Collaborative Worldbuilding

The Collaborative Worldbuilding Deck consists of three types of cards: category cards, numeric cards, and trending/stable cards. There are 4 broad structural categories (governance, economics, social relations, cultural influences) and 14 substructures beneath them. The deck allows you to randomly generate a world by shuffling and dealing out the numeric and trending cards, one for each subcategory. Your worldbuilding group then discusses how they interpret the categories and values, describing how the world functions and identifying points of tension within the society. The deck also features additional category cards, numeric cards, and trending/stable cards that can expand your worldbuilding possibilities.

Designed by a Ph.D. in English-Creative Writing and an expert in games and game-based learning, this deck invites you and a group of friends to generate a random world and then debate and discuss possible interpretations as you build a narrative that describes your world. This is a useful tool for all manner of storytellers and role-playing gamers who want to add depth, complexity, and sophistication to their fictional worlds.

Check out collaborativeworldbuilding.com for more on the card deck, the book Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers, and other resources to help you to build detailed, compelling fictional worlds.