Best worldbuilding tool for writers
Choose World Anvil over Campfire when your ideas are too big for just one novel or campaign. If your fictional universe is home to many amazing stories, heroes, and adventures, it deserves a worldbuilding tool that supports you. If you’re a prolific storyteller whose audience wants to explore your lore, choose World Anvil to present it to your readers with ultimate control.
With professional-grade creative tools and a thriving community of geeks, World Anvil is the ideal home for prolific fantasy authors, gamemasters, writers and artists who don’t want to be pigeon-holed into just one creative outlet.
Why choose World Anvil vs Campfire?
Unique worldbuilding is an asset – it becomes a plot twist in your novels, and the idea for a whole new series. Unlike Campfire, World Anvil has the depth and advanced features to support that. Allow character choices to shape your world. Develop the people, places, and history that set the stage in World Anvil’s worldbuilding tools, all while plotting and drafting in World Anvil's Manuscripts.
Want to turn your novel into a tabletop RPG setting or a game? Campfire doesn’t have the tools to support that, like system specific character sheets, a community library of statblocks and a virtual storyteller’s screen. But on World Anvil, it’s no problem. You can expand your creative universe into RPGs, webcomics, audio dramas, and indie films. And with World Anvil’s advanced worldbuilding tools, you can easily maintain consistent continuity across your world bible, novel, and any other projects.
World Anvil is an ideal platform for your author website, and to build a community of fans around your work. With subscriber groups, advanced privacy permissions, and bulk customer management, you can give co-authors, beta readers, and fans more than a home - you can give them an interactive world worth revisiting.
The best worldbuilding tool for authors
If you’re comparing World Anvil with Campfire, start with scope. A standalone novel can live almost anywhere – even a note on your phone! But a series, or several series in the same expansive universe, needs a foundation that grows with you.
World Anvil rewards writers who think deeply and dream big. Use advanced worldbuilding templates to create depth, then draft your novels in Manuscripts with ready access to your world’s wiki. Plot character journeys on interactive maps, trace your setting’s history with Timelines, or combine the two with Chronicles. Keep dynasties and bloodlines straight across generations with Family Trees. Track court politics and house rivalries with Diplomacy Webs.
This depth pays off as your story expands. A minor character can become the protagonist later, without losing track of their home, relationships or history. A new series can open centuries earlier, or light-years away, and still inherit the rules you’ve established. And a detail you’ve established can help you fix a plot hole in a later book! Every tale draws on one connected world.
More ways to use your worldbuilding
World Anvil is built for creators whose worlds travel from novels to short stories to tabletop campaigns (or vice-versa!) And even if your muse leads you into web comics, indie games or audio dramas… World Anvil provides one connected source of truth.
Prepare RPG campaigns with the digital storyteller screen and integrated virtual play space. Run a session using the same linked articles and interactive maps that supported your novel. Bring a city from fiction into your game, or let your campaign party inspire the cast of your next novel.
Your creative collaborators can reference (and edit, if you choose!) your Interactive Maps, Timelines, Family Trees and wiki to stay consistent. Use World Anvil’s advanced permissions and privacy settings to control what each co-author, player or reader gets to see. Tell stories in whatever medium fits, because World Anvil is big enough to hold it all.
An ideal author website platform
Choose World Anvil over Campfire to reward your most passionate readers. The ones who want to know what lies beyond the border, and why those families have been enemies for centuries. Publish your world with beautiful visual themes, interactive maps, and Timelines. Link your Patreon, Ko-fi or Kickstarter, and invite readers to follow your world, subscribe and comment while you work on your next book.
Reward super-fans with bonus content: extra chapters, deleted scenes, character profiles, sneak peeks, and deep lore. Use Subscriber Groups to control who sees what, whether that’s early access for Patreon or Kickstarter backers or advance chapters for beta readers. You can even import your supporters in a single step.
World Anvil is the best choice when you want more than a novel writing tool and a worldbuilding software. When you want to grow your readership and brand, turn your worldbuilding into marketing material and backer rewards, and turbo-boost your sales.
Worldbuilding Tools Comparison
| Features | World Anvil | Campfire |
|---|---|---|
| Everything you need to run your RPG campaign & write novels | Fiction support but almost no tabletop RPG Features. Limited worldbuilding features. | |
| Worldbuilding Essentials | ||
| Wiki-style linked articles Build an interconnected "wikipedia-style" encyclopedia of your world, linking articles. | Yes | Yes |
| Customizable worldbuilding templates Create and adapt layouts for worldbuilding articles in your setting. | Yes | Yes |
| Guided worldbuilding prompts An optional menu of structured questions, helping you develop details of your setting. | Yes | Yes |
| Interactive maps Add clickable pins that link to articles and other worldbuilding information, directly from your map | Yes | Yes |
| Map layers Switch between layered images of the same map, such as political borders, historical periods or underground levels. | Yes | Yes |
| Fantasy calendars Create a calendar with your own months, weekdays and year structure. | Yes | Yes |
| Whiteboards & flowcharts | Yes | Yes |
| Lifetime purchase | Yes | Yes |
| Forever free option | Yes | Yes |
| Autolinker Detects matching articles in your text and (optionally) adds links | Yes | No |
| See article backlinks See which other articles link to the article you’re viewing. | Yes | No |
| Family trees & bloodlines (automatic) Generate family trees automatically from your characters’ recorded family relationships. | Yes | No |
| Diplomacy webs (automatic) Generate relationship diagrams from recorded alliances and rivalries between factions, organizations or countries. | Yes | No |
| Worldbuilding timelines (with scale) Display events on a timeline where their spacing reflects the time between them, including events happening in parallel. | Yes | No |
| Chronicles (timelines & maps together) Explore your world’s history through connected timelines and maps, showing when and where events happened. | Yes | No |
| Variables & reusable content blocks Reuse values or content across multiple articles, then update the original to change every linked instance. | Yes | No |
| Automatic article hierarchy charts Automatically builds charts of your sub-locations, sub-species and more. | Yes | No |
| Content trees / taxonomy charts Generate hierarchy charts, organograms, and other content trees, and present them as interactive charts or a list | Yes | No |
| Game Master Tools | ||
| Discord integration Send world or campaign updates to a connected Discord channel. | Yes | Yes |
| Live session Virtual DM screen Run sessions from an interactive dashboard that brings together campaign information, player characters and live session tools. | Yes | No |
| System-specific Player Character sheets Use character sheets with fields and statistics tailored to your chosen tabletop RPG system. | Yes | No |
| RPG session scheduler Schedule upcoming game sessions directly in your campaign, with dedicated session entries that connect to your game tools and reports. | Yes | No |
| RPG session chat | Yes | No |
| RPG session reports Record what happened in each session and connect the recap to relevant characters, locations and events. | Yes | No |
| Party inventory | Yes | No |
| Quest tracking | Yes | No |
| Track current world date Set and advance the current date in your fictional world as your campaign progresses. | Yes | No |
| Customizable roll tables Create tables of encounters, loot or other outcomes, then roll dice to select a result. | Yes | No |
| Create custom random generators Combine your own lists and generation rules to produce names, characters, locations and other worldbuilding ideas. | Yes | No |
| Sheets & Blocks for 100+ TTRPGs Access a community library of stat blocks covering over 100 tabletop roleplaying game systems. | Yes | No |
| Customizable stat block library Browse, customize and reuse ready-made game statistics for creatures, characters, items and spells. | Yes | No |
| Play by post support (discussion boards) Run downtime, asynch or text-only RPG sessions through discussion threads, with players posting their characters’ rolls, actions and responses. | Yes | No |
| Novel Writing Software | ||
| Manuscript editor | Yes | Yes |
| Corkboard-style scene planner Plan scenes as cards, view their summaries and drag them into a new order. | Yes | Yes |
| Integrated world bible Access & edit your characters, locations and other worldbuilding notes from inside the manuscript editor. | Yes | Yes |
| Novel & serial-fiction publishing Publish novels online or release your story chapter by chapter for readers to follow. | Yes | Yes |
| Co-author support Give other authors access to edit and develop the same manuscript. | Yes | Yes |
| Beta reader support Share unpublished work with selected readers and collect their feedback before release. | Yes | Yes |
| ARC sharing Share digital advance reader copies before publication with reviewers, bloggers and other early readers. | Yes | Yes |
| Author Monetization options Earn money through book sales or exclusive content for paying supporters, including through external services. | Yes chapter by chapter | Yes Whole book only |
| Publish without preapproval? Publish without waiting for platform approval. | Yes | No |
| Fanfiction sharing permitted? | Yes | No |
| NSFW sharing permitted? Share writing intended for adult audiences, subject to the platform’s community rules. | Yes | No |
| Audio book support Add audio narration to chapters using embedded audio players, so readers can listen alongside the text. | Yes | No |
| Comments on chapters (optional) | Yes | No |
| Reader Forums (discussion boards) | Yes | No |
| Professional Tools | ||
| White Labeling Remove platform branding from your presentation mode. | Yes | Yes |
| Premade Visual Themes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Visual styling Adjust your world’s appearance through visual controls, such as colour and font settings. | Yes (all elements) | Colors and fonts only |
| Fan comments (optional) | Yes | (not optional) |
| Custom domains Publish your world website at your own web address, such as lore.yourname.com. | Yes | No |
| Bulk subscriber import (for Patreon, Kickstarter etc) Add multiple supporters to an access group at once using a list of their email addresses. | Yes | No |
| "Self-service" access codes Share a code with readers so they can join an access group without adding each person individually. | Yes | No |
| Password protected pages Set a password-protection to a page. These can also be gamified. | Yes | No |
| Custom SEO settings Set custom page titles and descriptions for search engines, separately from the titles shown to readers. | Yes | No |
| Google Analytics integration Connect your own Google Analytics account to understand visits and reader behaviour on your world website. | Yes | No |
| Custom CSS Use CSS styling code to customize your world’s appearance beyond the built-in visual controls. | Yes | No |
| Patreon/subscriber exclusive content Give paying supporters access to private content, including when payments are handled on Patreon or another external service. | Yes | No |
| Design & publish custom statblocks & SRDs Design statblock templates and publish a system reference document (SRD) explaining your tabletop RPG’s rules. | Yes | No |
| Subscriber groups Organize readers into groups and choose which private content each group can access. | Yes | No |
| Professional seminar programme Attend regular sessions on publishing, marketing and building a business around your creative work. | Yes | No |
| Worldbuilding Task Tracking / To Do list Prioritize worldbuilding tasks and track progress on the articles you need to create or revise. | Yes | No |
In the world of IP creative content and branded franchises, the world-builder is king. Thirty-two of the 50 top-grossing movies of all time are films that belong to identifiable fantasy universes
Why settle for less?
World Anvil combines worldbuilding, novel writing, RPG campaign management and publishing in one platform. Campfire focuses on novel writing, with a few basic modular worldbuilding tools. World Anvil’s broader feature set includes dedicated GM tools, automatic family trees, diplomacy webs and extensive options for visual customization, making it a stronger choice when your setting needs to support stories, games and attract an audience of readers.
World Anvil is especially well suited to novelists creating rich fantasy, science fiction or historical settings. Its Manuscripts editor combines chapter and scene planning, a corkboard and direct access to your world bible. Campfire also offers dedicated writing and planning tools. World Anvil’s advantage is the depth of the setting you can build around your books, from automatic family trees to histories connected to interactive maps. World Anvil supports series after series and also helps you with marketing and growing your fanbase.
Campfire has almost no support for D&D and other RPG campaigns. In contrast, World Anvil is extremely well equipped for running D&D and other tabletop RPG campaigns. It provides a live virtual DM screen, a dedicated campaign manager, and a library of system-specific character sheets and statblocks supporting 100+ RPG systems, all connected to your worldbuilding. Campfire can help with basic organization, but it doesn’t offer a comparable suite of dedicated tools for preparing, running and reporting on your RPG sessions.
Both tools have worldbuilding features, but only World Anvil provides dedicated tools for both novel writing and RPG campaign management. Write your fiction in the Manuscripts novel writing software, run your adventures with the RPG campaign manager, and draw on the same characters, locations and history.
World Anvil has significantly more support for worldbuilding, fiction writing and RPG Campaigns compared to Campfire. Both platforms offer tools for characters, locations, calendars, timelines and interactive maps. World Anvil adds specialist features such as automatic family trees, diplomacy webs and Chronicles, which connect historical events to locations on a map. For example, Campfire’s family trees use a basic, manually drawn flowchart system, while World Anvil generates contextual, interactive family trees from character relationships. That makes World Anvil especially useful for complex, interconnected settings.
World Anvil is a great choice for beginners who want guidance as they build. Its worldbuilding templates include prompts to help you develop characters, places, cultures and more, while tutorials and community challenges provide support and inspiration. It also has a full course for beginners about how to start worldbuilding. And World Anvil was crafted by industry experts, so its custom built for creatives. On the other hand, Campfire offers little in the way of support for beginners. Choose World Anvil if you want guided worldbuilding that can grow into a novel, campaign or public world website.
Both offer free accounts without a time limit. World Anvil’s free plan lets you build and share a public world with articles, maps, timelines and RPG statblocks, subject to usage limits. Campfire’s free plan includes limits for each worldbuilding module.
World Anvil lets you publish web novels or release your serial fiction chapter by chapter. You can choose whether or not readers can leave comments. You can also choose exactly who sees what – from coauthors to beta and ARC readers to your Patreon supporters – and monetize your work chapter by chapter or novel by novel. On Campfire, you can’t publish your work yourself. It must undergo a review by the team and may not be released. You can also only monetize by completed novel, not chapter-by-chapter, meaning it's not a good venue for serial fiction. Campfire also takes a percentage fee from your monetization, which World Anvil does not.
Yes. On World Anvil you have complete control over what you offer to your customers – exclusive chapters, bonus lore, deleted scenes, worldbuilding notes, even development update! You can crowdfund through Patreon or Kickstarter, sell access via your own storefront, and World Anvil will never take a percentage. Campfire allows authors to sell only completed books they have approved, and select story extras, for which it charges a percentage. You cannot sell serial fiction. They also have content restrictions on what kind of content you can sell. World Anvil is a strong fit if you want to use Patreon, Kickstarter, release and monetize serial fiction, or create a community around an ongoing story or fictional world.
World Anvil is the stronger choice for creating a custom world website as it has significantly more options than Campfire. On World Anvil you can customize your world’s appearance with visual themes and CSS, and use custom domain and white labeling to put your own brand first. You can even optimize your SEO and use Google Analytics! Campfire offers some themed projects and book pages within its platform; World Anvil gives you complete control over how your public world is presented and accessed.
Campfire’s publishing rules prohibit sharing any fanfiction. World Anvil, though, supports sharing fanfiction, provided it follows basic copyright and etiquette rules. You can publish stories and build supporting character pages, maps and head-canon lore for readers to explore, and even connect with other fans.
World Anvil allows mature fiction, including erotica, when it is correctly marked NSFW/18+ and follows content rules and community etiquette. If you find something you believe does not follow community guidelines, you can report it. Campfire, on the other hand, is much stricter about NSFW content and much of it cannot be published. They also have no NSFW filters to protect users.
Campfire does not support audiobooks, but World Anvil lets you pair your story with recorded audiobook instalments, chapter by chapter. Simply add an audio link to each Manuscripts chapter, and readers can listen through the embedded player while they read. This supports your own narration or a professional recording hosted elsewhere.
World Anvil is designed to help you build a readership around your entire fictional world. You can release public lore as part of your marketing strategy to keep your readers engaged between instalments. And you can release a web novel or serial fiction to keep them coming back for more! You can create reader forums to chat with your readers, using discussion boards. Campfire doesn’t support serial fiction in the same way, and you’re more restricted in what you can publish, and how quickly. It also doesn’t have reader forums.
Built with love, by geeks like you
Explore World Anvil's changelog to see our newest features and most recent improvements to the everyday experience of creating. We forge the path others follow.
On World Anvil, you can use community suggestions to share the changes you want to see and support ideas from other creators. Your experience helps shape what comes next.
Create a free account and start with a small project. Explore memberships when you need more capacity, privacy, or advanced tools. Choose the tools that serve your next step.
Should you use World Anvil?
You never know where imagination might lead. So why choose a worldbuilding tool that only does half of what World Anvil can? Get a software that fully supports gamemasters, novelists, game developers, and more.
For the RPG campaign that goes further
You can build a wiki and track some RPG elements on Kanka. But with World Anvil, you can bring your entire RPG campaigns and novels to life.
Choose World Anvil for more control over the way your world looks, who sees what, and how far your campaign can go.
Compare with KankaFor a dynamic world with deep lore
LegendKeeper makes you build article templates from scratch. World Anvil takes the heavy lifting out of worldbuilding. With optional prompts, a statblock library, and a full virtual DM’s screen, World Anvil makes game prep inspiring & fun.
Not to mention, World Anvil has a full novel writing software, gorgeous presentation themes, and advanced privacy for ultimate control of your secrets and lore.
Compare with LegendKeeperFor ideas too big for just one book
Campfire is fine for authors who want to write one book. World Anvil is built for writers who have a universe of stories to tell.
For deep lore, for worldbuilding tools that support creativity beyond mere pages, and for storytelling in RPG Campaigns, World Anvil is the gold standard.
Compare with CampfireYour next creative chapter
Explore our worldbuilding software, prepare your next adventure with the RPG campaign manager, or compare worldbuilding tools.
Begin with the part of your world you cannot wait to create. Give it a home, make a connection, and let the next idea follow.
Every great world starts somewhere
Dive deeper and learn about how World Anvil can help you!
