Want to make your world feel like it’s lived in? Like it’s a “real” place that lives and breathes when the PCs aren’t around? Here’s how.
Many DMs can agree: worldbuilding is one of the best parts about running a D&D game. Sure, it’s very fun to give your friends a good time. But when they get hooked on some detail of the world you’ve crafted for them to inhabit all sorts of weird little guys in, it’s an incredible feeling. You can absolutely get a high from it.
But you can also fall down the Worldbuilding rabbit hole. You start by thinking, “Well, I gotta build a town,” and then you end up realizing you have to come up with your own creation myth, and then you’ve spent three months thinking about what the gods do. Or you go the other way, and try to come up with an explanation for every single plant and season in your world, making sure to get sustainable biomes everywhere.
I’m here to say that verisimilitude is your friend. All you have to do is make a world that “feels” real. Save yourself the time – unless you love knowing what’s behind everything, in which case go ham. But here are some quick and dirty ways to make a world that feels like it’s breathing.
An Un-leveled Playing Field
One of the easiest things you can do is to have a wide variety in terms of the levels/CR of your opponents. If you’ve been watching Critical Role Campaign 4, you know all too well how NPCs of various power levels can make the world feel like a real place. A big part of it is giving the players a sense of where their characters fit into the world. The key is to make sure there are plenty of NPCs and other encounters that have power levels both above AND BELOW the party’s level.
If you never fight anything that could beat you, the world feels like an amusement park. If you never fight anything that you can stomp easily, then the world feels like it’s trying to stymie you. There should be a mix. Fighting easy enemies is a great way to signify your characters’ growth in the world. Fighting powerful NPCs that can absolutely kill you and getting away with your life is a great way to remind the players that the world is its own beast.
NPCs That Want Stuff And Do Things To Get It
Along those lines, having NPCs that have things they want to do can go a long way towards building the verisimilitude of the world. You don’t have to go to extreme detail on every little NPC you have. But knowing that “oh the king of the Woodland Alliance wants to consolidate power” or that “the NPC acolyte at the temple of Pelor wants to help the PCs” can make the world feel that much more alive. Player choices should absolutely be driving the story.
But NPCs that want stuff and make the world complicated as they try to go after what they want, is a great way to create the sense of a world that moves even when the players aren’t looking at it.
NPCs That Have An Opinion About The PCs
Also, having NPCs that have opinions about the players is a great way to give character to different parts of the world. NPCs are often a DM’s biggest tool for conveying emotion and vibes – and focusing on the players, ironically enough, lets you build in texture to the world. So it’s not just the local alchemist with a big personality. It’s the local alchemist who thinks the PCs are meddling where they shouldn’t be, or that they aren’t meddling enough.
Local Flavor
Variety is the spice of life. That goes for everything. If you have a bunch of different places in your world for PCs to go to, how are they different from each other? They can’t all be generic fantasy towns. Or if they are, your world might lack some depth.
This is where flavor details are your friends. What do the buildings look like? What kind of material are they made out of? How do the people in this region speak? What do they eat? And my favorite, are there any local events happening at this place right now?
That Carefully Crafted Ecosystem Simulation You’ve Been Working On (AKA Cool World Details)
Also, for those of you who get knee deep in the passenger seat of worldbuilding detail, there’s a practical use for all your lore and details. To add texture to the world by letting the players come across your cool stuff. Do you have a floating archipelago? Get the players to that bad boy. How about a magical volcano that has been in a slow motion eruption for the last five hundred years? Absolutely. Go absolutely ham on the cool world details and then – slowly spool them out one adventure at a time!
Happy adventuring!
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