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DMs and GMs what tool or tools do you use for world building?
I'm starting a new campaign soon and I plan to create a homebrew setting and story like I've done in the past. I've used a combination of Google Docs, Evernote, and other general purpose tools for other settings and campaigns. Does anyone use something like World Anvil or Legend Keeper? Something else?
I'm still in the brainstorming stage of world building, and I'd like a place to collect my thoughts and plans. Ideally I'd be able to easily convert that into something searchable and updateable when it's time to actually play in the setting.
Do you use a single tool for creating maps, NPCs, plot points, history, and adventures? Or do you have a suite of tools you find works well to cover all those aspects?
Not a GM. But I use obsidian for keeping notes/second brain stuff. One of the YouTubers I follow who talks about it obsidian and in particular how she uses it as a GM - nicole van der hoeven.
I’d recommend having a look at it as there are lots of plugins for obsidian specifically with rpgs in mind (maps, calendars, character sheets etc).
I can second the use of Obsidian! I went from Google docs, to OneNote, but neither really worked exactly how I wanted it to. Obsidian is really quite simple in concept, and I really like the clean, no nonsense interface. It's also completely offline, meaning your files are all stored locally (which may be a good or bad thing, depending on who you ask. Personally, I like it). I use it for study notes, and keeping track of my DnD world and campaign. I haven't looked at the plugins though, I'll have to check them out!
It may sound strange, but hear me out. Foundry VTT is quite robust, and has many mods which do some heavy lifting for it native Journals system, so I tend to build out my notes for world info right into the journals in the VTT itself. Easily exportable also into other formats (rich text, etc) when/if you need it, but I never really do since I quite literally find it does everything I need organizationally.
My favorite is being able to do journal entries that easily have "player-facing" text I can just let them see, while building special "GM only" inlines visible to only myself (or anybody who has a GM role) throughout.
Needless to say, integrating images for maps with links to certain journal entries, actual character sheets for my players or NPCs (again with customizable settings on who can view what), items, etc can all be done with native Foundry, and are only made better by a handful of mods that make the systems even more flexible.
The fact that it's a VTT is a bonus for the fact that I play digitally. Even if I were playing in person, I'd still probably prefer to use it just due to its incredible strengths and tools for the world building. Heck, I'd be tempted to even get a custom screen put together for people to play in person on Foundry, as many others have done, lol.
The fact that it only has a one-time payment and it's licensed for you to run any game as DM and players always play for free is just... chef's kiss. Not everyone is a money tree, and I can't be thankful enough that Foundry is successful enough and run by someone who is genuinely down-to-earth satisfied to make the money they do without wringing out the final dimes from peoples' pockets with a subscription-based model.
I was already considering using Foundry to do hybrid play. Where we still meet in person and roll real dice, but a lot of the other stuff is in Foundry. So this might work really well!
I just need to figure out the best way to show stuff to my players. I've found in the past that having laptops at the table results in distraction and just a feeling of separation between players. So I might try the route of a single shared screen or a tablet that gets passed around.
Thanks for the great pitch!
Glad to help. :)
There's a mod that's called Shared Vision also (does what it says on the tin), if you do wish to give your players the ability to pass around a tablet and each has their own actor token, but still be able to "see" what their friendly PC party sees. I personally set up to have a client that literally just has only player shared vision and record that for sessions so that even as people move their stuff around, I only occasionally might need to move the "camera" focal point, and it still captures everything all the party members can see. Kinda like a spectator. That works quite well for in-person stuff too.
Enjoy!
I use Fantasy Grounds for in person games whenever I've bought the FG versions of books (usually during a sale) - the ability to lookup and have multiple pages, tables or images of a book open at once is massive, and with the ultimate license I can share books with any players that install the free FG client. I can tab between the rulebooks in FG and my session notes in OneNote.
I hadn't thought about using it for journals... so in Foundry, can you hyperlink between content, or even out to the web? I've never considered another VTT - my group tends to play in person, and the VTT is more of a resource than a conduit to run a session.
Absolutely, Foundry is extremely capable for hyperlinking internally and to the web. I was checking and a good number of the specifically "journal tutorials" are sadly before the version 10 update that happened about 8 months ago that updated the journal system as an overhaul. I am supposing this is because most of the content creators for it had only recently made a video a few months prior to that, and have been busy with covering other things (mostly mods, since those tend to get more eyeballs for people used to the system and just looking for news to them.
Though it isn't exactly specifically related to the journal system, this overview of one of the purchasable 5e adventures here seems to give you a preview of just how robust it can be. Internal linking to other articles of NPCs, Locations, Character Sheets, Items are all present there. Which is, of course, why they are charging for it specifically as a VTT Module; they've done the linking for you.
But of course you can do it on your own with built in linking which is drag and drop, and then creates an @ in the actual word editor of it which will direct it, like mine here.
You can easily insert images inline with your journal entries too. Or make the whole journal entry a PDF to be shown to your players only when you click the Show to Players button.
In fact, if you are willing to put in a little elbow grease to learn, you can get quite fancy with how it appears, such as displaying them as though they are within a book, or have your journals act as full on shops the players can buy from which interacts directly with their character sheet and deducts their gold for them (but no really, Monk's enhanced does a lot more stuff like "quick format" journal entries for locations too, but I think that's one of the cooler ones). There is a whole rabbit hole to go down if you want. Or you can just keep it simple and just drag, drop, and go. :)
That sounds... quite brilliant actually. Foundry was in the 'slightly too hard for me, probably too hard for the rest of the group' bucket, but I think I need to look into the rabbit hole and see what I've missed out on. Appreciate the detailed notes :)
No prob! In general, it does take a little learning, but once you as the DM have it down, you can create some really immersive things, and when it comes down to your players, they only need to learn the surface of how to interact with their character sheet, which they'd have to do if they were doing FG or any other VTT. It does have a mod which allows you to link to DnD Beyond too, though that is maintained by a mod developer who asks a Patreon Sub for I think like $5/mo. But you as the DM pay for it, then anyone can send you their sheets for you to import, and it lets you access all the books you own there.
Have fun. :)
This awesome topic by @Fashtas from a few weeks ago might interest you:
With Map in hand : Finding maps for your VTT RPG
Alright this is something I can answer and I cannot wait to incorporate other’s responses/review/opinions. I fell into a rabbit hole of GM toolkits, looking at different softwares and weighing the options. And I have tabulated my own spreadsheet grouped by mapmaking/dungeon making, worldbuilding and VTT and other tools that may or may not be useful. However work got in the way and I have yet to go in deep dive to any of these.
My spreadsheet
Woah! That's a great list. Thanks for sharing. It will definitely help me compare the options I'm considering.
Little late to the party here, but I've been using Evernote and chatgpt on my home brew and it's been great. Chatgpt is familiar with most systems and can spit out stat blocks for things pretty quickly, I just need to tweak them. I also use it to generate prompts for dall-e to get pictures of the villains.
ChatGPT has been a godsend in working on my custom world. It can be a bit repetitive I've found, but still very useful for generating names and descriptions for things. I haven't really tried using it to generate stat blocks, how does that work exactly? Do you just describe a monster and ask for a stat block? I also hadn't thought about using it to generate prompts for art.
Yep! For example I needed some standard goons in my deadlands campaign so I asked it: "Whats a standard stat block for a minion in deadlands swade?" It knows SWADE is Savage Worlds ADventure Edition. And it spit out this:
Wild West Thug - Extra
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Shooting d6, Notice d4, Stealth d6, Intimidation d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 5
Gear: Unarmed (Str+d4), Revolver (Range 12/24/48, Damage 2d6+1, ROF 1, 6 shots), Leather Vest (+1 Armor)
Special Abilities:
Mean: This thug is generally unpleasant and ill-tempered. He suffers -2 to his Charisma.
Brave: This thug doesn't scare easily. He gains +2 to Fear checks.
Definitely gonna give this a try after work!
If I were on the Mac exclusively, I'd use Tinderbox every time. The main drawback is that it's only on MacOS, but as a tool set for writing, organizing and visualizing, it would be my first choice every time. Second choice would be... maybe Scrivener or - just to throw the net out as far as possible - Tiddly Wiki
On Windows devices, I use OneNote, cribbing what I can from smarter people than me: Digital DM and this reddit post come to mind.
For worldbuilding, I also have two physical tools - Deck of Worlds and Story Engine (link).
Thanks. I definitely need something I can use on both Android and either Windows or Linux (or just a web app). I'll give those tools a look. Don't know why I didn't consider OneNote since I use it for work all the time.
I use a few different softwares for different needs:
I've looked into doing geological/tectonic based world building. Steep learning curve but really cool. That site is full of great resources. Even just the flowchart of mapping resources is very in-depth.
I've been working on/running a homebrew pirate campaign for 5e and I've been using a mind mapping software called XMind. It's been super helpful for organizing my locations, npcs, sessions notes, reference images, and almost everything else for my game. I highly recommend checking it out.
That looks pretty cool! Do you have separate mind maps for different categories? Like one for NPCs, one for locations etc.? Or do you use one giant mind map for everything? I've never used anything like this so I'm trying to wrap my head around it.
I've got one big map for everything. Basically I make a node for each island I create and then off that node I'll have a connected node for each town/city that's on the island. You can add notes and links to each node, so I can write out descriptions and have reference pictures. Then each town node has nodes for shops and important locations. You can group nodes together as well so I have groups for various oceans to keep the nodes organized. I also have a group of nodes where I keep my session notes, lists of random npc names, my player characters backstories, and anything else I want to remember. My only complaint I have about the program is that the window where you type notes isn't very spacious. It's easier to open up notepad or something for long form writing, then copy it over after.
I keep my notes in a good old fashioned notebook, I find that techy solutions like mind mapping are usually more of an obstacle than anything.
Since many of my games run through Discord I also keep notes on my computer, cut into pieces the size of Discord's character limit and with formatting built in.
Tell us about your setting!
Yup, I like physical notes too. I just find myself with my phone far more often than anything else. We'll be playing in person, though, so physical notes are easier to reference probably.
I haven't really started building out the setting yet other than the concept. I did a little survey/brainstorming session with my players to see what themes they wanted to engage with. What came out of it was:
With that I'm planning on a points of light sort of thing. Warring factions, isolated city states. Since we're playing Pathfinder I'm sticking with a semi-traditional fantasy setting overall though
EDIT: Fixed typo
That sounds great! You didn't ask for it, but here are a few thoughts on those themes and how you might add them together:
1 - Survival mechanics and "points of light" work together beautifully. Every year the forests get a little bit wilder, the monsters get a little bit bolder, and the last bastions of civilization grow ever more isolated as they struggle to survive. Place a tone of desperation in the daily survival of people in town, where it's never certain if there's enough food to survive the winter - and there's always an abandoned house just outside the safe regions that might still have a root cellar, if you're brave enough to go look...
2 - If we start with that premise, then most of the complicated politics will have to come from within each town rather than their interaction with each other. Wagon trains aren't manned by merchants, but by prisoners who chose this mission over execution. Those that make it to the next town arrive with thousand-yard stares and speak very little. I would populate each town with several factions that, while not outright hostile to each other, often end up at cross purposes. The laborer's union and the wealthy merchants are always locked in one negotiation or another, the guard seem to take great pleasure in keeping the "riffraff" from entering the city walls, and nobody understands what the heck the wizarding society is up to...
3 - For betrayal and revenge I would take notes from western movies as well as wilderness survival stories. Focus on themes where men are pushed to their limits by scarcity and turn on each other out of desperation or just hope their cruelty will go unnoticed if there's no witnesses left. Several good titles come to mind here: A Fistful of Dollars, Ravenous, The Magnificent Seven, Winter's Bone, The Sons of Katie Elder, The Grey, etc.
Pathfinder is an excellent system for survival! I think you've definitely set yourself up for success.
One final thing I did for my players when surviving in hostile areas: add a Stress value that every day they must save or increase their score. As their Stress score increases players will: fail to properly rest at night, fail to regenerate spell slots, accumulate penalties on skills and save, or even develop paranoid psychoses. These values can only be reduced by returning to town or finding rare areas of Tranquility in the wild.
Even if you constantly tell them that the wilds are dangerous and unforgiving, sometimes a little contrast will help drive it home.
Best of luck! Definitely update us with your setting and how it goes, it's always inspiring to see how creative people are in their RPG campaigns!
Wow, that's super helpful. Thanks! It's really helpful to think of some of the themes in terms of westerns and other survival stories. It gives me a vibe for what the space between settlements might be like. And since the settlements are so isolated from each other they can each be quite different. Each will have evolved and changed in different circumstances.
I really like that Stress mechanic. I'll have to think on how to do that with relatively little bookkeeping. What Darkest Dungeon does, for example, is far more complex than I need. Do you use a table for the effects of high Stress, or is it more freeform and based on what makes sense at the time?
When I use the Stress mechanic I keep a lot behind the DM screen, and I simplify it down to something similar to Exhaustion, where there are only a few levels.
The general process is simple: at the end of every day, players make a save. If they fail, their Stress goes up. I then roll d% for each, and as their Stress levels go up the chance of bad outcomes increases. You can make nasty monsters cause Stress as a form of psychic damage, and the rare area of Beauty is the only way to relieve Stress out in the wilds.
"Okay everyone, you made 15 miles of distance today. Your horses are leg-weary and the sun is going down. Who's making camp tonight?"
"Ren finds the campsite, his Survival roll is 18."
"Good! You find a rocky bluff with a sheltered outcropping where the ground is dry enough for a fire and you'll be out of the wind. Everyone sleeps safe tonight. Who's in charge of food?"
"Viridya goes hunting for mushrooms and roots that we can eat - you said it's mostly plains out here, so if she gets her Ranger bonus that's a total of 22."
"Excellent! You can do better than mushrooms, from the high plains Viridya's hawk catches not one but two rabbits before the sun sets, that combined with a handful of sage, some wild onion and mushroom? You throw it in a pot with a handful of barley and everyone's eating hearty stew tonight."
"Great! So we're dry and fed for tonight, we haven't seen anyone all day but Thrain is still gonna stay up for night watch anyway. His Perception comes out to... 8."
"Well he tried to stay up, but the night is warm and once the stars come out the Dwarf just kind of drifts off. Lucky for you all, nobody comes to visit in the night."
"Stress rolls?"
"Yes please. Nobody's wounded so you all throw Will saves at a DC 12, except for Thrain who has to throw a DC 15 for staying up."
(Everybody throws Stress saves)
"Good, good. Now everyone tell some campfire stories while I do a little bit of dice rolling..."
Ren rolled a 19 and remains at Stress 0. There is no d% roll at that level so he's done.
Viridya rolled a 7 so she moves to Stress 1. She got an 8 on the d% which means I pull something pretty dramatic for a drawback.
Thrain rolled a 16 which just barely makes it, but he's already at Stress 1 so he just stays there. The d% roll is 80 which means there are no negative effects.
As far as the tables, I actually improvise pretty heavily. Usually I keep a list of mild/severe consequences and pull whatever seems to fit best. "You don't regain any spells" would be a severe consequence, but "You don't regain one of your top level spell slots" would be a mild one.
Stress 0
1-100 nothing happens
Stress 1
1-6 severe consequence
7-33 mild consequence
34-100 nothing happens
Stress 2
1-15 severe consequences
16-60 mild consequences
61-100 nothing happens
Stress 3
1-20 severe consequences
21-80 mild consequences
81-100 nothing happens
Stress 4
1-33 severe consequences
34-100 mild consequences
I used to be paper only, but google docs has been my go-to since I can easily access it from my pc, phone, and DM tablet. They have a table of contents feature which has made organization way easier over the years. Under each section, header, or "stolen ideas to implement later", I typically put "Tags: abc, 123, xyz" to make it easily searchable. Definitely helps when trying to link quests to NPCs and those NPCs to the bigger story web in relation to the ever changing roster of players.