Playing D&D: Homebrew or Published Setting? Why?
Afrodyte
Explorer
Re: lack of imagination. I find that tends to be the case for me as well.
VikingLegion
Explorer
I can buy all the other reasons in this thread for going with Homebrew over Published setting, and there have been many. But this one irks me a bit. I guess I happen to think the following designers/artists had quite a bit of imagination:
Gary Gygax
Robert J. Kuntz
Carl Sargent
Laura and Tracy Hickman
Margaret Weis
Jeff Grubb
Larry Elmore
Roger Moore
Doug Niles
Michael Williams
Ed Greenwood
Bruce Nesmith
Richard Baker
Timothy Brown
Troy Denning
Mary Kirchoff
Brom
David "Zeb" Cook
Tony DiTerlizzi
Colin McComb
Wolfgang Baur
Monte Cook
These are just a few of the men and women that created the rich and incredible settings of Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Darksun, and Planescape. This list could easily expand to 100x with more research. If there are fan-created works that match or exceed their level of quality and imagination in the realm of world building, I have yet to encounter them.
The corollary to this is most, if not all of the settings they created started as the worlds for their home games.
I like to homebew settings not because I'm more creative than the people on your list. I do it because I want to experience the same joy in creating stuff that they did.
VikingLegion
Explorer
I think only Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms meet that criteria. Dragonlance was conceived in a car (I'm sure there's a joke there) while the Hickmans drove to their new job. Ravenloft was a decision by TSR to enlarge a very successful module into a larger entity. Darksun was a collaborative effort by several designers with the mandate to "turn everything about D&D on its head", it was meant to upend all the known tropes and make for a brand new type of experience. Planescape took the 2e Manual of the Planes and tweaked it into a playable setting.
As to your second part, I agree 100%. I love everything about the process of creation - the mental exercise, the sheer joy of that "Eureka!" moment when you come up with the missing puzzle piece that ties several others together, hell I even love the maddening frustration when you stare at a page or screen for hours, wrestling with a paradox you just can't iron out. I live for that stuff. But I've never encountered any amateur work, my own included, that didn't have derivative elements, consciously or otherwise, of other products. I'm not at all disparaging your desire or right to engage in the process of homebrew. I simply took exception to people saying they do it because the published settings "lack imagination."
Afrodyte
Explorer
This seems like taking, "I don't like it, and this is why" way too personally.
Edit: If you'd like to know my reasons for why I experience so many D&D settings this way, I'd be glad to elaborate, but arguing over matters of taste seems pointless to me.
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My absolute favorite RPG activity is creating the setting. I have created dozens of homebrews. It's a curse!
That said, I will sometimes run in a published setting, if the adventure is really good and is tied in to the setting. (Curse of Strahd, Holdenshire Chronicles, and Princes of the Apocalypse are good examples that I've run, and I'm itching to give Zeitgeist a try once it's fully converted.)
That said, I will sometimes run in a published setting, if the adventure is really good and is tied in to the setting. (Curse of Strahd, Holdenshire Chronicles, and Princes of the Apocalypse are good examples that I've run, and I'm itching to give Zeitgeist a try once it's fully converted.)
Doc_Klueless
Doors and Corners
This I can really get behind. I think it's probably the main reason why I've so enjoyed running my last two campaigns in Forgotten Realms and Eberron when I normally don't like that sort of thing.
Istbor
Dances with Gnolls
I play Homebrew, for a few reasons.
1. Tradition. Growing up, we didn't play published adventurers. Either we were too broke or too ignorant of them, or had too much fun making up stuff as we went.
2. Some adventures seem to be done very well, while others take a cool concept and perhaps fall a little flat with it. At points, fixing the flow or tailoring it to your group can reach that critical point where you may have been better off just making your own story. This doesn't happen often of course, but I have certainly seen it in action.
3. Your own stuff is more fun. I mean... you MADE it. Either just yourself building a cool world that you want to share with your friends, or one that you have all helped build piece by piece together. It carries a stronger sense of attachment and immersion to me. It is easier to care about the places you have helped make or shape, than say a place like Red Larch where you are more or less a visitor in someone else's brain space.
I like some of the published adventures. They are well done, and when properly executed can hammer in on a theme well. They just aren't as cool as Homebrews however. To each their own.
1. Tradition. Growing up, we didn't play published adventurers. Either we were too broke or too ignorant of them, or had too much fun making up stuff as we went.
2. Some adventures seem to be done very well, while others take a cool concept and perhaps fall a little flat with it. At points, fixing the flow or tailoring it to your group can reach that critical point where you may have been better off just making your own story. This doesn't happen often of course, but I have certainly seen it in action.
3. Your own stuff is more fun. I mean... you MADE it. Either just yourself building a cool world that you want to share with your friends, or one that you have all helped build piece by piece together. It carries a stronger sense of attachment and immersion to me. It is easier to care about the places you have helped make or shape, than say a place like Red Larch where you are more or less a visitor in someone else's brain space.
I like some of the published adventures. They are well done, and when properly executed can hammer in on a theme well. They just aren't as cool as Homebrews however. To each their own.
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