Comments on: Howling Tower: Imagine a World…

By: Brian Suskind

Brian Suskind — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:19:05 +0000

I’m about to start planning a new campaign in a home brew setting. Up until now, I’ve always used pre-made settings like Eberron, for example.

After doing some research, my players and I have decided to do the world-building together in order to get people more invested in the setting. We’ll probably imitate Open Design in terms of voting for aspects. Some players have even expressed interest in writing/creating some areas.

-Brian

By: Steve Winter

Steve Winter — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 23:51:58 +0000

That’s way players shape the world is one of the best things about long-term campaigning. A campaign develops two histories: its world events, and the antics of players that are remembered long after those people have moved on and been replaced by others.

For the past three years at NTRPGCon, I’ve run B/X adventures set in D&D’s Hollow World. Although that amounts to only about 24 hours of adventuring, repeat players have already established some of their own mythology around the characters in ways that I never envisioned when I was planning the adventures. This year they triggered the theme for 2013′s adventure by assuming that a villain they encountered was a secondary NPC from the past, a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me until that moment but was so perfect that not jumping on it would be a crime.

By: Troy Taylor

Troy Taylor — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 05:02:03 +0000

All I can say about my homebrew, Steffenhold. I gave my players a map of their home base town and a list of gods. But THEY gave me the greatest villain to manipulate and run it. And every decision they’ve made, for good or ill, has given it a shape I never would have envisioned on my own.

By: LAZtheinfamous

LAZtheinfamous — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:59:31 +0000

I find it funny, but the current campaign I am running is the 6th I’ve run on the same homebrew campaign world, and all the current politics are due to the antics of the previous 5 campaigns. Almost 17 real years, and 70 game years, but I don’t even control the thing anymore. It’s my world, but the PCs run it.

By: Wolfgang

Wolfgang — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:14:23 +0000

I agree that a tiny dollop of information is usually all the permission players need to start adding material. Before long, they’ve got a backstory and a noble house is born.

Heck, Midgard kind of assumes that degree of player involvement, and it’s hardly the only one. From what I understand, Greyhawk was often open to additions by both DMs and players (eg, by Arneson, Ward, Lakofka, or Kuntz).

I guess the wiki might be a great tool for worldbuilding, but my problem with it is that it seems to lack a center. That is, I like it better for worlds that already exist in another form.