Homebrew vs. Premade Campaign Worlds

[Tonguez]

When homebrewing, I prefer to map out the campaign structure and adventures first, and design the setting to support and enhance those themes. This has taken the form in the past of grabbing a stack of Dungeon magazine adventures I want to run and sketching in the terrain and urban areas they'll need on a map the size of an A4 page, only developing the rest of the setting in the form of a few rumours of empires of giants across the sea and such. IMO, this "adventure heavy, setting lite" style is preferable to "setting heavy, adventure lite" which many DMs prefer to focus on, such as in a campaign I'm currently playing in. I know a lot of other people try to shoehorn campaign structure around a setting they've already developed rather than design the setting specifically to meet campaign needs. This seems somewhat back-to-front to me, unless the setting serves as a source of inspiration that outweighs the potential restrictions it places on campaign composition.

Hmm Interesting theory there and it may have some merit...

I Homebrew and use the Setting first paradigm beleiving that the potential for adventure arising from the setting and the interaction of ecologies and cultures within that setting.

Take Paumako Island for instance - its a large tropical Island with recent geological activity which has resulted in uplift of the Coral to form a Makatea desert, a swamp region, a lagoon, geysers and hotpools and of course the snady beaches and jungle covered interior mountains rising to barren peaks.

This Island is then populated with its mundane ecology (birds, insects, giant spiders (in the mountains), large lizards (6 foot long), wild boar)

Next Humanoids and Monsters (a Giant fiendish eel worshiped by the Gnome population). A Family of Ogres hold sway in the mountains and is served by a clan of goblins. Sahuagin live in the Lagoon. Two Cabbage Palms stand on the Makatea desert and are beleived to be two sisters transformed by an evil scorcerer...

Only then do I design the plot hooks based on the above elements - who was the scorcerer? What is the relationship between the Ogres and Goblins? What does the feindish eel want? Are the gnomes friendly? What happens now when I introduce a new human settlement?...

 

[uv23]

Playing established/published campaign settings brings with it the promise of support, but more importantly a warm fuzzy feeling in knowing that other people are adventuring through the same world. Its like an abstract sense of community.

 

[rounser]

Hmm Interesting theory there and it may have some merit...

Not just a theory, it works in practice too, although I ended up with a jumble of climate types (from jungle to glacial mountains) on the A4 map both times around to support various adventure needs within the bounds of a small area. The results were notably interactive (e.g. with the names changed, my "L'Trel" city burned down, my "Kratys Freehold" got besieged and the 2E monk returned to his monaestery to find it turned into "The Isle of the Abbey") since most locations and NPCs had their eventual fate based more or less on what the PCs did. This was because everything was there pretty much because some or other adventure needed it - very little setting "fat" was present. The downside, perhaps, was that the feel of the A4 map settings were quite "generic D&D". Nevertheless, there was always a plenty to do...

Only then do I design the plot hooks based on the above elements - who was the scorcerer? What is the relationship between the Ogres and Goblins? What does the feindish eel want? Are the gnomes friendly? What happens now when I introduce a new human settlement?...

Indeed, the "what if?" questions are excellent ones for inspiring creativity, and your approach is one I've used in the past as well.

What I'm getting at is that if you turn that around and say "what setting ideas do these adventures suggest if I kludged them all together and tried to make it a cohesive campaign?", you get a whole new range of ideas to throw at your homebrew setting - and as a bonus, you're more likely to see them become directly involved in the game since they form part of the props for an adventure. If you merge NPCs, storylines and locations from different adventures, it can become quite satisfying watching it all come together - although I never really got an overall story arc going in those campaigns.

 

[Valicor]

I have done both homebrew & Campaign setting (Scarred Lands).

Honeslty I love both, Iv'e done the two styles individual, but what I am goign to be doign from now on is combining pre-made campaign settings plus homebrew. That way I have the feel of a setting people enjoy, plus the satisfaction of creating large portions of my game world. its a good alternate idea, if one is willign to mesh ideas.

 

[DM with a vengence]

I run homebrew because I have
A) Time and Creativity
and
B)Not much cash

I have a player who wants to do FR because he bought the FRCG, but if I was to do a published setting, it would be Scarred Lands, because it just seems cool.

 

[Nightfall]

Well just a few more weeks DMwaV, and then the SLCS will be out! Can't wait.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I really like the Realms, so I use them. It's easier than doing everything myself, and espeically lately, I can just say "to hell with what the book says, this is MY campaign"

Lately, I actually have been working on a homebrew with my good pal Fayredeth. Hopefully, we'll get to use it at a gaming club we're trying to start at school.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Personal Preference

I run a homebrew campaign in which the former pantheon of gods was either executed or imprisoned by the four evil gods. Currently, the material plane is the battleground of these four evil god's bid for supremacy.

None of the premade campaigns had anything like that. So I had to make it up.

It was a toss-up between this and a pseudo-Rokugan in which each clan is a different race (Elves/Crane, Dwarves/Crab), Fu Leng is not dead, and the Emperor is a Solar.

In general, I tend to not use premade worlds and campaigns because I hate the "NPCs have more of the spotlight than PCs" feel. I also feel that worlds with a static storyline are "dead" to me.

Example: If I play in Middle Earth, Frodo will always travel to Mount Doom, Aragorn will be High King and the PCs cannot do anything about it. If we set the campaign before Frodo and the Ring, we know that eventually, Frodo will come along and defeat Sauron. Vice-versa, if we set the game after Sauron, the Fourth Age is the age of men in which nothing will have the legendary, fantasy quality we look for.

This means I dislike RPing in Middle Earth, Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance (this borders on hate because of all the books), Dark Sun (after the second edition, before that it was my favorite campaign world), WoT, and pretty much all big name games with big name stories.

My favorite campaign world (before second edition) was Dark Sun. In the original setting, they didn't explain anything, either past or future. Everything was mostly left up to me. They made the snapshot of the world, I made the history.

It all went downhill when they started explaining everything. (The Dragon died, halflings were the ancestor race, and the entire game turned into ecodefense. Bleh. My explanation was better.)

Others I like: Planescape, Spelljammer

Along a similar vein: I HATED the fact that Lucas explained how the Force worked in PM. Mitochloriates!?! What the **** is that? It changed the Force from a mystical, explainable mystery to a measurable scientific piece of data. Dynamic Quality was lost. Oh well...

Oh yeah, and just in case it wasn't clear: this is all personal preference, nothing more...

 

[AFGNCAAP]

I'm all for homemade, though sometimes existing settings do have a certain degree of appeal.

My current campaign world pretty much looks like a Gnome Wreckship---constructed from bits & pieces, for the most part. The regional map where the adventurers are running around is the continental Map of Mystery from Dungeon #91, town & NPC names have been borrowed from various classic CRPGs (which, for the most part, many of the players haven't played), etc. I scour old modules & adventures for maps, stats, & whatever else I can use for the campaign, & so far, it's working well. Saves me time & I still can have my own setting (besides, the setting for my writing is quite different reality than what standard 3rd Ed. D&D could provide).

As popular as FR & DL are, they don't really grab me---& I feel that I'd be straightjacketed, to a degree, when trying to run such games---I'd feel like I'd have to live up to certain expectations. Plus, there are quite a few elements which I dislike about the settings, especially in regards to game mechanics (spellfire in FR for one, which a few of my players would want to play). Just certain things which I think are OK for books, but not for the tabletop.

As I've mentioned before in many (probably long-dead) threads, the only "established" setting I intend to run is for Lankhmar. Fafhrd & Grey Mouser had great adventures, some of which were of great importance for the city of Lankhmar, but not really anything world-shaking, such as throwing the One ring into the fires of Mt. Doom, preventing Takhesis from entering the Prime Material Plane, or ascending from mortal adventurer to Greater God. Plus, the world of Nehwon is still around, not (really) dramatically changed at all by the Twain's exploits, ready & waiting for more adventurers to make their names. No decline of magic & elves, no loss of gods & magic, no Chosen of certain gods to be overshadowed by or compete with.

Overall, I'd say go w/ homebrew---sure, you may have to sell it more, but then again, it's a lot less resource material that needs to be bought, not to mention that the players can have a hand in shaping the world is a nice sales pitch for any homebrew campaign.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, I honestly prefer "Homebrew" campaign worlds. My own world, Thandor, has been in play for over 14 years now, and some of it goes back to 24 years! It's incredible the level of detail that I have achieved with it. The adventures have been fantastic and just great through different campaigns, through the years. I made my own world from scratch, with influences from many diverse sources. Most importantly, my own imagination. Thandor is roughly the size of the planet Jupiter, with vast seas and oceans, and many different continents. The world is vast enough to defy complete and absolute description.

This certain "roughness" and ambiguity has had the wonderful effect of allowing me to organically grow and fine-tune the world over the years, and yet, it all seems quite seamless. This enhances the verissimilitude and depth of the world, and causes the least amount of friction when new ideas, races, religions, or what have you needs to be included in the world. This rich level of diversity has allowed an almost limitless creativity on my part, and has been immensely satisfying. This unparalleled level of rich detail and creative freedom stands in stark contrast to any published game world. Thus, while it's nice to mine other campaign settings for ideas and stuff, my homebrew remains really essential, and the best.

From a consumer's point of view, I can really buy whatever supplements that I like, with absolutely no worries over whether or not it will conflict with what I've done, and so on. I really am free from what any "canon" might say. Oh, and certainly, I'm free from whatever "rules-lawyers" might whine about, or what someone has read in one or ten different novels. All of that nonsense is almost entirely irrelevant. No person alive knows the details of my campaign world the way I do. That can be an important factor, even essential, depending more so on what kind of players that you game with. Still, at the end of the day, "Homebrew" campaigns I think are the way to go.

Of the published campaign worlds, I shall always remain a fan of Greyhawk. Greyhawk just rocks! Scarred Lands is interesting, but to be honest, there was too much stuff not available, and yet to be available, really, to do what I would like to do. But Scarred lands has balls for doing some unusual things, and having the courage to proceed with certain themes and styles that the industry has really been sluggish or apprehensive in embracing. This, combined with a special appeal, and a certain *snap* makes Scarred Lands interesting, despite a few problems, as noted. Other than that, the world of Erde sounds interesting. I'm not sure why they haven't gotten much press, though. They have done some really interesting stuff, and they have used some really good themes in several products, and in various elements throughout their stories. Of the current stuff, that would be probably the best selection.

Of Forgotten Realms, well, to be honest, I ran several campaigns back in the day when Forgotten Realms was just a single dark grey box, with some maps, and two campaign booklets. Yes, it was a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. But, *in those days*, I think many will agree with me, Forgotten Realms was special. It had *snap*, and *mystery* TSR really screwed that special feel up, and it really has never returned. Yes, the current edition of FR is good, it's certainly an improvement over the 2nd Edition of FR, and it even has many cool things that the Old Grey Box never had, don't get me wrong. Still, though, that special feel is gone, never to return. It just isn't the same. So, I think while FR has improved, and has many bells and whistles, it still has many salient problems, to my mind.

Old school Dark Sun was pretty special though. It had a certain feel to it as well. But they screwed that up as well, and it's all ashes, blown to the wind now. So, I think, there it is.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK