Summary
In mostTTRPGssuch as Dungeons & Dragons, worldbuilding is very much the domain of the GM. Sometimes players will have the opportunity to influence the setting in minor ways, but this pales in comparison to the amount of work and creativity the average GM puts into creating their worlds.
However, indie TTRPGs are full of fresh takes on worldbuilding. It’s somewhat common to find games where players have an equal hand in establishing the setting, often through creating maps and other visual aids. If you’re looking for a tabletop game that lets everyone get creative with worldbuilding, this list is a great start.
9Kingdom
A Game About Communities
Even if the name Ben Robbins isn’t familiar to you, you’re definitely familiar with some of his approaches to gaming if you’ve spent enough time in TTRPG spaces. He’s most known for being the creator of Microscope and pioneeringthe West Marches approachto D&D campaigns, but Kingdom has received somewhat less attention.
Players begin Kingdom by creating a community and deciding on its details. This community can be anything from an anime fan club to a small rural village to a magical academy, so the only limit is your imagination. As you play out life in your community, you’ll run into Crossroads, which are pivotal decisions that will change your community for better or worse.
8Untold Horizons
A Map-Drawing RPG Focused On Exploration
If you have two to four friends and want a solid map-drawing experience, Untold Horizons is for you. Five American dollars gets you the rulebook, and from there, all you need are some pencils, paper, a deck of playing cards and a single d6. Players start off with creating a world, but not everything gets fleshed out right away.
To fill out new regions on the map, you’ll need to conduct an expedition to a new part of the map. Rolling the die and drawing a card will provide you with guidelines on how big the region is and a general idea of what you’ll find there, but it’s up to you to fill out the details.
7Gods of Aorta
An RPG Where The Players Are Gods
There are a few TTRPGs out there that allow your characters to become gods, such as Kult: Divinity Lost and Nobilis. However, the potential for doing God Stuff such as creating life and bending reality is still bound by a fairly structured set of rules. Gods of Aorta changes that with a rules-lite approach that lets you and your friends truly feel larger than life.
Players begin the game by rolling to see what god they are, determined by a table of domains. The GM mostly resolves disputes and draws changes to the map as determined by the players, so it’s a great game for forever GMs who want to sit back and have fun. The game ends when everyone is satisfied with their world.
6Orichalcum
A TTRPG Map Game For 3-5 Players
Orichalcum is a game you may play by yourself, but it also works for up to five players. Long ago, a mighty empire once stood atop a powerful resource known as orichalcum, but it soon fell to ruins after a great storm. That’s where the story begins, and it’s your job to explore the tatters of what remains.
You play as exiles who live on islands outside of the fallen empire, gathering what orichalcum you’re able to to survive. Players flesh out the world by creating memories their character has of the fallen empire, drawing what remains of that memory as a detail on their respective island. It’s a bit abstract, but it’s great once you get the hang of it.
5Beak, Feather & Bone
A Map-Labeling RPG
Beak, Feather & Bone was voted one of the “most innovative RPGs of 2020” by Indie Game Developer Network, and it’s not hard to see why. you may play it as a game in its own right, but if you’re working on worldbuilding for D&D or another game, it’s also a great way to flesh out cities for other tabletop campaigns.
Players begin by creating buildings and other locations in their city, then take turns on fleshing out the community and adding more life to the setting. The game’s rulebook also contains some optional rules for populating your city with ravenfolk, such as D&D’s kenku or Pathfinder’s tengu.
4Gathering Storm
A Collaborative Worldbuilding Game
Gathering Storm posits itself as a great game for someone who’s new to TTRPGs, and its rules are definitely easy to pick up for just about anyone. You don’t need much to get started: just some paper, some pens, a standard deck of playing cards and any coin of your choice.
The game takes one or two hours to play, and in that time, you and your buddies will flesh out a detailed, postcolonial sci-fi landscape.If you’re not a fan of the sci-fi setting, never fear: the game is open-source, meaning anyone is free to remix and alter it as they wish and other versions are available on the market.
3Dialect
A Game About Language And How It Dies
If you’re a fantasy writer (or have aspirations of being one), the idea of building a constructed language (or “conlang”) has probably piqued your interest at some point in the past. Most TTRPG players aren’t Tolkien wannabes, but if you find yourself among a group of like-minded nerds, then Dialect is the perfect game to bust out.
Players take on the role of an isolated community, drawing cards from the language generation deck to help determine how that community’s language changes across time. Different circumstances will call for new and innovative shifts in how everyone talks, making Dialect’s gameplay a great time for everyone who loves linguistics.
2The Quiet Year
Build Community After The Collapse
The Quiet Year is a TTRPG that’s gotten some attention in recent years due to prominent YouTubers and podcasters playing it, such as the Drawfee team andThe Adventure Zone. You’ll need a drawing space, some drawing implements, and a deck of standard playing cards to play the game. A set of D6s is recommended, but not strictly necessary.
As the title implies, the events of the game will span through an entire in-game year. Gameplay is divided into four phases, each representing a different season of the year. As you and the other players draw cards to determine the events of the game, the clock winds down until the end of winter and the arrival of the ominous Frost Shepherds.
1Microscope
A Fractal RPG Of Epic Histories
Microscope is definitely the biggest name in worldbuilding TTRPGS, and it has the quality to back up its fame. While most worldbuilding games take a big-picture approach to creating a world, Microscope aims to tell the history of a world through its important moments. Players create a timeline of events and start from there.
After you’ve decided on what sort of historical timeline you want to create (such as the fall of an empire), you may get started playing through scenes that show how it all happened. There’s no need to play out events in chronological order, either: you can start with the most interesting scene and use that as inspiration for other scenes that provide context (such as the backstory of the evil emperor.)
