Collaborative Worldbuilding with Kids

One of the first exercises for our high school gaming club was developing a shared collaborative world. I figured this would be more interesting and more engaging for everyone than simply playing pre-written modules. I wanted to create a setting with the students, something that they'll be proud to be a part of.

But how do you worldbuild wth kids?

The first part of the process was a simple questionnaire, getting a range of established outlines for a series of nations. Some students chose to work alone, some worked in pairs to establish their nations, others worked in groups of 3 or 4. With twenty-five partcipants, we ended up with a dozen nations. Some of these were standard fantasy fare, others not so much.

The worldbuilding questionnaire was deliberately written to lead students toward thinking in certain ways, but I was happy that there was some deviation in the final thought patterns.

First, the demographcs of the land. 

What race(s) are common? 

• Humans
• Elves
• Dwarves
• Orcs
• Goblins
• Other

Then, what sorts of heroes do the people look up to?  

• Warriors / Soldiers
• Mystics / Sorcerors
• Prophets / Priests
• Merchants / The Wealthy
• Other

What sort of society are they?

• Monarchy (A Ruling Family)
• Fuedalism (Caste Based)
• Democracy
• Other

Then we got into some more open questions...

What does the nation want?

What's stopping them from getting it? 

What strength does the nation have?

What weakness does the nation have?

Tell us somethng interesting about your nation...

Using this structure we ended up with...

1. A fuedalist nation of human serfs, ruled over by a warrior caste of elves, who are in turn dominated by a cabal of evil unicorns. This group seeks war across their part of the world, but has trouble keeping their own people in line. 
2. A meritocratic society of Titans who live on a fairly isolated island. Their heroes are knowledgable sorcerors, and their aim is to gather all of the books in the world to improve ther knowledge, but the problem is that there are so many books, and more are being written all the time as new fields of knowledge are studied by their other nations of the world.
3. A tribalist nation of humans who live in a fungus riddled jungle, and who revere a caste of electric guitar wielding sorceror-bards who face off against monsters and goblins who constantly raid their villages for food. This nation was devised by an Autistic student who is a guitar virtuoso. 
4. A hive of biomechanical drones who have no heroes because they worship the strength of the hive mind. This group has a weakness of lightning, which has a chance to sever an individuals connection to the hive. These individuals gain self awareness, and often struggle as heroes who risk degenerating into savage monsters.
5. A nation of former English explorers who got lost and stranded here centuries ago, they have allied with elves and mutated monstrosities. Their aim is to establish a peaceful planet, but they are constantly thwarted by the other warring nations. They are known for their fast food caravans, which are said to be riddled with illicit substances.
6. A nation of humans who have reached a level of technology roughly equivalent to World War 2. Honestly, this one could easly unbalance the setting, so I'm thinking of limiting their fuel resources, or simply making them far more susceptible to magic. The catch here is that the nation was devised by a student with strong Asperger's Syndrome, whose obsession is WW2, if I change things too much there will be arguments.   

Those are a few of the more interesting ones, and I can really see some fun potential in the ways the nations might interact with one another.