Hook Your Players With Collaborative World Building

By Peter Chiykowski

I'm calling it: 2025 is going to be the year of collaborative world building.

Creating the world of your TTRPG campaign with your players is a win-win scenario that leads to more engaged players, better campaign lore, and less overworked DMs.

The Story Engine is sponsorsing Free RPG Day on June 21 with a free sampler pack of Deck of Worlds, so I'm taking that an excuse to write up some of my favorite world building tips.

If you're a homebrew DM or DnD world builder who loves creating your own settings, lock in: you're going to love this!

We're going to talk about what collaborative world building is, how to introduce your DnD group to it, and how it can lead to better campaigns for you and your players.

What is Collaborative World Building?

Collaborative world building is creating the setting for your TTRPG or DnD campaign with your players, instead of on your own as a DM.

For old-school DnD players, this might seem a bit radical. Back in the day, the relationship between the DM and players was more adversarial. Not only were players generally NOT invited to collaborate in DnD world building--there was a sense that everything about the story and world was the exclusive domain of the DM. The DM screen was an all-powerful barrier behind which players dare not tread.

Things are different in the land of TTRPGs these days. I for one, am loving it.

Collaborative world building is a natural extension of the direction that DnD is going right now as a collaborative storytelling tool.

Matt Mercer wasn't the first DM to hand over more narrative control to his players, but his infamous invitation "How do you want to do this?" when a player strikes the killing blow is a great example of a DM reaching across the DM screen to hand his players a moment to narrate. Aabria Iyengar and Brennan Lee Mulligan are also great at handing the mic to their players to narrate key moments in their players' stories. 

Imagine the opportunities if your players help you build your DnD campaign world from the ground up:

• Your players care about the story and lore because they helped create it.
• The characters have deeper backstories and connections to the setting because they grew out of it organically.
  
• The DM doesn't have to create an entire world from scratch and hope that it's something the players are into.
• The DM gets to explore ideas they wouldn't have come up with on their own, while still surprising their players with new details that build on things their players already love.

It's such a win-win. But how to start?

How to Start Collaborative World Building

Collaborating with your players is easy if you have the right structure to facilitate it.

In the same way you need a TTRPG rules system to stop the game from devolving into chaos, you need a system to structure group worldbuilding. That way everybody gets to contribute their ideas, but it's not a total free-for-all. We talked to GM and actual play performer Diana of the Rose about this during a recent DnD world building tips livestream.

In my experience, you can approach collaborative world building in three ways:

1. Come up with a structured brainstorming exercise for your players.
2. Use a world building game or tool to facilitate the process. (I use Deck of Worlds, but we have a blog covering other collaborative world building options here.)
3. Combine options 1 and 2.

Brennan Lee Mulligan did an excellent job with Option 1 on a Patreon-exclusive episode of Worlds Beyond Number (shout out to fellow Fireside supporters). Here's what he said:

"I'm going to turn to my players to each just tell me one thing about this town... If you were just spending a day here, it would be the thing in the town that would make you wonder... 'If I just lived here, maybe my life would be perfect!'... anything that leaps to your heart as the thing that would make a stranger fall in love with a place for the very first time."

As someone who writes TTRPG story prompts for a living, I can't imagine a better way to invite your players into the process of collaborative world building. I've already written one blog on how powerful it is to ask questions as you build your world and the cultures that inhabit it.

I won't spoil the podcast, but suffice to say that the players' contributions transform a vague idea for a pastoral town into a fully-fleshed village of waterfalls and nature spirits that becomes the setting of the season's climax.

I don't exaggerate when I say that details the players contribute become pivotal in both the story of the characters and the history of the world.

How can I make that happen for my DnD campaign?

The Best Way to World Build Collaboratively

I tried combining Options 1 and 2 for a new DnD 5E campaign with my wife and friends.

For years, I've been using Deck of Worlds to build collaborative worlds The guidebook even comes with a few options for building worlds together, including doing so as a roleplay exercise as gods establishing their domains.

This time, I wanted to see if I could combine Deck of Worlds with open-ended player contributions to get the best of both worlds. The result is my new favorite way to approach collaborative world building.

Phase 1: Brainstorm Your Materials

1. Get your players together and cut out some squares of paper. 
2. Ask your players: What was the last fictional world you really got immersed in or excited about? What drew them in? 
3. Get them to share their answer out loud and then write it down as a short note. Add your own, too! I got answers like "Cobblestone busy towns," "Cute fuzzy animals," and "Faction-based magic systems."
4. Ask your players: What was the last story about fantasy, adventure, wonder, or heroism that really made you feel something? What moments or elements did you connect with?
5. Again, get them to share their answer and then write it down. I got "Flawed heroes," "Conflicts that start in a time of peace," and "Mysteries."

Phase 2: Build Your World

From here, you follow the instructions in the Deck of Worlds Guidebook for collaborative world building. Basically, take turns drawing cards with random world building prompts, adding them to a growing map, and discuss what they mean for your setting. Below is an example video of how to speed-build a setting so you get the idea.

At any time, you or one of your players can draw a scrap of paper from the brainstorm and insert in the world instead of a card. For example, I grabbed my wife's "Cobblestone busy towns" card while we were creating the main port city because during the brainstorm she talked about how much she loves Edinburgh, our favorite port city.

We continued this process for 2-3 hours, along with some other Session Zero exercises, and ended up with the World of Portsong, a setting bursting with lore details that I'm as keen to explore as my players. When we were done, I did some solo campaign prep and added new secrets and lore threads to make sure there are lots of surprises for my players.

The result has been one of the most memorable campaigns I've ever run.

This system works. It fills the world with details your players will love, but also elements that will surprise them.

It's almost like getting to create a feast for your friends, except they help you by bringing and preparing their favorite ingredients to get you started in the kitchen.

Collaborative World Building Is the Future (I Hope!)

I hope more GMs try collaborative world building! I found it more fun, fast, and effective than solo world building--and I love solo world building.

I hope you'll give it a try, either with the Deck of Worlds Free RPG Day sampler available on June 21, or with the full deck (available in print or as a PDF). You can sign up for our mailing list below to get 10% off your first order.