The worldbuilding options are endless. What kind of worlds will you build?

Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers is an accessible guide for the co-creation of vast fictional worlds for use in a variety of storytelling projects. Using the expansive fictional worlds of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, A Game of Thrones, and Dungeons & Dragons as models, this book guides readers through a step-by-step process of building sprawling fictional worlds that are coherent, consistent, and completed at a pace that works for all contributors. Projects begin by establishing a framework that determines the project’s genre, audience, scope, and identifies major historical events in the world’s fictional timeline. The next step is developing the competing social forces at play in the world, a process that is aided by an innovative card deck that acts as a generative tool. Finally, the collaborators populate a catalog with hundreds of unique people, places, and things that become a rich repository of story-making potential.

The worldbuilding methodology described in the book is based on the author’s decade of college-level instruction and draws on diverse theories from writing studies, education, digital media and role-playing games. Participants in collaborative worldbuilding projects have used their co-created worlds in original works fiction, graphic novels, game design projects, and as unique settings for role-playing game campaigns.

Structurally, Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers is broken into two parts. Part One introduces the terminology used throughout the book, describes the steps in the collaborative worldbuilding process, and covers some theories of building fictional worlds drawing examples from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, George Lucas’s Star Wars galaxy, George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, and the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. Part Two walks readers through the steps of a collaborative worldbuilding project and includes examples of a group of four people creating their fictional clockpunk world of Tal-Vaz.

You can find several of the referenced tools on this site, including the Collaborative Worldbuilding Card Deck, worldbuilding worksheets, video tutorials, resources for educators, and more.