How to be a DM – Worldbuilding with Trick Jarrett

all right

welcome to how to be a dm i’m shelly

mason noble and i am still way too

scared to try to be a dungeon master

you gotta change that but my guess here

isn’t

i am talking to one of my favorite

wizards co-workers trick jarrett who is

senior content strategist which is maybe

the

most unintuitive title i’ve ever heard

what is it you do here trick uh i am

focused on

helping define and scope and

shape this con the content strategy

uh you know working with the different

stakeholders the different brands

uh magic and dnd and the different parts

of both brands to figure out content

that accomplishes their needs

that uh um is stuff our fans want to

watch

all that sort of stuff like like this

segment

perhaps this segment that’s right okay

well hopefully they give us an

a good thumbnail unlike you know some of

those other ones i’ve seen out there um

but i’m excited to talk to you because

i’ve heard about your um campaign for a

while now and i know that you

uh you you do homebrew is that

so you you have been building your own

world for how long now

well i’ve i’ve been a world builder and

fan of that for years i actually uh

my high school senior year i had two

free periods

uh i think it was the last half of the

year i had two free periods and

was given a self-study project and i

made a world

uh so basically for five days a week i

had two hours of school

literal school time that i was able to

do world building and that’s not even

the world that i’m playing dnd in that’s

that’s stuff from

you know back in the day when i was a

kid um that’s incredible

i’ve been working on this world as an

idea for probably

two years as a concept it really started

to come

into its own i would guess october of

2019

of me sort of like okay i understand i

understand what this world is now

uh and then i’ve been running an active

dnd game

almost every week uh actually since

january last year we just crossed the

one year mark

in this world so what was it like so

this world lived in your head for a long

time

and then you actually got to see people

experiencing your world i imagine that’s

probably

like seeing somebody in the wild reading

a book that you wrote

yeah uh what was what i did was i

actually put together a primer on the

world for the players because it

it has stuff that is relevant and

recognizable to

dnd as normal you know there’s a lot of

the same races

but there’s also twists on each of them

i have different sub

races and stuff like that for elves and

dwarves and

um i also put the disclaimer in here is

like

not everything in this document like the

document was like here’s what you

your character would know of the world

but i also put the disclaimer for the

player of

not everything in this document may be

true like okay i want them to be

there are things in the world that are

common knowledge and common belief

but are not necessarily

the actual facts which is an actually

incredibly important feature of the

world

because of how the magic

and cosmology of it all works uh

is knowledge and truth is a core facet

and feature that’s being explored in it

oh okay that’s cool i was gonna ask if

that is

part of the world or just your way of

saying i made this up give me

cut me some slack here guys a little bit

of column a little column b

um primarily for the the narrative

purposes but

uh also some leeway for myself to say i

might end up changing things as we go

along

as you should um so i i like the concept

of world building but mostly because

if i screw up some rules which i

inevitably will which is

really one of the biggest deterrents for

me in dungeon mastering but if i mess

things up i can just be like

nope that’s how it works in my world i

just feel like i’d have more freedom

but i think a really big drawback would

be

that you don’t have a book that’s

already published and printed and

that you can go back and reference

if you forget something or if you know

like i mean it’s already tracked in in a

nice bound

publication for you when you’re building

your own world that onus is on

you right so that’s what i want to talk

about is how the heck do you keep all of

this stuff

straight and clear and organized uh

well when i first started and actually

when the campaign started i had a

40-page

google doc that was just a compilation

of every single thing

that i knew i wanted to talk about in

this world or things i needed to write

down

the different regions who they are what

they are about and and a lot of it was

nothing more than a couple of sentences

or even just bullet points

like for a lot of the world i i

fully fleshed out or or strongly fleshed

out the starting location of the players

that’s okay i know that they’re going to

start in this place this is where i want

the adventure to start and they’re going

to take a journey

from this small town to the major

metropolis and so i defined that

continent really well

and then i took the rest of the map that

i had drawn and i literally would just

write three

facts about these other continents such

that i could call upon them as rumors

that people might hear

or or use them as potential plot hooks

when i’m

in need of something that i just need to

grab and dangle out there that we might

come back to later

and so that document was really my main

source but as i said it was a long

document and it was actually

unwieldy to use and hard to easily

access and so i started looking for

other tools

and um i’m fairly tech savvy i like what

i did web development for several years

i’m i’m capable in that area

and so i was exploring you know making

my own thing using a wiki solution

and i actually came across a tool called

notion

which is a knowledge management tool

it’s like a wiki but it’s actually got a

lot of features it’s designed for

teams and corp companies to use for

collaboration

it’s used it can you know stand in for

your own website if you want to use it

in that way

um and it’s great it’s got a free free

user level this is i’m i’m

not officially involved in the company

in any way obviously yeah this is not a

sponsored

this is not a sponsored segment notion

has really enabled me to run the game

that we’re talking about because of one

key feature that is incredibly useful

for me

which is um databases and

the database in here is essentially like

excel documents you put a bunch of

information in

but they give you the ability to have

different views so like if you’re

for example i have i have a database of

all of the npcs that i’ve created in

this world

whether the players know them or not and

i can have this

searchable thing and i can actually

change the view and if i have

art associated with the characters

there’s a portrait view there’s a

there’s a gallery view

oh my god and the step that goes further

than that and it’s kind of hard to

just talk about and not show but the

database view

also lets me pull essentially

subsections of that database for

different views

so like i can go to the page of one of

the continents

and i can embed a part of the database

that says okay i want all of the npcs

who i’ve marked

as being on this continent and it

automatically updates and keeps that all

straight for me such that i only make a

change in one location

and everywhere else is updated about

where is this npc currently located

things like wait no yes

so they i mean like because they’re

going to move around and

so you can you track them this way so in

case you were like oh

let’s have them talk to old man wilbur

from

the the the inn but then

a year ago old man wilbur went to go

visit his daughter in some other

continent you can

right if i decide that an npc has

changed locations then i change it in

the database

oh my gosh and i mean i don’t do this

largely outside of planning for sessions

there’s not there’s not a

there’s not a you know i don’t spend

hours a day just simulating the world in

my mind outside

my next dnd well and that’s fine that’s

great but i just wanted to manage

expectations around what i do i’ve also

used the tool i don’t use it

as much right now because they aren’t in

a segment that says npc heavy

but i also like when i do session notes

when i’m playing dnd

when i’m doing my prep i can tag npcs

that i think they’re likely to run into

or i’m planning for them to run into and

then i can embed a view of

the character database that is here are

all of the characters that i need at a

glance

of information they’re gonna need or

things like that

so you just keep this up and running

while you’re

dming yeah i cannot run

i cannot run this game and maintain the

story and

world without the access to my notion

database

and it’s not just for npcs i also

actually just over the holiday

migrated all of my geographic data like

i said i have continents i have

mountain ranges i have all cities moved

all of that into a similar database so

that i can have similar views

and have a centralized management system

for tracking that geographic data

and again this is super hardcore this is

this is way above and beyond that you

what you need to do for running your own

homebrew world

but i love world building i love knowing

that this world exists in my mind and

having this

information to reference well i know

that a lot of

of our dungeon masters love world

building too

and i think a lot this is a good tool

for

for a newer dungeon master because

like you’re saying like you can do a lot

of prep

before you even have a group together to

run a game so this might be a good way

for them to just

use it to start building absolutely and

one of the things that i would also

suggest is

have the idea for your world but accept

that by putting players in this world

you don’t get to own the world whole

wholly anymore like

if they’re going to go and blow up a

castle you don’t get to you know

i mean you can say in terms of the

records or whatever that sure the castle

exists

but have that acceptance and willingness

and also well but

like it’s fun to let my character my

players create npcs and tell me who

they’re going to talk to or

who they’re going to run into or i tell

them a name and then they tell me what

this character looks like things like

that

um and so just having that communal

storytelling also added into the

narrative of dnd is another thing that i

like to do

and then is there any sort of like

output feature that

for the the players because i imagine

that they don’t have access to your

data they don’t have they don’t have

access to the entire

corpus of the world obviously but um in

terms of running the game i have a

separate section

in inside of my notion um account i

guess

uh that’s sort of like where i run where

i track my playing of dnd or my running

of dnd

and i gave each of the players their own

essentially page

uh and they’re then able to go in and

keep their own notes

like the player who’s the note keeper he

goes in and writes

the session notes that he keeps in the

database and that actually allowed for

me to pull a really fun thing

early on in this campaign where um

i don’t know if you’ve heard of the um

what’s now i’m forgetting what it’s

called

the false hydra do you have you heard

the false hydra no it’s a creation from

a blogger online

um i’ll provide the link to the team so

they can be in the show notes

it’s a super fun concept that’s very

reminiscent of some of the villains and

bad guys we see in like doctor who or

other fantasies where it starts messing

with your memory

when this creature is around if you can

hear its song you blank out and lose

track of time and you and

it starts messing with your memory and

then if it kills someone

you forget that person ever existed you

you start coming across these rough

edges in your memory where it’s like how

did this happen

and your brain tries to make things work

uh i won’t give away too much because if

if players are listening i don’t want to

ruin it for dms but it’s a great

fun thing and what i did with because i

had access to his notes

was i created a copy of his notes and

then i went through and modified it for

the moment of the reveal of what was

going on

and i revealed to the characters that

they had had another part play

another character in the party that they

had not known about for any session up

until this moment

oh my god and when they vanquished this

monster the memories came rushing back

of this character who was gone and they

were

yeah and they were forced to reckon with

this and reconcile the fact that

this character who the players had never

had an association with but suddenly

learn

had been with them on this entire

journey and i had put that into his

notes

so that uh when i made the reveals okay

now go check your notes for the

this new section now

that is such a cool this was a character

that you

just made up there was never yeah no i

knew i was gonna do a false hydra pretty

early on because i just thought it was

such a cool idea and the false hydra is

meant to be

a much bigger boss so i mean much about

like they were i think third or fourth

level when they faced it so i made it

like a super old version and it has ties

to the larger story arc that i was

putting together

but it was like session five when i did

this to the characters and one person

had never played d d before so this was

a complete

mind warp for them yeah to wrap their

mind around of this is what d can be

i mean that’s just like i’m just

thinking as a player like how

the head that would be hard hard to to

deal with

like the thought of like like but i want

to grieve this person that never existed

yep and they actually the group just at

the end of last year got an

airship and they decided to name the

ship after this character which i

thought was also a really

amazing narrative that the characters

the players did and where they brought

it back to this character who we had

like they could easily forget about this

character and move on with the game

right but the characters have kept it

close and

and involved which is great and it goes

back to what i mentioned earlier on that

truth and in

fact is a big core part of this campaign

and memory and recognition of that sort

of stuff so i i wanted to do that early

on in the game

to sort of hammer home that this is

going to be a theme that i’m looking to

explore with this campaign

yeah and so i mean i guess that’s

another good reason why you need

good notes um

so talk a little bit like more about the

session

notes and i always hear people talk

about session notes but like

as the dungeon master how much do you

actually keep track of and

what is is that just like stream of

consciousness or

what are you actually tracking there so

again a feature of notion is that you

can have template templates so i have a

template that is my

where i start every session note

document and what it does is if

the first thing i always do is like okay

here are the bullet points of what i

think the characters are going to do

this session sometimes i’m wildly off

okay but this is sort of the path i’m

laying out and if they want to go off of

it i will roll and we will

we’ll play this game um but

i start with the bullet points figuring

out what are like they’re going to meet

so and so they’re going to get a

quest here they’re going to start their

journey and then i

flesh out further from that okay here’s

the npc they’re going to meet

here’s what i hear are the here’s the

information that they have

um a rough description of what they look

like

i i don’t i tend to write an intro

that’s sort of like a brief recap of

what happened last session

um but i i don’t stick to it too tightly

and

and we usually are chatting when we get

going so it’s kind of an awkward

okay everyone i’m gonna i’m gonna

monologue for a little while right so i

don’t i don’t do that too often

or much it’s usually a paragraph um

and then it’s just me making notes of

what i want to go if they’re going to a

new town i have to flesh out the town

what are the names of the buildings what

are the names of the taverns who are the

npcs

uh not not the again not the entirety of

the town

but the top level of what i expect and

then i keep a list

of npc names that i draw from or

anything like that when i need to make

something off of the cuff

but generally it’s again

where i think the path is going to go

and i’m probably 60

and if the session goes differently and

we’re going to instead do what i planned

next session then i’ll just copy stuff

over to the next session notes

if it’s uh not going to be relevant if

it’s stuff that needs to be you know

added to my

if it’s a new character i need to add to

the npc table then i’ll go in and add

that

if it’s a city i’ve defined then i’ll

add it to the the larger information

so i’ll keep whatever information i need

from that session note and then

import it into the larger world database

and then i’ll start it all over again

for the next session oh my god

um i’m such like a on like a notes

and like i love organization and so like

this is actually getting me really

excited about it yeah

because i’m just like i just want to

take notes i just want to organize

things i just want a database that i can

search it just seems

like just a fun creative exercise to

just

make stuff up it really is and that’s

one of the reasons i love world leading

and

like the one i’m playing the indian is

the one that i have by far the most on

but i’ve got two or three other worlds

that i’ve got

concepts for that i haven’t really

started to flesh out

or build on so like ilsanya which is the

world that i’ve been playing in

is really focused on it is its own

bubble

um it’s its own bubble cosmologically

because

of necessity for the narrative and and

what’s going on in the world

but there’s also a very strong magical

reason for the world to be built this

way is that

there’s actually an everlasting

afterlife

um in a more real world than in most

dnd campaigns like there’s what i call

the infinite court so when someone dies

they go to this vast wasteland of a

world called the infinite court they

don’t need to eat they don’t need to

drink they just exist

and so does everyone else who has ever

existed and so

and then there’s communication between

the living world and the infinite court

via this church group organization

called the vast collective

and they’re sort of like the catholic

church

crossed with ma bell at the top of its

uh

monopoly like they’re for the most part

a beneficial good organization

but they have so much power they wield

so much power they could easily

turn evil and then the world’s in real

trouble

and so there’s this like ascending spell

essentially between the

living world and people in the infinite

court

and so you can have communication back

and forth which is where the knowledge

comes from like

no knowledge is lost how does that

change an existing world

where you’re no longer like oh let’s

find an uncovered tome

instead it’s like let’s find the right

person in the infinite court or let’s

let’s ask the right question of these

people

and i forget what led me down this this

description of my world

but there’s a lot of notes that come

along with this idea because i need to

keep track of who’s alive who’s dead who

knows what

all that sort of stuff have the players

ever tried to

contact their missing party member

through the infinite court

so that that also plays into this world

um

it’s not as i say everyone who’s ever

died and it’s actually not

uh there is a group of people in

the living world who don’t go to the

infinite court uh

of largely based off of ancestry and

race

uh and the missing uh party member was a

tabaxi

and tabaxies are one of the races who

don’t go to the infinite court

oh so i did that partly purposefully

uh for the ease on me as a narrative of

not having to flesh out

every story again but also

because it hammers home again this idea

that not everyone who’s

in the party gets to be there okay

that makes sense so the this

this tool notion which was not designed

to be uh for dungeon masters but you’ve

made it work

is there a a way that you can keep track

of like

stats like monster stats or have you

have you

uh yeah if it’s a if

well if it’s a creature in one of the

monster books then what i actually do is

either i save a link to dnd beyond or

wherever i’m going to reference it from

or i make a note to myself it’s on this

page um

if it’s another creature like it’s a fan

brew homebrew one or one that i’m

modifying

then i’ll copy and paste stuff in and

just make a notes of here’s

the hit points um i have a very

rudimentary combat tracker that i build

in there

which is again a simplified table it

brings in the characters i

put in initiatives for my monsters i put

in initiatives

hit points in armor class but it’s very

rudimentary it’s purely for my reference

and

um it works but the answer is

yes but it’s not like a robust tool okay

yeah as long as you it’s just for your

tracking and ease of

of reference but if monsters were a big

thing you wanted to do again you can

make a template that

has all of the base fields you want to

fill out

as a page save it as a template and then

you can just easily

create a new template and fill it in

with each new monster that you want to

track in your database

this is super cool so it seems like it’s

very modular that you can

extremely modular and flexible

i have not yet run across something that

i’ve wanted to do for the purposes of

tracking my world that it’s not

able to do it it’s been able to do every

single thing i’ve wanted

um i can save images i can i actually

my group records our sessions not for

publication but again for my need for be

able to reference things

i can go back and listen to the old

sessions and i

i store all of the audio files in the it

along with the session notes

things like that so it’s all up there

okay

so do you think maybe one day you would

publish any of this content

but this world sounds pretty cool uh

yeah i mean

i’m sure as as most dm’s who do world

building i’ve got an idea for a story to

tell

that could be a novel or whatever if

wizards ever wants to do a supplementary

novel i’d be more than happy to publish

her supplementary book i’d be more than

happy to put it out

um but i i don’t have any plans for it

right now

it’s it’s definitely just meant for my

news right now well we know that you’re

capable of writing a novel in a month

because you did it the question is if

it’s a good novel i

i wrote 50 000 words in a month yeah you

leave it to

me well i know uh i know happened to

know the editor

for uh dragon plus so if you’re ever

interested in like a short story or

something

you might be able to facilitate an

introduction

the short story is tough because like i

said i i only gave you sort of the

the very very high level about setting

up the world

and to understand the world you have to

under you have to understand a fair bit

of the cosmology or cosmic

cosmology yeah that would be that’s a

challenge for i imagine a lot of

dungeon masters just hone in on one

section

and still have enough of the backstory

to understand what’s happening in the

world

yeah um this is very exciting

and uh it’s it sounds very inspiring and

cool so

uh i hopefully there’s some dungeon

masters out there that

are gonna be able to or even players i

guess there’s no reason why a player

couldn’t also

keep track of no like i said my players

love having access to it for their

character information and

and i as a player i have a section

that’s like okay here are all the

different games i play in

here’s my character here’s my the back

story here’s you know my my game notes i

have that all in there

just not part of the the world building

section so

it’s a it’s a i think it’s a super

useful tool in dnd and out of dnd

so i highly recommend it awesome okay

and again that is it’s called notion

notion you go to notion.so as their

website and i think it’s notion hq

on twitter um but it’s it’s a really

cool tool it’s got a free

user tier that should be enough for most

people

only if you need access like i said as a

company or you want to upload large

files essentially is where the

the limits can hit for a free user i

think

all right that sounds awesome um thank

you for taking the time to talk to me

i happen to know how busy you are

because we work together

um but if people want to follow you

or learn more about you is can they can

they do that and would you

yes absolutely all right i have uh two

twitter handles one for magic and dnd

and then one for everything else so

trick mtg uh for magic the gathering

because that’s what i was

originally hired to wizards to work on

audusta for so trick mtg is my twitter

handle for gaming for magic dnd

trick jarrett uh two rs2ts in the last

name

is my everything else tech politics

sports lots of soccer

uh things like that uh i have trick

jarrett.com though

again i don’t write too much on there

these days

um but yeah that’s those are the main

places you can find me

that sounds awesome all right well

follow trick because he’s awesome

and uh that’s cool

anyway thank you so much for being here

again and uh we will we’ll we’ll talk

soon

i know thank you i’m sure we’ll talk

we’ll probably have a meeting later on

probably

i’m probably late for it right now okay

thanks trick

thank you