Fathomless warlock in the dessert could work if your patron came from an oasis who maybe wants to flood the world

A good way to world build if you don't mind a little chaos, is run a small campaign in fantasy land™. Then, the heroes of this story are the heroes of old of your new homebrew world, and the main backstory is just the events of the first campaign. You can keep repeating this over and over, with each new campaign affecting the world, and eventually, the world will be this incredibly fleshed out world with tons of characters and legends

I started a campaign a few months back, a nautical adventure. To start out, I had ideas enough for basically one land mass. Then I had some of my players come in on an off night, and we played a different game, called The Ground Itself. We built the next continent, from that game. We've done this a few times now, and I have enough material in the world that we could run a whole campaign off of one or two of these continents, without using all the things that were build/added. And my players are wholly invested when they discover something they had a hand in creating, and piecing it together! Definitely suggest giving that a go!

I built a world for my first campaign as a DM/third campaign I was ever involved in. It was located on a single massive continent, with a few islands, and every type of naturally occurring biome, with a few unnatural ones thrown in (faewild, magic swamp leading to the underdark, etc). While the continent had limited native races, I made sure to acknowledge the existence of other continents in the lore by using trading/imported goods, and traveling merchants of non-native races. Even one of the main races on the continent weren't originally native, their migration there was one of the big history plot points that screwed some stuff up, fueled wars, etc. So I wrote the history of the continent for my players to read before playing. I typed it up using a photo editing software thingy online so it looked like it was written on parchment, made menus for taverns and restaurants, hand designed tavern signs and city flags... but I told my players they weren't limited to my main races. They weren't even limited to the books, I allowed homebrew races and classes. My only requirement was, if it was a unique race, they had to have a back story, something about their homeland and why they ended up here. So my players were part of my world building once we started playing. My Leonin player was the only Leonin in the main world, and NPCs reacted accordingly in every town they went to (whether they'd heard of the race or not, it was varying degrees of either awe, fear, wonder, or hatred, depending on what they knew of the race) I wish we'd been able to keep playing, but schedule conflicts made it so everyone ended up unavailable. Maybe we'll pick it up again some day.

Been building a world for over ten years and it started small and simple. I've run maybe five years of campaigns through it and my players have helped me shape so many aspects of the entire world. I rarely say "that can't happen" and instead present the various options, or make the options for them specifically. E.g. my fiancé wanted to play a character I had no place for, so I made a place for them and the entire species/culture that impacts the world in a different way. Much love Ryker, can't wait for the next video.

I’m currently modifying my world to fit my player’s characters, so much fun!

I feel like the easiest method for getting around a lack of worldbuilding if you want to do a more collaborative experience is to put space between places. Works especially well if you’re doing something like running spelljammer or a pirate-themed adventure. That way there is some downtime for you as a DM to prepare the place beforehand without having to mess with your overall lore too much, as you can just focus on the lore of the place itself. Also more likely the players will want to check out the place they’re in fully as that might be the only time they’re there, especially if your party is used to traveling from place to place.

I kinda do a hybrid and I enjoy it I have a vague setting planed out, broad strokes big world players, share what the players could reasonable know from where ever they are on that setting then I ask my plays for what location/tone they want and we make characters, and start fleshing out that slice of the world with that in mind , then i look at things that all the party has or is lacking and build neat elements around that like in one of my games there was one of those ancient magic tech fallen civilizations, none of the players knew Celestial so i made an older form of that the language they ancient civilization used , which then in turn gave an element to having a medieval style church as a world scale player being the only ones who can read the ruins with out needing magic I don't think I could have made that major world element with out my players already having made their characters , so doing a hybrid system could have some benefits

I tend more on the charcaters first, but I did have some worldbuilding done before having my players' characters. Their characters and backstories really helped me build more and especially finding an overall plot.

This was a great watch, thanks! I've tried both methods, and definitely lean towards player collaboration more as time goes on (playing games like Blades has really fostered this for me). The one obstacle I find that I run into when inviting my players into the process is that not all of my players are motivated to build world with me in session 0. They want to go with the flow and just find something that'll work. In some cases I think it's because they don't feel confident enough to assert world details during the roundtable. In others... well... I think there's an indifference that makes eliciting preferences from them difficult. That's not a problem at _every_ table, but it's something I've run into before. 7th Sea had a player exercise into it that gave you five topics (action, romance, politics, two others), and players would allocate 100 points between them based on the kind of game they wanted to play, which I thought was a neat middle ground.

Just found you and this is key content for me. I appreciate it! I was trying so hard to world build before characters and I'm ready to just make the commitment and just play, and let my PC's flesh out my world.

I think its helpful to just try and find any way (in most situations) to allow somebody to still do the closest possible thing to their playstyle and char concept... regardless of world. Low magic world? That one pc is a rare exception that can use it. Dragonborns supposedly killed long ago? This is the lone survivor.

Love Character First!

I am planning to make a rough outline of the world and locations within it will have cultures for a few races but will not disallow anything and gave my self plenty off room to adapt the world ive built to any character that is in it

2:50 An example of this, I as a novice DM, one of my players wanted to play a Leonin even tho we were playing the LMoP module and Leonin come from a different reality, we came up with that her character, and other Leonin, are getting banished to the Sword Coast reality for some reason, neither her character nor any other Leonin NPCs remember how or why they got banished. Now we already have an adventure hook for when we play MOoT and a reason why a player can be a Leonin in future games

What about creating the world(s) first and discussing the nature of the campaign with the players after it? Something like: "Here is/are the world(s) and what is to know about it/them. What would you like to do/achieve in it/them?"

The worst part is flip flopping between loving and hating your world. If it wasn’t for that (and lack of names), I’d say that my world is ready to begin trying out.

This video needs to go viral

Thanks

See also, WebDM's video on Player-Driven Campaigns, which goes into more depth.

The important thing is don't tell players to make whatever they want, and ignore what they want. Let them know enough about your setting to make informed decisions.

I find a combination is best. Both should come up with barebones. For example, for my campaign I’m running now, I prepped the world, the map, and gave my characters general knowledge they should know (the pantheon, certain common facts, important historical points and organizations in the world, etc). Then the characters bring a relatively broad backstory that can be applied to the world. Then we work together and make them meld together. I don’t (usually) make a plot until I have the characters I’m working with and their backstories. I find that a free for all on character creation can sometime undermine a tone I’m going for with a game, or can create cognitive dissonance (one character talking about how their parents served the dictator of the empire, while another about how their parents were the representatives in the democratic government). Sure, it can be fixed and brought into alignment, but it’s still messing with the backstories to some extent. I think certain constraints helps foster creativity more than a vacuum, but that’s just been my experience. It also helps with the characters having to suspend their disbelief less. Sure, it can be fun to have a tortle or a gith or something in some political intrigue campaign, but if you’re going for the feel of Game of Thrones, it can bring you out of that headspace a bit. In other words, sometimes to accommodate certain characters, it seems that DMs must sacrifice the tone they are going for. Same reason I give my players some parameters for character creation when I’m running a horror game. Boblin the Goblin would pull immersion out of what I’m trying to provide the players. I do certainly agree with not doing the full writing before you have characters, but I think I lean more on the side of needing to put guardrails on so character creation doesn’t undermine the intent of the game.

The way I see it, if one build's a world that can be quite restrictive in terms of what the PCs can play they should simply just ask what kinds of characters they want to be before choosing a setting.

I start out with a World First approach, and later ask my players what kinda PCs they wanna play (sometimes there are parameters). I can then shift a few things around to better accommodate their ideas.

Nice to see someone who uses a method similar to myself, generally. I still don't consider being totally player centric a wise choice for myself as a Dungeon Master, because I have had games that turned into a dump fire without vetoing poor players ideas. I made this video not that long again.

I'm started to reach the DM's guide and am REALLY struggling with world building. I have great ideas for locals and settings, but am having a hard time coming up with a plot line to create conflict or connect it all together. Hell, i'm trying to think of enough to fill up a basic map.

I think you really missed the option of using a preestablish world like Faerûn. That's what I would recommend new GM's to do. Like you I also favor continues worldbuilding, but I think that it's a good idea for a GM to start with a world seed. You may start by telling the players that the game is set in a dessert world, that magic will be considered rare, or that it will be a steampunk world where most magic items actually are just advanced technologies. This sets very few limitations on the players or where the game can go, but you still get to flavor it to your liking as a GM A ting I like to do when I make worlds is also to avoid detailed maps for the players. Build your world around a few locations and characters and add more when needed. Leave yourself room to add warring neighboring countries, cursed old ruins, or a nearby ocean filled with bloodthirsty pirates. In my experience players will usually not care about things that does not actually affect their characters.

Bro, just say Big Bad Evil Guy

-Stop. -NEVER!

"your players will create it" Uhhh no they won't?