Collaborative Worldbuilding

A Process

My first digital gardening project is developing my procedure for collaborative worldbuilding in the public eye. This procedure should be a great way to get your TTRPG group together and generate a world you are all excited to adventure in. This is especially handy for sandbox-play.

Goals

• Get players invested in the game and world from the beginning.
• Produce character creation and adventure hooks.
• Avoid ‘blank slate’ mental blocks for the busy GM trying to build a fantasy world.

Steps

1. Individual Brainstorm

• Set a one minute timer. Everyone writes down as many words related to fantasy worlds as they can unfiltered
• Restart the timer. Everyone goes through their list and writes the first word that comes to mind for each word they read in the first round.
• Set a two minute timer. Everyone curates their list, removes word pairs that make no sense or seem uninteresting.

These lists can be used in all future steps as a font of inspiration and unique ideas, especially if people get stumped.

2. Group Truths

This step is inspired by this blog post by New School Revolution.

• Each player names a broad truth about the shared world.
• No player should contradict another player’s truth.
• I think it would be useful to use the classic fantasy setting as an assumed baseline and make the truths focus on highlighting deviations from this.
• If it feels necessary, another round of truths could be illicited.

3. Character and Starting Town Creation

This step takes inspiration from games where collaborative worldbuilding is built into character creation, such as Beyond the Wall. Another great post on the topic can be found here.

• Start by following the usual character creation steps of your chosen system.

(I’ll be using ACKS which provides nice little templates for all classes that hint at a backstory through proficiencies and equipment.)

3a. Childhood (Optional)

• Each player briefly describes their character’s family history. What role did they play in the character’s society? What effect did this have on the character.
• Each player playing a human character adds a location to the town map related to their upbringing.
• Each player playing a non-human character draws a nearby settlement for their race if one does not already exist, or adds more detail to an existing one.
• Each player playing a human character describes how they became an adventurer after shifting from their familial line of work.
• Each player playing a non-human character describes their reason for leaving their own society and coming to the realm of men.
• Each player ties their character to an individual or group within the starting town, creating an NPC in the process.

3b. Early Adventuring Career

• Each player briefly describes their core character concept. They might not know much about their character as a person, but they probably have a fantasy trope or role in mind (grizzled warrior, devout crusader, wandering mystic etc.)
• After a player has desribed the concept, the rest of the group should ask clarifying questions. “You say you’re grizzled, what happened to make you that way? How have you spent your long fighting career?”. This can be quite a freeform discussion but the DM may need to do some wrangling if things go too long or get off topic. The idea is to find out how the character got their core abilities, other defining features and their motivations.
• Each player should add a town location to the shared map related to these fleshed out backstory details. The location need not be in the town proper, but it should at least be close by.
• Each player should come up with an escapade their character survived in their early career with the character of the player to their right.
• Each player should come up with a unique item they have from their past. Something to set up future troubles and hint at more backstory yet to be discovered.
• Each player should create an NPC in the starting town related to their early career.

3c. Finishing up the Starting Town

• Ask the player of the most social character or the one most prone to drink to define the local Inn if not already defined. If defined, ask them some clarifying questions. A good Inn needs a name, Innkeep and sense of overall size and vibe. Is it cramped and seedy? Open and welcoming? Remember that many Inns have a simple name that can easily be represented by a symbol or two. “The Green Dragon”, “The Crimson Hog” etc.
• Ask the player of the character with the most mounts or animals to define the town’s stables. Who is the practitioner? Is the care superior with a matching price tag? Or a good place for leaving your flea bitten muts.
• Ask the player of the most noble or law-abiding character to define the local rulership. Who is the lord or lady of the town? What sort of retinue do they keep? What do the common folk think of them? From where do they get their power?
• Ask the player of the most devout character about the local religion and place of worship. Who is the local head? What is the religion? Do the local people believe out of fear or thanks? How much power is held by the church?
• Ask the player of the most well read/wise character about the local wise man or woman. Does the town host a witch? A wise sage? How do the people see this individual? What cost do they ask for their services? What is their abode like?

4. Rumours of Adventure

This step is pretty much copied from the Further Afield supplement to Beyond the Wall.

DMs may use a threat pack provided by flatland games alongside this step or create their own, but I won’t go into those details here.

• The GM sets out a piece of paper as the shared map and draws the starting town in or close to the center.
• Players take turns placing major locations on the map. Distance and direction options refresh once each option from the given set has been used.
  • The player selects a direction not yet used by another player (North, South, East or West).
  • The player selects a distance not yet used by another player (Near, Moderate, Far).
  • If needing ideas, the player rolls 1d8 for location type.
    • 1: Major City (reroll if a major city has already been placed on the map)
    • 2: Ancient Ruins (likely from an old civilisation)
    • 3: Human Settlement (small or of comparible size to starting town)
    • 4: Recent Ruins
    • 5: Non-human Settlement (dwarves, elves etc but also goblins/giants)
    • 6: Monster Lair (Large groups or extremely powerful singular entities like dragons and Beholders)
    • 7: Source of Power (Sought after centers of magic)
    • 8: Otherworld (connections to underdark or other planes)
  • The player decides whether they’ve learnt about the place, seen it for themselves, or heard about it. Pick a different option from any previously picked by players.
  • The player comes up with a hook for the location, describing what they know of the place and why one might want to adventure there.
  • The DM secretly checks for how accurate the character’s information is. 2d20 are rolled, one produces the target number and one is modified by an appropriate character attribute based on how they learnt of the place (eg. Wisdom for hearing a rumour from a wandering pilgrim).
    • Failure by 10 or more means the character is badly mistaken about the location, likely in a dangerous way.
    • Failure by less than 10 means the character is mostly correct in what they know but is missing important details or is wrong about a specific but basic detail.
    • Success by less than 10 means the character is correct about the location but does not know all of its secrets.
    • Success by 10 or more means the character is correct and knows even more about the location. When the time comes, the DM should provide additional information, advantages or aids such as a map of the place to the player.
• Each player picks another player’s location and embellishes on it. Players should not contradict established facts and it works best if the same location is not embellished more than once.
• The group spend some time discussing the created world and connecting what they already know about their characters etc.
• DM should illicit character motivations.
• The group tell the DM what they’d like to do as their first adventure.

5. The Truth Emerges

• DM gets hex paper with each hex being 3 miles across.
• DM places starting town approximately in the centre of the map.
• DM places geography and major locations established with the players. It is important to respect approximate locations defined by the players in the cases where they were correct, but the DM can play around a bit to make the map make sense. Ensure all major locations are at least 2 hexes apart.
• The DM sprinkles around minor locations.
  • Only make as many as needed/wanted for now. Can always add more later when inspired, even to hexes already visited, as long as not completely explored.
  • Alternate between creating Friendly, Neutral and Hostile locations.
  • Make one fantastical location for every two mundane, alter as fits your particular fantasy level.
  • Minor locations should draw inspiration from the major locations and geography.
  • Minor dungeon locations should only be a handful of rooms in size, completable in a single session.
• The DM defines regions. These can be things such as forests, fertile basins or mountain ranges.
  • Each region should have its own character, hazards and challenges.
  • Regions should inspire and be inspired by the locstions within them.
  • Define a few encounters for each region. Only as many as needed/wanted and add more later.
  • Can assign to a random distribution to create encounter tables for the region if desired.

• DM fleshes out major locations based on player input and their character rolls.

• Use worlds without number to fill in the gaps.

  After collaborative worldbuilding, I squirelled away to set the campaign up and then wrote this player-guide.