your homebrew campaign - generic setting or single campaign?

GlassJaw · Nov 9, 2004

Hi all. As many of you may know, I'm working on my first "real" homebrew right now (using Grim Tales). I originally set out to create a world that could supports multiple campaigns over a period of time but as I develop the setting itself as well as the campaign plotline, I'm finding more and more that the setting itself is the campaign (if that makes any sense). Basically, the plotline I'm working on tells the story of the world and will greatly affect it in the end.

So to those that have homebrews, are your settings generic in that you have played (or could play) multiple campaigns within them or did you create it to tell the story of a particular world (like a novel for example)?

Also, my homebrew will be low-magic. Do you think that the mechanics of the gave have any effect on the campaign itself? It seems to me that it's more common for a low-magic campaign to have a greater effect on the world itself rather than say a Forgotten Realms campaign. I have read about low-magic campaigns where over the course of the campaign, the players discover why magic is limited or find a way to bring it back or something like that. I could be wrong, this is just my impression.

Psion · Nov 9, 2004

GlassJaw said:
So to those that have homebrews, are your settings generic in that you have played (or could play) multiple campaigns within them or did you create it to tell the story of a particular world (like a novel for example)?

Well, my standard homebrew is very well lived in and has hosted multiple campaigns. I think I've had it for about 15 years, and have run many campaigns in that time. Each campaign ends up adding a few more details to the world, either to support the campaign or as a consequence, but there it is.

Also, my homebrew will be low-magic. Do you think that the mechanics of the gave have any effect on the campaign itself? It seems to me that it's more common for a low-magic campaign to have a greater effect on the world itself rather than say a Forgotten Realms campaign.

Don't take FR as the norm. When you speak of low magic vs. high magic, there are several ways you can slice it:

commonality of magic
potency of magic
convenience of magic

IMC, there are several artifacts and sources of power. However, I don't depict magic as convenient. Using magic on an urban scale often has great consequences. You won't see magical sewers in my world.

Events that precipitated in various campaigns in my world:
- A magical gem was destroyed that was reaching into the far realm. The resulting cataclysm caused catastrophes wrecking cities across the northeast end of the continent and pretty much devastated a splinter state of the main malicious empire.
- The appearance of an ancient dragonmage who undid various elven abjurations allowed gnolls to take the western half on an elven nation.
- The above mentioned empire opened gates to the homeworld of the main human culture (who emigrated here through gates) and recovered magical constructs that shifted the balance of power to their favor.
- And they killed the king of prophecy of the bloodline destined to rule the land, causing all lawful crusader forces to abandon the force.
- And this march was halted when the PCs slew the existing emperor (temporarily), found a ressurected queen, and placed a new empress on the throne. The ressurected (now immortal queen) petitioned the gods to send forth a legion of crystal dragons to remove the aforementioned legion of constructs.

Pretty major changes in the world, I think.

DiamondB · Nov 9, 2004

My homebrew campaign world started out as a friends campaign. It's loosely based on Earth, basically throwing fantasy elements into real world history (if you're really curious click the link in the .sig, I've got a timeline and everything).

Anyhow, the campaign grew into world development and now we've pretty much developed all of Europa for campaign use, though we've really just scratched the surface in actual gameplay. Of course, the Far East and the rest of the world has yet to be developed, but we've kicked around ideas in that regard. Right now we just don't have a pressing need to develop it.

I suppose you could say that our world is a generic setting with many areas to develop campaigns. We are now even going so far as to bring the world into the Modern era, but developing some d20 Modern aspects for it (and likely integrating d20 Past when that comes out). Soon it will no longer be simply a medieval fantasy campaign world, it will also be a modern fantasy campaign world, and possibly even future fantasy (we aren't sure on that one yet).

Desdichado · Nov 9, 2004

I can imagine playing multiple settings in my homebrew. I think the "problem" you have with it is that your imagined plots are probably too epic.

Of course, that's not really a problem, but if you want to run other campaigns in the same setting and make it recognizable, you can only have your PCs having so much effect on the setting.

Tonguez · Nov 9, 2004

I started with the Macro level development of the Worlds story (which involves the resident god of evil using his agents (various BBEGs including a cannibal cult, a pair of feindish trolls, a Nightwing and various minor evils) trying to reenter the mortal world by finding 5 great artifacts)

I then went down to the micro level of the immediate campaign areas which I defined as 'Culture zones'. The Western culture zone has been long established and is home to well established kingdoms some of which are beginning to expand to dominate neighbouring lands (conflict here is political and social may include rebellions against the expansion of the Empire (which is essentially good and not connected to the evil god in anyway). However the Nightwing and its allies are known to operate in this area

The Eastern Culture zone (divided from the West by miles of water) is a new settlement area where humanoids (other than gnomes, goblins and 'giants' who are native) have only entered in the past century or so. This area has many unexplored regions, and humanoids are only just beginning to get a foothold. North of this zone is the main area of the Cannibal Cult, to the South is a region known only as the 'Foaming Sea' (where a new volcanic land is being born out of the sea) and beyond it a Land of Snow
There are over lands spoken of but which are otherwise unknown

In this way I divided the Macro-plot from the micro-scenario and then allowed the PCs to interact at the Micro level (which is the main setting) the campaign might stay at this level forever and the Macro-story never come into play unless the PCs take a certain course of action. Nonetheless by interacting with the minor BBEGs (eg the cannibal cult) or by inadvertantly finding one of the five major artifacts (so far they have found a 'key' not an artifact proper) they gain clues to the Macro-plot and the attention of the god of evil (and his agents).

random user · Nov 9, 2004

My world was written just for this campaign. I could see other campaigns happening in other timeframes, or I could run another group through this timeframe. Right now the game is tailored towards the players, in that while my NPC's have motivations, I can move them around a couple of months if necessary to provide a better story.

To retain consistancy (or I guess I could chuck it all and start over with just the map and NPCS and run an alternate world), things would have to happen in a certain time, regardless of where the players were. This might make for a much less interesting campaign.

reanjr · Nov 9, 2004

GlassJaw said:
So to those that have homebrews, are your settings generic in that you have played (or could play) multiple campaigns within them or did you create it to tell the story of a particular world (like a novel for example)?

One or two were played in multiple times, but most are for a single campaign.

GlassJaw said:
Also, my homebrew will be low-magic. Do you think that the mechanics of the gave have any effect on the campaign itself? It seems to me that it's more common for a low-magic campaign to have a greater effect on the world itself rather than say a Forgotten Realms campaign. I have read about low-magic campaigns where over the course of the campaign, the players discover why magic is limited or find a way to bring it back or something like that. I could be wrong, this is just my impression.

I think drastic changes can be made to a campaign whether low magic or highe magic. It's just a matter of who the events affect. From what I've heard, FR is designed as a juxtaposition to Dragonlance. In DL, everything revolves around a small set of characters and events, while in FR they wanted to let each author define their own space in the world that they could play with without bothering others. The spirit of the campaign shows through in that sense.

Aristotle · Nov 9, 2004

I prefer "generic" settings which I can then run multiple campaigns in. The setting itself is quite detailed, but it is home to many stories. An individual campaign within the setting might bring about huge, world changing, events; but the world keeps on going after the fact and new campaigns are run in the, now changed, world.

The_Universe · Nov 9, 2004

My campaign setting is generic in the sense that it's been the home of a couple of stories. The current campaign (see my Story Hour link) is set about a millenium after the last I ran in the world, and having that kind of history has certainly been helpful and interesting.

kigmatzomat · Nov 9, 2004

GlassJaw said:
I originally set out to create a world that could supports multiple campaigns over a period of time but as I develop the setting itself as well as the campaign plotline, I'm finding more and more that the setting itself is the campaign.... Basically, the plotline I'm working on tells the story of the world and will greatly affect it in the end.

So to those that have homebrews, are your settings generic in that you have played (or could play) multiple campaigns within them or did you create it to tell the story of a particular world (like a novel for example)?

Yeah, I get that. I did that on purpose with my current campaign. Other times....meh, not so much. Depends on campaign style. It breaks down to whether you intend on your PCs changing the status quo (overthrow the evil overlord) or maintaining it (repulse the invaders). Many campaigns are a mix of the two, making minor changes to the world (overthrow the evil mayor of
Tinyton).

I will say you should almost never, ever try to be like a book. It sounds good but only a handful of GMs manage to pull it off without turning into railroading or a player-vs-GM game. Bad mojo. Congrats if you can pull it off but don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

Also, my homebrew will be low-magic. Do you think that the mechanics of the gave have any effect on the campaign itself?

Well, yes, mechanics affect campaigns because they are in part the means of impacting the game world. As far as the magic level....ehhh. My game follows the DMG recommendations for magic. Which means it's plentiful. If by plentiful you mean that most people can lay hands on a caster in mere hours and be expected to pay what amounts to weeks of salary for a single spell. There's not magic in every house but people rarely run screaming at the notion of magic though most get nervous since even the lowest level caster can fire off a *zot* spell that can kill (magic missle, cause LW).

I liken casters to doctors (M.D). Sure, there's plenty around and most people are no more than 2 degrees of Kevin Bacon away from socializing with a doctor but they are expensive and only the richest or addicted go to them when they don't absolutely need to. People with personal mages are like people with personal physicians; hideously wealthy.

To get back on subject, low magic generally means it's "easier" to alter the world simply because magic is a big stick. It's like nuclear weapons; when one country has it everyone gets afraid, when everyone has them they're still afraid but confident that it'll take a lunatic to use them.