Question for Full-Setting Homebrewers

[Type1RPG]

I have a site idea but I don't know it it's appealing. It may be more casual-creator oriented than the kind of hardcore homebrewers that seem to be here. I have a feeling everyone is kinda experienced and comfortable with their tools, already able to complete full books independently. I'm from an outside community, where I'm used to homebrew creation being very ad-hoc and disorganized.

The premise is to take a wiki and add an overlay that lets people mark content they liked within a book/article. Then, if the reader wants to encourage the creators of that book/article to keep going, they toss in a donation and the system shares it out among the people who made the stuff that the user expressedly flagged as being valuable to them. Rules fans provide support to the rule writers, art fans provide support to the illustrators, trolls and slackers are cut out of the loop.

The only reason I can think of it maybe appealing to hardcore/professional creators is if it would work as a sort of middle ground between the free volunteer work at the very beginning and the full crowdfunding near completion. Like, it would defray the burden of sacrificing freelance time in order to work on the game. But I dunno how the practice looks, if that kind of thing would fit; a collaboration drafting table where bystanders can tip the effective contributors.

 

[gamerprinter]

I have seen a few collaborative world building projects, but not very many, and in my experience people aren't clamoring to use them. So while there is certainly an audience, its not necessarily a large one. Most world building projects are the activity of one. Most world builders are designers with some level of 'god complex', its one person's concept and collaboration tends to muddy the waters, often going in directions the singular designer never intended. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and just as true, too many world builders tend to sully a world building project.

In the few I've looked at, like many homebrew fantasy worlds, it just looks like another iteration of Middle Earth. Here are where the dwarves live, this is the forest of the elves. If I see one more fantasy world of elves and dwarves as the main body of 'this is fantasy', I'm going to lose faith on creative humanity altogether. I as a world builder tend not to want the 'vanilla preference' world design concept to be anywhere near anything I want to develop. So I find collaboration never in my best interests.

I'm sure there may be some people wanting this kind of project, and perhaps it is worthy for another one to be created. Good luck with that. In my experience, the audience is too small to make a go of this - especially since world building sites like your idea already exist (yet not necessarily the most popular thing.)

 

[Janx]

GP's probably right.

When I do a campaign world, I don't mind sharing it. But I don't need other people adding stuff to it that likely go a different direction than mine. They'd basically be damaging my documentation.

So I'd rather use a Wiki to host/manage my campaign world notes and let others see it.

But I wouldn't want people changing stuff on it because it would be them changing facts I'd already established in my world with my players.

 

[ExiStanc3]

I do agree with GP too for the collaborative work.
Also, concerning the 'finance' portion, I believe there are better ways to get some small amount at the start of the project (patreon for instance does this just fine).

 

[Nellisir]

Another "agree with GP" post. I've only seen one collaborative world work successfully over a period of time, and that one (here on EN World) has a very specific approach (one hex at a time). Anything more free-form tends to collapse since people who are interested in creating worlds are usually interested in creating their world.

Also, I think you're getting a skewed view of how people work. The "professionals" work to get publicity, so you see their stuff. The "established setting" people have a common language that gives them a lot of numbers to dominate forums. The ad-hoc, independent people tend not to look for or get publicity, and the people really involved in their setting is rarely more than a handful of players.