Getting Past Writers Block for Your D&D World Building

D&D Worldbuilding – The Spark

The best creative processes start with a spark. This is a single, exciting concept that we can explore and imagine around. Finding this spark can be hard, but once you have it, you need only fan the flames and you’ve got an inspired, awesome setting to for you and your party to adventure in.  Finding your spark is the first, most important step for getting started.

The problem is that it can be hard to come up with an amazing inspiration out of thin air. In this article, we’ll walk you through some inspiration evoking exercises sure to get your creativity going for finding the spark for your next world setting.  This article will be part of a series on world building so be sure to stay tuned as we’ll tackle the step by step process of taking your inspiration into ideas, locations, NPCs, and a playable adventure for your party in the follow-up articles.

Finding Your Spark for World Building

Consider the following questions to get your creative juices going and finding your spark.  A lot of these are phrased as  “what if” questions. Our imaginations love taking existing, familiar concepts and fleshing out the exciting ideas when we ask ourselves “what if” a certain concept true.  Blank canvas thinking is hard. Considering how something may play out when you introduce a single “what if” idea comes easy.  Check these out.

Creative Imagination Prompts for Spark Seeking

• What if something went fundamentally differently in one of your favorite stories…
  • What if Sauron’s armies won the war in Lord of the Rings. What would adventuring in the Shire be like?
  • What if the Narnia cabinet opened up to the fey wilds?
• Big, amazing disruptions to a well-known setting…
  • What if Feudal Japan was suddenly rained down on with meteorites that gave magical powers to certain people, and mutated others?
  • What if, in a classic sword and sorcery setting, there were suddenly rifts that opened from alternate realities and the world your adventurers know started being invaded by fey creatures?
  • What if 90% of the fertile women in the world disappeared, and the remaining civilizations started wars to secure fertile females for the continuation of their bloodlines?
  • What if there was a big apocalypse in a fantasy setting? What happens in the aftermath?
  • What if a fantasy setting is afflicted by a virus or bacteria that turns some people into vampires? Werewolves?
  • What if there are discoveries of ancient civilizations that had treasures and technologies more advanced than anything in current time in the world?
  • What if the denizens of swords and sorcery setting discovered the way to make flying airships, and they became commonplace?
• Concepts inspired by things you love…
  • What if I created a setting for my players that felt like the Three Musketeers / Saving Private Ryan / Game of Thrones / [Insert Your Favorite Here]? How would fantasy races fit into this?
• Explore Novel Ideas…
  • What if massive titans were attacking civilizations like the anime, attack on titan? What if this was set in a fantasy setting with magic?
  • What if an entire continent was one huge urban sprawl?
  • What if Atlantis popped out of the ocean
    • What if it was on the back of a giant sea turtle?

Brainstorming for World Building

Sometimes it helps to have others to bounce ideas off of when you are finding your spark. Bouncing “what if” ideas off of friends is a great way to stumble across the idea that really catches your excitement and makes you want to go to town fleshing out the details and exploring it.

It is important in this brainstorming and initial idea exploration (with yourself, or with others) to go wide before you narrow down.  Try not to refine down what you don’t like and reject ideas, instead try to expand on what you like about different ideas and imagine them differently…. For example… if “What if we made a setting where people battled beasts the same way the Thundercats did… in a big mech battle” seems like it won’t quite work… consider expanding on what you like about the idea.  Think… well…. I like the idea of the characters controlling something that is much larger than themselves. And I like the team battle aspect.  This may spark something totally different such as: Hey! Team battles… what if the party was part of a gladiatorial team in some sort of kingdom Olympics! (definitely feasible with a D&D system.) This is brainstorming 101… expand on concepts you like first… then when you have a few ideas that are really and honestly exciting to you in your core, then refine down and start thinking about how to hone your raw, awesome ideas to make them practical for an RPG setting.

Starting Big, or Small for World Building

Both can work. Your initial spark(s) can be micro or macro.   In my first campaign setting that I wrote, I started very macro. My “what if”  was:  “What if there were rifts opening in the world and there was an otherworldly fae invasion?”

In my most recent campaign setting inspiration, I started with a much smaller concept… What if I made a game where the party was able to be sky pirates on airships? Both of these sparked the creative ideas that fleshed out the world, but one was a much larger overall world effect that translated into experiences for the players, and the other was much more of a party experience that seems cool, that requires a world setting that would include airships and air pirates to make it work.  You can start with the experience, and work out how the world must be to create the experience, or you can start with a macro world concept, and work out what experiences would be like within it.

Macro Inspiration Examples

Interesting world concepts that generate cool things to experience…

• What if there were a world where dragons were like the demigods of the world and they ran kingdoms actively from within city walls?
• What if magic in a world was incredibly dangerous to use and posed the risk of real and permanent harm to the magic users?
• What if there was a world where a planet threatening elemental of ice was literally beginning to freeze the world over?

Micro Inspiration Examples

Party experiences spur a world to be created that makes these experiences happen…

• What if there was an opportunity for the party to be a band of Celtic rock musicians?
• What if the party could experience days in time backward for a week. What would cause that and what would the effects be?
• What if the party really needed to ration their water and food and supplies for some reason. What would prompt this?

Next Steps

Once you have your spark of inspiration, you’ll be ready to start fleshing it out! You get to answer questions like what locations there are to explore, who some of the important civilizations and people are, and what kind of tone you want to set overall.

Stay tuned for the next article as we’ll be going over a simple way of organizing your thoughts and a step by step process capturing the bones of an awesome world setting and creating something awesome for your players without getting lost in the minutia.