How to Create a Player Primer

As a Game Master, once you’ve developed an idea for your world setting, it’s great to be able to share it clearly with your RPG players! That’s where having a player primer can be really helpful, both for helping them get ready for your game, create characters, and to set their expectations.

   

What is a player primer?

A primer is a document (like a World Anvil article—a generic article template works well) that introduces the basic information about your world. It usually includes the general knowledge known by “the average guy on the street in your world”, although it may include secrets the player characters start out by knowing (especially if they’re part of a secret society or spy agency). However, the primer never goes into deep detail - it’s supposed to be an introduction only.

 

World meta vs player primer

If you’ve already filled in the worldbuilding meta on World Anvil, you’ll have all the information to begin! But the critical difference between the world meta and a player primer is who the information is for, and what is revealed. The worldbuilding meta is designed for your eyes (and the eyes of other creators)—it should lay bare all the big secrets of the world, from critical cosmology to current affairs. The player primer merely hints at common in-world knowledge.

 

For example, in the meta you might detail that an ancient demon is planning his resurrection by sacrificing a million souls. In the player primer, you might add a rumor that dark omens are afoot, and people have been going missing. It’s the same conflict point, but seen from the player perspective… and it’s a great adventure hook too!

 

What should you include in a player primer?

Every world is different, but there’s some information that can be included in most primers and will help your players better understand your world:

• The world: how is your world different from our own Earth? Include general information everyone knows about (like the unpredictable summers and winters in Game of Thrones) and give links to read about them in more detail if applicable.
• Sapient species: if your world has non-human sapient species (known as “races” in Dungeons and Dragons), briefly describe them here, especially if they are character creation choices. If you only have humans, that’s important to mention too—detail the different cultural groups and ethnicities!
• Factions and countries: knowing who rules the world is important, so make sure you explain the relevant nations for the campaign, as well as any other factions present in your active worldbuilding area. You can use diplomacy webs to show relations between factions visually.
• Magic and technology: what’s the magic system about (if there’s one), how common is magic? And what’s the technology level of the world? Comparisons are great here—just saying something like “early Japanese Edo period technology with flying ships” can be very informative!
• House rules: if your game uses homebrew rules, add them here! It’s also a good place to add—or link to—any character creation information you want your players to have.

Some specifics of your primer will depend on what your world and, more importantly, your campaign is about. For example, if it’s an intrigue campaign, you’ll want to include information about different factions, while in exploration games you’ll want to include things like major landmarks, biomes, and creatures.

 

In some games, you’ll have players who are specialists in a given field, which means that they’ll know more information about some topics. For example, one of your players might have privileged information about the existence of vampires. You could add this in the primer using secrets if you don’t want everyone else to know, or spoiler buttons if you don’t mind it being public.

 

Genre, mood, and tone

These are part of the meta, but it’s a good idea to give your players a basic rundown to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

• Genre: your players probably know this from when you invited them to the game, but it’s always good to have it written down! Genres set expectations about the tropes associated with them, so make sure they are accurate. Comparisons can help for this (e.g. fantasy Age of Sail, but dark and gritty—like Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Witcher)
• Tone: is your world dark (like Game of Thrones), bright (like original Star Trek) or somewhere in the middle (like The Princess Bride)?
• Mood: what’s the general feel of the world? Will the players laugh or cry? Or will they be terrified, always looking over their shoulder? Here’s your chance to set expectations about their experience at the table. This also helps you set expectations about what kind of characters and behavior is appropriate—is it a comic punfest with Randy McBardface, or should players be more serious?

 

What about a few comps?

Comps are comparisons—they help players imagine the feel of the world. For example, if you’re creating a pirate world, you might use Pirates of the Caribbean as a comp. You can also combine comps, such as “Pirates of the Caribbean meets Game of Thrones”.

 

Comps and inspiration sources can be useful for a player primer, but they’re not a must-have. Some GMs might feel that providing their inspirations gives too much information away, depending on how heavily they rely on them (and how familiar the players are with them).

 

Examples from published works

Here’s how some famous published works could structure their primers:

World	Foundational points	Write about
Star Wars	Rule of Law (Empire, organized crime, etc.) The wonders of space (weird sapient and non-sapient species) Magic (the force) and tradition (the Jedi Order)	Who are the local governmental and criminal powers? What are the weird local landscapes and creatures? Which force users live or lived there, and what's the role of the Jedi in society?
Game of Thrones	Power dynamics Class relations The supernatural/religion	Local lords and banner lords (and their power struggles) The struggles of the rich and poor Supernatural rumors
Avatar: The Last Airbender	Relations between cultures Balance Magic and spirituality	What are the main cultures and the main conflicts or alliances? What does balance mean in this world, and why did it break? How does magic work, and how do spirits interact with the physical world?

 

More detailed information about the starting area

If your player primer is for a specific adventure, say for the starting adventure of your campaign, then you can give more information about the starting area too. A basic map, the critical settlements or buildings, a few important NPCs, and a rumor or two is plenty! Essentially, the closer you get to the players’ surroundings, the more detail you should add.

 

Images and moodboards

An image is worth a thousand words (they say) and including some images to set the tone and mood can be really helpful for players.

 

A good image list for a player primer might include:

• A map of the starting area (not too detailed)
• A landscape or two, including one of a representative settlement
• A picture or two of important NPCs in the starting area
• If you have different species or ethnicities, reference images of them
• In urban fantasy, images that show the architectural style
• ...and more! It all depends on what are the important parts of your world.

 

As well as reinforcing the setting, this sets up expectations of where the players are, and what kinds of people they’ll be meeting there. Images also break up the text nicely, meaning players are more likely to read!

 

Other helpful World Anvil features for your Player Primer

You can keep your player primer simple, with just text and a few images to break up the text, or give additional context in the sidebar. But there are a host of other features on World Anvil to help you make a Player Primer that shines!

 

To give more context on the basics, you can simply link in articles, or embed them as blocks. But you can also use mouseover snippets, and expandable containers for extended reading.

 

To share information exclusively to certain players, embed secrets right into your player primer. You can also use spoilers if you don’t mind if other players take a peek. If you embed a map, remember you can use subscriber groups to define which players can see which pins, too!

 

And finally, once your players are ready, make sure they know how to create a player character on World Anvil, and how to add their PC to your campaign so you can start your adventures together!

   

 

Examples of Player Primers on World Anvil

Now you’ve got an idea of what to include in your Player Primer, check out these amazing examples from the World Anvil community!

 

• Flightless: This simple, clear primer covers the basics of this low fantasy setting, and should be simple to reproduce for your own world! The use of the sidebar to separate off the “meta-information” from the in-world information is a nice touch.
• Ethnis: The primer for this award-winning science fantasy, space-faring RPG clearly introduces the core player concepts of the system and setting. The jump-links for navigation after the introduction are a great quick-navigation tool.
• Melior: a clear, easy-to-read primer which presents the “big ideas” of the setting (starting with a tl;dr—“too long, didn’t read”), with links to more information. Strategic use of images and the 3D embed from SketchFab are a nice touch to illustrate the map.
• Eivrall: a futuristic fantasy world introduced through the eyes of an Archivist. This particularly boasts an excellent interactive “further reading” section. It’s been created with some sophisticated containers work, but could be replicated more simply with an embedded interactive map (set to zero zoom capabilities).
• Cathedris: Only for the brave, this is an example of how elaborate your player primer (or world introduction) could be. Some simple additions to implement are the Youtube embed over the sidebar, and the use of simple quotations in the main body of the article to break up the text. The more complicated things—like buttons that pan the map image—require some serious CSS wizardry!