Worlds of Design: Worldbuilding 101 (Part 1)

If you want to make up your own adventures, your own campaign, instead of using something someone else wrote, then sooner or later you’ll need to approach world building. This is “beginners notes” for world building, it's not comprehensive. It's primarily for gamers, but much of it applies to fiction writers too.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.” - J. R. R. Tolkien

“Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.” M. John Harrison (author of more than 20 novels)

Some people devote big chunks of their lives to world building. Some fantasy or SF novelists have J.R.R. Tolkien in mind (see quote above), and how much time he spent on world building. Remember that a game world is a way to help people write their own stories, or to help you write your own story if you choose, so don't overdo the world-building. Your world is an adjunct to your game, not the goal. It's a means to an end, not an end in itself, unless you're very unusual. Read Harrison’s quote above, if you haven’t yet.

A mistake that many beginners make is to spend vast amounts of time on the world and not get around to what really matters, which is the game or the story. Most people can take the simple route. My friend Jeffro says you only need to know six things about the world to start the adventure. He doesn't specify categories; I don't think he was thinking in categories. In other words, you only need to know enough to let the adventure push forward. You don't need to know all the details about the world. Nonetheless, here are some questions you can ask yourself about a (fantasy) world.

• What are the players going to DO?
• Who are the main enemies?
• Terrain? (Do you NEED a map?)
• Is there “a war on?”
• Who/what dominates the local area?
• How “present” are the gods?
• Is there a great mystery?
• How much does magic influence the world?
• How common are adventurers?
• What is the speed of communication and transport?

Notice that I don’t mention the history of the world. Insofar as the history doesn’t make a difference to the players, why spend a lot of time on it?

What are the players going to do?

The first question is what are the players going to do? For the majority of game players, I think, games are about doing. They're not there to admire your world, and we can say that of novels as well. Even if you're talking about an entire world, it's part of a novel: what's important are the events of the novel. Occasionally the worlds are so striking that people are there in part to admire that - Larry Niven's Ringworld comes to mind. Tolkien’s world is often admired (in part because of the detail?), and so forth. But this is exceptional.

Who are the main enemies?

This can be anything from individual villains to entire nations or species. Individual villains can be more personal, more “me against him (or her)”. I'm going to get this guy or this girl no matter what. The large villains such as a nation or species can provide the feeling of being overwhelming, of inevitable failure or despair, and that may be a feeling you want introduced your game. I think the Underdark of early editions of D&D existed mainly so Drow could be a major enemy.

What's the terrain and do you need a map?

You probably need a local map (which will have terrain features) but not a world map. Games need a local map because players move about in it; novels often get away only with a large-scale map (so as not to give details away). Of course, if you're doing an RPG you can add to the local map as necessary and you can decide whether the new areas are mountains or something else. Maps are fun, on the other hand, if you make the entire world map now - that'll be much larger than you think- you limit yourself. Science fiction and fantasy author Glenn Cook (the Black Company stories among many others) doesn't like maps because they constrain what he's writing. So he doesn't provide many maps and it's hard to follow exactly where people are, because he's not worried about that he's worried about the events of the novel. Think about that.

Is there a war on?

War is a straightforward and immediate cause of action. It can be a generalized war on evil or can be much more specific. I always think of fantasy role-playing games as good against bad and that's the way I play. War also provides opportunities for action such as scouting the don't usually exist in peace time. War provides a focus that some campaigns lack.

Communication & Transport

I do want to mention communications and transport, which are two big questions. How fast is communication and how fast is transport? In science fiction we can have instantaneous communication, and much slower movement, though not the reverse of course. Movement speed is also communication speed in fantasy. Both are usually slow, as in a medieval world, but it doesn't have to be that way. Imagine a fantasy world with magical teleportation to any civilized part of the world readily available. . .

We'll come back to communication, transport, and the other worldbuilding questions in the next article.

 

[Ulfgeir]

You might not need to know the exact details of what happend in a setting, but you might have bards telling old legends. Maybe they were based on facts of something that happend a long time ago (most likely very much embellished and distorted over time). Would make for man interesting thing if they then came across some being that was actually present there..

Feuds, can linger a long time, and at the end no one might not even remeber why they started in the first place. For example in one of the Dresden Files novels, Queen Titania casually remarks that she hasn't talked to Queen Mab (who is her sister) since before Hastings.

 

[Lanefan]

Sounds like you are admitting that not every DM needs to write gigantic backstories for their worlds.

No, I'm admitting not every player cares enough to ask detailed questions about elements found during exploration and-or looting; while maintaining that even if it turns out they don't a DM still ought to assume that they will.

DM: "On looting the Orcs you find a total of 23 copper, 81 silver, and 6 gold pieces, along with [some mundane gear]."
Players collectively: "OK."

Now, how many players would think to ask details about those coins - are they mostly local, or have these Orcs also been raiding elsewhere? Are many of them particularly old (as shown by the head on the coin; and who's head is it?) indicating they've maybe found an ancient treasure stash along the way? Are any of them particularly new, indicating very recent success in raiding? Etc.

And of course a DM can make up answers to all these questions on the fly. The issue there is that eventually - and inevitably - doing this long enough and in any depth of detail will inevitably lead to glaring contradictions arising, and then down comes the house of cards: a completely avoidable outcome if the DM has her setting sorted out to begin with.

Here, all it needs is for the DM to know who reigned when as monarch, or reigns now: "These coins are almost all fairly recent - they've got King Athelrede's head, and he's only been on the throne for six years or so."

 

[Aldarc]

No, I'm admitting not every player cares enough to ask detailed questions about elements found during exploration and-or looting; while maintaining that even if it turns out they don't a DM still ought to assume that they will.

You're splitting hairs, but the end result is the same: not every DM needs to write gigantic backstories for their worlds.

 

[Campbell]

I played in a 18 month Beyond The Wall game before. We never left the village and surrounding area and rightfully did not care who was king.

 

[Aldarc]

I played in a 18 month Beyond The Wall game before. We never left the village and surrounding area and rightfully did not care who was king.

But I imagine that the entire game would have collapsed into an inescapable black hole if just one of you asked the GM who the king's great grand aunt was and the GM didn't prep that beforehand.

 

[Lanefan]

I played in a 18 month Beyond The Wall game before. We never left the village and surrounding area and rightfully did not care who was king.

Cool!

But I bet that village was detailed down to the cobblestones.

 

[Fenris-77]

DM: "On looting the Orcs you find a total of 23 copper, 81 silver, and 6 gold pieces, along with [some mundane gear]."
Players collectively: "OK."

Now, how many players would think to ask details about those coins - are they mostly local, or have these Orcs also been raiding elsewhere? Are many of them particularly old (as shown by the head on the coin; and who's head is it?) indicating they've maybe found an ancient treasure stash along the way? Are any of them particularly new, indicating very recent success in raiding? Etc.

Well, that's an interesting example, innit? Lets unpack shall we, because I do think it illustrates your point well, but it also (oddly) illustrates something like the opposite. Here's my first point, PCs find coin all the time. Unless you give them a reason to ask, they're never going to ask about the coins. Why would they? OK, so every now and then a PC might ask out of the blue, but mostly they won't, and I don't really think that's a controversial thing to say.

If I were that DM, I would telegraph the potential importance of the coins, probably using an adjective or two, perhaps old and interesting, or whatever. Without some telegraphing the players don't know to ask and are then either left asking about bloody everything, just in case, or asking about nothing, which is probably more likely. I do think that the DM will have had to do some of the background work you advocate for in order to use the coins as you describe, but there's two approaches there.

My issue is the amount of background you need to be 'generally ready' for that kind of random query. You need a whole lotta history to be able to field random history questions with a prepared answer. Some people love doing that work to, which is awesome. I don't love it. So my approach is that the coinage is only going to be specifically important because that's what makes sense in the fiction. Maybe I prepared a little tidbit before hand as a hook or gentle index, or maybe it's something that emerges out of play, either way, I only need to know that tidbit, not all possible tidbits.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, that's an interesting example, innit? Lets unpack shall we, because I do think it illustrates your point well, but it also (oddly) illustrates something like the opposite. Here's my first point, PCs find coin all the time. Unless you give them a reason to ask, they're never going to ask about the coins. Why would they? OK, so every now and then a PC might ask out of the blue, but mostly they won't, and I don't really think that's a controversial thing to say.

Fair enough.

I guess I come at it from the perspective of - as a player - sometimes being the one who does ask such things, either out of the blue or because I've rightly or (more often!) wrongly suspected there's something more to it.

If I were that DM, I would telegraph the potential importance of the coins, probably using an adjective or two, perhaps old and interesting, or whatever. Without some telegraphing the players don't know to ask and are then either left asking about bloody everything, just in case, or asking about nothing, which is probably more likely. I do think that the DM will have had to do some of the background work you advocate for in order to use the coins as you describe, but there's two approaches there.

My issue is the amount of background you need to be 'generally ready' for that kind of random query. You need a whole lotta history to be able to field random history questions with a prepared answer. Some people love doing that work to, which is awesome. I don't love it.

I'm not fond of it either, but I recognize its necessity and usefulness. This is largely behind my liking for long campaigns: if I do all that work, I'm then going to squeeze it for whatever it can be squeezed for.

So my approach is that the coinage is only going to be specifically important because that's what makes sense in the fiction. Maybe I prepared a little tidbit before hand as a hook or gentle index, or maybe it's something that emerges out of play, either way, I only need to know that tidbit, not all possible tidbits.

In my rather basic example, those questions would maybe arise if the players/PCs had any interest in or reason for* looking into how those Orcs came to be where they are, where they came from, and so forth.

Even something as simple as making sure the Orcs are local and aren't being paid by the neighbouring realm with whom we're at war ought to (but far too often doesn't!) get people looking more closely at the coins.

* - whether said interest or reason is on their own initiative or due to DM-supplied background doesn't matter here.

 

[Fenris-77]

Fair enough.

I guess I come at it from the perspective of - as a player - sometimes being the one who does ask such things, either out of the blue or because I've rightly or (more often!) wrongly suspected there's something more to it.

I'm not fond of it either, but I recognize its necessity and usefulness. This is largely behind my liking for long campaigns: if I do all that work, I'm then going to squeeze it for whatever it can be squeezed for.

I understand completely. Just because I don't like doing the grunt work doesn't mean I don't like world building. I'd just like someone to give dictation to who could also edit my stream of consciousness ramblings. I also tend to be that player, and I know that sometimes puts pressure on the DM.

In my rather basic example, those questions would maybe arise if the players/PCs had any interest in or reason for* looking into how those Orcs came to be where they are, where they came from, and so forth.

Even something as simple as making sure the Orcs are local and aren't being paid by the neighbouring realm with whom we're at war ought to (but far too often doesn't!) get people looking more closely at the coins.

* - whether said interest or reason is on their own initiative or due to DM-supplied background doesn't matter here.

Yeah, this was more what I was getting at. If there was a reason for the characters to look I'd be more likely to telegraph the clue a little and to have something written up about it. I have no issue whatsoever with this kind of detail in general, quite the opposite. My issue is with the essentially limitless prep needed to be fully prepared for even most of them. I think oretty quickly on my feet as a DM, and it's never really bothered me to do the detail work on the fly. I take a few notes and move on. I know that not everyone likes to work that way though.

 

[Hussar]

No, I'm admitting not every player cares enough to ask detailed questions about elements found during exploration and-or looting; while maintaining that even if it turns out they don't a DM still ought to assume that they will.

DM: "On looting the Orcs you find a total of 23 copper, 81 silver, and 6 gold pieces, along with [some mundane gear]."
Players collectively: "OK."

Now, how many players would think to ask details about those coins - are they mostly local, or have these Orcs also been raiding elsewhere? Are many of them particularly old (as shown by the head on the coin; and who's head is it?) indicating they've maybe found an ancient treasure stash along the way? Are any of them particularly new, indicating very recent success in raiding? Etc.
/snip

How many players? Close enough to zero that it might as well be zero.

Never once have I ever had a player even hint at these kinds of questions, and, frankly, on the times when I have made a point to mention that the coinage was odd, the players shrugged and ignored it. No one cares.