One of the greatest things about D&D is the ability to adventure with your friends. It provides a safe environment for you and your friends to explore a world (or multiple) and all from a comfort zone. In addition, D&D gives us the ability to play in a setting for an undisclosed amount of time. Those features are what attract many to the open-world MMORPG genre. It allows them to explore the world and all the little crevices that need to be discovered for an indefinite amount of time. Most of us want to have this same concept for our table-top game. We want to have the freedom and ability to run adventures with our friends for years to come. But how do we do this? How do we apply the theoretical into the practical? The below tips are the essentials for creating a world for long-term play. These tips will allow the reader to set the proper foundations for their world and establish a framework for long-term play.
Working with your players is a great way to get them excited and feel at home in the world you are creating together.
Start Simple (at least at the beginning). It’s a bit cliche, but when you’re building a world for long-term play, stick to a simple structure and make sure that you can cover the basics: a) who made this, b) what was it for, c) how did they do it, and d) why. This way, it gives you and the party enough structure to go forward and play but it leaves everyone with a lot of room to explore when the moment naturally arrives. An example of this would be to ask yourself “Who were the founding members of this adventuring guild?” That prompt will force you or your players to answer the question and build upon it.
Be Flexible. With players coming and going from the gaming table, each player is going to contribute to the world. Be open to their input, critique, and altering of the world. Let them have the capability to insert their ideas into the world. It gives you a chance to have a different perspective, but it allows your players to start the creative process. Sometimes, getting that initial start is helpful in world-building. Players have the fortunate favor of not being married to the world so they can come up with ideas and not be held down by past “idea constructs”.
Keeping track and taking notes on the events going on in your game is a great way to build a natural “history book” of your world.
3. Keep Record. It’s helpful when building a world that you or someone in the party maintain a record of everything that has occurred. This is helpful in many situations such as session recaps, but it has long-term value. By keeping a record of events you develop a history book of your world that is not reliant upon obscure memories. This book can become the basis for future campaigns within the world, information regarding particular groups that your party is researching, or just provide a fun recollection of stories. Once you establish a “system of record” going, there are endless possibilities.
As a sending off note, remember that this is only possible if ALL the players want to partake in this world. Sometimes, players want to jump around from module to homebrew and that is totally fine; just make sure that everyone is on the same page. Hope you enjoyed this article. Love one another and Keep Gaming!
Meet the Blogger
Brian G. @thebeardednerdmedia
Brian is a former historian turned technologist in the Greater Charlotte area. He enjoys helping those individuals in the community who want to become better storytellers and world builders by sharing his experiences, knowledge, tools that have worked at the table. As a student of history, Brian enjoys reading books of lore and mythology to become a better world-builder.