actually detailing them until it becomes important to do so.

Simulationist Approach

The simulationist approach looks to create a vibrant world that exists independently of a particular narrative or story. Instead, worldbuilders create or adapt cultures, civilizations, economic systems, cosmologies, and histories. 

If a functionalist approach to worldbuilding sets a stage, a simulationist approach seeks to build the house that a stage is trying to depict. Often, a simulation approach attempts to model economics, social systems, politics, and history as accurately as possible. Great attention is given to details that underpin the campaign setting, even if they don’t always have a direct impact on characters directly. 

Time and complexity are the challenges to this method. Building a setting in this fashion often requires research as well as creating a great deal of material that may never be used at the table. While certainly a more daunting and involved task, Narrators that use this approach usually have an answer, NPC, or locale prepared wherever the party’s story might take them. 

Collaborative Worldbuilding

Another strategy involves harnessing the creative power of players. As players develop their characters, consider asking them to provide details about the towns, regions, or nations that their adventurers hail from. This can be a great way to engage players with their characters and the campaign setting. It also adds depth by going beyond the Narrator’s own conceptual framework. 

Another way to work collaboratively is during session zero or at another time prior to the campaign. Create worldbuilding exercises or shared activities around cultures, myths, gods, or any other aspect of the campaign setting.

Collaborative worldbuilding can also be used after a campaign has started. If the party ventures to a new town, ask them to name taverns or a location. If the adventurers have already been to a place, ask them to share details. The Narrator can encourage players to create details during the course of their roleplay with one another or with NPCs. Unless there is a compelling reason not to, incorporate the events, locations, and characters into the tapestry of the world!

Create a Concept

A campaign setting is a foundation upon which we tell stories. The types of stories that we want to tell should inform the world that we create. As with building a campaign, consider the types of adventures that might be run within that world. For example, a Narrator intending to run light and whimsical games that explore the secrets of a wondrous feywood are in for a tough time if playing in a campaign setting in which the gods have been devoured by elder evils that now raise mortals like cattle. Similarly, a game of gothic horror isn’t going to work in a setting where the adventurers are literal demigods. 

When thinking about a campaign setting concept, consider its defining or iconic elements. Is it a duchy holding to an uncertain peace or a world recently ravaged by a demonic invasion? Is it a continent that once hosted an ancient civilization whose secrets are now being plundered? What does the campaign setting look like at the beginning of play—and how will it change? 

Here are some example setting concepts:

• A world being rediscovered after an extraplanar invasion forced the few remaining survivors to hide underground for centuries.
• A recently discovered continent that holds the secret to an ancient magical catastrophe.
• A post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by demonic overlords.
• A conventional fantasy kingdom at the precipice of a civil war due to a conflict between the church and the royal wizards academy.
• A recently annexed city in the midst of an industrial revolution where the body of a dead god is harvested to fuel ghastly new technologies.

Work Backwards & Outwards

Start with the world state informed by the concept’s premise and work backwards. While the present is predicated upon the past, often the past is unclear to the present. History becomes increasingly unclear as we move backwards. Events and individuals lose definition, are transformed into myth, or are forgotten entirely. When worldbuilding, this historical process provides the freedom to focus on the present and its immediate precursors.

Similarly, start with the location of the adventurers and work outward. Pay attention to the immediate setting and allow details to blur as distance grows from the campaign’s lens. There is no need to exhaustively detail the geography of a mountain chain on the other side of the world.

Remember Conflict

As the name implies, a campaign setting serves to inform a campaign, and all campaigns need conflict. How does the setting assist this? What are the key conflicts?

Creating a New World

Regardless of which approach to worldbuilding is taken, creating a new campaign setting is an undertaking. These questions can help define some key characteristics. 

• Cosmogony: How was the world created? Was it literally forged by the gods or was it shaped by natural processes?
• Cosmology: What are the other planes like? Is there an afterlife? How is it reached or achieved? Where do the gods reside?
• Distinctive Environmental Characteristics: Is your world an arid husk? Does it experience extreme storms caused by magical or astronomical phenomena?
• Key Powers: Who holds power? Who is oppressed? What resources create conflict?
• Layout and Structure: Is your setting a spherical hunk of stone orbiting a star or does it exist entirely within the mind of a sleeping god?
• Mythology: Are myths an explanation for history or natural phenomena or were the seas truly created when Jamir spilled the blood of Kareth during the Dawnfire War? 
• Nature and Role of the Gods: Do the gods predate the setting, or are they manifestations of natural processes or metahuman thought and emotion?
• Nature of Magic: Is magic energy left over from the creation of the world or shaping the dreams of the Great Sleeper? Does power come within individuals or are they conduits?
• Prevalence of Magic: How prevalent is magic? How common are magical practitioners?
• Technology Level: What is the highest level of technology achieved? Do airships sail the skies, or have ruthless dragon overlords kept metahumanity in the dark ages?
• World’s Age: Have the gods just finished shaping it, or does the star above gutter a dim red as it approaches death? 

Worldbuilding in Established Settings

If the idea of building an entire world seems daunting, consider creating a smaller setting within a pre-existing campaign setting. Even the most well-developed campaign settings have gray spaces that the creators have not defined. This space can serve as a canvas for customized characters, locations, and stories. New Narrators in particular can make good use of these gray spaces as building in an established setting is an excellent way to manage the scope of new material. Additionally, being able to draw upon the cultures, history, and politics of the current campaign setting can save a lot of time and help keep these elements of the game feel cohesive with the rest.

Questions

Adventurers are usually curious so considering what they’ll be asking ahead of time is a reliable method for figuring out what things need to be addressed in new material when worldbuilding in an established campaign setting.

• What heritages and cultures from the established campaign setting are represented?
• What governmental system or economic systems are in place?
• What natural resources does this region have?
• What is the relationship with neighbors?
• What are its primary conflicts?
• What makes it distinct from other locations in the campaign setting?
• What differences need to be communicated to the players?