I enjoy board and tabletop games. Something about the usually messy social interaction being moderated by structure and guides kinda feels easier. Over the last decade or so I’ve run tabletop games for groups of people and had a lot of fun. Most of the time you’re playing these games in world created by other people. In 2022 though, I did my first big campaign in a world of my own creation. Over the last few years that world has developed a little, but it’s not likely to be a world I’m going to return to, so I wanted to have a record of all the hours of hobby writing I’ve done to build that world.
I created Eternarii for a Dungeons and Dragons game, so I took a lot of inspiration from the stereotypical Tolkienesque great adventure. Player characters would be on a quest that would take them across the whole world. I’m actually still quite proud of the world that I created here. The original map was not quite as colourful, and was a lot simpler, but as I learnt to use Inkarnate I was able to really make my world feel a lot more alive.
Incidentally, if you’re looking to create maps for your games, I strongly recommend Inkarnate. It has a free tier, but at $25 per year it’s well worth its price. Even if you just enjoy making maps.
I had a rather awkward introduction for my players, bourne out of laziness initially (please don’t tell my players). Building an entire world is a daunting task. Many creative people will have their game setting literally be a life’s work. They’ll know every street, every family, every belief, and every Non-Player Character (NPC). They’ll finally compile it all into one single book. Daunted by that I decided that you know what? I don’t want my players to know anything about the world they are entering. So, I had them propelled through time long enough so that the world their characters might have known was totally different.
Largely, this was just an attempt at making sure that if a player asked ‘would I know anything about this place’ I could answer no. I was being somewhat lazy, because it meant I didn’t have to produce or know lots and lots of stuff about the world before I presented it to the players in game sessions.
Of course, although I say I was being lazy, there was a hope that the players would feel like their characters might – that their characters were exploring the world at the same time as the players. It might, I thought, help to enhance any sense of immersion that I could introduce throughout the game. I don’t actually know if I was successful with that, I’ll be honest I forgot to ask if it did indeed increase immersion. My players across the two groups who experienced the Greatness Thrust Upon You adventure seemed to enjoy the interactions they had and appeared to enjoy their time exploring the world that I created.
Despite not knowing if I did help the immersion I did learn a lot from building such a large and extensive world. So, here’s a list of things that I would do differently if I had to do this all over again.
1 – The party should know each other
I had grown a little weary of the typical ‘you all meet in a tavern’ adventures. I wanted to avoid taverns for as long as possible. And, as I was running the game for groups of people who’d never met each other before I figured it would work better if their characters didn’t know each other either. Sadly, I had thise group of characters pulled through time and the only thing they had in common was that they had made this journey. So developing a cohesive group was a challenge. I feel like it would have been easier on the players to have had their characters know each other a little. They might have had more of a reason to stick together.
2 – The party should know where their characters come from
I’ve already said I was being a bit lazy with worldbuilding in the early stages, and the really bad side effect was that the players didn’t really have much of a feel for their character’s place in the world (before they were propelled through time). We still made it work I think, but if we had spent time on building the characters’ place in the world it might have given them more of a reason to fight for the world and their place in it.
3 – The players should have had the opportunity to help build parts of the world
In my defense here, all of the players were relatively new to the game and to TTRPGs in general at that point. Allowing players to help with some of the world building though I think can be helpful to both the GM and the players. For example one player’s character had a history with a group of mercenaries. What I did was to take that idea and build the group and their hideout with little input from the player. What I perhaps should have done was have the player help me to build that part of the world. I feel like input from players on their character’s part of the world, or personal backstory massively benefits the process. It takes workload off the GM and allows the player to have some ownership over the world that they are exploring.
4 – Campfire scenes are cool
I had been told prior to the Eternarii campaign by a previous group of players that they hated campfire scenes. They really didn’t like the drudgery of their characters sitting down to rest, to relax, and to chat with each other. They found it boring and wanted to get back to the action as soon as possible. I made the mistake of applying this to other groups and perhaps not giving time or space for the roleplay elements of the game. In fact, what I realise now looking back is that campfire scenes and downtime can help players formulate ideas, plans and theories – even if those theories prove wrong. It actually helps to make the world feel more real, more alive.
That’s far from everything I learnt but hey – this blog is just getting started right? This is what came to mind. I’m thinking that future posts will perhaps showcase a map, or perhaps a one-shot idea. It’ll be a mixed bag until I figure out what this thing is.
Thanks for reading!
