Summary

• Indie TTRPGs offer players more creative input in worldbuilding compared to traditional games like D&D.
• Games like Untold Horizons and Gathering Storm provide unique map-drawing and worldbuilding experiences.
• Microscope and Dialect are standout titles offering innovative approaches to storytelling and language development.

In most TTRPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons, worldbuilding is very much the domain of the GM. Sometimes players will have the opportunity to influence the settinꦗg in minor ways, but this pales in comparison to the amount of work and creativity the average GM puts into creating their worlds.

However, indie TTRPGs are full of fresh takes on worldbuilding. It's somewhat common to find games where players have an equal hand in establishing the setting, often through creating maps and other visual aids. If you're looking for a 🅘tabletop game that lets everyone get creative with worldbuilding, this list is a great start.

9 Kingdom

A Game About Communities

• Developer: Ben Robbins
• Available On: Amazon, itch.io

Even if the name Ben Robbins isn't familiar to you, you're definitely familiar with some of his approaches to gaming if you've spent enough time in TTRPG spaces. He's most known for being the creator of Microscope and pioneering 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the West Marches approach to D&D campaigns, but Kingdom has recei🦹ved somewhat less attention.

Players begin Kingdom by creating a community and deciding on its details. This community can be anything from an anime fan club to a small rural village to a magical academy, so the only limit is your imagination. As you play out life in your community, you'll run into Crossroads, which are pivotal decisions that will change y꧟our community for better or 🎀worse.

8 ꦕ Untold Horizons

A Map-Drawing RPG Focused On Exploration

• Developer: Gordie Murphy
• Available On: itch.io

If you have two to four friends and want a solid map-drawing experience, Untold Horizons is for you. Five American dollars gets you the rulebook, and from there,♚ all you need are some pencils, paper, a deck of playing cards and a single d6. Players start off with creating a world, but not everything gets fleshed out right away.

To fill out new r💎egions on the map, you'll need to conduct an expedition to a new part of the map. Rolling the die and drawing a card will provide you with guidelines on how big the region is and a general idea of what you'll find there, but it's up to you to fill oඣut the details.

7 ඣ Gods of Aorta 💃

An RPG Where The Players Are Gods

• Developer: Netal
• Available On: itch.io

There are a few TTRPGs out there that allow your characters to become gods, such as Kult: Divinity Lo🍎st and Nobilis. However, the potential for doing God Stuff suc✤h as creating life and bending reality is still bound by a fairly structured set of rules. Gods of Aorta changes that with a rules-lite approach that lets you and your friends truly feel larger than life.

Players begin the game by rolling to see what god they are, determined by a table of domains. The GM mostly resolves disputes and draws changeꦓs to the map as determined by the players, so it's a great game for forever GMs who want to sit back and have fun. The game ends when ever♔yone is satisfied with their world.

6 🌳 Orichalcu✅m

A TTRPG Map Game For 3-5 Players

• Developer: Justin Quirit
• Available On: itch.io

Orichalcum is a game you can play by yourself, but it also ꦚworks for up to five players. Long ago, a mighty empire once stood atop a powerful resource known as orichalcum, but it soon fell to ruins after a great storm. That's where the story begins, and it's your job to explore the tatters of what remains.

You play as exiles who live on islands outside of the fallen empire, gathering what orichalcum you can to survive. Players flesh out the world by creating memories their character has of the fallen🧔 empire, drawing what remains of tꦐhat memory as a detail on their respective island. It's a bit abstract, but it's great once you get the hang of it.

5 🐼 Beak, Feather & Bone ♑

A Map-Labeling RPG

• Developer: Tyler Crumrine
• Available On: Possible Worlds Games website, itch.io, Heart of the Deernicorn website

Beak, Feather & Bone was voted one of the "most innovative RPGs of 2020" by In🦂die Game Developer Network, and it's not hard to see why. You can play it as a game in its own right, but if you're working on worldbuilding for D&D or another game, it's also a great way to flesh out cities for other tabletop campaigns.

Players begin by creating buildings and other locations in their city, then take turns on fleshing out the community and adding more life to the setting. The game's rulebook also contains s♊ome optional rules for populating your city with rav꧃enfolk, such as D&D's kenku or Pathfinder's tengu.

4 Gathering 🏅Storm ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ

A Collaborative Worldbuilding Game

• Developer: David Blandy
• Available On: itch.io

Gathering Storm posits itself as a great game for someone who's new to TTRPGs, and its rules are definitely easy to pick up for just about anyone. You don't need m༺uch to get started: just some paper, some pens, a standard deck of playing cards and any coin of your choice.

The game takes one or two hours to play, and in that time, you and your buddies will flesh🍎 out a detailed, postcolonial sci-fi landscape.If you're not a fan of the sci-fi setting, never fear: the game is open-source, meanin𓂃g anyone is free to remix and alter it as they wish and other versions are available on the market.

3 Dialect

A Game About Language And How It Dies

• Developer: Thorny Games
• Available On: Thorny Games website

If you're a fantasy writer (or have aspirations of being one), ✨the idea of building a constructed language (or "conlang") has probably piqued your interest at some point in the past. M🀅ost TTRPG players aren't Tolkien wannabes, but if you find yourself among a group of like-minded nerds, then Dialect is the perfect game to bust out.

Players take on the role of an isolated community, drawing cards from the language generation deck to help determine how that community's language changes across time. Diffꦫerent circumstances will call for new and innovative shifts in how everyone talks, making Dialect's gameplay a great t꧃ime for everyone who loves linguistics.

2 The🌼 Quiet Year 🔯

Build Community After The Collapse

• Developer: Avery Alder
• Available On: Buried Without Ceremony website, itch.io, DriveThruRPG

The Quiet Year is a TTRPG that's gotten some attention in recent years due to prominent YouTubers and podcasters playing it, such as the Drawfee team and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Adventure Zone. You'll need a drawing space, some drawing implements, and a deck of standard playing cards to play the game. A set﷽ of D6s is recommended, but not strictly necessary.

As the title implies, the events of the game will span throug๊h an entire in-game year. Gameplay is divided into four phases, each representing a different season of the year. As you and the other players draw cards to det🎃ermine the events of the game, the clock winds down until the end of winter and the arrival of the ominous Frost Shepherds.

1 ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Microscop⛎e

A Fractal RPG Of Epic Histories

• Developer: Ben Robbins
• Available On: DriveThruRPG, itch.io, Amazon

Microscope is definitely the biggest name in worldbuilding TTRPGS, and it has the quality to back up its fame. While most worldbuilding games take a big-picture approach to creating a world, Microscope aims to tell the history of a world through its important moments. Players create a t�ꦺ�imeline of events and start from there.

After you've decided on what sort of historical timeline you want to create (such as the fall of an empire), you can get started playing through scenes that show how it all happened. There's no need to play out events in chronologicalꦏ order, either: you can start with the most interesting scene and use that as inspiration for other scenes that provide context (such as the backstory of the evil emperor.)