If you are creating your own setting for an RPG campaign there are some keys to not losing your mind.
Let me back up to say worldbuilding is a ton of fun. That’s why it is easy for some gamemasters to get a little out of hand.
We are looking for an outlet for our creativity and that’s totally fine. However, none us can afford to waste time.
Don’t Create Everything
If you’re creating your own world don’t create things that your players won’t see, touch, or interact with.
One time I created 12 star systems all with multiple planets for a Star Wars campaign. My players went to all of two or three of the planets.
Not systems mind you, two or three planets. I created tons of material that was never seen or enjoyed by my players.
I wasted a lot of my time.
What should be done is to think along the lines of the “don’t fill every room” approach that random tables help gamemasters with.
Create a Framework
If you are pressed for time, and who isn’t, think about a framework for a world.
Some general concepts that will help you steer your players in certain directions or create a certain mood that you’re looking for in the campaign.
Thinking broad strokes as you are world building will help you not to get bogged down in the details of every single culture or place.
If your world is mostly desert that’s going to affect the culture of characters as they’re being created. Also, it will change the nature of the cities and the adventures that you’ll be having.
Locations and Names but Little Else
Having locations and names is a good starting point and you don’t really need much else. (Honestly, you can even wait on the names if have some random tables.)
You only always have to be one step ahead of your players. You don’t need to be 10 or 15 or 20 steps ahead of them.
For example, if your players are traveling down the road and they already know they’re going to reach a town start thinking of what they’re going to encounter in that town.
Don’t worry about what they’ll encounter after they leave that town they may decide to stay there or they may decide to travel north instead of east or west.
They may go down into a dungeon in the town and then decide to make it their base after they cleaned it out. So creating other encounters or cities down the road would be a waste of time.
Do Not Build Every Continent
If you’re creating world don’t worry about every continent. Focus on creating a few things where your players will be adventuring.
This allows you the freedom to actually come up with other storylines and things later on that you’re not cemented into.
If you have created every continent in your world and you know exactly what happens on them you don’t have the ability to roll with some interesting quirks that your players came up with or where the story is leading.
Also if your players are principally in one continent then you just have no need to create any others. If they’re not traveling there they will never see it then your cool ideas will be wasted.
Take some of those ideas and work them in as necessary where your players are.
Plus, there is usually one player who’ll want to be from another continent anyway. That will help you create that continent.
Don’t Create Every City
Also, don’t create every city in your world or even all the cities on just one continent.
Allow some for some free form play. A time may come when you just need a small village or a big city to send your players into to complete some type of hook or story or finish some conflict of a started somewhere else.
If everything is completely mapped out this actually limits your creativity.
And to continue to drive home the point of not creating things your players will touch. If you create 50 cities on a map each with their distinctive culture and rulers, but your players only go to three of them. What just happened?
You wasted a lot of your time.
Unless you decide to publish your RPG campaign material in which case that extra prep time can actually make you some money.
Coming Up
Stay tuned for more GM tips on how to save time. Never miss a post and get free dungeon maps.