best free homebrew setting campaign

[Ebonyr]

The World of Ebonyr 2.0

Seteria
Khoras
Dathkandra
Tereth End
LoreWeaver
Agyris
Llaza
Cycalia

More to come!

 

[an_idol_mind]

Well, if we're plugging homebrews available online, I might as well toss out my home campaign of Blackwood.

Blackwood

It's currently still being detailed, but generally resembles an east/west crossover fantasy. It feels like generic D&D, but has a lot of elements from the Japanese fantasy genre, specifically games like Final Fantasy. It also borrows greatly from Chinese/Japanese culture.

There's also a story section of my site, Rebirth which gives an idea as to the flavor of the setting and the important NPCs in it.

 

[irdeggman]

Birthright (see my sig for link to "free downloads"):

Standard D&D with several twists and the races are very customized to the setting along with 5 different human cultures, each with their own aspects. The old gods died and the mortal survivors picked up aspects of divinity and thus some extra "powers" and "abilities". In order to wield true arcane magic a characer has to either have elven blood or the "touch of diviinty" (be a acion in the game terms).

Dark Sun (go to Athas.org for the "free download").

Psionic rich world, desert, not much metal, no gods (clerics get their power from the elements), several "unique" races, arcane magic defiles the environment.

 

[Turanil]

Great thematically, I agree, but the mechanical aspects seemed to be rather poorly executed (i.e., they weren't very cohesive). I've toyed with using True20 to run an Amethyst campaign, if only so I'm using one rule set, rather than minicing D&D and d20 Modern.

100% agreed. My general opinion these days, is that adding one's houserules to a homebrew setting is nearly useless for most casual readers. There is so many rpgs and rules supplements around, that almost everyone already has what he needs to run a game, and generally doesn't bother with others' houserules. I prefer some descriptions of npcs' orders and typical archetypes, and maybe the author can add a few suggestions about what rules to use. But I usually don't care for new stuff (although there are some exceptions like the excellent True20 Star Wars). I prefer settings that emphasize on the setting itself. In the case of Amethyst, I don't care for its houserules, and just a set of guidelines on how using d20 Modern along D&D would have been enough IMO. In any case, if I was to use it (which I might someday), I would too rather use True20 with it. The rules as they are would fit perfectly.

 

[Land Outcast]

Hey irdeggman, could you post a link to the darksun thing? I... seem to have lame search skills.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

My favorite online homebrew is Dusk... or it would be Dusk, if Mr. Morris ever reposts any of the materials.

I loved his 2e work as well as his early 3e stuff...

 

[irdeggman]

Hey irdeggman, could you post a link to the darksun thing? I... seem to have lame search skills.

Here you go.

http://athas.org/releases/ds3/

 

[Land Outcast]

This is a rules conversion only; in order to fully enjoy the Dark Sun setting, you should have access to the Wanderer's Journal or the Wanderer's Chronicle, which are the setting books published in the first and second Dark Sun boxed sets, respectively. If you do not have either boxed set, they can be purchased from RPGNow! as PDF documents.

still, I'm downloading it to see the setting -or whatever is in the document-

 

[Turanil]

My favorite online homebrew is Dusk... or it would be Dusk, if Mr. Morris ever reposts any of the materials.

Dusk has its own forum on ENworld (see here). I only regret that it focuses so much on houserules than the setting itself. But I already gave my opinion on that...

 

[Dr Simon]

100% agreed. My general opinion these days, is that adding one's houserules to a homebrew setting is nearly useless for most casual readers. There is so many rpgs and rules supplements around, that almost everyone already has what he needs to run a game, and generally doesn't bother with others' houserules.

This is certainly a good point.

One thing we've tried to do with the Conclave d20 conversions is to keep it purely limited to the core rulebooks (although some AU stuff is there if you want it). This was due to two sides of the same coin:

a) I personally dislike it when you need to buy a new rules supplement just so you can use an adventure/sourcebook whatever. This was more common in earlier editions where suddenly MM2 creatures and AU spells appeared in the adventures with minimal explanation.

b) I don't *own* loads of rulebooks to work from.

Sure, the Pas Aat magic used by the salsham'ai could probably be done using Magic of the Incarnum, but we figured that if you have the book and the desire, you can do that yourself. Similarly, you could use elements from Book of Nine Swords, Complete Monk, Alternative Monk, Unorthodox Monk, Really Freaky Monk etc. to come up with your own rules for fighting styles rather than have yet another pile of feats/rules that are this >< far from existing ones.

Oh yes, and:

c) It's kind of a challenge to try to work as much within the minimum rules as possible