Common Rituals for the Common Cleric

The Pope is dead, long live the Pope! As cardinals don their ceremonial robes and enter the Vatican to hold a conclave and elect the new ruler of Christendom, I gather my notes and dice and sourcebooks and jump in the newest Blog Bandwagon: The Blogclave!

 So, we're talking about clerics today. Very important role in rpgs: they are part of the Big Four OG Roles along with the fighter, the wizard and the rogue, and they have a very defined set of skills that cement their role as the Main Support of the party:

 CLERICS ARE HEALERS

The most important role of the cleric is to cast all sorts of healing spells. Through prayer and faith, they ask their deity to keep their companions healthy and safe from all the dangers found in the deepest and darkest dungeons. Without reliable healing sources, long expeditions in hostile environments are way hard, almost impossible.

And although clerics can protecc, they can also attacc, for they have yet another skill that may prove crucial when delving in ancient ruins:

 

"Begone, foul Lich! My clerical powers cast thee out!"

 CLERICS ARE EXORCISTS

Repelling, expelling and eventually destroying undead creatures is the other famous basic skill of the cleric. Though their usual spell list may also include means to fence off other kinds of creatures, like demons or "monsters of Evil alignment", whatever that means in the sourcebook of your choice, the truth is that clerics seem to specialize in dealing with the undead. Ironically, higher level clerics are usually the only ones that can cast resurrection spells, which might spark some debate about life, undeath and why their exorcism only applies to skeletons and zombies and not the fighter who was dead five minutes ago and his flesh is still regenerating. But that is beyond the scope of this post.

My problem with clerics comes from the fact that they are good healers and good exorcists... but they have a tremendous flaw of design:

CLERICS ARE NOT CLERICS

There are many types of clerics (monks, religious leaders, knights...), but let's talk about religious leaders because most of the time that seems the thing rpgs are basing their clerics on: real-life clerics can perform ceremonies (marriages, funerals...) that most ttrpgs don't even consider. For me, that's a big issue, so let's talk about some ways to introduce some of these rituals in your games. But first, some ground rules:

 1. Rituals are generic. Although the specifics vary, things like sermons, marriages, funerals and baptisms are commonplace ceremonies throughout most religions. I was raised catholic and live in a catholic country, so I'm biased towards the ceremonies I know, but I'll try to keep the descriptions as generic as possible. The effects are also generic, but that's so you can easily adapt them to the specific mechanics of your game of choice.

2. Every cleric can perform these. Since these rituals are very basic, I'd say a level 1 cleric should be able to perform them without a problem. If you need specific limits, let's say these rituals take 1 hour to perform and you can perform them once a day each.

3. A note on polyteism. Since good ol' D&D is technically polyteistic, with gods holding power over specific domains, feel free to tie these rituals to specific gods if needed, but keep in mind that every cleric, no matter the god, can perform them (they either have a different version of the ritual, or simply worship various gods depending on the task at hand).

 BAPTISM

The introduction of a new individual into the religion. Usually performed on a newborn at request from the parents, but it can also be taken by adults. Baptizing a character into a new faith helps them receive blessings from the gods: clerics that perform beneficial spells on characters of the same faith do so with advantage, or the effects of said spells are doubled.

The cleric welcoming an unsuspecting NPC into his faith, while his god watches from above.

 

 MARRIAGE

The union of two souls witnessed, approved and blessed by the gods. Spells cast on one of the partners affect the other partner in the same way. Married partners may also be able to find each other and communicate in their dreams, if the gods see fit.

FUNERAL

The final farewell to a fallen companion or a dear friend. A proper funeral prevents the corpse from turning into an undead, and repels other undead creatures that may be attracted to it. If the funeral is performed for a fallen PC, the party may also distribute the departed's remaining XP points among themselves, in equal parts.

 SERMON

The cleric talks to the faithful about the lives, teachings and gifts of the gods, and the importance of upholding the religious principles of the faith. Characters listening to the sermon gain inspiration for the day or advantage in their next roll.

The cleric every morning, giving the party free Inspiration.

FORGIVENESS

When the laws of the faith have been broken, a cleric can forgive the transgressor in the name of the gods, if they show repentance. Going against the faith negates the effects of Baptism and Sermon, and beneficial cleric spells from the offended faith are performed at disadvantage (or their effects halved). Characters seeking forgiveness must show they truly repent for their actions, so clerics usually task them with performing certain acts or quests to show their devotion. Clerics that break the laws of the faith cannot forgive themselves, and must seek forgiveness from a higher authority (a superior cleric, or the gods themselves). They won't be able to cast spells, or will do so less effectively, until they are forgiven.

IN PRAISE OF MY FAVOURITE NOTEBOOKS

Today is my birthday (yay!), so here's a little post about my notebooks! 

Earlier today, YouTube recommended me a video from a known OSR youtuber that I shall not name due to their fairly recent controversies. Even though I don't watch their videos anymore, this one immediately caught my attention, as I recognized the product in the thumbnail as a Leuchtturm1917 notebook. As a lover of Leuchtturm1917 notebooks, temptation got the better of me (I am sorry), and I clicked play. It was a review of a format I don't use, the A4+, and the stuff they said was enough to say it's a cool product, but it was probably their first experience with the brand and left out things I believe are also pretty cool. As a long time consumer that uses these notebooks for ttrpg (and everyday) stuff, allow me to provide a deeper insight on why these things are cool and how I use mine and why you should get your hands on a Leuchtturm1917 notebook if you can. 

FIRST, THE BASICS. 

Leuchtturm1917 notebooks come in many different sizes, but they mostly have the same features: 

- An elastic ribbon to help keep them closed.

- The cover is pretty sturdy, the edges might wear off a bit over time but they can take quite a beating. 

- They have text written in german, english and french. 

- The very first page has space for a title or a doodle, and a "If found, return to sender" section where you can write your info or whatever. 

- Two pages with a blank index, where you can write your sections as you write them. 

- Pages can be blank or feature squares, lines or dots. Dots are cool for drawing dungeons, and are the main attractive of getting these for ttrpg stuff. Note that the dots are squared, not isometric. 

- Every page is numbered, which is cool to fill the index easily. 

- Every notebook, no matter what size, has two ribbons of different color, which helps separate the contents. 

- They also include a pocket at the back, same size as the pages, so you can put notes, papers and whatnot there. Sometimes the fit is a bit tight for things the same size as the page, but even then, it fits. 

- Finally, they come with labeling stickers for the front page and the spine, which is extremely nice if you want to register the dates you started and finished the notebook. 

Aside from these main features, a few of the pages at the back are punched, so you can rip them off if you want to. It is almost imperceivable too, so it's very easy to miss. It's also not a lot of pages, maybe 4 or 5. You won't notice if you don't look for it. 

Overall, this is a notebook with a ton of neat features included in its design, and for a fairly standard price: normal A5 notebooks are around $25/20€ on Amazon, and A6 ones are around $20/15€. A bit pricier in the US than in Europe, but I believe they are worth every penny.

USING THEM FOR TTRPGS.

My dungeon journal. It says "Dungeon Master" in spanish. The Lich and slime stickers are from Rou Rodas, half of the Eternalverse Games team, whose dice you should check out! The dice sticker came with my Nimona edition, a comic you should also check out.

 

So, why are these notebooks so good? And why are they so good specifically for ttrpg stuff? 

Well, for one I've got like five of these things: I have two A5 notebooks, one for dungeons and the other for ideas and stuff, and three A6 notebooks I have been using as bullet journals/planners since 2018. I always carry one of these with me, and they are great to write stuff down quickly and keep track of where the next page is thanks to the ribbons. 

But returning to the ttrpg stuff, the main thing I use my dungeon journal for is... well, drawing dungeons. There are 250 pages on this thing, you can draw A LOT of dungeons on it. And the A5 size is easy to use and carry around: most ttrpg books are A4 size, and even if you're like me and would prefer ttrpg zines, these are mostly A5 size, so the notebook fits perfectly in whatever bag I'm carrying the ttrpg stuff. This lets me arrive at the session, take the journal out and immediately open it on that game's dungeon or map to have it by my side during play. 

The back pocket is also extremely useful if you're bringing props. I've used it to hold skill cards, small handouts like notes and papers and even safety tools like X cards and (folded) lines and veils charts. 

Finally, a small trick I came up with that has worked like a charm and has been a blast to use: If you draw a 1-inch grid on the last pages, you can make yourself a pocket battlemap you can pop out when the situation needs it. Want to use it while consulting the dungeon map you have also drawn in the notebook? You can rip the last pages and have them separated! Trust me, if you place them back after the session and close the notebook, they won't fall. I haven't done that specifically, but I always carry like 3 pamphlet games ready to use inside the notebook and the biggest problem I've had is that the top, where the notebook doesn't cover, is a bit folded, nothing that renders the pamphlets unusable. 

One final trick for the battlemap: you obviously can't draw stuff with an erasable marker over the paper and then erase it, which you can do with most other battlemaps. My solution for this has been buying an A4-sized sheet of transparent plastic, cut it in half and place it over the pages with the grid. It works perfectly, and you know what the best part is? You can store those two plastic sheets in the back pocket! The fit, as I said before, is a bit tight and I have to make sure to place the sheets right at the bottom to close the notebook, but it can be done. 

My favourite use for my dungeon journal is to bring it to cons: I get one of my pamphlet games, draw a map for the session, gather my dice (I also use dice as minis, I might write a post about this in the future) and a marker and I am ready to play a session anywhere and anytime. It's also useful for my regular games, of course, but I feel conventions and other "guerrilla play" situations allow the notebook to release its full potential. 

So there you have it: Leuchtturm1917 notebooks are super complete for a notebook, and they work amazingly for my ttrpg games. If you want a notebook that can easily fit most (if not all) of your ttrpg needs, this is a solid choice.

Make your elements weird!

Apparently, today is the day to talk about elements in your games! I think this topic is pretty cool, so lets ramble a bit about it!

 Elements are pretty big in real life. Before discovering the atoms, philosophers and scholars used many different elements to explain what the world is made of. Ancient Greeks, and later all Europe, had the four classic elements: water, earth, air and fire, and sometimes a fifth: the aether. In Japan, the elements (Godai) are the same, but they had void as the fifth element, instead of aether. In China, the classical elements (Wuxing) are fire, water, wood, earth and metal. You get the idea.

One of my favourite things in Adventure Time is the elements: instead of going with the four classics, the elements in Ooo are fire, ice, candy and slime. I remember how hyped I was the first time I learned about it: it's the four elements, but different?? Weird??? Incredible. 10/10 show. Would watch again and again and again.

 

The four elements in Adventure Time, from The Enchiridion and Marcy's super secret scrapbook!!!

 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild also uses elements in a very interesting way: you can find fire, ice and thunder weapons around the map, and each element has a different effect when smacking a monster: fire burns them, doing more damage and maybe burning any wooden weapon or shield. Ice freezes them in place, and your next attack will be a critical. Finally, lightning also paralyzes them, but unlike ice, it makes them drop their weapons. Elements in Breath of the Wild are especially fun to use because, like everything else in the game, they have a lot of interactivity with the world as a whole (fire can cook food, lightning is more powerful when combined with water).

So how can we implement elements in the stories we create? Well, there are many ways to do it, but let's try to make some ground rules:

 Before we start: do you really need to?

"Wait", you might say, "isn't the point of this entire post to make weird elements?" The answer is "yes, but". Classical elements have been used for millenia. They are instantly recognizable, easy to use and, since the've been widely used in alchemy and magic in real life (at least the greek ones), have a certain realistic vibe related to them. If you're going with a "traditional" tolkienesque or martinesque (even gygaxian) fantasy, you can pretty much just add the classic elements to your world, maybe changing the names a bit (i.e. having "rock" instead of "earth"), and they will fit their purpose pretty good without too much work on your part.

"Alright, I've thought about it and classic elements don't really fit the vibe I'm going for. What do I do?"

First: make your elements fit.

Your elements should fit the story. They should fit the vibe of your setting, and offer an explanation about the basic components of your world. Are you going for a dark fantasy setting inspired by dark souls? Fitting elements might be ash, fire, stone, iron, bone... How about a whimsical world inspired by The Legend of Zelda? Aside from the four classics, you could have elements such as plant, stardust, jelly, shadow, life, music... At this point, focus on brainstorming and thinking about what elements fit your story better.

Second: make your elements few.

Four is the classic number to work with. Three is the magic number. Five starts to be too much. Bear in mind that you want your players (or other people) to remember those elements, so the fewer they are, the better. I can remember lightning, acid, cloud and blood. I cannot remember lightning, acid, cloud, blood, magma, quartz, mithril and fruit. Fewer elements are better, and that way you can even add an extra, secret element to the mix, as a treat.

You might be tempted to add "sub-elements": Avatar the last airbender, and especially legend of Korra, has many "unconventional" elements that are an evolution of one or a mix of two basic elements: lava (fire + earth), metal or crystal (derived from earth), lightning (derived from fire)... Don't think too much about these. Focus on having a few basic elements to work with first, and then, if you think the story needs them, add new variations related to them.

Third: make your elements interactive.

Elements need to have a purpose, be it for combat, magic, crafting... fire can set things burning, quartz can deflect magic, fruit can heal wounds when consumed. Use them in unexpected ways. Maybe a fruit sword can heal a character by gently touching the wound with it. Maybe it heals everything it cuts. The important thing here is that they have a clear use that can give way to cool interactions. If players know quartz repels magic, they might want to search for a quartz mine to make a quartz shield or armor before fighting the Council of Evil Archwizards.

Fourth: make your elements be everywhere.

Elements are an attempt to explain nature, they are the matter from which everything else is made. Elements should be abundant in your world and easy to find, at least if you know where to look. This doesn't mean you should be placing fire swords growing from every tree (unless...), but it's cool to have at least a few plants and animals relating to each element that characters can find and use to their advantage. An easier way to introduce elements is to have a whole place related to that element: a volcano is related to fire, so it might have fire-spitting lizards and fireproof flowers all around the area, ready to be used in spells and potions. Similarly, classical greek elements also have creatures related to them: fire has salamanders, water has undines, air has sylphs and earth has gnomes. Think about what kind of creatures would be related to each of your elements, and place them in your stories.

Elements are such a fun resource to play around with, because they give a strong magical vibe that is instantly recognized by most people. They are also great shortcuts for magic, worldbuilding and even character creation. Wether you use classic elements or your own, the possibilities are endless, and it's very hard to do it wrong. Next time you're working on your worldbuilding, consider adding some weird and cool elements to the mix.

 

POST SESSION ZERO POST

 

My group finally had the session zero I talked about in my previous post, so I figured I should share what I learned from it!

This also serves as a response to the Worldbuilding as a Team Sport, World Anchors and Pointcrawling Character Generation posts from Prismatic Wasteland, Eldritchmouse and Riseupcomus, respectively, since now that I’ve tried the ideas they propose I can accurately share my opinion on them.

First, a bit of context: we started at 17:30 (I like to keep track of the time so I can take into account how long the whole thing took) and I ran them through the Laws and the Safety Tools we would use for this campaign. They pretty much agreed to all of it, although a specific rule caused a bit of debate: DM’s rolls will be open for everyone to see.

I did this simply because the game we’ll use doesn’t really have a DM screen, but it has important implications for the campaign. I was curious as to how it would go, and judging from my player’s response they are too, so we will try this open rolls thing and, if it doesn’t work out for us, keep them hidden. Again, everything is subject to discussion and the approval of every member of the group.

After laying down the bases, we started creating the world: we decided on the size of the hexcrawl map we’d use and went from a 36-hex map like the one in Alex Damaceno’s Beyond the Borderlands zines. The other options were a 5x5 and a 7x7 hex flower (19 and 37 hexes each), but the 36-hex map had a cooler shape, so we went with that.

 

Map of the Wicked Palovalley, the setting of Alex Damaceno's Beyond the Borderlands zines.

Then, we decided if we wanted to start with World Anchors or Yochai Gal’s World Truths. My friends agreed on the Truths, since this way we could start shaping the whole world with a few ideas we liked and then build up from those. World Anchors seemed a bit too specific to start from scratch, and writing a table of 10 anchors seemed a bit more difficult than simply throwing 5 ideas around and developing them from there.

After setting the bases of the campaign we skipped character creation and went straight to building the map. Most of us didn’t really have an idea for the character (we didn’t even knew what backgrounds, ancestries or classes would fit in the world at that point!), and since one of the main Laws was that character creation would be easy and quick, we chose to wait until we had a more tangible world.

For building the world we used Games Omnivorous’ Hexcrawl Toolbox, because physically handling the hexes is super cool and the art is very cute. We built a few regions and filled most of the hexes with landmarks, and here’s one of my main pieces of advice: If you want to build the world with your friends, bring ideas for landmarks.

The hexes from the hexcrawl toolbox had a lot of landmarks, but you can also use things like story dice, oracle cards or simply a good bunch of random tables with ideas for points of interest. A blank map is difficult to fill as a group: your friends might not know if a hex should have a haunted manor, a royal castle or a strange statue, but if you give them a few story dice they will find an image they like (a house, a tree, a pyramid) and put it somewhere on the map, and wonder will do the rest. The thing is to get the engines of imagination up and running, and more often than not that needs a little help.

Once we started, we quickly filled out the map. We followed some of the advice in the Home sanbox zine and built our starting town, a Long River, an Old Road and a base for the Adversary in the region: an expanding empire seeking new land to add to its domain (as my friend put it, we’re europeans, so the Roman Empire is extremely easy to think of. I might try to subvert those tropes later on so it’s not just the Roman Empire 2.0). I must say, even if we built the regions a bit separately, they all came together very fluidly in the end.

The last thing we did was adding a few factions: I liked the idea of physically showing what factions had presence in our region, so I took out some meeples from my Root boardgame (three for each faction) and gave them to players, telling them to pick a faction they liked and place the pieces of that faction on the map. This helped A LOT. We put a few meeples in the forest and think “ok, what if these are a group of rangers that protect the forest, and they have a base in these ancient ruins?” “What if the empire knights are present in this dungeon, and they are searching something inside?” “What if we placed these guys a bit more separated, as if they were isolated clans?”. Of course, we didn’t put every faction on the map, we simply picked 5 of them and added wherever we liked. In the end, 15 Root pieces showed where our five factions had their influence.

 

And here's the finished map! The blue lines are rivers, the red one is the Old Road, and the meeples are the different factions and their territories.

 

This, however, was it for the day. At around 20:30, we had spent three hours building the world and the region, but we only covered three of the steps listed in the Worldbuilding as a Team Sport article. Maybe if our map was smaller (the article uses a 5x5 hex flower) we would’ve done more, but this wasn’t all that bad: we were going to hang out anyways in a few days, so we agreed to take these few days to reflect on what we did and then finish the worldbuilding and creating the PCs.

After having the reflection period, we met again to talk about it in a café. This time, one of the players that was in the previous session couldn’t make it, but the one who wasn’t at the session zero could, so it was nice being able to explain to him the rules and have him contribute to the setting. We also managed to randomly generate two characters, or at least the basic concepts, before having to go.

Here's one of the characters we made, using FATUM cards

This, however, was not the end. We needed yet another session to finish creating the characters, writing their sheets and finishing up the world. I also did a bit of DM work in the meantime and covered a few random tables for when we eventually started playing.

While creating the characters, I asked my players to place their mini on the map at a location where their character found something of interest, and what that was. I was expecting them to come up with a small magic item their characters would start with, as indicated in the Pointcrawling Character Generation post. However, something interesting happened: they didn’t choose magic items at all. One of them chose a pet beetle, another player, whose character was an elf/fae, chose a child; another one chose a volcanic rock (maybe magical, maybe not?) from his character’s home, and the last player chose a (totally normal) sword from one of the factions of the region that her character had found during her travels. It was fun, it gave more characterization to our characters and it tied them fully into the region. If you were to use the pointcrawling character creation idea, I’d say the best way is not limit the choice to a magic item: a treasure, hireling, pet or trinket related to the region and the character works just fine. Some of the options might be a bit unbalanced (one of my players starts with a permanent free hireling), but I already knew this would not be a balanced campaign, so if I can put literal gods as a random (if extremely rare) encounter, they can have some characters be a bit unbalanced, as a treat.

Before ending the session, which again lasted for about three hours, we discussed ideas for the starting settlement. We had agreed that, since most westmarches games are centered around a base town, It’d be nice if our settlement could evolve over the course of our campaign. We created a little farm with a cool feature, in this case a magic oak that moved around during the night and could very occasionally produce golden oats, and three NPCs, three siblings that run the farm where we would start. Players can reach out to these NPCs during play for help, and as our community grows there will be more NPCs to call upon. We also talked about how the characters arrived there, so I could prepare the first session without worrying too much about how to unite the party.

After these two and a half sessions (the middle one wasn’t really a full session, we were having a drink before going to the cinema, so I’m counting it as half a session), we have everything we need to play: World, region, characters and starting settlement. I think that the Worldbuilding as a Team Sport post has great advice and is super fun to use, but don’t expect to be done in one evening, especially if your group is uninspired that day. The World Anchors seem to work best if the DM wants to have certain predetermined things in the world, and the Pointcrawling Character creation is a very cool and effective way to tie characters to the setting, but it works best if you let players decide on what they found where (or give them predefined options yourself) instead of asking them to come up with a magic item on the fly.

Bear in mind that this is only my opinion on the methods I used: your group might adapt better to the World Anchors than to the World Truths, or you might adapt a bit the pointcrawling character generation rules to fit better in your game. Nevertheless, I hope these posts help you prepare your next campaigns, and if you have used them too, let me know how it went!

Next session will be the first game, hopefully, so I can’t wait to see the characters in action and the campaign up and running!

DESIGNING A COLLABORATIVE SESSION ZERO

 

Welcome to the first post of Ramming the Dungeon! 

After Reading other ttrpg blogs for years, I have decided to start my own blog to write about my own opinions and ideas. I don't know how much I'll actually use it, but I'll try to post at least once per month. I hope you enjoy my writing!

 

For many months now, my friends and I have been talking about playing a new fantasy campaign. We had a D&D campaign some years ago, but COVID and the transition from student life to working life ended up bringing it to an indefinite hiatus. For this new campaign, I’m taking what I learned from that older one to try make a better experience for our table.

This new campaign is mainly born from three main goals: less work for the DM (usually me), more flexible schedules and, above all, a more collaborative game.

When I talk about a more collaborative game, I mean a game where everyone can imput their ideas about the rules and the lore freely, and where the table structure is flexible enough to change it from one game to another if needed (not only in the number of players, but also in who wants to be the DM and things like that).

To achieve this, the campaign takes inspiration from the West Marches style of play. We will probably be the same 5 or 6 of us every time, but a West Marches style means that we can do sessions with three people and five people without it being a problem, wich helps a lot with avoiding those dreaded scheduling conflicts every ttrpg group has to face.

The system we will be using doesn’t matter too much. You can take these ideas to use with any game, but if you're curious let's say it’s a mix of Cairn and Mausritter with some extra rules sprinkled here and there (the actual system has even more house rules added). Into the Odd-like systems help add a lot of flexibility, since new characters can be made with little effort and the lack of a leveling system means players can have more than one PC and play with them freely without worrying about level unbalance.

Having covered the bases now, here’s how I’m building the session zero:

 

THE LAWS OF THE CAMPAIGN

First, I explain the "Laws" of the campaign: the rules we will adhere to, beyond the game’s ruleset: West marches style, sandbox world, episodic sessions, three people (one DM and two players) minimum; everyone can DM, we play once or twice a month, we can change PCs whenever we want... These rules are agreed upon by all of us, written down and kept in a “campaign box” where we will keep all the character sheets, system rules, maps, notes, etc. for easy transport.

 

SAFETY TOOLS

After the rules have been explained, we will talk about the safety tools we will use in this campaign. I understand that not every tool works with every group and every system, so the first safety rule is that ttrpgs are a conversation and we are all adults who trust each other and want to have a good time playing together. If at any point someone has any kind of objection or suggestion for the game fiction, they are free to share it and we will adapt the game accordingly.

This rule is probably insufficient, and is so tied to the group mechanic my table has that I don’t expect it to translate to any other group of players, but I think that’s the thing with safety rules: you have to actively look for what works best with your group and your game.

Additionally, we will be using Lines and Veils to know what things we do and don’t want to add to our campaign, and probably an X-card for good measure, just in case we need it. The campaign vibe I’m envisioning is pretty chill, heavily inspired by Adventure Time and The Legend of Zelda, so the setting itself shouldn’t really have any strong trigger warnings. Still, I will discuss this with the group just to make sure we all agree on it.

 

Okay, so we’ve covered the basics, the Laws the campaign will have and the safety tools we’ll be using. Now that’s out of the way, we get to the fun part.

 

Artwork for our last campaign, made by the amazing Criser_mc. That campaign was more "serious" in tone, but I want the new one to match the whimsical vibes of this piece.

BUILDING THE SETTING

A big problem I had with our previous campaign (and I’m sure I’m not the only one) was the excessive worldbuilding. I spent hours creating a complex kingdom with its map, its cities, its governing clans and important NPCs, only to have the story tying to one city and one clan in a tiny bit of the kingdom due to time constraints. Complete regions of my map went completely unexplored, despite having put hours thinking about them. It’s not that I regret it: I don’t; worldbuilding for the sake of worldbuilding is also a great creative exercise, but it can get out of hands easily. I’d prefer this setting to be smaller in scope and have it be meaningful without adding information worth a trilogy of fantasy books. I don’t know if we’ll play more than three sessions of this campaign, so I don’t want to spend hours working for nothing. Besides, I also want players to feel engaged in the world, and I think the coolest way to do it is asking them to build the map with me.

The Prismatic Wasteland blog has a fantastic entry called Worldbuilding as a Team Sport. It shows a way to build the setting together with your players, taking turns to add a location, a religion, a piece of lore to the world. I think it's a really cool concept, and I want to try it and see how different the world I build with my friends is from the world I would build alone. Besides, this campaign is also theirs! They should have as much of a say in what lore to add and the things they want to see as me, the DM. It might be a bit unorthodox, but I'm very curious to see the world that emerges from it. After all, five heads think better than one.

This Prismatic Wasteland article is not the only one I’ll be using: I also want to try Eldritchmouse’s World Anchors, and I’ll likely use Riseupcomus’ Pointcrawling Character Creation too. Worldbuilding as a Team Sport has a step where players point at locations in the map and share something that happened to their character there. I think mixing it with Josh’s idea of giving characters a magic item based on a location they visited before starting the campaign is a perfect addition to it (also, starting with magic items is fun!).

I hope to play this session in a few days, and I hope this post can inspire you for your next session zero! You can let me know in the comments what do you think about this idea and what would you add besides the usual things a session zero entails. I hope to also share here the things I learn with this new campaign!