The Art and Science of Worldbuilding For Gameplay [+]

[Reynard]

While true, I think in the context of an RPG it is important to be mindful of putting the two together. You can certainly world build without any game in mind, and add campaign design later, but I find more success in doing them simultaneously. YMMV.

I think that world building first (that is not to say you don't do any world building during campaign design) tends to mean that the world can be used for multiple campaigns. This is generally how published campaign settings work. The intent is you lay a campaign on top of a world, but the world lives beyond the limits of the campaign.

 

[payn]

I think that world building first (that is not to say you don't do any world building during campaign design) tends to mean that the world can be used for multiple campaigns. This is generally how published campaign settings work. The intent is you lay a campaign on top of a world, but the world lives beyond the limits of the campaign.

Yeap, thats the traditional method, but I think it works better being mindful of campaigns during all of the building. Perhaps a more nu skool approach.

 

[Reynard]

Yeap, thats the traditional method, but I think it works better being mindful of campaigns during all of the building. Perhaps a more nu skool approach.

I don't think it is a new thing. Krynn was obviously built with DragonLance in mind, for example.

 

[prabe]

I'm about to start my third campaign in my homebrew setting, having run one campaign 1-20, and still in the process of another (currently at 15th, IIRC). When I first put the basics of the setting together, I was putting things (or taking things out) mostly according to what kind of setting I wanted to run in; as I've added things--whether in the process of setting up campaigns or working out adventures or just being curious about the world--I've started adding things I am, at best, reluctant to run, but which seem as though they need to be in the world (this is mostly cultures I don't feel as though I know well enough to center the game around) and I've also started adding things with the specific idea the players/characters would--or at least could--interact with them interestingly (though these tend to be things that get added in ongoing campaigns, when I have a sense of what a given party is interacting with). I don't see a lot of point in adding things to the world the PCs will never know about, let alone interact with--at least not with the players won't ever know/see/touch/feel/understand this being the point of the thing. I also make a bit of a point o being generous with world information, because most of it is stuff the characters would know and I want the players to be able to use it to make reasonable, rational-ish decisions for their characters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What do you think about world building toward gameplay? What are the techniques a world builder can use to build toward gameplay, and what should be avoided? What happens when a world builder finds they are building more for their own pleasure or for bespoke stories than for gameplay? How can they salvage their world? What TTRPG worlds really speak to you from a "built for gameplay" perspective, and which are interesting worlds but fail in the gameplay department?

What I do is I don't fully commit to my worldbuilding until after I've involved the players and have an idea of what they want from play, and what types of characters they want to play. I find that taking all that into consideration allows me to then world build with a much stronger focus on playability. I have a sense of the goals of both the players and their characters.

 

[Aldarc]

Don't overdesign.

Sketch and draw blanks in the world.

Provide mysteries without pre-authored answers.

Ask how design choices fill the lives of player characters with adventure.

 

[Reynard]

What I do is I don't fully commit to my worldbuilding until after I've involved the players and have an idea of what they want from play, and what types of characters they want to play. I find that taking all that into consideration allows me to then world build with a much stronger focus on playability. I have a sense of the goals of both the players and their characters.

Do you create a fresh world for every campaign?

 

[Reynard]

Don't overdesign.

Sketch and draw blanks in the world.

Provide mysteries without pre-authored answers.

Ask how design choices fill the lives of player characters with adventure.

This feels like "campaign design" more than it does "world building."

 

[prabe]

This feels like "campaign design" more than it does "world building."

You absolutely can design a setting that way. I have all sorts of undefined spaces (literal and metaphorical) in my world, specifically so I can define them if and when I need to, as they become at least potentially relevant.

 

[payn]

This feels like "campaign design" more than it does "world building."

You should expect a lot of these types of answers because the title is "worldbuilding-for-gameplay".