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This is where Apocalypse World and Microscope really changed the way I play and run games. I rarely have anything but the barest sketch when I sit down at the table. I love the NPCs players come up with when I ask who they have to meet to get whatever McGuffin I've come up with. The world-building that gets done in this little conversations is SO powerful. Everybody was there and it sticks and the stories take root in the world they know. I'm going to open a world building thread, if that's okay, @IsabellaRose.

So, one of the first things we're going to need to do is set the basic ground rules: I suggest a fantasy world. Science fiction does not seem to sell. This implies magic. I vote we toss the trope "cultures" like orcs, elves etc. and build out creatures native to this place. Is it a globe? Islands floating in a limitless sky? Are there gods, and if so how "solid" and active are they? Any other fundamental bounds, limits or off limits things to include or exclude?

I say a globe. Maybe we work on a single continent and the various beings living there. Screw actual gods. They might be there, they might be made up, but nobody knows for sure. There is no "divine" magic. At least that's my two cents, but I'm willing to play it a different way. Maybe the gods are only as real as the peoples' belief in them? I feel like that's been done, but it would make the need to get new followers a driving force for priests, at least if they knew. And I vote for magic being something other than Vancian magic, because all that spell memorization BS is just tired.

One of my favorite things ever is the world-building used in Smallville (of all things!) - There's a system (now adapted with only the barest of bare bones into Cortex Prime) called Pathways that has built my three favorite game worlds ever, and I've been playing in homebrewed worlds longer than some people here have been alive. The system really works best for games where all the characters know each other and they will be adventuring in a set area - one city, one star system, and place where certain locations can be important to the players across multiple sessions (like a high school, a coffee shop, a superhero headquarters, a secret

Microscope has to probably be one of my favorite systems. It's really one of the few games where the focus is to build on top of eachother's ideas. Especially like that the system straight up encourages to go fully nuclear, so that leads to some really interesting stories. I also like The Quiet Year, similar in many ways, a little more contained, and a little more stressful. It's a cute little game. I'd love to run either of those systems here.

Nice! We should build a world together sometime! I haven't engaged in worldbuilding for fun in a while.

Guilty. Husband and I got into an accident and he did not survive. He was my forever person for sure. . Miss him, but he is always in my heart The next person has had life changes forced upon them that were not wanted/planned at that time, but in hindsight turned out to be a better thing.