I’ve been playing Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) for years. I’ve been running a game for close to four. Since then, I feel like I’ve learned a lot—about being a GM (game master), about writing and worldbuilding, about my players, and (unfortunately) about interpersonal conflict management. I’ve also come to deeply appreciate the capabilities that TTRPGs have as a form for storytelling, and just how far a little personalization can go. With any luck, I’ll leave you, dear reader, with some advice that helps you in your own creative endeavors.
Getting Ideas
It can be very difficult to build a world or story you don’t have ideas for. Creating an ‘archive’ of material you find inspiring can be helpful if you often find yourself in such a situation. This archive can take any form: a paper list; a thumb drive; a Pinterest board; a corkboard covered with notes, tacks, and a spiderweb of red string. You might have specific video games or books that inspire you. There might be a certain character you like, or a music track from a movie. You might even include some of your own writing. The idea is simply to create an archive you can turn to if you find yourself in need of a creative spark.
Adapting the Game to Your Players
“What kind of game are you looking for?” is an essential session zero question. It covers mood, genre, maturity rating, and more: the basics of what you need to know about what your players are looking for. The usefulness of that information doesn’t begin and end with game conduct and the conceptual aspects of your campaign, fortunately. Depending on how far into development you are with your worldbuilding and main story, you can tune things like geographic/cultural location or the profession of an important NPC (non-player character) to better fit the scope of things your players might find intriguing. A character with a background in gemcutting would likely find a city with a rich mining industry engaging, just as making an important quest-giver the leader of a thieves guild would be interesting for a party led by a straight-backed former guard.
Worldbuilding the Right Way for Your Timeline
There is a determination you should make at the outset of your campaign’s development: are you going to create the world entirely (or at least a majority of it) before you start playing, are you going to closely develop the area where the players will start and expand as they level up and begin to travel to other areas, or are you going to do it on the fly and design the needed
content between sessions? Or something else? Take into consideration how long it’ll take to create everything you need to start playing. If you’re particularly excited about starting your game, working as you go might be the best approach; having deeply detailed worldbuilding is incredibly rewarding, but the time and energy spent might feel wasted if the things you developed don’t have a place to come up during gameplay.
Featuring What Matters to You
A really cool thing about writing your own campaign is that you can make it about whatever you want. It sounds obvious, but it’s an easy thing to forget when you’re staring down a blank session outline. For example: Susie is really into, say, floral arrangements. She could write a quest where her players need to acquire a book detailing the meanings of different flowers, then gather and present the bouquet to the prince as a way to warn him of an impending
assassination attempt. As the GM, you can write your quests in a way that encourages players to engage with the lore you provide, giving them a deeper understanding of your world and you the satisfaction of showing off your hard work.
To sum up, TTRPGS as a form for storytelling offer a lot of unique options and avenues for creativity. Even in a pre-written campaign, there are countless ways to impart your own flair, with how you run encounters or characterize NPCs, or how you tie your players’ backstories into the larger plot. The collaborative aspect of the form is central to what makes it so special. That’s what takes it from writing for yourself to creating a story with others, and taking the time to personalize the material you present to your players really makes it so much more resonant and memorable. I sincerely hope this gave you some ideas, and maybe some inspiration to start cooking up a campaign of your own.
Meet the blogger:
RAY KALLEMEYN is a Creative Writing student at Hamline University and the Chief of Design for Untold Magazine. They are passionate about illustration, houseplants, bartending, and fantasy worldbuilding. When they’re not writing, they’re probably thinking about writing, watching The Thing (1982), playing RPGS, or waiting for the newest Lego Botanical Collection set to come out.
