Homebrew vs. Premade Campaign Worlds

[Snoweel]

Setting or Structure

I see them as two different things.

Setting is what's there for the characters to react to and kick things off. New elements may always be (and should be) thrown at the PC's, but campaign structure OTOH is like:

56. After the PC's rescue Helpless NPC X from the cultists, they will be called to Authority-Figure NPC Y at the temple, where he will tell them of the note he received the night before. He will ask them to investigate Location Z.

57. Upon arriving at Location Z, the PC's will meet Evil NPC A, who will trick them into thinking that Benevolent NPC B is the real culprit.

58. When the PC's question Benevolent NPC B, he will tell them he is being set-up and will offer to reward them if they help clear his name. He will tell them that Mysterious NPC C has evidence in support of the truth, and that Knowledgeable NPC D at Location E knows the whereabouts of Mysterious NPC C.

59. Unfortunately, Mysterious NPC C has been killed and replaced by Cliched-Doppleganger NPC F, who tells them that...

As you can see, while it would be nice (and VERY easy for Lazy Dungeonmaster G) if the PC's followed "the plot", it is highly likely that at some point they will want to do something COMPLETELY unexpected and tangential, and will resent being steered back onto the right track.

 

[rounser]

Snoweel, I think you may be barking up the wrong tree here and perhaps misunderstanding what I'm getting at.

I'm really big on player choice - my lengthy post to this thread about halfway down should help explain in detail my theories on campaign structure and why I theorise that a hybrid non-linear/linear campaign structure is possibly superior to a pure non-linear campaign structure or pure railroad campaign structure respectively. You should find the ideas quite similar to yours:
http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11605&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

Now to define terms...

As Joshua mentioned, what I mean by the term "campaign structure" is the way you plan to run your game. That doesn't imply railroading as you assume (although railroading is a possible campaign structure).

Another example of a possible campaign structure is DMing the campaign completely freeform - making it up as you go with no preparation - with a setting made up on the fly with complete player freedom to do what they want. That's also a campaign structure in my opinion, just as a fully prepared A to B to C railroad campaign, with no options as to what to do or where to go next is. The degree of channeling of player choice is determined by my campaign structure, not implied by my using the term "campaign structure" - if that makes any sense...

 

[Snoweel]

Okay, sorry.

As for complete player freedom, I do tend to make a bad-guy (or organisation) so horrific and threatening that the PC's are unable to avoid wanting to bring them down. Then it's just a matter of making sure that I know what the villain(s) want and exactly how they intend on going about achieving it.

I might add that I'm a big fan of giving the PC's seemingly only 2 choices - the one I want them to take and one I know they never will.

However, PC's are funny creatures, and if I feel that they're really not interested in what I hope for them to do, then I don't push it.

PC's can smell manipulation a mile away.

 

[Henrix]

Homebrew in D&D. But not above stealing good parts from elsewhere.

(In other RPGs I often use the setting, as that is generaly what I like about them.)

Brewing my own world is something I think is real fun.

I could consider playing in the 3E realms (with modifications), if nothing else so as to be able to use all the beautiful maps!

 

[Mallus]

Its only homebrewed settings for me.

The mutual act of creating a world with my players is the chief pleasure I get from gaming. It s like the creation of a great character, in fact, its exactly that, since the setting/world is almost always a character in fantasy fiction...

 

[Setanta]

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.

I think ME has more flexibility than you give it credit for. I'm running a campaign in the Eastern parts of Middle Earth a thousand years after the war of the ring. The world is dominated by man, but there are still elves and dwarves, just not many of them. Tolkien leaves a lot to interpretation regarding the Eastern parts of ME.

After the Noldor left the Blessed Realms to pursue the Silmarils, they weren't allowed back until Earendil asked for the forgiveness of the Valar. Well, what about the Avari who refused the offer to go to the Blessed Realms in the first place? What penance do they have to perform to earn the Valar's favour? That and a war between the two "other" Istari mentioned in the Unfinished Tales are major plots to the campaign so far.

Playing in Middle Earth saved me the trouble of working up a pantheon and ancient history and such, and defined a flavour. With all that work out of the way, I have been free to work on plots and adventures.

 

[Desdichado]

I agree, Setanta, Middle-earth is really only unworkable if you want to do things as epic as bringing down Sauron for good. I feel my Middle-earth campaign, which is all about saving Arthedain from the Witch-king of Angmar in the year 1409 is plenty epic enough for me. We have just enough details about the time period to make it easy to work with, yet not so many that I feel really constrained by much of anything.

See the link to my story-hour in my sig, by the way!

 

[Voadam]

I go with premade worlds, I've run games in greyhawk, ravenloft, dragonlance and even the celtic world from a pair of old modules. I've played in games with completely homebrew, mishmash homebrews that included elements of premade and story settings, and premade ones. I have found them all fun.

I personally don't care to create my own world from the ground up, I prefer to take multiple elements that I find cool (setting, modules, and sourcebooks) and mesh and modify to fit my style.

I have never had anybody saying "That is wrong and can't be in this setting" , obviously it is my game and how I run it and what elements it contains are within my perogative as DM.

I must confess, I have called a friend of mine on screwing up a world detail before. He was running adventures out of dungeon straight without modifications, which was fine within each game but made for a disjointed campaign. Anyway, we were working for priests of the symbol god Omega, and had to get magical runes within a dungeon to spell the god's name before we could leave the dungeon. I remember getting several letters and saying "H? Why the hell is there an H? Did we screw up? All right let's keep searching." Finally having gotten every magical Letter and scouring the dungeon for possible others, I bellowed "It's Oghma! not Omega! Oghma, the celtic god!" My dyslexic friend who was DMing, looked at the adventure, read the name over and over again, got a little sheepish smile on his face and turned bright red.

 

[Nightfall]

Baggy, I think your idea is FINE, since I don't think that what you do detracts or changes ANYTHING that was originally intended for the Scarred Lands. In fact I'd say it enhances it SINCE your players get to see the land DIFFERENTLY than some but you keep the CORE elements (Calastian Hegemony, the High Gorgons, the Hornsaw, etc) in play as well. Not everything in the Scarred Lands is predictable and I certainly think using the WotC mods is more than alright. (Though I would have used Necromancer mods but that's just me! )

 

[Kichwas]

I prefer making my own worlds.

I also do tend to make the world independant of and before I run a game in it.

This may not be the best way to do things; but I get a bigger thrill out of world design than I do out of gaming.
Making my own world enables me to get something to my tastes and with detail in the areas that are important to me. I can easily tailor it to the needs of my group and game and I don't have to worry about some product line's meta plot invalidating my story.