Downcrawl Worlds: A Worldbuilding Card Game
Build a weird, wondrous underworld together with friends using the Downcrawl Deck cards.
There’s just a few day left until the end of the Downcrawl 2E crowdfunding campaign! I hope you’ll join the expedition.
Today I wanted to talk about Downcrawl Worlds, which is a whole second game you can play with your Downcrawl Deck cards.
Worlds emerged after I had good test proofs of the card deck, but was having trouble finding a satisfying way to quickly playtest with it at conventions. The idea finally struck me: what if there was a whole separate game you could play with just the cards, without the whole Downcrawl 2E rulebook?
What emerged was a fast-paced worldbuilding game about inventing strange, inspired ideas together. A game you could use to generate a campaign world for Downcrawl, or as a fun standalone evening of creativity. A game where you could invent something called the Godslime and explore how it survived through the Age of Sacred Shadows…
In Downcrawl Worlds, you take turns proposing new elements of a weird, wondrous underworld you’re inventing from scratch. The current player chooses a turn type and plays one prompt word from their hand. For instance, if you’re playing the Create A Legend turn, which asks you to play an Idea, you might say “I think there should be legendary scorpions in this world,” and put down the scorpions card.
In response, each other player will propose a possible modifier to your idea (again, guided by the current turn type). For Create a Legend the response category is Quality. One player might propose crimson: “I think these scorpions are huge and made of red gemstones. It sounds like a tinkling chandelier when they’re approaching.” Others might respond with:
elegant: “The scorpions are sort of angelic, graceful. Even a glance of them brings a tear to your eye.”
wind-up: “They’re mechanical scorpions created by some mad inventor long ago to patrol the lands. Legends say one day they will wind down and their reign of terror will end.”
riddle: “The Riddle Scorpions hide where you least expect them and paralyze you with quick strikes. If you can answer their riddle, they’ll let you go, but otherwise…”
The current player (who proposed scorpions) then says the phrase: “These are all great stories, but the truth is…” and picks one of these proposals. “The truth is they are wind-up scorpions. Great beasts of metal that are slow, but ruthless in their pursuit of any who try to wander freely. They seem to regard nearly any sentient creatures as enemies.” They take the card they selected and align it with their own:
Finally, they choose a turn type for the player on their left to play. “Elena, let’s Find a New Volume next…” thus beginning the next turn.
As you play, you record each idea on an Index (an index card). Some turn types propose new ideas, others continue to develop existing ideas (“let’s find out more about those wind-up scorpions…”) letting you add more info to an existing Index. You can reposition Indexes at will, picking them up to refresh your memory or clustering related elements together.
When you’ve built up and developed enough Indexes of the right types, you unlock Story Turns, which let you use these elements to tell different kinds of stories. For instance, in the Historic Summit story turn, you’ll discover what happens when two Folk (the peoples of your Down) come together. Other story turns explore strange goings-on in a particular Volume (a location in your Down), or create a hero and send them on an epic quest to confront the Legend of the Age.
I’ve been playtesting Downcrawl Worlds extensively over the last few months (I’m on Draft 11 of the rules!), and can objectively say it’s always a ton of fun. (And has helped me iterate on the card design much more quickly.) It’s a great way to spend a couple of hours with a table of creative friends, or even friends who might just need a bit of prodding from the card prompts to bring their latent creativity out. Last weekend I ran a few games at the KublaCon Fall convention in San Jose, California, with players including young teenagers, hardcore D&D purists, and an elderly boardgamer all enjoying themselves immensely.
Downcrawl Worlds is a standalone game, but intersects with core Downcrawl in a couple fun ways:
You can use Worlds to build a Deep, Deep Down for your main Downcrawl game: Indexes become the main game’s Map and Folk Decks, and everything you create aligns nicely with what you’ll need for campaign play.
Like the main game, you can play Worlds with a group (up to 6 players) or solo (with variant rules for a 2-player game).
Also like the main game, Worlds can work with any combination of Downcrawl Decks: if you have the Even Deeper Deck (with slightly stranger prompts), you can use it alone, shuffle it together with the main deck, even remove cards with prompts you don’t like: the game will play just fine with any combination of cards.
You’ll get a PDF of the Downcrawl Worlds rules for free if you back the crowdfunding campaign at any level that includes a Downcrawl card deck! I didn’t foresee this fun little game existing during the initial design of 2E, but I’m so glad it’s come into being… it’s another lovely way to bring the magic of creating a curious underworld together to your table.
There’s more in the full Downcrawl game, crowdfunding for only a few more days:
Bring dangerous journeys and story-based encounters to your campaign, as you explore a weird underworld called the Deep, Deep Down
Compatible with any TTRPG system, or stands alone with a lightweight story-focused ruleset (requires only d6 dice to play).
A focus on just-in-time generation for zero-prep roleplay: invent your world, adventures, and complications as you go along
Play with a gamemaster, without one, or solo, with rule tweaks to ensure a delightful experience no matter what your play style.
Don’t miss your chance to back the campaign and claim your copy of Downcrawl 2E (and Downcrawl Worlds) today!
