The Tome of Worldbuilding is Stuffed
I want to start by saying I’m really happy this product exists.
I was talking to a game designer a few weeks ago who said of the Tome of Adventure Design that he loves it because it is just full of stuff. I agree, I love me some stuff.
In fact, I love how both these books are literally packed to the margins with stuff. When we make our games, or our adventures (and if you are a GM who homebrews at all, you are doing a bit of both) we need stuff to put in them! Lots and lots of STUFF.
But it’s also hard to know just how much stuff you actually need. And when you might need it.
The Tome of World Building, like the Tome of Adventure Design, gives you A LOT. Maybe too much?
The book presents itself as a step by step guide (for the seasoned worldbuilder) to create a setting from scratch to be used at the table. It has reams and reams of roll tables with detailed results that are great for jogging the imagination and weaving threads you otherwise wouldn't think of.
The idea of the world begins to take shape very quickly as you start rolling for results. It's a lot of fun in its own right to just go through the process and see what comes out the other end. What emerges is guaranteed to surprise you, but also hold together as something coherent. That's worth the price of admission alone.
I think for someone who knows what they need for their world but is struggling to come up with the juice (every GM at some point or another), this book is invaluable. However, for me personally, this is not the most usable world construction manual for actually getting a game to the table.
The issue is simple, it starts way too zoomed out.
I get it, lots of worldbuilders love to come up with the cosmology first. If the world was shaped by gods, then it is important to note who those gods are and what their motivations were when building this world. Similarly it is important to consider what cosmic forces are at play. Does your world have a Law vs. Chaos dichotomy? Are there Eldritch, unspeakable things lurking in the dark? The correct answer is YES.
This is the first chapter of the book. I understand why it makes sense from a purely worldbuilding standpoint to start there. I just don’t think it’s where a GM who wants to get their homebrew setting to the table should start. But that's also not really who this book is for, if we are being honest. This is for the GM (or writer for that matter) who will luxuriate in the process of coming up with a setting over days and even weeks, creating deep lore and a sense of grandeur that stretches beyond the table.
In my mind, this has always felt like the GM equivalent of coming up with a 2000 word backstory for a character who won't last more than 3 sessions. It feels a bit like putting the cart before the horse.
If you are like me, you don’t have endless hours to prep. Either work/life is busy, or you have a game coming up this weekend and you need the basics to get an adventure going and don't have a lot of time to waste. The Tome of Adventure Design has you covered for the most part there. I would much rather know what town I will be starting in, where the nearest dungeon is located, what is in that dungeon that will interest the players and a bit of information about the surrounding area (Castle Grief’s 7 Hex Codex is a great distillation of this).
This isn’t a criticism necessarily levelled at the Tome of Worldbuilding. You can absolutely use the book for the parts you need as you need them. It’s just structured like a step by step guide. The intro clearly states it is intended for seasoned worldbuilders, and I suppose I can’t count myself in that category.
In all my creative work, the world is built around the story I want to tell. It’s an accessory to the main activity that is happening. The story doesn't exist for the world, but rather the details of the world are filled in as the story demands.
In RPG terms, the world is built around the requirements of the adventure the players are on, or the whims of what I think would be fun for next week. Starting small and building outwards is more my jam. That way what I am building is more than likely to get used. I can fill in the details as we zoom in, but keep things broadly defined outside of that.
So do I think Tome of Worldbuilding is a worthy investment for a gamemaster? Sure, I do. It has so much stuff in it that it would be foolish to say it’s not worth the price tag. Again, nothing is stopping you from just grabbing what you need from it when you need it. I think much of the worldbuilding advice here is really solid. Matt Finch does a great job asking the right questions to the worldbuilder to help them hone in on what they want out of this process. So I really can't fault it for providing more than what I personally would use.
I think if you want raw table-utility, the Tome of Adventure Design is far better suited to that. The truth is, players don’t really care so much about your world as they do the adventure they are on. But there is still plenty of stuff here to get them interested for the GM who is willing to dive deep, and if you did follow the processes laid out by the book, you are guaranteed to have a rich setting that holds together. Just don’t expect to build it overnight.