One of the pleasures of game mastering is creating a setting for your players to explore. Sometimes, we go all Tolkien on our settings with histories, lists of kings, cosmologies and other deep lore.

Some of us don’t have the time or inclination for that degree of secondary creation. We have jobs, school, families, and other interests competing for our time.

You want to have a setting that players will engage with and feel immersed in. At the same time, you don’t want to spend time making up a history of the universe that the players never experience because they don’t engage with it.

What follows are a few heuristics that can help you make the most effective use of your time when you are worldbuilding for a campaign and don’t have the time or desire to create a massive tome.

What needs to be detailed?

I have a few…