Getting Started Worldbuilding for a Dungeons and Dragons Campaign

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+++RESOURCES MENTIONED ON TODAY'S EPISODE+++

+++CREDITS+++
Starring Monty Martin & Kelly McLaughlin
Produced by Clayton Masales

[ZackeryCochran]

“Your adventures always happen in the present.”

Me who’s planning on making a campaign that time travels backward and forward in time: *Nervous sweating.*

[williamozier]

Here's a trick I use to worldbuild, either when well thought or on the fly: 1) There are three Ages in the history of your backstory, the Days of legend, Days of Yore, your grandfathers Day. DOLegend is ancient in the beginning history, this is the era that creates the deepest layers of your dungeons, your artifacts and an ancient epic scale enemy. The Days of Yore are the old creation myth story of your campaign people, this age creates the main dungeons, magic treasures and common monsters. Grandfathers day is the immediate history of your campaigns people, this form the backdrop for your current geopoitical set up of your world, different factions of humans, their castles and keeps, the wilderness wandering monsters. 2) All you have to do for each Age i answer the question of what was the big conflict of that era? In DOLegen make it a good non-human race/monster against an evil non-human race/monster, for DOYore what good non-human race/monster allied with humans against what evil non-human race/monster, and in your GFDay make it what two faction of human against each other. In these conflicts who lost, who won and how, where were the major battles, and major fortifications, what treasures and challenge are left over and why?

[danielearnshaw]

"You don't need to map out all of the history in your setting"

but... I want to.

[polvotierno]

Good timing... I have a session zero tonight for talking about the campaign setting... I used your session zero video to prepare for tonight.

[bopbarker]

You guys always know what I'm working on, and what I need help with lol.

[xxzz-hs]

I'm a library assistant at my local library. I brought home a large stack of folktales. With the full intention of going absolutely crazy on the cosmology and history of my to-be campaign setting. Good thing I decided to rewatch this video before I locked myself into a hard place! Thank you for all of your video guides, I have watched dozens at this point and am always grateful for the contents you guys provide!

[KevinMack]

For me, I just started a campaign, and I layed out only the history that matters to the villian, and then told my players to tell me what they want, and the motto I've been working on for their world building efforts is "Find a way to say Yes" and this has led to some really interesting world building elements in our story and forced me to build out elements of the world I hadn't thought of before.

[junkfood]

Can u guys do a “How to setup a Mystery” video?

[kingofrunes]

I always love episodes about Worldbuilding. I started my first D&D-Campaign 3-4 months ago, totally homebrewed. Session zero my player wanted to know every socioeconomic detail in my world, big chunks of the geographic layout etc. It was very hard to focus their attention on our starting town and now in the campaign the try to wander in each session to another city. A small start in Worldbuilding may work for some groups, but for my players I needed the big picture of the continent and beyond in the first sessions. But we wanted to play a sandbox-style campaign, so it differs from worldbuilding for a more focused campaign.

[DawnsonRPGs]

Something I’m doing for my current worldbuilding project is outlining the broad strokes of the history (events, dates and brief descriptions) and then running oneshots and mini campaigns set in those points in history to have my players flesh out the specifics so that, when the project is done, my players feel invested because they had a hand in shaping the world and they get to see their characters remembered as legendary heroes. It also allows me to build on their ideas and create deeply personal elements of the lore for my players based on these characters that they may only play for a short amount of time but that they will feel a strong connection to because of just how integral they were to the shaping of my world.

I enjoy writing out large timelines, figuring out deities and drawing vast world maps but I thought this process was a really cool way of being able to explore the setting with my players as I’m still writing it out.

[joshualinley]

I love how straightforward your videos are. You are so right about the overlap of adventures, encounters, environments, and the world at large.


I've always thought that having a good idea of what your world is like is better than extensive, detailed, "top-down" worldbuilding. Making a world is fun, but single encounters and adventures are more fun in my experience.


Awesome as always Dudes!

[RPGGamer]

It's always so tempting to create a whole world when you're starting a campaign, writing 10, 000 years of history and knowing all the lords and kings of the realms. But 1st Level players aren't going to know this, they're going to know their home village. They're going to need to know the local blacksmith far more than they need to know the lineage of the Royal family.
What I'm saying is, bring the scope down to more local and personal level. The players are the centre of "their" world, but the entire world is far larger, and in a medieval society information might not travel any distance.

[coreyarmstrong]

Perfect timing! Just started creating my first world after a TPK this past Monday! Thanks guys

[Ben_Carter.]

Great content guys! I really love writing histories and mythologies and cosmologies and drawing maps and all of the things.. So pulling back on that is so hard but it makes sense. Haven't started playing in this world yet but I've written so much, and I do get really caught up on the minor details and practicalities of life in the world way too much.. I do love your idea about expanding the world as you go with just loose ideas of where things are.

[backlash]

If I may offer a bit of advice for anyone who feels that they must have a completely fleshed out world before they start . One of the DM's in our group has been playing in his own world for almost 30 years and he is still tweaking his world, so you have lots of time to get yours just right . Take your time and enjoy your games, your friends will still be your friends even if your world has flaws .

[rpgmd]

I'm personally a big fan of having the world itself be a character and have mysteries associated with it be revealed throughout the campaign.Starting off with rumors/legands that turn out to be false such as the true origin of the Gods, the Discovery of a multiverse or doing what was thought impossible (10th level magic etc.)

[play.through]

Love your content guys. Thank you very much for making these videos.

I feel much better prepared to make a solid campaign or adventure because of them.


Looking forward to the next episode of Drakkenheim as well.

[ryanmaguire]

New favourite nickname gag, "world maker" "world breaker" gave me a right chuckle

[archiepresident]

Love the community shirt

And the video too of course

[MattS-foqs]

I have two players that kinda buck this trend: one is an anthropologist and one is a sociologist with a history background. Every single new campaign at session zero, I, the DM, am bombarded by very detailed questions from these two specific players. I am literally asked every single question that this video recommends not going into so much detail in. For these players, I HAVE TO have my world fairly detailed. They are just the type of players that NEED that full campaign setting information dump (every nation, a 10, 000 year history write up, population notes, notable wars, information on nearly every noble house, merchant prince, who the dwarf lord is, who the elf lords are, every deity in the pantheon in every pantheon, who the bad guys of lore are, what the government of that kingdom is, ect) before they are comfortable enough to play in it. Nothing irritates them more than hearing only this at session 0: The name of the village, maybe a map of said village, where the blacksmith and tavern are, and maybe who some powerful NPCs are and maybe one or two more small details only about the village. They want it ALL. And thus I get to indulge and make it all before the campaign starts.