Using Multiple RPGs for Worldbuilding

There are a lot of amazing RPGs out there specifically designed for one-shots. Many of them have a heavy emphasis on world-building. As I began to read through a few, I realized: You could actually build an entire campaign world before you run a full campaign, taking a month or so with your group to build out the world they’ll experience. Here’s the games I’ve thought about so far and how they could contribute.

Session 1: Microscope. Here’s where you’d begin. Microscope allows you to explore an entire civilization’s rise and fall and everywhere in between. This game is set up to zoom in and out of different periods of a civilization, never chronologically, and never sticking around long. This is how you’d begin establishing things. You’d also want to keep in mind the other games on this list, so that as you zoomed in, you’d be able to figure out how exactly you’d want to incorporate the other games. As an example, if you wanted to use Reign, you’d want to make sure at some point to zoom in on a famous military company or something so that you could revisit it later with Reign.

Session 2: Downfall. Downfall shows the destruction of a civilization. When playing Microscope, you’d want to leave this part a bit vague, so it could be explored here with Downfall. In Downfall, you will choose what brought about the downfall, and then follow its last days. This one is specifically for 3 people, so you’d want to figure out which of your players would be interested, or, if you’ve got 6 players including the GM, each two players would work together. Another option is to play Downfall first session in order to show the fall of the civilization before playing Microscope to explore how it came to be there.

Session 3: Kingdom. This one is by the designer of Microscope. It looks at a kingdom at a specific point in time, at an important linchpin. Microscope established the kingdom already, and perhaps during that game you found an appropriate place for Kingdom to be played. If not, establish a new place in the timeline.

Session 4: Wield. In this game, you’re playing as magical items, using and casting aside heroes as you need them. Magical items live for centuries, so you should move around within the world established by Microscope, spanning years.

Session 5: Reign. In Reign, each player actually manages a group of characters, so for Reign, you’ll want to have established some sort of mercenary group or something in Microscope. You’ll probably want the GM to create everything beforehand (you’re only playing a session or two, so you don’t want to waste a ton of time on character creation), after discussing with the players, and basing it around some event already established in Microscope. You should also make at least one of the Wield weapons make an appearance.

Session 6: How to Host a Dungeon. Since this is a solo game, each player should, in their own time, play this to establish one important location. Gather all of these up to use them in your D&D campaign. Encourage your players to tie their dungeon in some way to something already established, while branching out an expanding the universe.

Session 7: Dawn of Worlds. At this point, we’re going to go way back and focus on the formation of the world. We haven’t done any actual map making yet, so Dawn of Worlds will help us with that. You’re playing the Gods forming the world, shaping it to your liking as a group.

Session 8: Mythender. Now you’ll kill the gods you established. In Mythender, you’re superpowered mortals slaying gods. Now, you could instead make the Myths you slay be epic monsters in the world, but I kind of like the idea that a couple of the gods died, leading to the downfall of the world in some way. You could have these Mythenders return later as high level boss monsters if you want.

Session 9: The Quiet Year. Now you will begin establishing your characters. The Quiet Year takes place after an apocalypse, as, for one year, the players build a small settlement before the Frost Shepherds arrive. We don’t know what the Frost Shepherds are, and the PCs don’t know the Frost Shepherds are coming. You’ll play this slightly different than vanilla Quiet Year, as you actually are thinking about future characters, so you’ll want to use this to begin establishing your character background. You’ll spend this session building up your settlement, and then watch it fall. After this session, you’ll all create characters who are the only survivors of the arrival of the Frost Shepherds.

From here, you’re going to create characters. They are the survivors. During your D&D campaign, you’ll visit places seen in prior sessions. You’ll encounter the Mythenders. You’ll find the magical items from Wield. You’ll encounter the undead troops of the armies led in Reign. You’ll find the dungeons in How to Host a Dungeon.

I think this campaign could be really, really cool. I’m definitely going to be trying this for an upcoming campaign.

Another option is to, in the middle of a D&D campaign, if you’ve got a player who can’t make it, to run one of these games in the off-week to establish more backstory and create things to show up in upcoming sessions of your campaign.

Let me know if you do this! Also, are there any other games that should be included here? Let me know down below.