My Life As A Gamer: Practical Worldbuilding For #EliteLevel Players That #WinAtRPGs

Hey, you.

Yeah, you, Anon. Wondering about your campaign again, right?

"Okay," you say, "I get that I can just hand over major setting factions to the players and let them do their thing, and I get that Jeffro Timekeeping whatever stuff."

I know there's a "But" coming.

"But what about the lore? The past? All that stuff? Isn't that a lot of work?"

Ivan, did you read what Anon here said? Of course you did. I can see it on your face.

Look, Anon, you don't need to think that much about it.

Lean, and lean hard, into the implied and emergent nature of the game. You need not think harder than the last few years before play began, if that. You don't need to decide the ancient history of anything. You don't need centuries of lore. You don't even need what went down 20 years ago. Those details can be left alone unless and until they become relevant in actual play and no sooner.

Even that, you need not do it. Trust your players to come up with suitable material that fits into the campaign in a seamless manner. Stick to the simplest answer to any questions that arise from the implicit assumptions behind monsters, magic, or whatever is at hand- but once you do, commit and record what you decide for future reference.

You'll be surprised at the results, you will be entertained by the results, and they will look and feel a lot closer to Howard's Hyborean Age than Tolkien- and your game will be the better for it. You never need to spend money of "official settings" ever again, and the #EliteLevel players take the opportunity to shape the game for awesome by doing so. It's part of how the Perpetual Play Paradigm works.