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

[Gradine]

It's also worth pointing out that even if you use a published setting you are still doing world-building. Sure a lot of the big picture stuff (world maps, political boundaries, religions) is done for you, but every bit of minutiae, every place your characters visit, every organization and NPC your characters interact with (even the ones in the books) are a part of your version of that world.

 

[Mallus]

It's also worth pointing out that even if you use a published setting you are still doing world-building.

This is a great point. People running Forgotten Realms or Eberron or whatever are running their own personal take on those settings, even if all they do select the things that interest them to focus their campaigns on. That qualifies as worldbuilding, too.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I'm not sure why we're seeing apparent one-or-the-other absolutism. I've run many published world campaigns. But usually I want to run my own because I have an idea about a game world that (gasp) hasn't been published before. The last one I worked on was based on a frontier town opened on the far side of a vast mountain range and accessible by a recent dwarven route cut under it. In antiquity the area had once been several mythical nations but had fallen to an alliance of dragons and necromancers centuries ago. Things seem quiet as the first explorers poke around, but is it really?

 

[Zmajdusa]

I run homebrew, and last one I ran is based in a world with no gods. The world also has racial restrictions for certain geographical areas and timelines.

 

[Bitbrain]

I prefer homebrew as both a DM and a player.

The worlds created through homebrew can be as different or generic as the imagination of the person creating the homebrew setting wants them to be.

ASIDE
We've found a new group of players closer to where our family lives, so me and my dad are back to playing with other people!

 

[Doc_Klueless]

ASIDE
We've found a new group of players closer to where our family lives, so me and my dad are back to playing with other people!

Awesome! Congrats!

 

[SkidAce]

My absolute favorite RPG activity is creating the setting.

Mine too!

I have created dozens of homebrews. It's a curse!

I am working on the same one. Its a curse!

 

[MechaPilot]

I have created dozens of homebrews. It's a curse!

I am working on the same one. Its a curse!

I'm working on two of them. When I have time to work on homebrew stuff and open my homebrew folder, I see the two setting folders staring me in the face like children asking me to pick which one I love more.

 

[bkwrm79]

The one D&D game I've played in so far was homebrew. It looks like the next campaign I play in will be homebrew modeled in some ways after a setting.

If I ever run, it will probably be homebrew, unless I have a specific idea for a setting that's particularly non-generic (such as Eberron or Darksun).

When I ran a vamp game in Chronicles of Darkness, I was careful to make sure the half of my players who've played World of Darkness games knew that I didn't really know how mages, werewolves etc. ran in either current or past versions of the setting and rules, and that mine would not necessarily work that way.

Which brings me to what I really want to say. Please, as a DM, don't assume all your players are familiar with a setting without checking. And as a player, listen to your GM about what carries over from canon and what doesn't. I know that's much more complicated in D&D, with multiple settings and a far wider range of info... but some of us are new to D&D. We wanted to be playing (and occasionally running) all along but didn't have the chance, so don't assume we know what the more fortunate and experienced might.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Homebrew, most of the time. It's how I've always played D&D, and it's what D&D is to me.

That explains a lot. In a good way.

For me, OP, it’s a mix. Eberron is the only setting I run “out of the box”. I have a FR game, but it’s a campaign I took over when a friend moved away.
My other games are all homebrew, and my favorite game I don’t run is a homebrew.