As a Dungeon Master, there are many different ways that you can communicate information about your campaign world to your players. These straightforward methods of communicating vital lore have their pros and cons, but we’re going to talk about a more subtle type of worldbuilding that lets your players learn about your campaign setting through texture and feeling, rather than through clunky exposition dumps.
We’re talking about subtle worldbuilding today—specifically, worldbuilding through equipment.
The Power of Subtle Worldbuilding
What we’re going to discuss today is a high-level DMing technique. Pulling subtle methods of worldbuilding off require a lot of practice and a high level of confidence in your understanding of your campaign setting. If you try to use methods like this in a game and it takes months of play for your players to pick up on it, that’s okay. Not only will you become better at using subtle worldbuilding methods the more you use them, but these techniques take a long time to pull off. They’re like using spices while cooking; most don’t draw attention to themselves.
First, a quick definition. Worldbuilding is the act of creating any sort of noun that defines your fictional world. A noun is anything in the broad topic of people, places, and things, ranging from things as dramatic as legendary heroes to capital cities to ancient artifacts, to things as simple as a nation’s regional cuisine, the type of boats used for kelp-harvesting in a coastal town, and so forth. Worldbuilding happens twice in any D&D campaign—when the DM (or sometimes a player!) creates the information, and when the DM imparts that information to their players. This article is about the second kind of worldbuilding, because the way DMs communicate the details of their world to their players is just as important as the information itself. That information can be communicated directly or it can be communicated subtly.
Direct communication is when a DM tells their players about the world. When executed poorly, direct communication is often done through a monologue by a wise old sage explaining the history of the cosmos or a villain explaining their evil plan. This type of communication can be less charitably called expository worldbuilding, because it involves the DM just giving players a lore dump. Exposition makes all but the most invested players check out and start looking at their phones under the table. Why? Because the story isn’t theirs anymore. Lore dumps are the quickest way to communicate to players that the game they’re playing is really the DM’s story, and they’re just playing in it.
Indirect communication, or subtle worldbuilding, occurs when a DM communicates the details of their world by showing the players important things about the world, rather than telling the players about them. Subtle worldbuilding techniques allow your players to discover the things they care about in your setting for themselves, rather than listen to you deliver a boring lore dump. Through this method, the players learn lots of little bits of information over a long period of time. As these data points collect, players begin to notice patterns. Let them connect the dots themselves, only helping by reminding them of dots they may have forgotten over time. Your players will learn things about your world organically this way, and then once they’ve learned these things, they choose to act upon them. D&D campaigns transform for the better when players take charge of a campaign, making active decisions rather than passively following your plot. This is when D&D is at its most fun, because everyone is creating stories—not just the DM.
Worldbuilding through Equipment
All of that information was a bit academic, so let’s take a look at a specific example. Here’s how you can use equipment to tell your players about your world. Say we’re creating a kingdom that’s on the brink of war. Soldiers are amassing at the border between this nation and an empire that’s gobbling up little kingdoms like this one. War might not be a major part of your campaign (unless the players decide they want it to be!), but you want this war to be a part of the world. Here’s how you can use equipment alone to show that there’s a war going on.
Keep chapter 5: Equipment of the D&D Basic Rules open while you read, so you can easily reference the mundane equipment mentioned here.
Wealth
Social and economic classes played a huge role in the European Renaissance, which many D&D settings draw heavily upon. People could move between social classes far more readily than in feudal medieval societies, meaning that society was stratified more by wealth and prestige than by any sort of social caste. And class becomes very important in wartime, as the rural poor are the most vulnerable people of a society when an enemy comes pillaging. Poor folk are often either conscripted into service by local lords or joining mercenaries or even turning to banditry to make ends meet.
When your player characters are clearing out goblin lairs near rural villages, you can communicate how poor these villages are to your players by not having any item worth more than 5 gp be sold in shops. This instantly takes most weapons and armor off the table, save for simple weapons. Local village guards don’t have chain mail, but instead wear leather armor. If these guards have shields, then it’s because they made a crude wooden shield themselves—and it isn’t for sale. Even common magic items like potions of healing are the stuff of legend in these parts.
This information makes it abundantly clear that, if the adventurers want to buy better gear, they’ll need to go to somewhere with a bit more wealth. Here’s a chart that you can use to determine where different qualities of equipment can be purchased. You can make your setting richer or poorer (that is to say, with greater or lesser wealth inequality) by modifying where expensive items can be purchased. It also includes whether or not magic items can be bought or sold in this settlement. Since most magic items are effectively priceless, the Maximum Price of Item Sold column doesn’t apply to magic items.
Obviously, you are empowered to make exceptions—for instance, a village that raises elephants would be able to sell adventurers an elephant, even though it has a price tag of 200 gp attached. Likewise, certain items that exceed even a metropolis’s Maximum Price of Item Sold value, like a 25,000 gp warship, are exceptions to this chart, since they can only be bought directly from their creator.
Level of Wealth
Size of Settlement |
Maximum Price of Item Sold |
Magic Items Bought and Sold? |
Village |
5 gp |
No |
Town |
100 gp |
Yes, up to common |
City |
1,000 gp |
Yes, up to uncommon |
Capital City/Metropolis |
10,000 gp |
Yes, up to rare |
Scarcity
One tool of equipment-first worldbuilding is scarcity. War will soon be upon this land, and the powers that be have known for far longer than the common folk. Most players, when creating their characters, will choose armor of some sort to protect themselves. Wizards and druids rarely do so, but almost everyone who wants to fight up-close and personal will start play with some kind of armor. This armor is usually fairly low-quality, since 1st-level characters can’t afford high-quality gear like half plate or plate armor. Even paladins in heavy armor will usually start off with scale mail at 1st level. This is a great chance to do a bit of worldbuilding.
The powers that be have purchased (or expropriated) plate and half plate armor from all of the blacksmiths in the realm skilled enough to create such high-quality equipment. Judging by this chart, the vast majority of blacksmiths skilled enough to make half plate (which costs 750 gp) work in the city. Certainly there are some reclusive country blacksmiths that are an exception to our chart, but their stock of high-quality armor is sold out, too. Wherever the characters go, they find that expensive armor isn’t to be found. And the same goes for expensive spell components, like diamonds for revivify. What’s happening?
Over time, scarcity may cause them to ask questions about your world. Why can’t we find these things no matter where we go? Once they ask, you might have a blacksmith respond, “Sorry, they were all bought weeks ago. Armor like this takes months to make; I haven’t had time. Either way, I’m backordered.” They pursue answers further: who bought them all? “The king’s men,” the blacksmith replies. “They’ve ordered that all smiths in the land sell their plate armor only to the royal knights. I can feel a storm coming. Nothing ever good comes of the king buying up all my stock. Even the money I make is just enough for my family and I to weather what comes after.”
Surplus
Another tool in the worldbuilder’s toolkit is surplus. The opposite of scarcity, what does it mean when shops are overflowing with certain types of items? Perhaps the adventurers stop in a village that is known across the land for its potions of healing, a remarkable item that they shouldn’t even have a single one of, judging by our chart. This incredible shop will surely get the characters snooping about. What’s the source of their supply? Is there a source of potion ingredients in the nearby forest? If so, who makes them into potions? Or maybe the characters have learned that there’s a war going on and they make it their mission to protect this village from being taken over by the crown and forced into servitude making healing potions for the army.
The characters might even turn this simple act of subtle worldbuilding into a self-directed quest: find healing potion ingredients in the nearby forest and get them made into potions by the local witch. Suddenly, the players have taken control of the campaign. That’s amazing! Every single thing they do in this quest will be more meaningful to them because they chose this goal themselves, rather than meeting an NPC questgiver who asks them to find ten red mushrooms or something banal like that.
Other Techniques
These are powerful and broadly applicable tools that you can use to add depth and dimension to your world. They aren’t the only equipment-first worldbuilding techniques that exist, but they’re a good starting point. Think of other lens that you can use to indirectly communicate details about your setting to your players. NPC power is one, allowing you to tell them something about the world by how weak or powerful most NPCs are. Settlement size is another, since a nation with several huge cities feels wildly different from one with only small villages and one average-sized city.
Using Both Techniques Together
One last word before we go. Subtle worldbuilding isn’t always better than direct communication. Small doses of exposition, tactically delivered when the information is most relevant, can clarify the stakes of an encounter or dungeon or even an entire adventure. The main strength of exposition is how efficient it is; word-for-word, exposition communicates a lot, quickly and clearly. It only becomes a problem when expositing comes monologuing, and short explanations balloon into interminable infodumps.
Most D&D campaigns benefit from starting with a healthy dose of exposition. This clears up important questions and gives your players stable footing in the fantasy world they’ve just stepped into. Simply telling your players three or four vital points of information helps the game start moving quickly. Once you’ve done this, ease off on the exposition for a bit and allow them to ease into the world you’ve created. If you ever feel like your story or your details have become murky, polish them up with a bit of clear, concise information, then back off. Play this push-and-pull well, and your players will feel totally immersed in your world.
What are other subtle worldbuilding techniques you’ve used in your games? Let us know in the comments!
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James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
+FiveofClubsThe timeline is an excellent idea, I’ll have to use that in my campaigns
As a student of economics, I found this a really interesting and article.
Surplus and shortage are simple elements that helps tie things together, and in my opinion supply/demand sits along the dominant religions and philosophies in importance to the settings.
Technically, economists distinguish between the terms “shortage” and “scarcity”, but I think it’s all the same to everyone else.
Amazing article, the level of wealth table will be very helpful. I have also found that enemies and encounters can tell a lot about a world, such as hostile druids or rangers in a world where civilization is overtaking wild and natural places. Or knights rounding up peasants or razing villages during a suspected uprising against the upper class.
That’s a good point, little things like that can give you a lot of information about the structure of the world.
For example, Knights razing villages tells us not only that the rulers are callous and cruel, but also that the aristocrat who owns the villages...
a) is so rich he can afford the loss.
or b) is himself under suspicion.
How do I get a feel for how much things are worth? With five different types of coins and the price of a gold coin not exactly being the same worth as a gold coin today, I have trouble telling roughly how much an item, magic or otherwise, should go for without looking it up and disrupting game flow. Even then, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so different items might sell for different prices depending on the people involved. So what’s a good way to get a feel for what’s a small fortune and what’s lunch money?
An excellent question. I’d suggest jotting down the tables for Life Style expenses and Hireling wages on a sticky note for your folder/DM screen. It’s a good reference for income for a “generic setting”.
The PHB mentions some other touchstones you can keep in mind: a couple coppers are worth a mug of ale or loaf of bread, while a silver buys a night in a cheep inn, and a whole gold piece can get you a goat (a mid/low priced piece of livestock).
To try my hand at making a table.
Weapons and armor tend to appear absurdly expensive on this scale (at least 10 times what you might expect), not only because they require high quality material and specialist labor, but also because they almost always have to be made-on-order simply because there isn’t any demand in peacetime (and too much during war). More unusual adventuring gear (like caltrops), is inflated for similar reasons.
Not gonna lie, I went into this article reading from a high horse. "It's the DMs world, you're just living in it" isn't a mantra to be avoided in my circles, its the point. Reality is like that, after all, so if the goal is to simulate an alternate reality, then why shouldn't said alternate reality conform to that kind of expectation? It makes everything so much more rewarding when the PCs, by their actions, DO change the world; as rewarding as it is to change the course of this world in real life.
But I digress.
The point is, I expected to find no useful information in the article, but was pleasantly surprised by the sorts of subtle presentation styles that can still make it my world, but give the players subtle hints that they can choose to expound on or ignore as they see fit. Right now, for example, they're marooned on an island that is supposed to be uninhabited, and they're just going through basic survival chores like setting up shelter and accounting for the civilians who were stranded on ship with them. Thanks to this article, I'm going to provide them with a hint that the island is not so uninhabited after all, in the form of a tattoo they can find on one of the wild animals they hunt down; the mark of a "catch and release" program being done by some of the natives. Might help invest them a lot more in finding out who and where the inhabitants are!
So thank you for your work. :)
A couple things that I find helpful.
First rule for me is to remember to describe, describe, describe. What I mean by that is to describe as an organic part of the events instead of an expository dump of information. Instead of taking a pause in the action to tell players what the world is like let them discover it through little clues as they go about their other goals. For example a DM can just tell the players that the town of Willkommen has devised an interesting way dealing with street refuse. They have breed fire beetles and let the nocturnal juvenile fire beetles roam the streets at night to feed/scavenge all the trash as they drag it back to their lair. This is accomplished by having a tunnel system under the town with steel grates (like a storm drain) that let small beetles pass through to eat, and return when the light comes up in the morning. As the beetles molt and become larger they can no longer escape from the sealed tunnels and eventual breed new beetles, but are also eventually eaten by the mass of smaller beetles. Therefor you warn the players to be careful of dark alleys with a mass of red glows because a swarm of the juvenile fire beetles can still be dangerous.
Instead, reveal the fire beetle ecology, and how the town has exploited it with little tidbits while PCs are out and about pursuing their primary goals. For example, reveal the following:
It doesn't have to but this can lead to its own adventure if PCs decide to explore the situation. PCs can discover:
Another thing that is helpful is that is I (as a DM) have expository information that needs to be revealed to the players, instead of doing it as a DM speaking to the players, I try to make sure to do it as an NPC speaking to the PCs. This helps focus the players because it doesn't just become the DM drowning on with "flavor text", it become an NPC revealing clues to a possible adventure.
Another thing is using props. This can tell a lot about your world when you reveal a prop to the players. As a DM I ran a game where magic wasn't rare but adventuring wizards were. They would much rather make a good living like a (wage slave) by sitting in an magic artifact office like Vindalli Magics Incorporated pumping out potions, spell scrolls, or magic items, rather than risk life and limb out in the field. As a result I instituted a house rule where any class could use spell scrolls, BUT depending on a few factors like class, intelligence, and how well the player actually read the weird activation words that were printed on the spell scroll, would determine how well the spell would work and what wild magics might result. The spell scroll also included small print (on the prop) that protected the spell scroll company from any damages if the scroll was activated improperly or stored next to possible contaminating magical items.
One final thing I try to remember to do. When portraying to the players aspects of subtle worldbuilding I try to engage there other senses. Like any good novelist when telling how the world is or describing it, don't just speak to what the players know or the PCs see, be sure to describe how the world sounds, and smells, or even feels. It's fine to tell players that they are in an Eberron campaign and that there are clockwork type inventions in everyday life, but don't just say "you see a group of warforged walk through town", let the PCs know as they are walking out of a Pub "they hears hear the subtle sound of clicks and whirrs of gears as they turn in notice to see a group of warforged come around the corner. I know it may seem like a little thing, but it can make a difference to help players feel a part of the world you're running, or you've built, instead of just hearing about it like it is happening to someone else.
Good Gaming.
Wow, just re-read after posting. Sorry about all the typos and grammar error. What can I say, I hadn't slept well and wrote it in the wee hours of the morning. :)
Wow, these are great ideas.
Really enjoyed this article, helped me think about how to get off lore dumps so much. Thanks!
Since you asked, I have used the fantasy races as a means of conveying this kind of information. Specifically, I have an evil kingdom I like to use where there are goblin and orc mercenaries seen among the usual town guards, bullying townsfolk and the like.
I like worldbuilding to "narrow" some things for my games, so players have an easier time making choices for things like skills or languages they know will be useful.
I usually widdle down languages to 6 or 7, Draconic, common, sylvan (for elves/fae, air and water elemental speech), "Gylvend" (for dwarves/gnomes/giants and earth/fire elementals). That kind of thing.
That is a particularly good example. Some things like language options can tell you a lot about a setting, but conversely you need to know about the setting to know what you’re choosing.
These are well thought out posts.
This is exactly the significance, that narrative descriptions (fluff) attached to objects and creatures, hold. The types of metal and hide armor is made from, or even just the shape of and colors painted on shields, tell you origin the history of that gear.
Not that this doesn’t have mechanical expression as well.
The wights in the Empire’s catacombs might be armed like it’s soldiers, with a shortsword and scale mail, giving them better defense and weaker offense.
Or, the local acolytes in that fire-beetle breeding village might have unusual spells for a Cleric, like speak with animals or animal friendship, which they use to help draw out beetles for the harvest.
I’ve heard some pretty similar information from here in Matt Colville’s “Running the Game” Youtube series. One thing I’ve tried using from his advice is using NPCs to convey information similarly to shopkeeper explaining why there is scarcity or surplus. The example used was a party of adventurers find out there is a dragon nearby wile they have a dwarf warrior NPC with them. Deciding what to do, they ask for his opinion, and he says attack. “You think we can beat it?”, they ask. The dwarf responds, “What better way to die, than fighting against an impossible foe!” The end result is the NPC suggests they fight, but conveys there is more than a good chance they’ll fall if they do. It also reveals something of the dwarf’s personality and philosophy: honor is valued, and the greatest honor is death in battle. There is also NPCs giving what they know about various organizations, such as saying a group of paladins is “incorruptible,” but this isn’t the full picture because it’s opinion. Are paladins incorruptible? No, but the people believe it, and this tells the players what the world is like.
For sure an amazing idea to deal with the lockdown. I started playing on Roll20 with mixture of Discord and Houseparty, but online isn't quite the same.
you should consider making a series on worldbuilding, because i, and others would find that really helpfull
(unless i am an idiot and there already is one)
Thanks. I thought it would be cool. And I love League of legends. Too bad that league doesn't work on Chromebooks...
This couldn't have come at a better time! I've been doing a lot of Worldbuilding this week for two separate projects, and have been scouring the interwebz for perspectives on the process. Thank you for your on point observations.