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Ginny: Your world biomes don't have to hold to any ecologist. My Table: Druid played by ecologist, Bard played by a biologist, Fighter played by a water resource management technician.

A note on travel times: It is entirely realistic for players traveling between major cities to not ever have to camp outside. A major road that runs through arable land would realistically be dotted with small villages with inns no more than a day’s journey apart. Farmers and traveling merchants don’t want to spend a week sleeping in fields any more than the players do. If you use this justification, you can designate on the map highly settled areas where supplies and lodging are inconsequential, and sparsely settled areas where the PCs will need to stock up in advance to traverse. It’s convenient but doesn’t sacrifice realism.

One I'd like to add: Making everything in your world special, so that nothing is actually special. For example, I once played in a homebrew campaign where literally every city in the world was built atop the backs of titan animals. The concept was cool on paper, but this meant that every city we traveled to was like this, and ultimately it took away some of the magic of the concept because all cities were like this. Not to mention the difficulties it created in actually traveling between them because they were always moving. It's important to realise that coming across a magical waterfall that flows up is a very incredible and memorable experience. But if every waterfall is magical and flows up, it's no longer special, it just is.

Whenever I worldbuild for anything-games, books, etc-I actually *love* making mistakes and finding ways to integrate them. Maybe a mistake can become a plot point, and the characters can be like "you know, I thought that seemed off, maybe there's something else afoot here!" Mistakes make the world more organic! After all, nothing in our own world has come about by perfect design.

For weather, one of the best things my DM ever told me was to look up a part of the real world that's similar geographically then choose a random year and use that area's weather history as the basis for what the weather is like in your in game city, all the homework is done for you at that point, it's realistic and you don't have to roll on any tables to find out what it's going to be like.

"This is a game we are playing for fun" One of the best pieces of advice. Always keep this one thing in mind

3:39 - “Internal consistency is generally more important than realism.” Thank you. I 100% agree. For that matter, “internal consistency”, aka verisimilitude, is more important than many things, because it defines the laws of your world and maintains believability, even in a world filled with physics & nature-defying elements. Too many people confuse and conflate verisimilitude with hardcore realism. All it is, is as Ginny described it: “internal consistency”

When i world build, i have two forms of history. The short hand, which is the bare bones abridged information and key details everyone in the setting would know. The history book, which is the full detailed history as i imagine it. The history book is usually only for me as the dm.

"You're not Matt Mercer, dude." One of my friends told me that when I mentioned the detail I wanted to put into the world, and I needed to hear it. I'm a big story guy, and watching how incredibly smoothly Matt's world unfolded made me desperate to give my friends that kind of experience. I made the error of throwing my friends into a pretty major storyline way too quickly, and it sort of curbed the amount of _fun_ I felt we were having. So, in lieu of missing about three players from last session, I decided to kick back and relax a little bit. I gently pushed my friends toward a bounty wall I'd written up, and within a few minutes we were in tears laughing about how difficult they'd found it to catch a single Gnome Rogue (my Dragon Knight player rolled an 11 to grapple, the Gnome rolled a 6... but had a +6 to Acrobatics). Next, they were able to expertly coordinate the capture of a rogue Aaracokra, only to find that she was a child stealing food in tandem with her teenage brother. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: _you_ as the DM are the only one behind the screen, but you're still a player. So let the little things flow. If you're feeling overwhelmed or underprepared, delay the big story stuff! Maybe a storm rolls in that makes travel impossible. Maybe the guild in charge of securing passage to your destination is waiting on approval from the officials of your destination. We can't all be Matt Mercer. Let yourselves breathe, and remember that 99% of the time, your players are there to just have fun. Plus, while your players are RP-ing, it gives you more time to plot the gut-twisting moments that await down the road. >:)

I've found that when people complain about something being 'unrealistic' they most often mean 'inconsistent'. Versimilitude is important in any setting. This is what people often mean with phases such as "Oh so we have Dragons, talking swords, Vampires and magic, but me climbing a sheer wall of ice is 'unrealistic'." You can have Dragons, haunted swords etc and still have a feeling of realism as long as the fantastical is consistent.

My favorite method of destabilizing a world for players is to create a semi-stable alliance between 2 factions that the group accidentally puts in jeopardy. Then half the campaign have them work with one faction learning their culture, politics, and religion. Then have them sent out on a mission where they are captured by the opposing faction where they learn a lot of what they were told was propaganda or more complicated than previously told. The last half of the game is sending them on increasingly more dangerous missions with increased consequences until they have to decide how to resolve the main source of the conflict

Another advantage of letting your players do some of the world building, is it adds additional diversity. One of your players adding in details you wouldn't have thought to add makes the different locations feel more like distinct cultures

For long distance travel, I have a suggestion. Once my players started hitting lower middle ranged levels, they had an encounter the Pegasus Repose, which is an inn and tavern run by a djinn named Molgiri. The inn has a toucan mascot named Leslie that wears a sandwich board "advertising" for the inn. Oh, and the inn flies. You stay for a day or two, and Molgiri is able to have the inn take you where you want to go. But he only serves "interesting" clientele.

Once again, really good advice. One way to deal with inconsistencies is to run things forward in time or move to a different spot in the same world. If you've run multiple campaigns in the same world, I highly recommend it. That way many choices you regret can disappear into the past. One cool thing you can do if you're running with most of the same PCs is run history a long ways into the future, at least a few hundred years to allow substantial changes and NOT tell your players that it's the same world. Then they'll start noticing similarities as things feel familiar.

Something I have for my players to be involved with the world building is what I call the “I know a guy” rule. Basically, what it is, is if the party is really stumped/stuck, I will let them create an NPC that they know of that they can get help from. I have final say on whether or not they can come in based on the circumstances, but it gives them a chance to bring something to the world to help them out.

I've been playing in a homebrew campaign for a few weeks now, and one big mistake our DM made was thinking about the bigger picture almost exclusively. We had a talk with our DM at the end of the last session and let him know we have no real direction at this point, to which he replied he gave us the story beats about gods being missing in action. Bruh, we just hit level FOUR. Not only are we not nearly powerful enough to deal with that, we weren't given any real leads regarding that. Moreover, our backstories have yet to come into play, so there isn't much reason for us to care about the bigger picture. Fortunately, the DM is open to constructive criticism, so we do expect the story to get better going forward. DMs, take note: if you're not good at creating a smaller scale story to hook your players in, their backstories exist for that very reason. Use them to tell the smaller scale story, and tie them into the larger one. Think of it this way: Sam and Dean Winchester did NOT sign up to avert the apocalypse; they were out on a mission of revenge -- as well as "saving people, hunting things: the family business" -- and the apocalypse grew organically from that.

The Mint Cupcake cosplay is just as good in the sequel

I struggled a lot with having my players hometowns being fleshed out in my mind- especially when they all decided to be on the outskirts of my setting that I've had to restrict them to for story reasons. When I asked my players if they'd help build their hometowns: with as much free reign as they wanted I got done amazing results. I got really lucky to have a party of DMs so they took my offer and ran with it. One of my players made 3 entire cities that their character has lived in(with input from me) because they truly wanted to. Another made 2 cities and a bunch of intricacies about the culture there. Based on input from another character I was able to create a more interesting digital environment in the nobles of the capital city of my game. It was so cool to have that input and collaboration in creating the setting my players were going to be in because it feels so much more like they are a part of the world rather than being dropped into it.

I’ve just started playing and my DM does step 11 They have essentially allowed me to construct an entire plotline as my backstory (starting at 9th level) which didn’t exist at all before in what is ostensibly a very large world they’ve made It’s really nice and makes me feel super involved

Thinking too big and broad is HUGE for me. I start with the broad stroaks, basic worldbuilding concepts, but than I waste so much time getting carried away. Eventually, session arrives and the immediate story is not nearly as strong because I stopped focusing on the story the party are experiencing. Worldbuilding is there is enhance the story you're telling, but getting carried away with broad concepts can hinder it instead.

Props to you for doing the whole ad spot promo piece in the spoooookkkkkyyyyy voice haha

Me and a friend do a rp together without a dm. We find it more fun to say that healing during a short rest or sleep just doesn't work as well. This makes magical healing much more impactful and narratively fun.

I recently played “The quiet year” to build a dnd city. It became more alive and presented many adventuring hooks from the beginning. Now all characters from the large city know the general history of the area and how the city was founded. Would recommend.

One thing I've started doing with my current campaign is putting together a list of factions (about 6 or so) who the party is either most likely to interact with, or has already come into contact with, whether they know it or not. For each in-game week that passes, I write a sentence or two about a major event that group is taking part in (mobilizing troops, sending spies/envoys to other kingdoms or factions, moving goods, engaging in occult activities, etc.). That way I've got things happening in the world for the players to encounter or influence in some way, regardless of if they're aware of it.

These adds are evolving into Sam Riegel's "Try Not To Laugh Challenge". :D Also, of course, really great advices.

Hey Ginny, Thanks for your quality advice. I've been playing since the old 'pencil & paper' era, & still playing now that we can all add great pre-packed modules into an adventure scenario. But for me, the *very best part* of DMing is the opportunity to CREATE, CREATE, CREATE! I absolutely agree that having a 'bare bones' knowledge of all the adventure 'locales' means it is easier to extend it with impro in the moment. And just as you said, I think it immediately adds flavour by tipping in some 'real-world' weather systems, or languages. On my world, 'Elvish' is French, and 'Dwarvish' is German. And whenever a Bard 'performs', we all wait eagerly for the player to give us what he's got! I think your point about too much order being stultifying and un-dramatic is a good one. However the opposite, too much Chaos, can be just as bad. I also agree that an 'adventuring world' can be just one continent - or part of one. Ie, just like medieval Europe, there were plenty of areas where all that needs to be pencilled in is 'The Great Forest', or 'Here Be Monsters'. Discovering 'new' lands, peoples and all their dramas and secrets is part of a great adventure! May you never fall off your unicorn!

Having your PC's build their own hometowns is a fantastic idea!

On realism: Suspension of disbelief relies less on being 1:1 with reality but on internal consistency. If you do this, not only do players know what to expect from their experience in this world and reinforce their familiarity with it, when you do break it, It'll be noticed. This way you can let people know something is afoot without having to outright say it, Works wonders letting them know they may have crossed over into the Feywild without knowing it. With this, I don't mean plan ahead on how things work, just that when you decide on something it helps to stick with that maybe even write it down.

My favorite campaign I’ve run so far is playing a few sessions in the players childhood, with timeskips and all. It allowed me to deeply worldbuild the area around them and it helped them truly understand their characters.

Boy, the whole "don't think too big" is the kind of advice I most needed when I started DMing. I remember my first serious, long campaign (actually two consecutive campaigns). I spent weeks thinking about the lore around destiny and whether it was inevitable, a millenia old conflict among gods that shook the world and changed its geography, the resentful spirit of a dead goddess of prophecy and all the stuff that would hopefully become the core of late-levels campaigns... Only for the gaming group to die out before getting getting past level 8. The only reason I managed to keep a more manageable scope for two pre 10th level campaigns after investing so much time on the bigger picture was thanks to really solid advice from a more experienced DM. The first campaign ended up involving defeating a cult that framed them for murder and just happened to be working for said goddess (although the players only got vague hints of that), while the second campaign's McGuffin was directly related to the prophecy. I think my biggest mistakes were not making the plot of the second campaign related to the McGuffin at all (it was just a delivery mission where the main antagonists just happened to be in the way, rather than actively looking for the object), and coming off too strong at the ending of the second campaign by just dropping the prophecy on the characters without them being all that invested on the big picture yet... which means I was also missing the fifth piece of advice from this video, now that I think of it.

I find sessions are more fun the less of my plan they fulfill - I think one of the best sessions was where one character turned into a bear and they all spent the rest of the time talking about his bear future, not actually doing their task

In both the adventures I’ve ran, I have used the last one each time!! It’s really fun to see what players can come up with, well, as long as it fits with the world 😅

Unrelated but honestly I genuinely like your ads, like usually I find sponsor bits annoying but it’s always fun, cute or entertaining and I appreciate the effort you put into them

One thing me and my friends started doing was the DM letting players draw on the world map and being like "This is my character's home country, it's like this, I lived in this kind of culture" and the DMs always love it because it does SO MUCH work for them and let's them take those ideas and run with it.

My DM's strategy for worldbuilding his homebrew setting is to leave certain things vague up until players take an interest in them. For instance, he recently wrote an entire history for the genasi specifically because two of us wanted to play genasi characters. He also often uses our characters' backstories to help flesh out different regions. As a result, his world has grown so much more organically, and over many years and many campaigns and players, he's built up so much rich and interesting lore. Plus, it takes a lot of pressure off of him from having to have absolutely everything planned out -- he lets us guide were his attention goes. He can definitely vouch for a lot of the advice in this video!

I really love the idea of letting players build their hometown and putting it into the world! Gonna use that for sure.

Ya know, I could honestly just watch these videos for your ads and be perfectly content. Yours may be the only channel where I actually stick around and watch them!

One of the few sponsorship ads in a video that I won't skip, always hilarious. This first point is something I've struggled with a lot, but hearing you talk about it has really helped me conceptualize it and what I can do to make my worlds more interesting.

As the primary DM in my friendgroup i wasgoing it alone for a while, but over time two of my players have also started DMing their own games for our group of friends, and as of a couple days ago we now have a discord for the three of us in which we can discuss worldbuilding and DMing topics as a whole with the trust that none of us will use this info to metagame in each others worlds. So far this has been wonderful as we managed to help one of my friends break through his writers block just by having a couple of other perspectives, and this also is only three of us in a group of seven consistent players split between the games, so every game has multiple people who as players are going in blind and fully experiencing the worlds fresh.

Big fan of the last point! I created a huge homebrew world 10 years ago for Pathfinder and recently adapted and expanded it for 5E and correct mistakes I madeI Now, I have a good idea of places, cultures and the "major truths/laws of the world" so I sketched those to my players. However, then I gave them complete freedom designing as detailed or as rough of a background they wanted. Once done I sat with them one on one to see where, what, when, why and how their ideas would or could fit in logically or interestingly. You want to have been traveling with a scholar in region X researching Y? Here's a non-limiting list of what kind of people would likely become scholars interested in Y, would live, travel or have interest in region X. They want to have their master attacked and killed, but don't know who or why? Well, I discussed options, asked questions they might not think of themselves so I could help fill it in with or for them to discover. Yet, I also gave them input to establish more specific lore if it was relevant and I hadn't necessarily set details in place. One player co-created an entire noble houses system for a part of the world as he took the noble background there. My point being cooperating like that really grounds and invests players in the world!

My players like consistency and things that remain consistent with the internal logic of the setting. They like it when the rules make a rational sort of sense, and they like to have a fair number of sessions in which nothing happens except them fucking around and having their characters roam around a city or go shopping or roleplay, and I'm happy to both provide what I may for that and to just stay out of the way when that's what's best.

That shirt though 😍 so pretty on you!!! Love the mismatched colours. Also this series came at the perfect time as I'm working on my very first dnd campaign.

Ginny Di theme always gets me HYPED for a new video

The thinking too big part is something I felt in my first homebrew campaign too. The ultimate plot was about several large factions waring with each other to escape their dying world into another. Problem is I didn't know exactly how the players would get there and the plot I made up in an attempt to get there wasn't great. The plot hadn't even really gotten started by the time the campaign fell apart.

My first campaign setting was in Ravnica. What I love most about that setting is that chaos is very much the status quo. The entire world is one colossal cityscape surrounded by untamed wilds & debris and run by 10 Guilds that have only come into an alliance because none of them have been able to successfully wipe each other out for over 10,000 years. One thing I tried to make clear to my players was that they are not going to "fix" Ravnica. Ravnica does not need to be fixed, only maintained. The Azorius will always be way too strict. The Boros will always be passionate warriors. The Dimir are always going to steal. The Gruul will always be angry. The Golgari will always practice necromancy. The Izzet will always experiment with physics. The Orzhov will always scheme. The Rakdos will always be insane. Selesnya will always preserve nature. The Simic will always experiment with living creatures. These Guilds *built* the city, it doesn't function in spite of them, it functions because of them. The roving bands of murder clowns serve just as much purpose as the police force. A magical set of laws keeps every Guild in check. The laws cannot be changed unless all 10 Guilds agree, and approximately half the Guilds don't even show up if summoned. The laws are written to protect the goals & interests of every Guild, including the evil ones. The quickest way to create minor conflict is to have two Guilds interact with each other. The quickest way to create major conflict is to have the individual who exists as a living embodiment of the laws go missing. Which he does almost weekly because he's addicted to being a hero on other worlds. The standing goal of Ravnica is to keep it going. If something does come around that serves as a threat to all of Ravnica, it's going to have to be BIG. There are 10 armies in this world-sized metropolis that will not go down easily. Every single Guildmaster is worthy of being a level 20 Campaign Final Boss.

something i really like doing at the start of a campaign is to make a small cutscene or narration by a character in place of a player primer they have to read. in a current campaign, i started by reading a journal entry from a famous wizard's notes. it gave a little backstory, a little tone-setting, and a little bit of detail that makes that character more fun to interact with later, and most importantly it didn't feel like too much information to memorize.

I did kind of start to big, but it's been a world that has remained interesting for a 20 year game, and they are still discovering secrets. I've watched a few of your videos now and they are very validating, I haven't really made any of the new dm mistakes in any of them yet (except the giant world but that worked out really well).

Side note: Your commercials are awesome and fun. You are very good at this!

One of the best world building method i found is what we can found in Kids on Bikes, a ttrpg where we basically play as 80's children like in stranger thing/goonies/ET/Super 8 etc. In fact, at the start of the first session (or during session 0) players decide what their town is called, what is the industry, is it growing or not, what are the landmark or building/shop which are important is the town etc etc all of these questions and the most important part is the rumors section. Each player shares one or two rumors about the town and its surrounding ("the old lady in the creepy mansion is a witch", "the wood is in fact a pathway to a realm of fairies", "Mr Marsh, the Math professor, is in fact an alien from planet X0-AZ21 who wants to conquer earth" etc) As they are rumors, the player don't know if they are real or not but for you, as a GM, it is a real treasure because you can pick whatever you want to be true and make your own story with that and you can twist what they said to not be true but not false either (Maybe the old lady is in fact not a witch but the fairy queen who escape her realm by the portal in the forest when a coup was orchestrated against her by her cousin, Mr Marsh who want to find her and end their life!) With this method, I didn't even prepared any KoB one shot I played! All the stories I played (A creepy mansion with distrubing phenomenon, a Cthulhu cult sacrifice in town, a secret new-nazi base in the underground of the mall, a serial killer mayor who wants revenge for his dog...) were created with some or all rumors my players came with at the table^^ I didn't apply this method to my DnD game yet because I already have 3 DnD campaigns I have to finish, but i think i will use it for my next campagin! Took what the player have in mind is the most rewarding thing for them (especially when they discover that their rumor were true or twited) and a very helpful thing for you because this is the player who feed you for adventure hooks and stories!

Okay, the ad for Kobold Press was definitely the best part.

On the note on lore, I've found that books are actually pretty solid as options. Not irl, but in-game. I have lots of bookstores that, on top of possible skill bonuses after reading, also offer bits of lore and world building. Characters get a very brief summary of the world history in session 0, and in private messages, they also get any knowledge their character would know (I e if they are part of a guild, they learn about leaders, requirements to join, services offered, ect.). If player characters want to learn more, they can drop by a bookstore and pick up some reading material. Short books are over short rests, and big books are over long rests. Once the character has completed their reading, I send them a document of what I've written. If they player wants to read it, they can - but if they don't, I'm happy to bring it up as we go along if a detail they didn't read becomes relevant

I think that stable worlds can be fun too. The hard sci fi game I’m running is set in a very stable world. So stable in fact, that it has become dystopian. The Eternal Empire has ruled its entire galactic arm for 10,000 years, and technological progress has reached a point of stagnation. The Empire and it’s neighbors are locked in bitter Cold Wars that have lasted for centuries or even millennia. The war against one particular enemy race has continued for a thousand years, with no clear victor and no end in sight. Conflict happens because people want to break free from the system, only to get effortlessly and mercilessly squashed by it. The players are thrust right into the plot at the beginning, having just been drafted into the Imperial military to be shipped off to fight the Dominion threat. Just like billions of soldiers before them, and presumably billions to come. They are blissfully unaware of the eldritch nightmares that lurk in the coldest depths of space.

This video was super helpful and the music brightened my day :) keep up the great work Ginny!

Ginny, you’re great, and your ads hilarious (and relevant)! Keep it up 😃

Ginny! Thank you for all the thoughtfulness and depth you go into in these videos. They are always interesting, thought-provoking and helpful. Please keep doing what you do!

Im new to watching this channel, but I gotta thank you for the help! It's helped so much!

I did #11 for my current campaign and was it so much fun! They helped me fill in ideas that i didn't even realize I was missing. One player is a pirate and when I asked him to expand on that, i ended up getting nearly a page about possible different pirate groups that could exist in the world. Slight modifications and immediately the seas were rich with action, and as a bonus, when they take to the seas, that player will really be able to be an expert on different groups, rather than what I can tell them they know. Another wanted to be a monk that was a warpainter by trade... which made me ask where Monks came from. Suddenly, there's now a whole system of monasteries that collect relics and history and double as museums. The third player had her (in-game) parents murdered by bandits. So i had her name them, give them an identifying mark, and give a few other details. We ended up working together and making them the front for a secret dragon hunting organization that killed her parents for information. Her character will find this out later and the drama will be amazing to roleplay.

Having a relatively stable world is important to me as a DM so I'm not spending massive amounts of my time trying to work out copious details of what's going on that is not currently impacting my players. At the same time, I spend a lot of energy on the front end developing the existing conflicts in the world and WHY they're stable so players can interact with them as either safe havens to retreat to or places to join a side of a local conflict, making that area unstable and providing opportunities to change the world.

Been watching through 5 or 6 of your vids while prepping, thanks so much for making these, and editing them in a focus-friendly way

Just so you know, your videos always make me happy, so thank you !

I actually had an example of #10 in my current campaign. There's a region in my game world known as the Feywood (lots of portals to the Feywild). Several NPCs were leery of even getting too close to it, but it was only through firsthand experience that they learned one of its quirks: without a guide, walking into and out of the forest, along the same path and at (as far as they knew) the same speed, took radically different amounts of time. (One hour in, three hours out, if I recall correctly).

I love the amount of effort that Ginny puts into her ads. I never skip them!

I am about basically be a first time DM (a couple minor past experiences), and I am loving your collection of DM advice videos. I feel so much more prepared to run a great, fun, game because of these videos. Thank you!

...and find a group that doesn't play stump the chump with the dm. Regrettably mine are. They have a device to teleport to a town 500 miles away however, they do not want to use it and want the tiefling to fly there to retrieve something.

If only all sponsored part of videos on yt could be done like that. You are a star Ginny! 🌟

One way to make long distance travel less boring is to have multiple points of interest along the way, they can either be plot relevant or loot relevant. It makes sense that the road between two cities would have small villages, taverns, outposts, bandit camps, trolls and what-not.

These are so helpful! This is my third campaign but I will never stop feeling like a failure dm for not having every answer or having planned everything. These kinds of tips help me get out of my panic mindset and into a more productive, how can I make things better mindset

Great advice ginny. Thanks for all your hard work. Pointer for your issue of long travel. Leave the cities far apart, add in villages and towns between them, maybe some clans or tribes too.

Collaborative worldbuilding is actually SO fun. I definitely made 90% of mine by myself, but every player was given the chance to make their own culture or home country. I didn't particularly have a place for tieflings in my setting, for example (they're not my cup of tea), but I chose not to tell anyone that in case someone really wanted to play one. Lo and behold, one player made one and wrote this whole complex system of government and legal stuff to justify why her paladin was in exile and forced to take an oath of redemption. Boom, instantly tieflings were part of my setting and I love their inclusion now. It wouldn't be my setting without them. Make a map but leave blank spaces, friends!

NK Jamisin and the broken earth trilogy is a perfect example of the first point done well

Thank you for your awsome advice. I was about to do a homebrew world myself and this video helped me tremendously. Thank you 😊

Not for nothing... THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR VIDEOS!! You are extremely charming and I truly appreciate the info you are giving out. I'm creating a new adventure/world/crazy brain ride currently for my friends and as I am getting back on the RPG wagon as a DM(with a hiatus of about 12 years - children) I need all the help I can get. So again, thank you Ginny. My best buddy directed me to your videos as they are extremely informative and delightful, and I agree.

These videos have been so encouraging and inspiring!

I try to do something similar to the last thing. Everyone I play with/DM for hated playing at level 1, so we pretty much always start a campaign from anywhere between levels 3 and 5. This means the characters have experience adventuring to some degree. So, I simply tell them they are allowed to come up with up to 3 quests or adventures they've had in setting before meeting the other party members. Once I even had players who decided to collaborate on a quest they worked on together so it was like old acquaintances meeting again for a good time and pay. My favorite example has to be when one of my best friends, with my help/input, had a quest where he helped sneak a princess away from her kingdom so she could marry a peasant boy she fell in love with while leaving the city in the care of her sister who knew the whole thing was happening and supported it. That's a major political element that wouldn't have ever been in the setting without this player coming up with it and boy did it give me room to have fun with it later. It was also something his character never brought up with other party members because it's too big a secret to let out, so having the reveal was going to be great for the inter-party dynamic

I personally find that "realism" (perhaps better described as verisimilitude) adds a lot of enjoyment to a fantasy world - but there are always points at which one must depart from real physics or biology. It's for each world builder to decide where they want to draw their lines as they sketch in their setting.

Nicely done! Excellent information, very well presented.

As a soon-to-be first time DM, this was so helpful to me! I'm starting from scratch and this info really helped me christalize my word

I love your ad breaks so much. They always get a laugh out of me 😂

Getting players involved in the world-building is one of the best pieces of advice I've ever taken. It's a great way to get them invested in the world before the game even starts.

The DM of a game I'm a player in has a discord channel dedicated to world building. Sometimes he poses something and we fill in the blanks to give him ideas to flesh it out, other times he takes requests on what we'd like to know more about for him to work on. Often its a bit of both. It's always very popular.

Great video Ginny!

I’ve loved this and last weeks video! It’s helping gain confidence to DM for the first time! Also adore your shirt! I need to sew something similar!

Nothing like a hot cup of "here's how you suck" in the afternoon. Jokes aside, love me some worldbuilding discussions. It's pretty cool.

Excellent advice, especially on thinking big and thinking small. I'd like to add my own two cents on that - not as a contradiction, but as an expansion on ways to actually do it. When I worldbuild, I like to yo-yo between thinking small and thinking big; I learned how to do this when playing dnd with a friend in a way where we randomly generated everything and had to figure out how to justify whatever the tables made, no matter how improbable, so that it fit into an internally consistent world. Effectively, it goes something like this: Start thinking small. Build out a settlement or a small area that you want to run for the players, and make it be actually something that you want to run for the players by putting interesting things in it. Maybe you decide you're going to build the village of Skeltgarde, a quiet farming town nestled in a lush mountain valley. The town is on a road that leads off to a nearby city, but has been troubled by bandits who've holed up in an old fort in the forest that the road passes through - as well as fool treasure hunters who come and draw monsters out of the hills on their quests for a legendary hidden treasure in the mountains. Now, let's take a step back and examine why these things we've established exist: crime generally only exists when there's some reason that safer professions aren't possible. Why are there bandits? Maybe excessive taxes levied against other nearby villages made farming unsustainable and pushed some of the less scrupulous folks to take up arms to sustain themselves. Why are those taxes being levied? Is a local king corrupt, or is a war going on? If there's a war, maybe the bandits are deserters, or worse, spies. The bandits are holed up in an old fort - who built it? Why was the Skeltgarde valley a strategically significant place in the ancient world enough to justify a military fortification being built there? Why did the fort fall into ruin? For that matter, what does "skeltgarde" mean? The name implies it was guarding against something; maybe skeletons? Was the fort built to repel the forces of a necromancer king in an ancient war, now largely forgotten and the stuff of legends? If so, maybe the legendary treasure rumored to be in the mountains is actually the site of the last battle where the necromancer king was defeated, and the treasure is his armor, weapons, and vile tome of power, all lying in wait to be discovered? From that, you can extrapolate even more; the point being that no place exists in isolation, and by following the paths of those connections, you can trace your way into a vast and rich world filled with conflict, history, and legends ripe for your players to explore. To that end, it can sometimes be useful to embrace chaos and even inconsistency; this is not to say that you should be intentionally inconsistent, but do keep in mind that real history isn't a body of absolute truth of what did or didn't happen, it's a living record created by humans and flavored by personal opinions, agendas, and the flawed evidence. This is all just rambling, but I adore worldbuilding and these are excellent videos that made me want to pitch in.

This is a huge help! I also struggle with having a grand scheme of lore and where I want the world to go. But such a hard time with implementing that information.

Regarding the stable world issue, I initially design my world as stable, then pick a few elements to destabilise *for the campaign*, with the specific players and their themes in mind...

@5:50 really called me out haha. Just found your videos yesterday and I've already learned so much! :)

Hi Ginny! I've been DMing for a long time, and am good at it, but I never thought of #11, let the players make their own home towns. Finding ideas like this is why I watch this channel and others. This is a delightful idea that I will try the next time I start a new campaign. Thanks for your videos!

One way I lore dump is by making it interesting to the players. For example my players ran into a painted glass house. Basically a theatre that uses stained glass golems instead of actors. Players definately want to see that and it gives me an opportunity to do some foreshadowing by talking about the life of villain from previous centuries who may or may not be returning later in the campaign depending on what the players do.

Iteration is helpful. I started with a relatively small and simple world and added detail as I went.

Good info. :) With the spacing of towns, the far distance can be fine, just speed up the travel and don't spend a lot of time on it unless there's something potentially key to the story. Simply do some basic description of the land changing if it does and then they arrive at the new town.

Damn Ginny, you really are on a roll with the great videos these last couple of days. As in, you are releasing soooo many!

I'm a town planner in my day job, and a forever-DM and this is excellent advice. Cheers!

The comment about spacing of cities really hit home for me. I might end up making changes in my home brew campaign as a result...

Great advice! I'm working on a homebrew campaign now featuring Saltmarsh. I think I'll ask my players to work a little on their hometowns like you said. That's also just a great way to help push the players to think more about their character's backstories so I have a little bit more ammunition to push their buttons. Also, it never occurred to me to limit supplies due to disruptions in trade routes. That's a detail that will really make them feel immersed in a textured world!

"Its the small things..." My players' best moment in the last game wasn't the intricate plot driven dreams they had, it was the dragonborn using his breath to open a magic door without checking to see if the druid was standing in the way, then throwing dirt at him and pissing on him to put him out.

This is very helpful! Thank you.

For the last tip one of the things I had players do, after giving them the brief rundown of the overall campaign, was have them write both their own backstory and one rival or bad guy specific to them. So when they were investigating the cult and found out that the druids evil twin AND the fighters dad were a part of the villains it got my players hooked, etc.

Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, was asked how fast a White Star (hero ship) traveled. His answer, "The speed of plot" ie, they travel as fast as the story requires. Sometimes the reality of a world needs to be bent in the name of good storytelling.