RPGaDay 2025 prompt: Explore.
It’s one of the three core pillars of almost every TTRPG, right alongside Combat and Roleplaying. And yet, how often does “exploration” just mean another forest, another cave, or another ruined tower?
Let’s change that. Let’s talk about building wondrous, weird, and wild places for your players to explore, places that couldn’t exist in any other world but yours. Places that beg for maps, rumors, and just-one-more-room delves. The kind of sandbox that doesn’t have borders… just portals.
The Weird is the Point
Sure, forests are everywhere. But what’s in your forest? Does it rain upside-down once a week? Are the trees conscious, able to retract their roots and slither away from logging camps? Do the squirrels whisper secrets to anyone who sleeps beneath their nests?
Forget realism. Embrace fantasy. You’re not building a national park. You’re building a sandbox of the soul, where curiosity is rewarded and the horizon is always hiding something stranger.
Why Not Carnivorous Octopuses?
Seriously. Why not? Picture a coastal marsh with freshwater cephalopods nesting in sunken trees. They camouflage as vines until something warm wanders by. That’s an encounter.
Or maybe there’s a migration route of giant anteaters, taller than trolls, who carve paths through enchanted meadows on their seasonal march to the Dreaming Hills. Locals revere them. Others ride them. One has a crown of bone on its head. No one knows why.
What if trilobites never went extinct? In your world, they grew massive, became docile, and now they serve as armored riding beasts in underground kingdoms. Instead of horses, the merchant caravans clatter along the glassy tunnels of crystal caves on clicking, chitinous legs. Now that’s a journey.
Sentient Moss & Talking Apes.
Let your NPCs grow weird, too.
A patch of moss that absorbs memory through contact and releases it as hallucinations.
A tribe of intelligent apes who have perfect oral history but lie constantly just to mess with outsiders. A blind fungus oracle that shows people glimpses of what they fear most… but always in song.
You don’t have to write novels. Just pick one or two strange truths per region, and let them ripple outward. Ask yourself:
What makes this place unlike anywhere else?
Then double it. Add a wrinkle. Make your players lean in and say, “Wait, what did you just say?”
The Sandbox Has No Borders.
Fantasy worlds don’t have to be logical. They have to be inspiring.
Build settings that dare the players to explore. Places where the unknown feels exciting, not generic. If you’re going to run a game for months or years. Why not fill it with sights and sensations they’ve never encountered before?
Give them the impossible. Give them the absurd. Give them wonder. And then, let them wander.
Want to build your own wondrous locale? Try these quick prompts:
- What animal has evolved into a tool-using species here?
- What natural law (gravity, light, decay) works differently in this place?
- What non-humanoid being do locals treat as royalty?
- What part of the environment is alive, and what does it want?
Your sandbox is infinite. Your players just need a reason to take that first step. Worldbuilding has to start somewhere.
I could have dropped this conversation on a Wednesday when I discuss worldbuilding, but the prompt called for a discussion of one of the major pillars of fantasy roleplaying. I enjoy it so very much.
Jeff's Game Box 