Let's make a world from scratch before the new D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide comes out

The new Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide launches soon: November 12. That date, however, merely indicates who gets it last. If the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook is any indication, publisher Wizards of the Coast will again use a complex early-access release calendar for its reviews that rivals AAA video games. This is how it went the last couple months for the new Player's Handbook:

• Aug. 1: Gen Con 2024 attendees bought hardcopy Player's Handbooks; online influencers posted flip-through videos.
• Sep. 3: Master Tier subscribers on D&D Beyond gained access.
• Sep. 10: Hero Tier subscribers on D&D Beyond gained access.
• Sep. 17: Full release.

Now that we're six weeks away from the new Dungeon Master's Guide, I expect influencer videos to start popping up any day now. Until then, we’re combing through the ten-year-old 5e DMG one more time.

Much of this sourcebook focuses on creating your own game world as a Dungeon Master. While that may be exciting for the creator, it often lacks appeal for readers. Describing a made-up campaign setting that you'll never play in is akin to hearing someone recount their dream from last night: nobody cares.

Now that I’ve sold you on the premise of my next dozen news posts, let’s build a world of our own!

It’s a small irony that the full-page artwork at the start of chapter 1 depicts a party of characters reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings. There’s an Aragorn-like ranger, a Frodo-like halfling, a Gimli-like dwarf, and a Galadriel-like elf (if she’d joined the party instead of Legolas).

I say it’s ironic because, even though we’re creating "A World of Your Own," it’s fair to acknowledge D&D’s primary influences. An unmistakably huge influence was—and still is—The Lord of the Rings. It had such an impact on D&D's origins that the Tolkien Estate sued D&D’s publishers for using the words dragon, dwarf, elf, ent, goblin, hobbit, orc, balrog, and warg.

My goodness. Thankfully, all those words have entered the public domain except for ent, hobbit, and balrog. That’s why, ever since, D&D has had treants, halflings, and balors instead.

Before we start building our world, the Dungeon Master's Guide lists some core assumptions:

1. Gods Oversee the World
2. Much of the World Is Untamed
3. The World Is Ancient
4. Conflict Shapes the World's History
5. The World Is Magical (though magic is rare)

But the book immediately follows up by stating that none of this is carved in stone. What if our world, the one we're building today, ditches those assumptions and tries a few of these instead:

1. Gods Inhabit the Land, or Are Entirely Absent
2. The World Is Known
3. The World Is New
4. The World Is a Mundane Place
5. Monsters Are Uncommon
6. Magic Is Everywhere

Some of these are contradictory, such as the world being both new and known at the same time. It would be challenging to implement both. Or would it? Perhaps we just haven’t found the right angle yet. On second thought, some of these non-core assumptions are already explored in well-known D&D worlds.

Gods Inhabit the Land?

Dragonlance. Takhisis, the god of evil, loves being a five-headed dragon, but enjoys being an alluring and manipulative humanoid even more. Paladine, the god of good, appears as a platinum dragon, but you're more likely to encounter his doddering-old-wizard persona. Gilean, the god of neutrality, is... well, it doesn’t really say, but his avatar on Krynn is Astinus the Librarian—a humorless individual who's into books even more than that wizard guy.

Gods Are Entirely Absent?

Dark Sun. While you can’t get Wizards of the Coast to touch Dark Sun with a ten-foot pole right now (and not just because they removed that piece of equipment from the 2024 Player's Handbook), Dark Sun's gods are gone. The closest analogs to gods are godlike beings such as the Sorcerer-Kings who rule the cities, or mages that advance so high in level they begin transforming into dragons or avangions, depending on whether they were Defilers or Preservers in life.

The World Is Known

Ravnica. While this is a Magic: The Gathering world, it exists under the Wizards of the Coast umbrella and has a crossover D&D book, Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica. Ravnica is a planet covered in city. While that technically means the world is "tamed" (as opposed to "untamed"), it certainly doesn’t make Ravnica a safe place to be.

The World Is New

Spelljammer. No, Spelljammer isn't caveman D&D. But there are theoretically limitless worlds to explore in your spacefaring ship. Just like in Star Trek, you may encounter strange new worlds. They could be an Eden world or a dead world, inhabited or uninhabited. Whether you treat these new worlds like Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Captain Hook is more up to you and your Dungeon Master.

The World Is a Mundane Place

Ravenloft. And by "mundane," they don’t mean boring. They simply mean a setting with low or no magic. Yes, there's magic in Ravenloft, but it aligns with the horror genre. Horror (and its video game cousin, survival horror) doesn't necessarily mesh with high-fantasy shenanigans and pervasive magic. Not that it can't. But Ravenloft keeps its magic subtle and dreadful.

Monsters Are Uncommon

This one is tricky. But I might point to Eberron or Ravnica again. With those two settings being more urban fantasy in nature, their encounter tables might feature fewer wolves and goblins and more intrigue, advanced technology, or magical innovation. Not that you couldn't run into a dragon; but that dragon might be peacefully leading a Warforged protest for equal rights rather than simply sitting on a pile of treasure for you to loot.

Magic Is Everywhere

Sigh: Eberron. Elemental airships, magical trains, and even the magical constructs known as Warforged. Magic is literally a household item, with light cantrips for illumination and enchanted tools to assist with labor. There are also guilds and organizations that focus on the structured use of magic throughout society.

It would be challenging to create a world that rejects every one of D&D's core assumptions about a campaign setting—especially all at once. But let's get started.

I’m feeling real old-school lately. Let’s aim for a Conan-like world, where gritty realism goes hand in hand with low magic; magic should be rare and powerful. Gods will be irrelevant to our setting, though we’ll draft a pantheon when the Dungeon Master's Guide calls for it. Philosophically, we’ll start with a mindset like the beginning of BioShock, which has a banner that reads: No Gods or Kings, Only Man. Monsters will serve more as boss-rush encounters than as pervasive threats populating random encounter tables.

I won’t pretend that any of this exists in a vacuum or was created from thin air. The influences on this world will become apparent (to both you and me) as things gradually congeal. But that’s fine, as that's still in keeping with the spirit of building your own world.

And so it begins.