10 Underrated D&D Worldbuilding Techniques that Work!

Thanks! Now I have to work on a Mortal Kombat parody called Social Kombat.

Great video, my man. Best bottom up creation? Tolkien made his world starting from the languages. Can't get more bottom up that that, unless you start from defining the physical laws the atoms in your world interact ahha! You made me wonder about people, though: can't we make a good rpg world campaign in the shadow of the colossus style?

Been trying to worldbuld for a graphic novel I am making, and even though this was focused on D&D game play, I felt a lot of this advice really helped me. Making a rumor a day was brilliant!

Oh, I really like the "A rumor a day"! It's embarassing how many times I was unprepared when my players just went "We ask around" somewhere completely random!

I am currently designing my first campaign and your videos have been an immense help. Thank you for your great content!

So, I still like top down construction... to a certain degree. Laying out the major geographic features helps me to know what might or might not be in certain direction. I also try to stay one major settlement ahead in any given direction... this helps with the rumors that the PCs are hearing about. It helps me to keep some consistency in my world.

Great video and very informative.

I homebrew’d my God/Gods first. I love making my own religions as I’m a philosophy & religious studies student with a Masters in Mythology. Makes me feel more like the painter, less like the art history student haha.
I then did a bottom-up approach starting with just 2 towns and a city.
Then I made a huge map placing those towns and cities.
Then I went top down and populated the rest of the world and I continually think of next quest hooks and things that happen/are happening in the world.

Bro I'm starting a campign and this is definitely a big help! Thank you!

I use bottom up
Easier to improv as well if.needed

I have 1 tip to add, if you forget to build up an area of your world before you started play (like i did) you could a rumor or a story as to why that hasn't be settled.

For an example i forgot to build up a part in my swamp before we played. A player had asked why that area was baron and i said that first thing that came to mind. People went it but never came out and now there is an ancient black Dragon and loads of undead in "The Empty Marsh" and i have something for my player's to do when they're powerful enough.

It's funny, in my own design TTRPG system I am also working on a social system that turns social interactions into more of a minigame to enjoy.

Interesting. I’ve always started with a singular inspiration point.

Like, a flower with interesting magical properties. I consider how all things are impacted by this flower. Then I take a look at each of those things and build out from each of those points. It kinda feels like a “snowflake” method.

Even if I start with a large inspiration point like a planetary body, I build it out like a snowflake.

Great work, tks

For my main campaign that is still ongoing i did the map first, borders next, then names of the regions & for each (except the starting one that i drew) i piked images of google or pinterest that would fit, alongside structures, towns, ... The goal was to show my players the map & let them choose where they would go for their adventure, all the while the world is living & moving so the main plots are advenssing without them, they live in it, it's not an mmo where the npcs wait with a ? above their head, in my campaign a peasant could be living his life & suddenly get snatched away by a crow the size of a small truck, or die in a silverware rain storm. When my players go to a new region i would have prepared it while they were in the previous one (adding towns, dungeons, encounters, quests, ...).

I do a quasi-hybrid of bottom-up and top-down. I like to make my world map, figure out the various realms/domains/kingdoms/etc., the location of the most major populated areas, and a very high level overview of what each part of the world is like. After that though I flesh out the world by starting wherever my adventures/campaigns are and add details to bits of the world as needed.

I find having that initial high-level concept of the world layout, places, etc. is extremely important as lots of campaigns are based on or influenced by world events, so having some kind of baseline to improv from is vital.

1. I’ve started with creating a timeline of events ranging back billions of years… Obviously a very ambiguous timeline to give me a general framework for later creations.
After I reached the recent day the last couple of thousands of years have far more details in the timeline.
Ultimately I started creating the world in its recent day with having myths and legends in mind!
Also Dwarves and Elves have no conflicts, because I’m sick of that trope 😂
2. Bacon IS Delicious!

Comment for the algorithm. Also thank you for this. I’ve never played D&D but a ton of your videos have helped with our game development. 🤠

For the mapping I prefer what I call the “sandwich method”. I make sure there’s a global map of the land and then I fill out one part of it and expand from there as needed. I’ve tried purely starting with a local map and expanding it as the game went on and I wound up with a nonsensical map that didn’t stand up to realism at all and shattered suspension of disbelief.

likes your video man, im a new DM and your videos help me a lot ! thanks

I must be the oddity here bc I definitely love the places at least as much as the people. The second you said "is it Gondor you love, or Aragon" I was like, nah lol the places are great. That's why I draw maps non-stop and when I run a campaign, I'll pick a map that fits the need and flesh it out top down... I guess I'm weird idk 🤷

During the creation of my current world setting, I started with some ideas on the countries within my continent of focus and arted up a few versions of how the landmass would look. Then picked my favourite, added mountains/ forests/ biomes/ landmarks n stuff. Next was setting some borders and slapping in a bunch of temporary positions for settlements (most of which became permanent). That process (map size depending) is incredibly quick, fleshing out the "story" of the world will always take longer. I already had a notion of each of my country's government styles, which made it easy to write out a sentence or two about all my settlements while keeping them in theme to their leadership. A settlement's basic description can be really anything but should generally be informed by local features. Just come up with something cool about the place, maybe a piece of history or a description of a local practice. Now if you ever have to do something in that place you have a general idea of where to start. Also, you should never expect players to look through this information if you make it public, but if they do look at it, they might read something they like and want to visit the place from that alone.
My final suggestion though, is to play in the world. You can bash out the basics I went through above in a week easy, and that gets you to a point where you're ready to start getting your worldbuilding solidified in gameplay.

First question when creating your own world is "WHY?"
Nothing to do with Dragons, and events within the campaign... not "Why is X,Y,Z thing happening..." but "Why am I building this world?"
Just... why do you want to build a world, and not simply use any of the myriad available already. This should inform your design more than any other factor.
(My first world built was in 1982 and I'm still using it. I made it because as kids we couldn't afford to buy things like World of Greyhawk" and all the modules set there. Plus I felt like the Fantasy worlds of fiction were too restrictive and specific for me to set a game within Narnia, Melnibone, Earthsea, Middle Earth, or Nehwon etc... I wanted to pick and choose the conventions I wanted to use.)

Second question, and very important, is, "How long do I have to do this before we start using it?"
Your approach to "World Building" will absolutely vary depending on how soon you want to start using it. If you have a few months lead time your approach will be very different to how you will work if you need it ready to start next week.

Do you intend to continue using it, or are you building for one shorter campaign? Again, this will help you decide what to focus your detailed work on.
(When I first started, mine was a map of an island and "You are HERE." I made up the names and locations of the towns and villages as I went, drawing them for the first time when the players saw them. Whenever I got time, I made up names of Gods, NPCs, and kept records of all those notes... During hiatuses between games, I would write background, lore, History, factional alignments, all that good stuff you don't have time to work on during adventure writing, and can mess things up if you ass-pull it and contradict yourself... Now, 40 years later, I know that world inside out. I use that world for pretty much every Fantasy game system I run, including an LRP system we used to run, because I now have so much background and information it rivals any published fantasy game world for level of detail.)

Think about the type of game you want to run.
Are you going to let them wander freely, investigating wherever they want, or will you be giving them a focused heroic quest? It's far easier to write about places if you know where they will be going, and allows you to go deeper into those areas where you know the campaign will lead.
(Mine started as a pure Hex Crawl... if they found something, they explored it. As the land became more populated and they learned more about it, I added things further afield than what they had seen/visited. History and general information.... THEN rumours, "plot hooks" lead ins to campaign adventures.). If you start throwing rumours around about areas you haven't written yet you'll be stuck when they say "Ooh, that sounds cool... We're going to go THERE! RIGHT NOW!!!" (this WILL happen...)
Write the content, then come up with the rumour that leads to it. Or do both at the same time. Try to avoid offering plot lines to players if the plot's not there yet. Or be prepared to say, "Over those mountains is a civilization of giants who ride Elder Dragons as mounts! But you won't be going there for a while!" and when they whione that "But I WANT to...." tell them "There's no point... seriously... you'll all die.
I know there is a modern trend of having a knee jerk reaction to the very idea of 'forbidding your players from doing something' as being akin to stripping their flesh and rolling them in salt in terms of crimes against role playing, and that their every whiny needy desire must be fulfilled lest you remove their precious "Agency"...but there is also a VERY popular modern trend of campaigns collapsing or fizzling out within the first few sessions.
Just saying... that shit might be connected...

Another question to ask is, "Do your players enjoy the sort of game where remembering something they learned in a previous session comes back to help them solve a problem?" If your players don't pay much attention, don't make notes, and want to roll some dice to see if they remember things or make connections between two pieces of information... then don't waste your effort on going into too much detail too soon.
If they DO enjoy using things they learned further back in time than "last session", then feel free to write complex stories that contain useful information. this will lead to a slower growth of the world as you'll be building in more detail. So bear that in mind... you'll need to find ways to prevent them swanning off across the 14 Oceans every week, checking out another of the 15 continents you drew originally...
(I'm lucky that my players are avid note takers, and are able to call back information form months ago, so I can scatter useful information around all over the place. I also play mostly on Roll20 these days, so being able to drop Journal Entries into an esialy accesible folder for them, makes accessing lore much easier.)

If you are pushed for time, use an AI Chat Bot to help flesh out the details.
Again, this may give some 2 year veteran players or DMs a fit of the vapours, but it's a tool... it's free.. USE IT!
Ask ChatGPT to "Tell me a short story about The King of XYZ country..." (where you throw in some general flavour and a few details of the kingdom or whatever...) It will probably be rubbish, but it might give you a couple of fresh ideas to use when the inevitable writers' block kicks in and you have a game tomorrow.


Once you are up and running, let it evolve. Don't try and force every corner of the world into a box before you need it. Leave yourself spaces where you can expand, so if you have a great idea for "A society where the best insults are treated as the highest form of intellect!" or something equally weird and interesting you can bring it into the game.

And never forget that you forgot something. Players will always poke their nose into something that you never considered. I find that I like to keep some form of voice recorder handy, even just your phone, so as you BS your way through something, you have the ability to listen to yourself and make it cannon.

I disagree that the world should be tied to plot and should be the driving force behind world building. Epic 5e style globe-spanning "save the world" campaigns were fun the first two times I did it, but now I want to return to the gold and glory motivation. That's why the world I'm building has an unknown origin and the existence of the Gods is sometimes debated. The world is only there to increase immersion for the players by giving them a stable defined world that is consistent and that's all it does. Time is tracked so holidays are consistent and don't just happen as a plot device, the flora and fauna are regine-specific and change with the seasons, If you're taking the Kings road ( two kings ) from the Spine of the Word to GreyHawk City, you probably won't be surprised to meet up with a caravan of wagons exporting Iron. Not just birds in the sky but specific birds depending on region and season. It's goes on and on and I really should be working on or studying it right now. I love your insights and tips and always watch your new videos, sometimes I rewatch and take notes.

I am using circle approach. You create blank map with just roads, land, kingdoms and water. Several continents or one super continent, depending if you want or don't want naval in your campaign. This gives me overall idea of where something is located. Then i pick a place in that world where adveture will begin. I show my players the map so they can ask me what's where to understand where they want their characters to come from. And then i start building bottom up around the area of adventure as the game goes on

Dear algorithm: this comment is for you.

Some of these tips are also good for (fantasy) authors. In particular, create the world and setting based on the story, not the other way around. Your story is the driving point, so that should inform the rest of what you create. This way you don't have to fit in the story into the world you've created, but just change the world depending on what suits the story. Of course, once you do those changes, you keep them, so it's not inconsistent.

I'm running my very first ever D&D campaign, it's a game for 1 player, and we play every night. So not a lot of time for planning (I don't know how to plan anyway - I've never done this before). It's forced me into a bottom-up creation format, and even though I feel like everything is chaotic because I can't plan anything in advance, my player is thrilled at the game, and finds that it feels cohesive and like a well-thought out, living world. We used a map generator for the world map, and I'm using a small handful of generators for, say, random shops in a town. The rest of it is literally just pulled out of my ass 😂 But, one thing that seems to be helping this is that, every random ass idea, or backstory, or person I think of, is written down in a massive list of notes. So, though I have no idea what's going to happen in 2 towns from here, I know that people in this town are saying that there's a friar in the next town dabbling with magic (random generated rumor), and the person they meet in town has a sister who's there and he is worried and wants to bring her home (playing off of that idea). Once that quest was finished, they went to the previous town, where they ran into a farmer looking for his grandfather who seemed to have wandered off the farm (randomly generated encounter) - which is curiously similar to an old man they met while on the way to this area (randomly generated encounter) who was looking for his uncle's farm, and seemed rather confused and addled. Combining those, the party had previously taken the old man to a town across the border, since they encountered the old man on that side of the border. Now the younger guy, who informed the party that his grandfather isn't always in his right mind, needs to figure out how to get across the border of two warring nations, to find his grandfather on the other side. Unbeknownst to the party, the city they took him to for shelter is currently under Zombie infestation - due to the dead in the area from a nearby battle (remember the nations are at war).
So, even though I don't have any real direction in the campaign, because of the sheer amount of notes I keep, I manage to tie things into each other. Whenever they pass through the area next, they'll find out about the zombie outbreak, as refugees seem to be showing up on this side of the border. Why? I haven't figured that out yet. Lich? Just, too many dead? Some kind of magical contagion? Perhaps a set of spells crafted together by one of the countries in an attempt to turn the recent battlefield into a new, more deadly weapon - without sacrificing more soldiers.
That last one sounds good, actually. Might use that.
Where are my notes...?

Wrong its not simple. Do yourself a favor and read the dnd 2nde world builder book and follow it step-by-step, well you probably wont

Hi Luke!
I have been watching your videos since 2019. You're the main reason why I starting dming, your tutorials are why I did better than expected. I want to say thank you so much for being very helpful and entertaining!
On the topic of world building, I have finished 5 campaigns in the same world since 2020, and as im typing this, the first session of the 6th and final campaign of this world is about to start in 4 hours. Everything has been building up to this moment. So I figured I just drop by where it all really started and say thank you for making this possible for me in the first place!

Great advice, and very efficiently presented! Must appreciated!

How would deities work with this form? Would it be best to have the pantheon fully figured out first? Maybe a mix of top down and bottom up.

I tend to start with something that's already solid and made by someone else, but then add my main quest and populate with my characters as NPCs. This removes the "7 days to make Earth" burden, but also frees me up to concentrate on the interactions the players will be having, not deciding how many trees to put on this forest map.

I always start with a world map. I know I shouldn't, but I want to know where I am. I will try the approach with fleshing out places a traveler goes to though. Might be what helps me with the bottom up approach.

I built a map of a coastline first.

I LOVE the idea of a "social combat" system. I'm looking forward to what you guys come up with!

The Genesys system does social combat fantastically. They even have a mental HP system that you "attack" during it.

How did you do special ebberon races like warforged in Pathfinder? Also why did you decide to do Ebberon instead of Golarion?

Thanks for the tips, Luke! I sometimes add a mystic near the start of the game as well as some gossip to help the party find plot hooks. Also, I imagine walking through maps of towns or other places to make sure that they make sense for distance, placement, etc.

I often borrow/steal what others DM did. Many, but not tall, places and ideas in my world are experiences I experienced playing other people's games since way back in 2E. I'll change and adapt as I experience more games and create my own ideas, but I know which game I played that led me to create that city, that country, that deity.

I love building new worlds!

One thing I always think about when I am world building is what makes this world different from what is already out there? Like why make a world where some technology has been infused with magic in the world has recently had a huge war. That's eberon.

A lot of this depends on the group. My group is mostly outdoorsy types who are huge nerds and no matter who DMs, NPCs are less interesting to people than the surrounding environment. If I don't spend time dealing with what the composition of rocks that the building is carved into everyones going to go away dissapointed. And whenever I play , I'm the same way, I don't much care for the culture of the town or the NPCs vying for attention, as it gets in the way of exploring the world in the game.

I usually need a map that has basic information to get my mind thinking. My mind just wants the information first.

None of the places need to be fleshed out or even on the map. If I have lakes, forests, mountains, rivers and some important cities I am happy. after that I start going bottom up.

I loved the one rumour a day tip. It takes a long time between game sessions and I always take a single day to do all the work and the NPC and interactions take most of the time.

Jumping onto the old school Renaissance is tight. I'm so in

I tend to start top down, creating the large map, with wide sweeping strokes. Then, I work from the bottom up. Once I havethe big picture, it's easy for me to focus on the little picture, and grow the world outward.