A city can desalinate unlimited water, but only one district owns the energy grid that powers the plants. What institutions and household workarounds emerge?
24 Worldbuilding Prompts Prompts
These prompts create a starting constraint, question, or situation. Use one as written, combine two, or change the audience, setting, objective, or limitation to make a new exercise.
Every adult receives one anonymous legally binding vote each year that can repeal a local rule. How does the city verify and survive the system?
Healing eliminates infection but permanently lowers body temperature. What jobs, clothing, housing and prejudices follow?
A mountain pass opens for exactly nine days each season. What economy and law grow around the window?
Memories can be inherited from one parent only after that parent dies. What family custom and legal conflict result?
A coastal nation bans permanent buildings within sight of the sea. How do cities, tourism and inequality adapt?
Instant communication works only between people who share a verified secret. What professions and crimes depend on that rule?
A staple crop grows only in soil that has never been owned. How does property law respond?
Public office is compulsory when selected by lottery, but each citizen may refuse once. How do careers and families plan around selection?
A species senses deliberate lies but not mistaken beliefs or omission. What changes in courts, journalism and everyday manners?
The safest transport system is free but creates a permanent public travel record. Who avoids it, and what alternatives appear?
Perfect weather forecasting exists, but earthquakes remain unpredictable. Which industries stabilize and which fears intensify?
One neighborhood can ignore national curfew rules because of an ancient emergency charter. Who wants the exception preserved or revoked?
Objects can be repaired almost indefinitely, but certified repair knowledge is scarce. What labor and black markets emerge?
Temporary legal identities can be rented for work but not voting or marriage. What legitimate and exploitative uses develop?
A border is physically easy to cross but official permission takes months. What informal economy grows around the delay?
A new canal removes a century-old shipping bottleneck. Which city loses power, which profession disappears, and what new bottleneck replaces it?
Magic makes translation instantaneous but cannot carry tone or implication. How do diplomacy, comedy and contracts adapt?
A society guarantees housing but not location. What becomes scarce instead, and who controls that scarcity?
A public archive records every government decision but only after a ten-year delay. How does accountability work in the meantime?
A disease can be prevented only by a treatment that temporarily erases facial recognition. What institutions struggle with the side effect?
Every household must host a traveler for one night each year. What bureaucracy, avoidance strategy and cultural meaning develop?
A new reform abolishes inherited titles but leaves inherited land untouched. What conflict appears between legal equality and material power?
A city’s most important bridge can carry people or freight each day, never both. Who decides the schedule, and what political pressure follows?