But, like my father before me, I was to become a DM (though I may claim jedi on occasion as well). As a result much of my time was spend creating the basis of games rather than a PC to play in it. And so I wrote, took notes, thought, designed, and imagined. For years. I could only run so many campaigns, but my ideas were endless and from one, others would make themselves. I would draw maps, write lists of names, and come up with time lines. Many haven't been used at all, others saw a session or two, and a few have seen extensive use.
Why has this been on my mind lately, though? I have been going through my "archives." That's right, I have saved everything. Every. Thing. I have folders of campaigns, character sheets, player notes, notebooks, files, printouts, laminated maps, and sketches. Recently, I went through them all in order to draw on some old ideas for continued inspiration today. It was then that I realized that, despite my lack of publishings, I have almost two decades of experience world building and running home-brew worlds. If there is anything I should be writing about, it is that.
World building needs to begin somewhere, and I imagine a lot of people stumble into it like I did. Twenty years led me to the longest campaign, in the most cohesive world I have ever run or made. One that I have plans to bring to fruition and continue on long into the future. It took that time, lots of mistakes, and a lot of learning from other people. What I hope to do now is distill down the foundations of world building so that you know the ground on which you are beginning to tread. What it comes down to are these rules for building and running your own home-brew world.
1) Choose A Style: Start by setting yourself some ground rules. If you can't set and follow your own guidelines, how are your players supposed find anchors or guides of their own? What kind of world are you looking to make? Do you want a sandbox, a theme park, some mix? How much information do you want? How much do you need? Start with style. There are, in my opinion, only three options under which styles come: sandbox, theme park, and Disneyland.
Sandbox campaigns are ones in which the characters can literally do anything and go anywhere. You do the exact opposite of railroad and prep very little. You need to have a lot of information on your world or be able and willing to make it up as you go. Needless to say this is a challenge. theme parks are a bit different. Unlike MMOs this isn't doing the same daily quests over and over again, but you are given a map. You know what rides there are and where you can go. You don't necessarily feel railroaded but there is certainly a storyline being followed.
Disneyland is the best I can describe what has become my style of running campaigns and world building. It is similar to both the sandbox and the theme park. Think of Disney. First there is the Magic Kingdom. Then you have Epcot, the Animal Kingdom, MGM Studios (yes I know they changed the name but I can't ever remember the new one), etc. Each one is unique but part of the collection. To be experienced separate from the others but vacations always package them together over many days. Even within the Magic Kingdom you have Fantasy Land, Tomorrowland, and the rest. If you have ever been, you know it is impossible to really experience ALL parts of the Magic Kingdom in one day. You have to pick and choose.
This is how I set things up. How I do this I will get to later (see rules #3,4, and 5), but the key point is that you can choose any park to go to and any part of the park to enjoy. You have to pick one at a time, may spend more time in one than another, but you have to make those decisions. Within them exploring becomes open (like a sandbox) but it is themed. You can focus as DM and your players know what to expect. It's easier to come up with names on the fly if you know you're going to part of the park that is Western themed, even if you have no idea who you need to name.
2) Choose Scale: This is VERY important. You may have decided on any of the above styles. Perhaps you have a unique or special style you're going to use. You probably think you have all the ideas you need. Well, I hope you picked scale. Is this a cosmic campaign? Is it continental, inter-kingdom, one kingdom, or the area around one city? Where do you draw the "here be dragons" images on your campaign map?
If you really want to be ready, you have to know your limits and let your players know them too. If you want to play sandbox you may be in it for the deep, long haul. If you are doing Disney, are you prepared with many parks or just the various areas in one park? If you're prepared for players to explore every square inch of the surrounding countryside, however, I give it 5 sessions before they seek something beyond your "map" borders. It isn't a complicated thing, but is distinctive enough to me to be it's own rule. It also brings me to my next rule.
3) You're Not Ready: No matter how prepared you get, no matter how much you have done, you will never anticipate the insanity that ensues when playing with people in an actual session. Ask any DM with any style of play and all those worth their salt will tell you that the best you can do is be ready to be surprised. I played a "2 hour" con game once with a friend and 4 other people. Our DM was voted the best DM at the con in some contest that weekend. I think it is fair to say we gave him a run for his money anyways. Ask me sometime and I'll tell you how we took a game about exposing strange things happening in mines and turned it into a 2.5 hour infiltration and freeing of slaves culminating in a revolution within the mines.
There are lots you can do to fix this, to be ready to improvise. There are books, including my recent review Unframed (go back two posts), which are great help. Watch streams, listen to podcasts, read articles by anyone and everyone, and above all play. Practice makes perfect. Tweak your style and your prep. Edit what you do and how you do it. Find what works. And never, ever, get upset when 0% of what you had anticipated or planned for happen (more on this in rule #6).
4) Time Spent Is Not Wasted: No matter how much deviation may occur, it is my firm belief that any time you spend preparing for you game, preparing your world, preparing the campaign as a whole is time well spent. At its core, this gets you thinking about it all. But in the end all the work you have done is, well, done. Those NPCs you have, those maps, those names. They are all done, resources you have made yourself to be used later. Eventually you can and should come back to it and use it. So prepare and come up with details. Get to know your world the way you know your favorite song, your favorite tv show, or your favorite book. I can tell you all about Star Wars if you ask, as DM I hope to be able to do the same about my world. You may never ask the question but I hope to be familiar enough to answer it.
5) Be Vague: You have all the time in the world to think and imagine. But, despite what I just said in rule #4, you don't have the time to write a publish-worthy adventure path or campaign book. So don't. Be vague. If your players are level one, you don't need details into level 2, let alone level 20. Sure, set some milestones or end goals. Maybe some things you want the campaign to steer towards. But by now I hope it's clear that things won't go the way you plan. Sorry.
When world building, be equally vague. Get an intimate relationship with the home base, the town you are always in. Have lots of locals and their personalities. Unless you know you are going somewhere else, why do you need the extended family of the regent lord who lives in the far off city and allows the local mayor to have control over your home town? Give him a name, a wife, a title. Grant him a unique thing everyone knows or a rumor that goes around. But everything else, fill in as needed. The same goes for towns, cities, forests. Are there goblins in the forest south of town? What are the tribe names, chiefs, features? Are there goblins in that forest at the other edge of the local map? Yes/no, please check one.
The further off in game time or space, the less details you need, the more you can make up on the fly, and the less you need to make up. You will know when directions change and you can focus efforts as needed. Being vague also allows you to take player ideas, harness, and use them instead of having to tell them no, here's the actual 4 page backstory on the uncle to the wife to the king.
6) Make It Personal, Don't Take It Personal: This is one I once had trouble with. I have played in campaigns where DMs can't handle this. There is a point when you realize you need to do this or a point where you realize you already are. As a DM you don't get the PC, you don't get the backstory, and you don't level up. When you world build, that world becomes yours. It is a very personal thing and what you make up and want the players to experience become equally personal. When you run into rule #3 in full, it is easy to become angered or even upset.
You can't let it bother you though. Be ready for it. It's one of the reasons rules #4 and #5 are important. There is always time to come back to it. The world is personal to you, of course it is. Just don't take your player's actions personally. This is their world too. Understand that. Make what they do or want to do something you can embrace. Harness it and make it a part of your world. If your players want to explore a certain aspect of your world they find interesting, take that and explore it yourself. And, if you really want them to explore something you've been working on or thinking about, tell them. Explain why you're excited and why it means so much. Make playing that aspect exciting for them to.
I must end this by pointing out that these 6 rules aren't exhaustive. There's so much more to cover. Self control in creativity, getting on track with a story, politics in the world, setting limits of religion or technology, and on and on. Once you get past these rules where do you start? Where do you pause? Stop? I plan on posting a number of these, and I feel like I'm forgetting something in this one, but I hope not. These rules should help solidify the madness that is world building and hopefully make the prospect of doing so less daunting. Although I am sure rule #3 is terrifying. But trust me, running a successful campaign in a home-brew world is one of the most rewarding DM experiences I have ever had.
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