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The Seven Levels of Worldbuilders

Large Lads Studios

79,118 views

Creating your own DnD world is hard work, world building in general is hard! How can you go about worldbuilding in D&D for your campaign?
Get 51% off of any yearly subscription to World Anvil with my code LADS! https://www.worldanvil.com/?c=Lads

World Anvil is an extremely powerful world building tool to help you in your worldbuilding process. It allows you to create wiki style articles for basically everything in your campaign, allowing you to concentrate on the important part: creating an entire world. With tools like a writing software for your novel writing, a digital DM screen, and more, world anvil gives you everything you need to bring whatever fantasy world you can imagine to life!

00:00 Intro
02:38 World Anvil
03:30 Level 1 – Creativity
07:58 Level 2 – Knowledge
12:18 Level 3 – Cohesion
14:54 Level 4 – Narrative Design
18:33 Level 5 – Empathy
22:25 Level 6 – Consequence
26:48 Level 7 – Mastery

Let me know in the comments: what level are you at?
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20 Comments

@LargeLadsStudios Creator 3 months ago (edited) Pinned

What Level are you? Join our discord https://discord.gg/5k5Jv3ecYv

Get 51% off of any yearly subscription to World Anvil with my code LADS! https://www.worldanvil.com/?c=Lads

@jonathankoh3240 3 months ago (edited)

finally lord of the mysteries and made in abyss mentionss

@kuronaialtani 2 months ago

The biggest point of focus for me with worldbuilding is to “write a world with stories, not a story with a world.” And I’ve had near-endless ideas since I began writing, from any source you can think of. A dream, a post, a book or movie, a thought, a question someone asked me about my current work.
I want to keep adding on, but at the same time pull it all back into itself, take what I already have and see how far it can go on its own, in history and importance and consistency. This is a world that should always be moving, it doesn’t exist in a void for the story at hand.

@firehawk0815 3 months ago

7:15 hell yeah, Made in Abyss mentioned!

@turtles_underscore 3 months ago

The only option now is to do 7 7 levels of worldbuilding for combined 49 levels. I'm excited to watch your progress

@AdThe1st 2 months ago

"...and most fictional worlds often reflect the interest of the people that created them"
Me watching this right after adding even more animals to my world: Uhhhhh... Yep

@pforpotatoe1980 3 months ago

This video introduced me to a lot of stories i've never come across like the books of Robin Hobb. Thanks man!

@urlove.destinyxx 3 months ago

I feel like no.7 can be changed to narrative direction, what can make a story truly strong is understanding the core themes of your story and understanding the direction you want to go in. Many writers get lost with so many different possibilities that they often forget to just choose one direction and go with it. This also plays into mastery, I guess that narrative direction (or art direction if ur an artist) is just the more "industry term". idk just my opinion. Another great vid btw!! helped a lot :)

@WihanVanHeerden 3 months ago

So glad Robin Hobbs' works were mentioned, honestly (subjectively) one of the best worlds I have ever experienced. So intricate, yet understandable

@nathanastle9322 1 month ago

Holy crap I just geeked out harder in this one video than the last 3 months of YouTube. Instant follow.

@Disturbingsilence-q7b 1 month ago

‏‪6:49‬‏ excellent

@over-ray-act 1 month ago

Thank you for this video! I needed it for inspiration to keep going.

@oneeyejohn69 1 month ago

Re: Empathy and Airbender: Zuko is really made by the conflict between his father and his uncle, in particular, Iroh's actual/written empathy

@liqi2502 1 month ago

Lord of Mystery mentioned!!

@Symbol-Guy 2 months ago

My first book is like a mix of Harry Potter and Spider-Man. A young boy goes to a boarding school and gets superpowers. The themes of the book itself are forgiveness vs vengeance, and exchange student inequality. As for the overarching theme across all books, it’s the harmonization of science and religion, and the different denominations too.

@barehunterbachman5152 2 months ago

Author Terry Brooks is a master of consequences. He has written sacrifices that make the protagonist consider suicide, even though the sacrifice allowed them to win.

@willemboersma1177 3 weeks ago

Great video, I do actually miss one of the greatest world builders of all time, Raymond E Feist should definitely be named, although somewhat forgotten by the younger generation.

@restoredtuna8264 2 months ago

Just a smattering of things I learned while researching for a world building topic:

Explosive reactive armour,
Nuclear weapons and how they work in space, Solar and radiator planets, Barrel changing mechanisms, Flare pods, Escape velocity and how different it is across our solar system.

I’m no expert on any of these topics, but I know more than enough for my projects and they are terrible conversation starters.

@cedrigo 2 months ago

thank you!

@water_snake1763 3 months ago

I would like to share one of my favorite novels. Its name is "Practical Guide to Evil" or "Abridged Guide to Evil". Across 7 books, the author manages to create a splendid fantasy where there are almost no inconsistencies. I highly
recommend checking it out.