Question for Players: Commercial or Homebrew?

[Mercule]

As a player, I don't really care. I just want a DM who is fair and creative.

As a DM, I tend to prefer home brew because I feel less constrained about letting the PCs do things like establishing kingdoms, destroying major antagonists, and otherwise break the status quo. A published setting implies (IMO) that it shouldn't diverge too far. Probably because that would amount to a home brew, anyway.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I'm a bit less likely to enjoy a homebrew, since the DM will be vastly more likely to put in ill-considered house rules and such.

Brad

 

[Wormwood]

. . . a Dm's most important job is facilitating fun for the players, no matter what hideously trite character concepts they throw at you.

And when a DM imposes his/her fun over that of the players over a simple matter of personal aesthetics, then that DM needs their head removed from their ass.

Wisdom.

As both a DM and a player, I just want to thank you for your post.

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

So is there a way to do homebrews right in your opinion, or should everyone leave it entirely up to professional designers?

Yes.

Create a world with nebulously defined geography, implant plenty of intrigue and mysteries, but do not supply the answers to said mysteries.

Make sure there is a place for all core material.

Then hand it off to another DM and never look at it again.

 

[Gizmoduck5000]

Wisdom.

As both a DM and a player, I just want to thank you for your post.

Thanks : )

 

[Darrin Drader]

Personally, I prefer commercial campaign settings. My feeling is that they put the players and the DM on equal footing creatively.

In my experience, homebrew worlds are a mastubatory exercise in PC railroading. Most are an excuse for some schmuck DM to impose his personal aesthetics on players, while hiding behind the smoke screen of "Sorry...Paladins don't fit my world" Those that aren't have probably been published.

So Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are masturbatory exercises in PC railroading?

Check.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Yes.

Create a world with nebulously defined geography, implant plenty of intrigue and mysteries, but do not supply the answers to said mysteries.

Make sure there is a place for all core material.

Then hand it off to another DM and never look at it again.

And what if, as a DM, you hate—or at least are totally clueless about how to use—every published setting you have ever come across and all the ones other people have made as well?

Essentially: when does the DM get to have fun?

 

[Treebore]

As a player, and as a DM, I usually prefer published. Why? Well, usually, published is done far better then most home brews. Published has a write up for me to read, and maps. Good maps.

Now some people do excellent home brew write ups. Those of you who have taken a look at the ENWorld poster Seskis home brew link know what I consider a quality homebrew write up, and he has excellent maps.

I have to agree with the previous poster who used the word "masterb...", way too many Home brewers have been falsely convinced of the "AWESOMENESS" of their home brew. They think they are being fresh, new, and a genius. They weren't.

Plus using a published world lets me know up front if I will like the game. If its Eberron, OAthbound, Athas, Planescape, Dungeonworld, or Morningstar I know I likely won't. If its Dawnforge, Aeroth, Faerun, Greyhawk, Golarian, Kalamar, Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Warcraft, Rokugan, Wilderlands, Erde, or Iron Kingdoms I know it has a good shot at being enjoyable for me.

If its "Homebrew X" I have no idea unless they have done a write up like Seskis did. Which they rarely do. Its usually just notes in a notebook, or on their computer, and I never get to see them.

Plus published have the best maps.

The only time I HATE published is in the case like Faerun. I hate it when novels, etc... are treated like the gospel. I have no problems with Elminster being used to be a helpful ally and guide to the party, but I hate it when he becomes the story and the PC's are his lackeys along for the ride. Khelban, Alustriel, etc... are all great characters too. However the setting, and those NPC's, are there to support the story of the PC's, not the other way around.

I can accept that the party is first level and there are 31st level Elminsters running around. That means its a living, breathing world with a running history going on. I can accept that Elminster, Khelben, Alustriel, etc... do not sit in their towers all day waiting to save the world. They are already involved in saving the world. So our PC's have to do their part to save the world, because Elminster, etc... won't always arrive to clean up our failures. They are already busy doing much bigger world saving, and won't be able to pull away to save our butts.

Homebrews are all too often an excuse for DM's to play favorite old PC's of theirs. Which is cool, if they are kept in their place. Aiding and advising. When they put on their equipment and mount up with the rest of us things are likely to go downhill. Not definitely, but very likely.

So if a DM wants to draw me in to their homebrew they better have an awesome write up, with maps, like Seskis does; or they better start me off with a published world and show me they are a solid DM, then ask me to play the next campaign in their home brew. Still no gaurrantee their homebrew is worth a crap, but it is more likely.

 

[Darrin Drader]

My homebrew, Galovinius, came about because of a player character. I had started a campaign at the beginning of 2nd edition and we were using the Forgotten Realms. In fact, I ran them through Ruins of Adventure and then through Curse of the Azure Bonds, then several Dungeon magazine adventures. When Spelljammer was released, we were interested in using it, and unlike many campaigns, this one was completely open ended. I had threads that were running throughout, yet no real focus until we neared the end.

What I had was one character who discovered that his uncle was a god that was imprisoned by another, neither of which belonged to the established FR pantheon. I had a wizard who was a renegede red wizard. One of his adversaries was desperately trying to kill him. He's pop up periodically, fireball this guy and try to capture him. Then there were various other enemies, such as a Jokeresque wizard entity who was uber powerful and liked to mess with the party from time to time after they inadvertently freed him from an asteroid where various powers had imprisoned him. I was a highschooler during all this, so it isn't as though these ideas are fresh or new by today's standards.

At any rate, I knew that the campaign was ending because we were headed off to college, and at least one of the guys who had been with the game since the beginning wasn't going to be around any more. For that reason, I introduced the storyline that explained the uncle diety. It turned out that the character was the rightful heir to an empire on another world and his uncle had been one of the forces keeping his family in power. Now the uncle was imprisoned, the family was overthrown, and the new people in charge were petty Tiamat worshiping despots. With that, Galovinius was born. So we ended the campaign with them challenging the new rulers and the guy taking his rightful seat at the head of the empire where he belonged.

A year or so later, when I started up a new ongoing game, I'd found some new players and I still retained one of the existing players, and he wanted to stay in Galovinius but play a new character. So we did that, and eventually one of the characters there carved out his own little frontier kingdom, and then that campaign ended.

Finally, a few years later, I had mapped out the world, written up the world's history, and come up with a premise for new characters to do something epic in the same world, so I used it again. One of my players was a carry over from the second Galovinius campaign I ran and she was pretty interested in going back there.

So, my question to Gizmoduck5000 is how exactly is that a masturbatory exercise in DM railroading? The setting arose organically as part of the campaign, and it was brought back twice by popular demand.

 

[Treebore]

My homebrew, Galovinius, came about because of a player character. I had started a campaign at the beginning of 2nd edition and we were using the Forgotten Realms. In fact, I ran them through Ruins of Adventure and then through Curse of the Azure Bonds, then several Dungeon magazine adventures. When Spelljammer was released, we were interested in using it, and unlike many campaigns, this one was completely open ended. I had threads that were running throughout, yet no real focus until we neared the end.

What I had was one character who discovered that his uncle was a god that was imprisoned by another, neither of which belonged to the established FR pantheon. I had a wizard who was a renegede red wizard. One of his adversaries was desperately trying to kill him. He's pop up periodically, fireball this guy and try to capture him. Then there were various other enemies, such as a Jokeresque wizard entity who was uber powerful and liked to mess with the party from time to time after they inadvertently freed him from an asteroid where various powers had imprisoned him. I was a highschooler during all this, so it isn't as though these ideas are fresh or new by today's standards.

At any rate, I knew that the campaign was ending because we were headed off to college, and at least one of the guys who had been with the game since the beginning wasn't going to be around any more. For that reason, I introduced the storyline that explained the uncle diety. It turned out that the character was the rightful heir to an empire on another world and his uncle had been one of the forces keeping his family in power. Now the uncle was imprisoned, the family was overthrown, and the new people in charge were petty Tiamat worshiping despots. With that, Galovinius was born. So we ended the campaign with them challenging the new rulers and the guy taking his rightful seat at the head of the empire where he belonged.

A year or so later, when I started up a new ongoing game, I'd found some new players and I still retained one of the existing players, and he wanted to stay in Galovinius but play a new character. So we did that, and eventually one of the characters there carved out his own little frontier kingdom, and then that campaign ended.

Finally, a few years later, I had mapped out the world, written up the world's history, and come up with a premise for new characters to do something epic in the same world, so I used it again. One of my players was a carry over from the second Galovinius campaign I ran and she was pretty interested in going back there.

So, my question to Gizmoduck5000 is how exactly is that a masturbatory exercise in DM railroading? The setting arose organically as part of the campaign, and it was brought back twice by popular demand.

He said "In his experience..." so unless your saying he played in your campaign he wasn't talking about your game. I never played in your homebrew, but I have been in several where "masturbatory" could definitely be used to describe the quality of the homebrew.

So "in our experiences", IE games set it homebrews in which we actually played, masturbatory is a pretty decent, if crude, adjective to use.

I would bet your homebrew is actually pretty decent, especially after you actually wrote it up and mapped it out.