Small World as Worldbuilder

Last night, I went over to Unique Gifts and Games for their weekly board game night.

I played Small World for the first time, with a couple of cool guys.

For those who don’t know, Small World is a board game in which you play a series of fantasy races trying to carve out a civilization for themselves on a map that’s a little too small for everyone to fit. As such, once you’ve reached the point where you can’t expand any further, your race goes into decline, and you get a new race.

As I was playing, I realized how perfect the game would be for designing a world’s history for your RPG.

Now, with Small World, some stuff doesn’t make sense when you pair up powers and races. I played my civilizations as a race of flying giants, another as heroic ghouls, then as spirit ratmen. But if you were to pair up races based on your world’s actual races (such as hill giants or heroic humans) you could actually have a pretty cool world-building exercise.

I highly recommend Small World. It was a fun and fantastic game, even if I came in dead last.

One of the guys I played with told me he’d read the blog. Hi! I’m sorry, but I can’t remember your name. I’m interested in getting together for more gaming sometime with your wife and yourself, and my wife and me. Leave me a comment if you’re out there!