So I got most of the way through the Gygax 75 Challenge (it's free go read it here https://rayotus.itch.io/gygax75) and it's good! I genuinely think it's an interesting way to go about making a campaign world specifically for tabletop play. I also wanted to tinker with it, so I've started writing something with the project name of Phipps 23 (in the hope that it'll be ready to print in 2023).
The goal is to structure a tabletop rpg campaign worldbuilding exercise that starts with a sketch and fills in details over time. Something built to be anti-canon. Something built to be semi-system-agnostic. Something that knows you're going to discover through play so it gets your world ready to play in as quickly as possible.
The outline so far looks like this:
Inspirations
Name a handful of things that you want to inspire your setting. Shoot for 6, maybe more maybe less, don't go overboard.
Once you've got a list you're happy with, use it to write down 4-6 things your setting is About. What are the core themes, feelings, vibes, tones, or other elements from your inspirations you want to bring to your setting. Explicitly state to the best of your ability why those inspirations are on your lest.
Icons
For each of your About statements above, write one of the following that embodies it.
- An event (historical, reoccurring, holiday, or future?)
- A Landmark
- A Person
- A Peril (Creature, Disease, Hazard)
- A Treasure (or otherwise powerful object)
- A Secret
If you get stuck, go back to your inspirations and borrow heavily. By the time you're done you should have 24-36 stray setting components that speak to at least one thing your setting is About. For a lot of GMs this is enough to host a session zero, maybe even start playing.
Integration
Name the following
- Two Factions
- A Settlement
- A territory
- A Dungeon
- A Season
Your Icons and Inspirations should help a lot here. Be explicit about how your icons relate to these larger organizations or areas. You don't have to use all of them. If you haven't been playing yet start playing. Write down what your players are bringing
Illustration
This is where things start getting fuzzier for me lol.
- Start drawing an incomplete world map.
- Start making a partial calendar calendar.
- Start spinning a web of faction relationships.
- Start linking the events of your calendar to places on the map and factions in the web. Get real conspiracy board with it. Everything is connected. Build a delicate status quo.
Remember that none of this is necessarily the truth, this is just what someone would tell you.
Illumination
Look at what your players are doing, let that guide your priorities. Start drawing the first floors of dungeons, maps of neighborhoods. Start fleshing out important or interesting factions. Start making timelines of what will happen if the players don't intervene. Start making rival adventurers and hirelings. Start looking for a second set of players to play in your setting with a different system.
By now the About is baked into your setting so you can just add stuff that's cool. I'm a fan of tables, add some tables.
Example
I'm trying this out with my Gygax 75 Setting called Meteor Break. You can follow along here.
Updates
2022-11-28: Icons - Changed "Creature" to "Peril" to open things up a bit and make it fit a broader type of adventuresome worldbuilding activities. Realizing the full text might need a disclaimer on how you approach the designation of "person" vs "creature". Not today's problem. Thanks to @binary for poking at this.
