Top 10 tools for worldbuilding

A handpicked curation of the best worldbuilding tools for writers, narrative designers, and game masters alike.

Have you implemented worldbuilding tools into your storytelling process? If not, it's time to start. Whether you're a game developer working on a new IP or you're a DM running your first homebrew campaign, people expect to enter a game world that feels expansive and detailed, making tools for streamlining worldbuilding a key element for success.

Many players find themselves attracted to stories and games with rich worldbuilding. Indeed, award-winning RPGs like "Baldur's Gate III" and "Skyrim" prove that strong worldbuilding makes for incredibly memorable and immersive gaming experiences.

However, attempting to manage all of this narrative content can be a difficult, time-consuming process, especially if you want to write collaboratively with others. And if all this content isn't properly organised, you may end up with plot holes and inconsistent worldbuilding. Therefore, leveraging the correct worldbuilding tools can make all the difference in developing your story.

What does "worldbuilding" mean?

Worldbuilding refers to the process in which an original setting or universe is developed, from ancient societies and complex timelines to detailed maps and vibrant locations. Generally, worldbuilding encompasses the following features:

• Developing a timeline of key events and eras.
• Mapping out important locations such as cities, countries, and regions.
• Creating institutions of society like governments, religions, and economies.
• Filling the world with original characters, animals, plants, and items.
• Designing any important systems like magic or futuristic technology.

You don't have to be a professional to be a worldbuilder, as fans of TTRPGs like D&D will know, you just need a creative and cohesive imagination. This guide is aimed at anyone looking to get involved with worldbuilding, whether you're a hobbyist or a veteran writer. So, without further ado, let's get to it!

1. Arcweave

Arcweave is a powerful next-gen platform for interactive experiences which handles narrative design, content management, prototyping, and so much more. Being a cloud-based tool, Arcweave is accessible from any device or browser without needing any downloads.

Its collaborative features allow you to invite writers, designers, artists, and other players to craft your world together in real-time. Using workspaces, you can create a centralised hub for all worldbuilding content which is neatly organised with folders and components.

The drag-and-drop UI is easy to use and quick to learn while mentions let you quickly interlink narrative content like characters, locations, and items. Arcweave's multimedia support for images and audio breaks up monotonous text and offers a full audio-visual experience.

With boards that let you visually connect all the elements of your world and a flexible seat-based pricing system that starts at the low price of free, trying out Arcweave is an absolute no-brainer.

Strengths:

• Flexible and scalable pricing plan which starts at $0.
• Dynamic toolset which is powerful and easy to learn.
• Content management features like components, folders, and referencing.
• Real-time simultaneous collaboration and team management features.
• Cloud-based, accessible from anywhere.
• Public API and seamless integration with popular game engines.
• Supports a wide variety of exports including images, spreadsheets, and JSON.

Weaknesses:

• Requires an internet connection, currently there is no offline option.
• Large-scale projects will likely require the paid version.
• Due to being comparatively new, some features are still under development.

2. World Anvil

World Anvil is a worldbuilding toolset and RPG campaign manager that helps to create, organise, and store narrative content for world settings. Being the sponsors of popular TTRPG creators like Critical Role, World Anvil is the go-to tool for many DMs and writers alike.

The maps feature allows the user to create interactive, interconnected maps that the players can navigate through. While it doesn't provide the map image itself, it does allow the user to add interactive information onto a map with pins, lines, labels, markers, and layers, which is great for adding lots of contextual information.

World Anvil also has over 25 worldbuilding templates that range from fictional languages to systems of government, aiding the users with the initial setup of their project. Similar to Arcweave's project templates, these are great for people who feel overwhelmed starting from scratch.

Lastly, while wiki-style articles might seem overwhelming or complicated at first, they are great for organising large pages of text. World Anvil also has timelines which provide a way to create and manage multiple timelines across various locations.

Strengths:

• Freemium pricing with a limited free plan.
• Aimed specifically at worldbuilders.
• Wide range of features including timelines, maps, and wiki articles.
• Supports collaborative writing with the co-author feature.
• Pre-made worldbuilding project templates.
• Popular with a large userbase of over 1.5 million.
• Cloud-based, accessible from anywhere.

Weaknesses:

• No real-time collaboration.
• Complicated UI with a sharp learning curve.
• Requires an internet connection, currently there is no offline option.
• Features such as upgraded storage and project privacy require paid version.

3. Legend Keeper

Similar to World Anvil, Legend Keeper is a worldbuilding tool made specifically for game masters and storytellers, albeit one which is lesser-known. Still in beta development, this tool has been slowly making a name for itself in TTRPG circles.

With a wide range of features that include interactive maps, wiki-style articles, and rich-text editing, Legend Keeper is a formidable competitor to the popular World Anvil. Plus, Legend Keeper sets itself apart by having real-time collaboration, making it easier to write as a team.

Like Arcweave, Legend Keeper includes boards that allow you to visualise your story flow and connect together the various features of your game world such as locations, characters, and events. Legend Keeper's freemium model lets you try it out for free, so it's worth investigating as a strong alternative for World Anvil.

Strengths:

• Freemium pricing.
• Aimed specifically at worldbuilders.
• Variety of worldbuilding-specific features like integrated maps and timelines.
• Ability to create project templates.
• Premium version has no limits on storage.
• Real time collaboration.

Weaknesses:

• Larger scale projects will probably require the paid version.
• Not made for mobile.
• Currently in beta development, so may have bugs and/or lack certain features.
• No API.
• No offline version (but it is on the project roadmap).

4. One Note

One Note is a note-taking software that essentially operates like a digital notebook, being a central place for planning, writing, and journaling. While more aimed at writers than Game Masters, the tool can still be useful for taking and collecting notes about your world or campaign.

Being part of the Microsoft 365 suite, it has a simple, clean UI closely resembling software like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. This means that the software is very easy to learn for beginners, lacking the complex wiki-style articles that tools such as World Anvil have.

Tags allow you to categorise and prioritise different notes, while to-do tags allow you to track progress of tasks such as the next steps in your worldbuilding project. As this task is primarily a note-taking software, it does lack certain features such as Arcweave's mentions which makes it more time consuming to interlink characters, items, locations, etc. on their relevant pages.

Strengths:

• Freemium pricing: mostly free, but certain premium features can be unlocked with a Microsoft 365 subscription.
• Both online and offline version.
• Supports user collaboration.
• Efficient at taking and organising worldbuilding notes.
• Simple, easy to learn and a UI that feels familiar to most people.

Weaknesses:

• Difficult to link characters and items across all their relevant pages.
• Focus is on note-taking only—lacks a range of features.
• More useful for writers than Game Masters.

5. Google Drive

Another tool that users may already be familiar with is Google Drive, a free google service that allows users to store and share various files. For people who want an organised space to upload worldbuilding documents, images, and other info, Google Drive can be a great tool.

Those with a Google account will already have a Google Drive already set up that seamlessly integrates with other Google software like Google Docs and Google Sheets. The cloud-based software is accessible from your computer or via a mobile app, making it easy to work on the go.

Folders and subfolders can be used to organise your content, and team management features like invites and permissions are simple to set up—all you need is the emails of your collaborators.

So, while Google Drive is more for general use, rather than being tailored specifically for worldbuilding, it can be a handy service to add to your toolkit alongside other, more narrative-focused ones.

Strengths:

• Completely free.
• Accessible and simple to use.
• Easy to invite collaborators and manage permissions.
• Perfect tool for file sharing and organising.
• Simple, easy to learn and a UI that feels familiar to most people.

Weaknesses:

• More for general file sharing than worldbuilding specifically.
• Would need to be used alongside other tools and software.
• Difficult to link characters and items across all their relevant pages.

6. Fantasia Archive

Fantasia Archive is an offline-only worldbuilding tool developed mostly as a passion project by solo-dev Elvanos. Unlike other tools, Fantasia Archive focuses more on the relationship between items of information rather than the writing itself.

The tool is completely free, no strings attached, with all its code uploaded to Github and made publicly available. As such, the tool is generally made on a much smaller-scale than the others on this list.

Folders, subfolders, and tags help to keep narrative information neatly organised while a two-way relationship system makes interlinking narrative information quick and easy. Although, the tool does lack the collaborative features of other tools, so it is best suited to worldbuilders who write alone.

Strengths:

• Completely free with code publicly available on Github.
• Aimed specifically at worldbuilders.
• Two-way relationship system.
• Accessible offline.
• Ideal for solo hobbyist game masters.
• Customizeable UI.

Weaknesses:

• No collaborative features.
• Lacks a customer support team.
• No new updates in the past year.
• Created largely as a passion project, lacks the polish of other tools.
• Not accessible from mobile or tablet.

7. ChronoGrapher

ChronoGrapher is a worldbuilding webtool aimed at writers and game masters which, like Fantasia Archive, is created by a solo-developer.

There are 3 main features of ChronoGrapher: interactive maps, historical timelines, and a wiki editor. Like many other tools mentioned in this list, ChronoGrapher lets you turn map images into interactive worlds that interlink with written pages.

The text editor is laid out in the standard wiki format, which can be difficult to learn for complete beginners, but is a useful way of organising large volumes of text. Furthermore, the ChronoGrapher timelines let you lay out temporal information visually, making it easier to read.

In order to access ChronoGrapher, you need to become a Patreon supporter which starts at £4.50 per month (plus VAT). You can test out the tool for free, but none of your work will be saved.

Strengths:

• Aimed specifically at worldbuilders and game masters.
• Interactive map maker and wiki-editor.
• Visually-based timelines.
• Can test tool for free.

Weaknesses:

• Requires paid subscription for access.
• Mobile is not supported.
• No offline version.
• Wiki editing can feel complicated for beginners.
• In alpha and developed by a solo-dev, so updates and fixes are slow.

8. Campfire

Campfire is a writing software that allows you to write and publish your stories on their online platform, as well as featuring worldbuilding modules to craft a larger setting. Created in 2023, the tool boasts over 300,000 users already, with more joining everyday.

As a publishing platform, Campfire not only allows you to write your narrative and organise the information about your world, it also allows you to share that world with others. After approval, projects are shared to the Campfire Explore page, which is a great place for gaining inspiration.

While seemingly being more aimed at book authors rather than worldbuilding hobbyists, Campfire has a strong toolkit and a stronger community that makes it really stand out.

Operating on a freemium subscription model, Campfire allows you to customise your pricing by paying separately for specific features like characters, events, and timelines. The downside of this is that if you want every single feature, it can get pretty pricey, but if you're looking to only use, say, the map feature, it makes sense.

Strengths:

• Offline and online versions.
• Customisable payment plan.
• User friendly, not overly complex.
• Has a publishing platform to share your work.
• Real-time collaboration.
• Has a mobile app.

Weaknesses:

• Pricing can get expensive if you want many modules.
• Lacks customisability of tools like World Anvil.
• Better suited for authors rather than worldbuilders.

9. Notion

Notion is a general-use tool for large teams to collaborate in one central space, helping you to write, plan, and organise whatever you like. Despite usually being used to organise business communication, the tool does have relevant applications for worldbuilders and game masters. 

There's many different ways that Notion lets you store and organise your narrative content. You can add your worldbuilding documents to different pages and subpages or centralize your knowledge with a large wiki page.

Project management is one the best parts of Notion; with features like project timelines, calendars, trackers, tables, checklists and charts, there's a ton of ways for you to keep track of your worldbuilding progress.

Also, users can upload and share their project templates, so, as Notion has a very large userbase, there are a ton of user-made worldbuilding templates for you to discover.

Strengths:

• Freemium pricing with a free basic plan.
• Flexible and powerful toolset.
• Real-time collaboration.
• Supports pre-made project templates.
• Has a mobile version.
• Public API.

Weaknesses:

• Not made for worldbuilders specifically, more of a general-use tool.
• Can be overwhelming to learn for beginners.
• Large teams and projects will require the paid version.
• Online only, no offline version.

10. Obsidian

Obsidian is a locally hosted, markdown-based writing tool that has a strong core base of mostly technologically-savvy power users. With a personal notebook and whiteboard-style canvas, Obsidian offers a powerful and highly customisable experience.

By itself, Obsidian provides a flexible way to keep and store notes as well as make interlinking connections between your writing. These connections can be viewed as an interactive relationship graph, helping to visualise your the relationships in your world.

However, the real reason why so many people use Obsidian is their support for third-party plugins, of which they have over 2000. While somewhat difficult to learn and initially set up, the community-made plugins are a must-have for regular users who want an expanded toolset.

Strengths:

• Free for personal use.
• Plugins allow for a large variety of options.
• Visually appealing relationship graphs.
• Ability to publish notes on an Obsidian site.
• Has a publishing feature to share your work.
• Open API.

Weaknesses:

• Very difficult learning curve, especially for non-programmers.
• Difficult to collaborate as a team.
• Not made for worldbuilders specifically, more of a general note-taking tool.
• Commercial use, content sync, and publishing requires the paid version.
• Many of its most powerful features depend on third-party plugins.

Stuck on which to pick?

Choosing the right worldbuilding tool can be daunting, but finding the perfect fit can elevate your storytelling to new heights. If you're seeking a versatile platform that simplifies the creation of interactive narratives feel free to jump in and check out Arcweave for yourself—it's completely free and there's no downloads needed!

The Arcweave team is incredibly passionate about empowering both solo writers and large studios, and are always ready to discuss how our platform can enhance your narrative design process. If you have any questions at all, consider reaching out via our contact page or hop into our Discord server. 

So, try us out for free and join our rapidly growing community of writers, designers, and developers, including people at Netflix, EA, Microsoft, Mojang, and Amazon!