Playing D&D: Homebrew or Published Setting? Why?

[sim-h]

I DM published adventures. My reasons for this boil down to three things - legitimacy, DM interest, and time.

Legitimacy - a published product will be tested (haha) and played by many people, so both myself and the players can feel more comfortable and 'part of something'.
DM Interest - I like to read the adventures almost as a narrative of their own
Time - oops I got this one all wrong when I thought it would save time to use a published adventure. I now have learnt it takes just as much time to read and sort out all the holes in a published adventure as it does to create your own setting - D'OH!

 

[iserith]

My general policy is that, if the entire group has a good working knowledge of a setting, I'll use it. If that is not the case, then I will go with a "homebrew setting," which will tend to be fleshed out only to the extent that we need it to be to run adventures. What exists is what is established in play and the players have a hand in that. This way, everyone is as knowledgeable about the setting as anybody else.

I made an exception to this policy in my current campaign which is a Sigil-based Planescape game. I discovered that none of my regular players knew anything about the setting. So I decided to play off the "Primes Come to the Planes" trope and drop the PCs into a completely unknown space (even to their players). Thus, discovering all the unique bits of the campaign setting is part of the experience. They'll be canon pros by the time we're done.

 

[VikingLegion]

I find, for myself, that it really does depend on whether I'm running the game or playing in the game. When I run the game, I usually prefer to use a homebrew just due to the Lore aspect. That is, I know the lore of the world because I'm making it up.

However, when I play, I like playing in published games as I can read up on the lore and feel more immersed in the world.

I'm not trying to start any trouble here, but isn't that a bit selfish? You like to homebrew when you're DMing because you control all the lore, but when you play, you want an FR or GH type world for sake of familiarity. What about what your players want? Do they want to learn your entire world - the geography, politics, economy, history, secret and not-so-secret societies, pantheon, technology level, any tweaks you've made to the casting system?

From the number of posters that responded with "Homebrew" as their answer, how do you go about disseminating this vast amount of information to your players? Do you produce handbooks of professional or near-professional quality with maps, charts, etc? Do all of your players want to read hundreds of pages of text to become familiar with your world? During a session, when your players have a run-in with the Knights of Kardonixx, do they know if these guys are noble, upstanding types, or an order of power-mongering bullies? Because those kinds of details are really important in the split second they have to decide whether to approach and hail the Knights, or jump off the road into the bushes to hide and/or prepare an ambush. Or do you "pause" the game in order to give them an exposition dump before resuming the action?

As DMs we all have to possess a certain degree of creativity, it's mandatory for the role. And while I enjoy the process of creation, I'm sure the players at my table (yours may, and probably do, vary) didn't want to have tens of hours of reading assignments to do in between sessions. And not to be overly harsh, but how many thousands of homebrew worlds across the history of D&D have a frozen, northerly region filled with Scandanavian-like berserk warriors, and a hot, desert region in the south with dudes in turbans, wielding scimitars and calling on djinn to aid them. Maybe there was a great Cataclysm event in the past of your world that altered the landscape and released a great evil/plague upon the land? The harsh truth is that probably nobody is ever going to care about the fine nuances of your world like you do, because - thematically - there are only so many ideas to pursue. So unless you go way out there like Dark Sun did to throw everything about D&D on its head, creating a brand new world from scratch is more an exercise for the DM's fun than for the players. And if you do have a truly original and interesting theme/concept for your world, you better have amazing design skills (and dedicated players) or your session is just going to confuse more than amaze them.

For my part I ran a campaign for many years that was ostensibly Forgotten Realms. I did this for some of the less experienced players, they knew FR through video games like Baldur's Gate and the like, so it wasn't a completely alien world. I created several key details, specifically the town they started in, from whole-cloth because I wanted to control all the details there, which was important for the main storyline. All the players know the "bones" of FR, so if they see a group of Zhents or Cult of the Dragon rummaging around vs. a wandering priest of Lathander, they know the difference and can react accordingly. It was a comfort level thing for my table. But yet I didn't find it restricting because they didn't have the level of knowledge where I couldn't make huge alterations of my own. Lastly, the adventure ended up mostly in planar locations (as I'm a huge Planescape fan), so the FR "skin" was mainly just to get them settled in with an initial framework before the mission had them hopping all about.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I'm not trying to start any trouble here, but isn't that a bit selfish?.

Absolutely! When I start talking about what I like and what I don't like, it's inevitably going to revolve around me. But I think you might be reading more into my statement that is there. These are simply about my preferences, BUT I'm grown up enough to know that gaming is about compromise. More times than not, there is going to be some aspect of the game/adventure/session that I don't enjoy. But I enjoy my friends and their own enjoyment of the game so much, that I'm willing to compromise and still have a great time.

For example: My current two campaigns use published campaigns: on my Fantasy Grounds, it's Forgotten Realms. On my roll20/face-to-face game, it's Eberron. Having a blast. Just not what I prefer.

Whenever I start a game for whatever system, one of the first questions I ask the players is: Homebrew or Published? Followed by: Which system?


My favorite meal is Tex-Mex. Love, love Tex-Mex. I don't like Chinese food. I'll eat it, but I don't like it. If my friends or date want Chinese food, I'll eat it without bitching and moaning. Because I eating is secondary to the social interaction.

I feel the same way about gaming. It's why I played in a multi-year long Pathfinder Campaign. Really don't like Pathfinder. My friends did. So I played in it and had a great time because of the interaction among players.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

From the number of posters that responded with "Homebrew" as their answer, how do you go about disseminating this vast amount of information to your players? Do you produce handbooks of professional or near-professional quality with maps, charts, etc? Do all of your players want to read hundreds of pages of text to become familiar with your world? During a session, when your players have a run-in with the Knights of Kardonixx, do they know if these guys are noble, upstanding types, or an order of power-mongering bullies? Because those kinds of details are really important in the split second they have to decide whether to approach and hail the Knights, or jump off the road into the bushes to hide and/or prepare an ambush. Or do you "pause" the game in order to give them an exposition dump before resuming the action?

I have a 40 page word document that explains the main kingdoms, religions, and timeline of my homebrewed world. Of those 40 pages, I have a 2 page "10 Things you need to know about my world" that is the only thing I highly encourage players to read. I have 2 poster sized world maps that a friend gifted me that were created by a professional cartographer for the main continent of the world the players play in, which is about the size of Calgary South to the American/Mexican border.

In your example, I would have the players roll a History check (with advantage if the player is a noble or from the Kingdom's around those Knights) to recognize that these Knights are bad news.

Obviously, world building is DM wankery to some degree and some players buy in more than others, but it'd be the same thing when running Eberron. Do you expect the players (especially people who only show up to roll some dice and bash some bad guys) to read 300 pages of world information?

 

[VikingLegion]

It's just the opposite for me: I don't want to know anything about the game world going in, so I can immerse myself in exploring and discovering it as play goes on. Knowing stuff about the setting ahead of time kinda ruins that.

Just to play Devil's Advocate:

As human adults that have lived their entire lives on the planet Earth (some assumptions there, but I don't think they are unreasonable!) don't we all have an enormous store of knowledge before we go "adventuring"? If I take a map and point to Australia, I would bet that instantly 10 or more details spring into your mind, regardless of where you are from. Similarly, if I say World War 2, I'm willing to bet you know many (if not all) of the major players, who was allied with who, some of the more (in)famous leaders and generals, and even a few of the major battles/engagements. If I say avocado or automobile, you instantly know I'm referring to a plant/food type on our world, as well as a major technological breakthrough that changed our civilization. However, I have never explored the Amazon rain forest, nor ridden in a submersible vehicle in the Mariana Trench, so those would be "adventures" for me, full of wonderment.

I know many of the flora/fauna of such planets as Athas (Darksun), Toril (Forgotten Realms), Oerth (Greyhawk) and the like through reading various campaign supplements. I know the movers and shakers on those worlds, the nations, the rulers. I know the Veiled Alliance are good guys and the Scarlet Brotherhood are bad mofos to be avoided. I get what you're saying about having pure ignorance of the game world, and thus the feeling of true wonder as you explore and discover, but really that only makes sense if the player characters are all very young children, transplants from another world, victims of some kind of nefarious amnesia-like effect, or maybe a created being in the vein of Frankenstein's Monster. All cool ideas, but probably not what most D&D sessions are revolving around.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I have a 40 page word document that explains the ...

Pretty much the same for me. Buying a coil binder has made it so that I tend to make "Player's Guides" to my homebrews plus Fighter Handbooks, Wizard Handbooks, Cleric Handbooks that contain all the information about that particular class from special abilities to spells to.. whatever! I'm... I'm a bit... uh... obsessive sometimes. Heh.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

...

From the number of posters that responded with "Homebrew" as their answer, how do you go about disseminating this vast amount of information to your players? Do you produce handbooks of professional or near-professional quality with maps, charts, etc? Do all of your players want to read hundreds of pages of text to become familiar with your world? During a session, when your players have a run-in with the Knights of Kardonixx, do they know if these guys are noble, upstanding types, or an order of power-mongering bullies? Because those kinds of details are really important in the split second they have to decide whether to approach and hail the Knights, or jump off the road into the bushes to hide and/or prepare an ambush. Or do you "pause" the game in order to give them an exposition dump before resuming the action?...

I'll usually do a large-scale map with a few details filled in and a two-pager of background info for the players. One thing I encourage is for the players to share world-building WITH me. I want their ideas and suggestions and incorporate them in one form or another as we play. If the campaign continues on I'll update info in a more comprehensive format for player reference, but it's never been more than 10-15 pages and a few maps.

Usually the trope will be that the players hail from a relatively small region of the world and are more or less unfamiliar with the outside other than a few tidbits of lore they've picked up growing up. This allows a primary pillar of play, EXPLORATION, to actually mean something. The players see and experience fantastical, new things. Think of the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings. They had a smattering of info of life outside the Shire but most of it was little more than rumor and old tales.

 

[iserith]

From the number of posters that responded with "Homebrew" as their answer, how do you go about disseminating this vast amount of information to your players? Do you produce handbooks of professional or near-professional quality with maps, charts, etc? Do all of your players want to read hundreds of pages of text to become familiar with your world? During a session, when your players have a run-in with the Knights of Kardonixx, do they know if these guys are noble, upstanding types, or an order of power-mongering bullies? Because those kinds of details are really important in the split second they have to decide whether to approach and hail the Knights, or jump off the road into the bushes to hide and/or prepare an ambush. Or do you "pause" the game in order to give them an exposition dump before resuming the action?

I won't read a lengthy campaign document and I assume my players won't either.

So for any "homebrew" setting, it is created as we play. Nothing is set in stone initially. As things get established during play, they become part of canon. If the party cleric says he or she worships a particular deity they just made up, it's now part of the lore. If I say some empire or another existed which left this dungeon behind, that empire is now canon and anyone can add to that. Much of this lore is improvised on the spot, but once it's stated during play, it's now something that cannot be negated or contradicted. At a certain point, the campaign setting becomes richly detailed and interesting, given that six people have been adding to it during play, and nobody has to read any campaign documents beforehand. It also comes with player buy-in since they had a hand in making it.

 

[TwoSix]

I generally use a "light" homebrew, which is more of a world sketch than a full functioning world. I actually have several published settings that I prefer to run, but I don't like running a setting if I'm only the one who actually cares about the details.