I’m going to start a new series here on the blog about world building.
Stay tuned on the Wednesdays to come when we look at building new fantasy worlds for tabletop roleplaying games. Many of these worlds and suggestions can also be ported over to other strange settings and science fiction planets. I also want to look at the whys and wherewithal of building fictional worlds.
I’ve been following and dealing with a lot of world building challenges and advice over the years because of my love for TTRPGs and the like. Coming up with entire new worlds has helped me grow as a creative, as a writer, and a little bit spiritually outside of all that. (*Don’t worry. No real world religion stuff here. My regular readers know that.) Coming up with new locales, beings, inhabitants, magic, lore, and so on is tons of fun. Then, sharing those creations with the world is much more joy for me.
Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.
Why are we doing this?
First, Hex-a-Day 2025 is coming. That’s going to be a thing. January is also GMuary, where we’re going to focus more on Game Mastery. I want to create everything from a simple farm all the way up through a massive political movement sweeping across a large section of a continent.
Next, I have felt for a long time that Dungeons & Dragons has a massive gaping creative hole in their official content when it comes to creating new worlds. For whatever reason, they keep rehashing the same old thing over and over while completely ignoring the settings many of us would like to see return. (Don’t even get me started on Greyhawk in the new Dungeon Master’s Guide.)
Tinfoil hat moment. It’s as if Wizards of the Coast doesn’t want Dungeon Masters to create their own worlds or generic fantasy adventures. It’s like WotC wants people to subscribe to their online subscription service instead of exercising any legitimate creativity. Profits before people and all that.
Back to what we’re doing or what I’m doing here. I want to build a brand new hex-based world to explore with (primarily) my Dragonbane characters to play around in. Make no mistake, I love the Dragonbane canon world, but I also have a passion for creating new material, exploring new cultural ideas, political (game world) views, magic, fighting styles, kin, etc.
I’m prone to rewriting weapon tables, adding all kinds of things. I’ll treat it just like writing a book in terms of building a world bible, lexicon, and somewhat of a map. Back in the old days, I’d just pull from various other published campaigns. This time around, I’m leaning into what I know of other campaign worlds but recombining them into new and fascinating things. I also want to pull in completely new ideas. Maybe not to the extreme of creating entire languages like Tolkien, but some new concepts.
A couple of other advantages to deep, immersive world building.
It’s a wonderful way to flex those creative muscles, to be sure. I also find it to be (no judgments, please) to be rather cathartic. After a long day where things didn’t go so well on the physical and mental front, I can retreat into the depths of my man cave and spend half an hour or more just throwing down mountains and volcanoes. Maybe ruin a city and build a druid’s grove on top of it. I can embrace my inner godhood and bend the very foundations of the universe! It’s quite relaxing if nothing else.
The other advantage of world building is it gives us a chance to stretch out of our normal fantasy grind. It allows us to embrace things that might otherwise seem disconnected. Why is there a lake of fire in the middle of this forest. Why is there a huge lake and then hundreds of kilometers of desert in every direction? Why does this river run south to north up into a mountain? Or maybe it’s new cultural traditions that seem completely alien to us. Or laying down vast tracts of unexplored land teeming with bizarre and possibly monstrous life forms. It’s a real breath of fresh air mentally.
After a day of dealing with the real world, a little escape can be quite healthy. Neville Goddard talks about living in the wish fulfilled. Various Law of Attraction gurus talk about living in the end, as if all has manifested. On top of being great advice in the real world, it makes for a swell fantasy landscape. You get all the joys of playing God on a hex map for imaginary characters. You can do anything you can imagine on paper.
I am not a psychologist and none of this should be construed as therapeutic advice. I’m just here to create cool stuff and have fun with fantasy TTRPGs. You can’t live in a fantasy world all day every day, so please go out and touch grass occasionally.
Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.
Jeff's Game Box 