Worldbuilding as a Team Sport
This is a little procedure I use to start off a campaign. Because I want to use this post to point players to ahead of a session of collaborative worldbuilding, I will skip the preaching about why it is a good thing (or rather pass it off that sermon to Yochai of the New School Revolution blog).
This method is basically cribbed from Perilous Wilds with a few of my own flourishes. As always, you are encouraged to steal it and remix it yourself.
Step 0. Blank Map. We begin with a blank map of the local region. I typically use a hex map that is 5 hexes across.
Step 1. Campaign Features. The referee describes any important features of the campaign that distinguish this campaign from the standard generic fantasy setting. Sometimes the referee only has a rough idea “what if elves were, uh, aliens from the moon or something,” but the referee might have also started the campaign to explore some interesting premise or twist on fantasy. Either way it is crucial that the referee eschews dumping a ton of lore on the players. Every piece of information in some way constrains what the players can create in the future steps.
Example: In my upcoming campaign, the main feature is that it is set in the world of my Barkeep on the Borderlands adventure, i.e., a fantasy world that is vaguely late medieval but mostly the standard D&D fare: dwarves and elves and goblins (oh my). This is the same setting as the classic Keep on the Borderlands module, with my own maybe subversive reading of it. A monarch (not yet poisoned) rules the “civilized” lands of humanity. Revolutionary fervor grows in the Keep as the monarch’s forces push ever further eastward.
Step 2. Player Characters. We typically create characters together using methods that do so quickly with minimal math involved. But once the characters are created, we go around the table (or video call, as the case may be) and the players introduce their characters. The other players may ask questions of each other, as they see fit.
Step 3. Starting Settlement. The referee draws the player characters’ starting settlement on the map (ideally on one of the edges, but a case can be made that it should be in the center). This isn’t necessarily where the player characters are from, but it is where they have gathered to begin their adventures. The referee may ask the players where their base of operations in the settlement is, if any. It might be a tavern, an abandoned building, a campsite outside the city walls or whatever else. Everyone may suggest ideas, and the idea with the broadest appeal will prevail.
Example: In this case, the players will start in the Keep, a city that was once just a fortified border settlement. I drew it on the far upper-left corner of the map. It has four major districts: the Old Fort Ward (a small, historic district, home to many government buildings), the River Downs (a posh river district containing a magic academy), the Citywood (an enchanted forest within the city walls) and the Iron Fens (a large district south of the river, consisting of slums and factories built atop a swamp). The Keep is also home to innumerable bars and taverns.
Step 4. Landmarks. Starting with the player with the most well-traveled character, each player (including the referee) takes a turn to add a landmark to the map. A landmark is any relatively permanent feature that is known by people in the area (in a similar sense to how Anne of DIY & Dragons uses the term in her excellent blogpost on the subject). This may be an abandoned wizard’s tower, a tree containing a clandestine city of squirrels or a mountain that is home to a holiday-hating bugbear. It may also be something bigger, like a haunted forest or hills with a sprawling network of caves. Multiple landmarks can exist in the same hex. Repeat this step until there are at least 7 landmarks on the map.
Step 5. Personal Stories. Starting with the player with the oldest character, each player (except the referee) picks a place on the map where something interesting happened to their character, like where they were cursed by a witch, where they accidentally swallowed a fairy, where they studied alchomancy under the Great Bartender Equal to Heaven, or where they watched helplessly as paladins arrested their spouse for failure to pay the arrears on their great-great grandmother’s mortgage. Point out the region and say what happened there.
Step 6. Deities and Demigods. Starting with the player with the most devout character, each player (including the referee) describes a deity, cult or religion that is practiced in the region and says a bit about that religion and its practitioners.
Example: The Church of Chaos, a formerly secretive cult that has become a mainstream organization within the Keep. Although many of their beliefs are shrouded in mystery, it is clear that they worship demons and have some connection to undead.
Step 7. Lost History. Starting with the player with the character with the most formal education, each player (except the referee) describes either a civilization that once flourished in this region or adds a detail to flesh out a previously established lost civilization. A civilization can be an empire that once controlled these lands, a frontier settlement that became a ghost town, an isolated culture that became assimilated into the now-dominant culture, or any other group of peoples (not just humans, by the way) that once lived in the region. When I think of this step, I think of one of the classic West Marches essays that has long been a cornerstone to the types of games I like to run. Repeat this step until there are at least 2 or 3 lost civilizations.
Step 8. Rumors and Legends. Starting with the player who has spent the most time in taverns, each player (except the referee) says something their character has heard about a landmark, religion, lost civilization or anything else. This rumor should be unusual and provoke further questions (e.g., “Some say that humankind was not born but made out of the stale bread from the baker beneath the seventh sea” or “I have it on good authority that there is a hidden city of sentient swords that buy and sell people to use as weapons.” These may be true or just rumors (the referee may roll a die to decide if they are uncertain but should never reveal their determination to the players). This conversation may be done in character, in which case the other players (except the referee) should respond in kind, as if the characters are sharing rumors in the back of their favorite tavern.
Step 9. First Expedition. The referee asks the players about their immediate plans: where they want to go and what they want to accomplish. If you have time remaining in the session, you can dive straight into that adventure.
Step 10. Fill Gaps. After this session zero and between every other session, the referee should add more to the world, adding people, places, things, filling in gaps and adding mysteries and secrets for the characters to discover. However, the referee should keep their own separate map to detail these notes and keep the group map available the characters to add to as they make such discoveries in play. (In practice, for my online games, I update the group map as well and share a copy of it between sessions.)
