D&D 5E World Building Method

[Diem]

Good day all.

I've been lurking here for a couple of years but I thought that I'd ask a question.

I'm getting ready to DM a campaign for the first time with my 7 year old daughter and 5 year old son. I've ran them both through solo one-shots and they both had a blast. I'm going to make a hybrid homebrew campaign with my own world but using premade campaigns and adapting them to my world. I've dabbled with world building before but I'd like to hear about methods others have used.

Do you DM's plan out certain features or areas before you start world construction or do you let it flow? I prefer to make the geography as realistic as possible in terms of water flow and types of terrain and climate. Share your methods with me. Thanks!

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[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6781382]Diem[/MENTION] Given your audience I'd probably go with less concern about detailed or verisimilitudinous world building.

One thing I've done when playing with kids is bring a blank paper (this could be a hex map) with some rough outlines to the starting area sketched in. I also brought colored pencils. And we just passed the page around, each taking a turn to draw in one detail. It helped that I began with the major features, which kept it sort of grounded at the beginning...eventually there were some wild and crazy features added in. We didn't fill in the whole map all at once; I think we began with just 3 map features each before the first session.

It's a fun variant that involves them in the game world. For the kids I played with it worked very well.

 

[Diem]

[MENTION=6781382]Diem[/MENTION] Given your audience I'd probably go with less concern about detailed or verisimilitudinous world building.

One thing I've done when playing with kids is bring a blank paper (this could be a hex map) with some rough outlines to the starting area sketched in. I also brought colored pencils. And we just passed the page around, each taking a turn to draw in one detail. It helped that I began with the major features, which kept it sort of grounded at the beginning...eventually there were some wild and crazy features added in. We didn't fill in the whole map all at once; I think we began with just 3 map features each before the first session.

It's a fun variant that involves them in the game world. For the kids I played with it worked very well.

That's a really cool idea. I could probably incorporate that into a world. A family world. I could even hashes them name places and regions.

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[aco175]

With young kids like you have I always found they had fun with cheesy names, like the Dungeon of Death, or The Town of Golden Gates. Also cool / cheesy names like in 007 movies makes it more fun. Keep world building limited to a couple towns and a few adventure sites. You do not need kingdoms or the whole world complete with varied cultures. Keep it simple and the kids will have fun and be able to explore.

Oh and welcome to the boards!

 

[ccs]

Do you DM's plan out certain features or areas before you start world construction or do you let it flow?

Both.
This is not an either/or situation.
Typically I'll make a short list of features I know I want included. Then I'll doodle the general outline of the continent/island/area etc. Next I plug in those features I listed.
Sometimes not everything looks right within the initial border I made. So I either alter the border or add more continents/islands/areas until it does look right. I'm not much concerned about making my worlds geography logical by real world standards. Odds are it'll look close enough. But if it doesn't? Magic must've been involved.

I don't worry about terrain features (mts, rivers, etc) except when they're part of, or are, the specific features I listed in the beginning. As the game progresses I fill in more of the map in whatever ways the story needs.
I have never fully detailed the backstory of the world, the activities of the gods, or the planar cosmology.
For the worlds backstory & tales of the gods? Bits & pieces will be added as needed. How the planes are structured? Doesn't matter. You're characters can't perceive the pattern. And the gods aren't going to tell you. So if you want to imagine the Great Wheel? The 4e whatever? Something else? OK, might be true. The important part is that Plane Shift etc works.

 

[Shiroiken]

For me, it depends on the type of world I want to build. If I have a specific genre in mind, I'll detail out that part, but otherwise I build from the ground up. Start with your base of operations, usually a town, and add as needed.

 

[i_dont_meta]

For my homebrew campaign I simply traced a map of the NW corner of our state (Washington) and renamed everything. Made for instant immersion since all my players are intimately familiar with the area.


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[Diem]

I'm definitely going to start with a small town and surrounding areas akin to LMoP but change the names. I'll eventually branch out and adapt premade adventures to fit my world.

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[Blue]

There's a great series from Dragon magazine in the 80s called Dungeoncraft that went on about building a world, and copies are fairly easy to find on the internet.

Two things from that I'd strongly suggest - start with just some broad strokes, don't worry about details for anything until it's going to become important for play, and for every single thing you create, also make a secret pertaining to it. The secret doesn't have to be one that would come up in play with your kids, but just having it influences other things you do and makes it see more realistic.

A turn on my own - if something hasn't been presented to the players, it's not set in stone. If details you've been planning but haven't come up in play are getting in your way, change them. Or even if a better idea comes up. Or especially if your players show more interest in X then in the Y you had though of. In other words, don't get wedded to you ideas to the detriment of actually running the game.

Best of luck!

 

[Imaculata]

Do you DM's plan out certain features or areas before you start world construction or do you let it flow?

I start with a theme of the campaign, and then work out a map of a portion of the world (not the entire world).
I draw the most important cities and landscape features on the map, but leave enough space for the players to discover things for themselves.

I prefer to make the geography as realistic as possible in terms of water flow and types of terrain and climate. Share your methods with me. Thanks!

I tend to model the portion of the world that the campaign takes place in in a real world environment.
But probably most important of all is working out the races, cultures and religions of the world in a lot of detail.

Its also important to figure out who the local regents are of each country, because it usually comes up at some point.