If you're wondering how you could use World Anvil to run a published campaign or official setting, you're in the right place! This page will give you some advice on how to integrate official content with your World Anvil workflow.
Copyright: what you can and can't do
Any published RPG content you use will be protected by copyright—and unless you're its author (or have explicit permission from them), there are some things you need to keep in mind!
The rule of thumb is that you shouldn't copy content (text or images) directly from the sourcebook. However, ideas and concepts aren't copyrighted, so you can absolutely summarize the content for the most important parts of the setting. Summaries and bullet-point lists are easier to reference too, so it will be useful for both yourself and your players!
SRDs, OGL, and other open licenses
Some published content is legally available to use without having to pay or ask for permission. SRDs (System Reference Documents) are generally available under licenses that allow this, such as the OGL or one of the Creative Commons licenses. However, these licenses sometimes have certain requirements, such as giving proper attribution or keeping the same license.
If your worldbuilding is private, you're free to copy any content to World Anvil, as tthis would qualify as personal use. This includes articles, images, maps, and any other type of content on World Anvil.
Note that content being freely available on the internet doesn't mean it's free to use. Always check the license and, if you can't find it, ask the creator. Check out our
copyright policy for more details on how we deal with copyright.
Expand on the source content
Expanding on the source content has many advantages! To start with, if you add some of your own content to the adventure, you'll feel more connected to it, which will increase your motivation. And if you had a session 0 (and you totally should!) you can tailor the campaign to your players' tastes too. For example, if you're running an adventuring campaign and one of your players enjoys horror, you can make the campaign a bit darker.
You can also create new places or people from scratch and integrate them with the campaign. Maybe a player has an NPC in their backstory, which you can then integrate into the campaign. This could be done by adding an entire new plotline or by replacing the official NPC with the player's NPC!
Create stat blocks and random tables
While your sourcebook will already have statblocks for you, it can be a bit of a hassle to start turning pages back and forth while you're running the game. So we recommend you
create your statblocks on World Anvil so you can not only reference them really quick but also use the integrated dice roller.
And the same goes for tables (both random and static)—especially the ones that you know you'll have to reference multiple times during the game. Plus, random tables on World Anvil have an integrated dice roller too, so you can get a random result just by clicking a button! They use the block system, so follow the instructions in the
statblock how-to.
Write a Primer for your players
If you've run any games before, you'll know that many players struggle with reading lore about the world before starting the campaign. A well-structured Primer is a way to solve that! A Primer is a handful of articles that explain the foundational concepts of the world, such as the magic system and the most important factions. A way of doing this is using the Primer feature in our campaign manager:
How To Create a World Primer Handout for your Campaign.
Alternatively, you can manually create an introduction article for your world. Simply create a Generic article, name it "Introduction to [Your World]" and write summaries of the most important things your players need to know with links to read more.
Primers will also be helpful to you, especially with long campaigns. It's very easy to forget details (even more if you've had a long hiatus!), so you can use your own Primer to refresh your memory.
Maps
Maps are very useful resources for a campaign, and fortunately many published campaigns come with at least one map. If you have permission to use the map or you made it yourself, make the map interactive on World Anvil and fill it with pins for various important landmarks in the area. This way, your players will be able to get used to the world before playing, as well as see the progress of their story. To avoid spoilers, make sure to only use pins for locations your players know—or make spoilery pins private so only you can see them until that information is revealed to them.
Running the campaign
The way you run a published campaign will depend on how much of it you've transferred to World Anvil. But in any case, your players' actions will change the future of the campaign—and that's one of the big advantages of using World Anvil rather than traditional books. When your players change the direction of the campaign, you can just update the relevant articles, rather than having a stack of physical notes next to the physical book.
Check out the
World Anvil for Game Masters Workflow for more information on how to use World Anvil if you're a GM.
