Exchange Rules

[wbv2mod]

The rules for the Worldbuilding Exchange v.2 are mostly taken from the previous incarnation of this exchange.

Current round: 2025
Schedule: Schedule and links (sticky post)
Tag Set: Worldbuilding Exchange 2025 Tag Set
Collection: Worldbuilding Exchange 2025
Mod contact: worldbuildingex@gmail.com

What is "worldbuilding"?

For the purposes of this exchange, "worldbuilding" will be defined as any exploration of how a fictional world works beyond the information presented in canon. This includes (but is not limited to) more detailed extrapolation of information presented in canon, filling in gaps in the canon backstory, attempts to reconcile apparent contradictions in canon information, exploring the perspectives on canon events of characters implied to exist but not considered within the canon, and so on.

This exchange allows all fictional fandoms except RPF. Some fictional fandoms, especially those without fantastical elements, may overlap closely with how the real world is known to work already. When you request worldbuilding topics for this kind of fandom, we recommend you concentrate on grey areas, areas where a canon is unique in its handling of a broad topic, and topics where a creator has leeway to make things up, so that the amount of worldbuilding a creator can do is not strictly constrained by historical record or current reality.

It is absolutely fine for the gift you create to be an action-adventure story/shippy fanart/etc. (provided your recipient hasn't expressed a desire for you to avoid such things), so long as there are also worldbuilding elements present in a significant way.

Participants are expected to create one of:

• Fanfiction - a complete fic of at least 1000 words
• Fanart - a finished piece of art, not on lined paper
• In-Universe Meta - a complete piece of in-universe meta of at least 1000 words

When you sign up, you will need to request at least three fandoms, and offer at least four. The maximum number for both requests and offers will be ten. You may request/offer the same fandom in more than one slot, but the total number of distinct fandoms must still be three or more (for requests) or four or more (for offers). You may request specific characters, Any or No Characters, or Original Characters, or any combination of these. If you choose Any or No Characters, this means any characters in the canon, not just in the tagset; however, you may DNW particular characters from the canon. You may request original characters to be of a specific gender (or non-binary) if that gendered tag was nominated in that fandom.
Worldbuilding tags are requested in the relationship slot and are specific to each fandom.

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Nominations are open!

[wbv2mod]

Nominations for the 2024 round of the Worldbuilding Exchange v.2 are now open, and will close around 11pm EST, Sunday February 18th. The tag set is here. Please read the nomination rules before nominating.

You may nominate up to five fandoms. For each fandom, there are five character slots and six (one more than last year!) "worldbuilding" slots. Because of the limitations of AO3 tag sets, we will be using the "Relationship" field for worldbuilding elements.

Nominate only single characters in the Character field; groups or relationships (/ or &) will be rejected.

Nominate only worldbuilding tags in the Relationship field; groups or relationships (/ or &) will be rejected.

Fandoms must have at least one worldbuilding tag nominated by end of nominations, or they will be rejected.


Fandoms

Please nominate fandoms in a way that makes it clear which canons you are looking to receive/create worldbuilding fanworks about, whether the names match AO3 canonicals or not. Unlike many other exchanges, in Worldbuilding Exchange it is expected that in some cases overlapping canons will exist within the tag set, since the worldbuilding ideas people might come up with will differ depending on which source materials they are considering. For example, last year both Dragon Age (All Media Types) and Dragon Age II were in the tag set. However, if it’s possible to nominate a more distinct fandom rather than a larger umbrella, it’s probably better for matching purposes to do so.

Please check already-approved tags before you start nominating, and try to be consistent with what has already been put in the tag set if your ideas are compatible.

"Original Work - [Genre]" will be allowed as a fandom. For example, "(Original Work - High Fantasy)", "(Original Work - Hard SF Space Setting)", etc.

“Creator’s Choice of Fandom” will not be allowed as a fandom.

Real Person Fiction (RPF) will not be allowed, on the grounds that "real world worldbuilding", if it means anything at all, covers essentially all forms of human intellectual enquiry from quantum cosmology to celebrity journalism, and is therefore outside the scope of a fanworks exchange. Similar arguments apply to canons which are very closely based on real events, e.g. The Crown.

Crossovers are eligible if the crossover actually happened within one or other of the canons involved, as this implies shared worldbuilding. Please provide evidence for crossover nominations, and nominate with a "fandom" tag consisting of the two crossed over canons names separated by a "/", eg "ER/Third Watch".


Characters

Please nominate only single characters in this field. Nominations for groups or relationships will be rejected.

Please disambiguate your character nominations to indicate the fandom you’ve nominated as clearly as possible.

For example, Darth Vader is in more than one fandom, and "Darth Vader (Star Wars)" is a vague disambiguation. If nominating Darth Vader for the TV show Obi-Wan Kenobi, you could nominate as "Darth Vader (Obi-Wan Kenobi TV)".

Amos Burton is in both the Expanse books and the TV show. If nominating that character under the books, you could nominate him as "Amos Burton (Expanse Books)".

Mods will ensure that you can select original characters by adding the tags "Original Character(s) (Name of Fandom)" and "Any or No Characters (Name of Fandom)" to each fandom in the tag set. You do not have to nominate these tags.

NEW THIS YEAR: If the gender of original characters is particularly important to you and you strongly prefer to only create for or request particular genders, please use one of your character slots to nominate specific genders, such as "Original Non-binary Character(s) (Name of Fandom)" or "Original Female Character(s) (Name of Fandom)". Otherwise the choice of gender will be up to the creator, not the requester.

NEW THIS YEAR: Please do not nominate any other kind of specific original characters. Although we previously approved nominations such as "Original Surface Dwarf Character (Dragon Age Inquisition)", and “Original Halfblood Character (Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling)”, we will not approve them this year. Please incorporate canon-related specifics into your worldbuilding tags, for example, "WB: Surface Dwarf Culture (Dragon Inquisition)" or “WB: How halfbloods balance two worlds (Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling)”.


Worldbuilding

Tags for fandom-specific worldbuilding elements should be nominated in the Relationship field. Use "WB: " at the start of each of these tags, and disambiguate with the fandom name at the end (for example: "WB: Belter Culture and Customs (Expanse TV)"). Do not nominate any type of actual relationship (/ or &); any such nominations will be rejected. You may wish to look at previous tagsets for ideas; see 2023's tag set here. Or see tagsets used in the previous incarnation of this exchange: 2022 is here, 2021 is here, and earlier tagsets can be found through the previous version's parent collection page.


Matching

Creators and participants match on at least one worldbuilding tag + one character tag + one medium tag (fanfiction, fanart, in-universe meta). This means that the characters and worldbuilding tags need to work as combinations. Don't nominate your favourite character without nominating at least one specific worldbuilding tag that you'd like to explore him/her/them with. Similarly, when nominating worldbuilding tags, please consider if you'd enjoy exploring them with specific canon characters or original characters (or both).


Rules: Complete exchange rules
Schedule: Schedule and links (sticky post)
Tag Set: Worldbuilding Exchange 2024 Tag Set
Collection: Worldbuilding Exchange 2024
Mod contact: worldbuildingex@gmail.com