Our Top-Down Worldbuilding series continues with creating your world meta (YES – we’re going to write something!). The world meta,1I don’t like the term here because meta means self-referential (e.g., creating a substack about creating a substack). However, usage defines meaning, and meta’s persistent connotations of high-level, overview representation has useful traction here. or world concepts, is a a high-level vision that forms the foundation of the world you’re building. These concepts serve as your starting point, establishing basic facts about the world itself, who lives there, its prevailing themes, and why players should care.
The world meta contains the core narrative elements that permeate all (most) aspects of campaigns within it: what makes the world interesting or unique, what overarching conflicts exist and how they might motivate adventurers, the role of alignment, the cultures within the world and what they get up to, magic, religion, monsters, and character roles. Think of this as a precis for your planet.
As such, the world meta is sparse and skeletal (as suggested by our last installment about Worldbuilding Laws). Because they apply to the entire world (and not just one region), you want to stick with broad statements, bullet points, and very little detail. Creating this document serves two purposes:
- It helps you organise your thoughts so that you cover all the necessary bases and connect your ideas into a coherent whole, and
- The finished result serves as a reference to ground your creativity when you start drilling down into specific areas later.
Like much of the top-down worldbuilding exercises, creating a world meta is an iterative process. Even though you’re painting in broad brush strokes, you’ll conjure up new ideas as you write, which will prompt you to update sections you’ve already completed. This is normal, expected, and even encouraged – you’re creating the touchstone for everything you create later, so include the concepts you want to play out on the table.
Disclaimer: My original intent was to provide a high-level overview of each aspect of the world meta in a one article, but as I progressed, it became clear that there was too much information for a single piece. As a result, I’ll devote a post to each concept in the weeks to come. For now, I’m providing the outline and overview of each section to set expectations and to give you an idea of what to start thinking about as you tackle this effort.
Genre & Rule System
Clarify the genre or sub-genre for your world. This series assumes some flavour of “fantasy,” but that could include high-fantasy, low-fantasy, grimdark, etc. The choice affects the tone of your world meta, but also your players’ expectations. Rule system often goes hand-in-hand with genre, and again, we’re assuming B/X (or a B/X-like solution). In addition to the system, list any supplements that will be used to run games in your world (you can also start a list of house rules, but add to it only as they come to mind, otherwise, you’ll get bogged down).
Deep Dive: World Meta – Genre & Rule System
World Hooks
Figure out what sets your world apart – what makes it unique – and how does that impact player characters? Hooks provide some environmental condition that affects how characters plan an execute; they can be subtle (e.g., arcane magic is capped at 5th level spells), readily apparent (e.g., casting arcane spells damages the environment), or somewhere in between. It’s useful to identify 1-3 high-level hooks and add detail as you complete the rest of the meta. As a side note, the “World hook is that there is no hook” won’t pass muster – it sounds like it could work, but it has the same effect as running a campaign of one-shots and gets boring for both you and your players.
Deep Dive: World Meta – World Hooks
Themes
Your hooks’ ripple effects impact your setting’s history, its cultures, and the social motivations of those within them. These themes create a “feel” for what living in the world is like. If, for example, arcane magic is destructive, people will fear it, and every culture will have its own view on the threat it poses (to their way of life). You want 4-6 thematic undercurrents in your world, and it’s best to think about them from the player character’s perspective: How do the themes affect class choice? How do they inspire character motivations and player engagement? Do the themes have a role in what Lawful, Chaotic, or Neutral alignments mean?
Deep Dive: World Meta – Themes
Geography & Terrain
It’s assumed that your world will support all Earthly terrain types (unless a hook says otherwise, like the entire planet is a desert). However, it’s likely that your hooks and themes have evoked some specific locales in your mind. You’re not making a map at this stage – instead, you’re making a list of special areas you want to include so that when you do create your map, you can accommodate them. For example, you want a vast wasteland ravaged by arcane magic and dotted with ancient ruins, a pristine archipelago of islands, and a jungle with dinosaurs – bonus points if you can add a reason why characters would go there.
Deep Dive: World Meta – Geography & Terrain
Cultures
Make a list of your world’s social races. Cultures are less differentiated by their species than by their beliefs, values, and the customs that attend them. In this step, you’ll make a list of your world’s prominent cultures. Again, details are scant, and the high-level view will include only the culture’s name, their in-game race (human, elf, dwarf, etc.), their preferred terrain or environment, an Earth analogue (if applicable, e.g., “Sasanian Empire, c. 5th century AD”), a constructed language basis, and one thing they’re known for (e.g., shipbuilding, the quality of their steel, innovative technology, cannibalism, whatever). These scant details will form the basis for how fill in your world map later in the process.
Deep Dive: World Meta – Cultures
Religion
More accurately, deities and other focal points of worship. This is a fascinating area of worldbuilding because, as in our own world, it is often the source for what becomes the codified rendering of intuitive social values. But it is also a minefield – you will be tempted (and yea also shall you succumb) to adding “just one more” detail as you devise gods, devils, their servants, their ways of worship and propitiation, their portfolios and their rules, their clerics, and their holy days. We’ll get to all that in time, but for now, you’ll take each culture and assign them to mono-, poly-, or pantheism, identify what that culture values, what their clerics are called, and whether they can cast spells. This is also a good time to brush up on the difference between Cultural vs. World gods.
Deep Dive: World Meta – Religion
Magic
Even when it doesn’t play a part in a world hook (as it often does), magic can be challenging aspect of worldbuilding because it offers us the Paradox of Choice. To reduce the pull of detail, the world meta needs only a few inputs here: What magic-wielding classes are available, what is the source of their magic, , how do they acquire and release their powers, and what – based on the world’s hooks and themes – is their cultural role? Frequently, the best source to start with is your ruleset – make sure you understand how your game system handles magic, then decide how your world supports it.
Deep Dive: World Meta – Magic
Monsters
Create a list of monsters that live in your world so you know what your player characters will be up against. This is a little bit of detail, but it’s easy to populate the world meta. Start with the monsters included your rule system, excluding any that don’t support your world’s themes or geography. From there, you can add monsters from other sources or of your own devising.
Deep Dive: World Meta – Monsters
Characters
This is a simple list of what classes players can choose from. The list should include the classes from the rule system that you as Referee will allow, as well as any new, setting-specific classes you’ll add to the mix. For each class, note its name and where in the world it’s popular – could be everywhere, or, for new classes you introduce, more geographically limited. Finally, include the class’ social role – it’s “mission” in the society around it – to help define its functional niche in future campaigns as well as why a player would choose it.
Deep Dive: World Meta – Characters
Tag and Crawl
The final step is a crucial culmination of all the previous work. Assuming you haven’t already done so, you’ll give your world a name. Next is a quick tag line – a punchy phrase or statement that encapsulates the entire world for new players. Finally, you’ll create one of my favourite elements, the opening crawl that fully engages the player in three short paragraphs. I’ve touched on the tag and the crawl previously, but seven years on, I have a bit more to offer.
Deep Dive: World Meta – Tag & Crawl
Final Thoughts
I foolishly thought I could give the world meta a quick treatment, but I want to give this important world artefact the attention is deserves – crafted thoughtfully, it will serve as the common ground for every campaign you run. Next week, we’ll start our deep dives. Until then, I hope the above is enough to get you thinking about all the pieces of your top-down world.