Building Fantasy Worlds

Written by multi-award-winning narrative designer and worldbuilder Graeme Davis, this book draws on more than 40 years’ experience working on almost 50 video games and more than 100 tabletop game rulebooks, sourcebooks, and adventures. It provides usable information and practical advice for worldbuilders and loremasters in games of all kinds, as well as in other media.

Using a wide range of examples including the author’s own work on Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Vampire: The Masquerade, and others, this book shows how to create a fantasy setting that stands out from the crowd and how to ensure it has the maximum potential to grow beyond one title to a powerful transmedia brand. It examines a number of powerful and not-so-powerful brands, showing what worked, what didn’t, and what could have been better.

The book points out both obvious and less obvious ways of conveying intriguing crumbs of lore to players, hinting at a wider world and building curiosity that will create a ready-made audience for future titles in the same franchise – and it shows how to achieve all of that quickly and economically, without drowning in detail, without endangering the current project’s budget and schedule, and without restricting the creative freedom of anyone working on those future titles.