Our fifth installment of Top-down Worldbuilding continues with creating world hooks.
Most referees are familiar with the concept of hooks – they’re ideas that “hook” the players’ interest and engagement, and they serve on multiple levels. There are story hooks that introduce plot and conflict, typically motivating the characters into action – either to get something they want or keep something they have. There are character hooks that distinguish NPCs, monsters, allies, and foes, always relative to the players’ interests. And there are world hooks, which inspire indirect action by representing unique or unusual aspects of the setting itself.
Fittingly, world hooks permeate the entire milieu. In this context, a world hook is a concept that sets the world apart from others, making it a unique and distinctive place to play. To work well, world hooks must trickle down into all aspects of the setting: culture, history, religion, magic, class availability, etc. The hook also plays a dual role, which is to provide a catalyst for conflict (read: adventuring opportunities).
Creating Hooks
At their core, world hooks are nothing more than creative concepts that you think would be interesting, either as ways to set your world apart from others or to justify unique challenges for the players. At this early stage, it’s helpful to use a somewhat formulaic approach to flesh out not only what the hooks are, but how they impact the setting. I suggest this format:
Hook: Describe the condition you want to see in the world. This can be a natural, social, cultural, or divine event or state that has a direct or indirect impact on people, especially characters.
- Manifestation: How does the hook show itself in the setting?
- Cause: At a high-level, describe the events or circumstances that created the hook. At this early stage, you may not know all the details, but it’s important to take a stab at how the hook came to exist because the causes may be things that the PCs can still interact with (should they want to alter the hook’s impact).
- Impact: Describe how the hook affects the setting, especially characters. Because world hooks permeate the entire setting, it’s impossible to outline all the outcomes created by the hook, but you can paint in broad strokes here for a start – you’ll have an opportunity to refine as you continue the world meta effort.
- Story seeds: Jot down any notes about the hook, its cause, or its impact that you can draw upon when creating adventures or background plots.
As you continue developing the world meta, you’ll find that hook impact has a very long reach and becomes paramount as a result. For example, if you decide that magic works differently than described in your rule system, the hook can impact magic-using classes, their choice of spells, how spells are cast, magic item frequency and use, encounters, and combat tactics. These are all fine – your hook can be as broad or deep as you want – as long as you account for how the hook affects character abilities and player choices.
As a result, don’t be afraid to reshape your hooks as you continue your world meta. If the impact is too great, create some limiting conditions (magic is affected, but only at certain times or under certain circumstances). Alternatively, change the cause – a battle can lead to the fall of an empire or the rise of a new one, or it can be reduced to a skirmish with different actors.
One thing you don’t want to do is burden your hooks with detail. As always, avoid detail and keep things simple; creating details paints you into corners that aren’t helpful and will actually constrain your creativity at this early stage. For now, it’s important to know that the hook exists, and here’s how the world lives with it. Start with what the hook is, then work outward from there – again, you’ll have plenty of time to refine your hooks as you go (trust me, this will happen), and keeping your hooks relatively high-level now will make that exercise easier.
Examples
To illustrate the format above, here’s a roster of the hooks for my own World of Trid setting:
While dominated today by humans, Trid has seen the passage of previous empires.
- Manifestation: Before human civilisation, there was the Elven Republic, and before that was the Saurian Empire, and before that lived the ancient Builders. There are other ruins, of course – abandoned dwarf halls, strongholds ravaged by time and warfare, and even whole towns left behind as their inhabitants sought safety from hostile raiders or harsh elements.
- Cause: Ruins litter the Continent. They’re roughly dated by the ages of their respective civilisations: The Builders dwelt in the Before Times, the Saurian Empire is a hallmark of the Dim Ages that followed, and the elven ruins date from the Age of Fable. .
- Impact: Humans in the current Age of History explore and plunder these ruins for treasure, magic, and secrets. Power brokers across the Continent commission adventurers for such missions, and of course, this feeds the advancement machine that characters of all classes operate.
- Story seeds: Ruins of any sort can spawn just about any dungeon adventure. In addition to plundering ruins, adventurers might figure out the secrets of the ancient Builders, recover fabled artefacts, or even encounter living dwarfs deep within their mountain fastnesses.
Arcane magic is tainted and unreliable.
- Manifestation: When Trid’s second moon appears, arcane magic has unpredictable results or may not work at all.
- Cause: When the elves first contacted Trid’s deities, they made a pact to eschew arcane magic in exchange for divine spells. Sometime during the Age of Fable, the elves broke this pact and the gods punished them by withholding divine magic and sending the asteroid moon Opho, which disrupts Trid’s natural magical field.
- Impact: Casting arcane magic while Opho is visible requires rolling on a table to check results. Depending on the roll, arcane magic may work as expected, may work with diminished effect, or may cause the caster to permanently “forget” the spell they were trying to cast. Arcane magic is thus viewed with suspicion – few trust it and fewer risk learning to wield it. By contrast, divine magic is considered the “proper” kind of magic to use; Trid’s inhabitants tend to take their religious views seriously.
- Story seeds: Naturally, all manner of effort is expended to remove Opho’s unpredictable effect on arcane magic. Some scholars focus on ridding Trid of the asteroid moon while others investigate ways to minimise its impact on Trid’s magical field. Until they succeed, the results of mis-cast arcane magic, the approach to arcane magical effects, and the plots of “fizzled out” casters can complicate any adventure.
The continent is overlaid by a network of non-functional teleportation portals.
- Manifestation: Ancient stone ziggurats dot the landscape in remote places. Assumed to have been constructed by the Builders during the Before Times, these ruins shelter portals that, if properly operated, enable teleportation across vast Continental distances. However, these portals are inoperable, either because knowledge of their use is lost or because they’ve suffered some damage.
- Cause: No one understands why the Builders created the portals, though it’s assumed their need was to travel quickly. Historians note they were used to great effect by the Saurians as they expanded their empire in the Dim Ages.
- Impact: The ziggurats are ripe for exploration, not only to discover more about the Builders, but also to study the portals in aid of repairing them.
- Story seeds: There is no shortage of power brokers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and opportunists who would see the portals operate again.
Final Thoughts
One thing to note with the examples above is that they leave all sorts of loose ends. For example, who where the Saurians, what was their empire like, what happened to them, and what treasures did they leave behind? Same for the elves and dwarfs. What are the exact effects of Opho on arcane magic, and will the the teleportation portals ever function again?
All good questions, and my advice is to jot them down and move onto the next part of the world meta – as you define the world themes, cultures, etc., you’ll make connections that build off of the hooks and alter their scope. This is normal – worldbuilding is an iterative process, and this is part of the exercise.
As a final note, remember that world hooks by themselves won’t engage players. It’s a hook’s effect on player decisions that make it engaging. For this reason, limit yourself to 2-4 world hooks – anything more than that becomes distracting to the players and difficult for the Referee to manage.
