Do you homebrew your own worlds?

[Ravilah]

Ever since I first tried my hand a being a DM (which I have come to enjoy more than playing--feel free to hate me) I have always prefered to design my own worlds--and campaigns--rather than stick to the various books and "world-in-a-box kits" that are out there. Of course, designing maps, countries, histories, and cultures (deciding which aspects of the Player's Guide and the MM to stick to and which to tweak), as well as sometimes altering the entire DnD cosmology can be time-consuming, headache making, schedule shattering, responsibility shirking. . .

. . .and habit forming.

Who out there prefers to make his/her own worlds? What have been your most original creations? And my real question is: How do you go about the process of creating a world setting? A student of mine asked me this question, and I had only my own experience to draw upon for an answer.

BTW, I am currently designing an Arthurian setting, where Arthur has founded a new Camelot on the shores of Avalon (where he was taken after being wounded by Mordred). It's my fourth campaign setting, and the one that has needed the most rule-tweaking by far.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I usually want to create my own worlds, but this generally has one big drawback. If you're not really careful, places end up just being stereotypes. It takes a lot of work to make something as large as a world "new", so shortcuts are taken. Places start being defined by one characteristic: "The Elf City", "The city on the waterfall", "The evil Human city where anything can be bought for a price", "The city run by religious zealots".

If nothing more complex than that is planned in the initial stages, it'll cause problems in the long run. The primary reason for this is that in the absence of more detailed information, many DMs will just stick to that one theme at the expense of anything else. For instance, say there's a city located in a desert. Now, certain aspects of architecture, diet, etc. will be inevitable for this setting, but the culture shouldn't just be a carbon-copy of the Arabs. But, I've just seen this way too often. The DM wants to make a city that isn't the cliche'd standard, so he transplants some culture from Earth into his world. The big problem is, once the players make the connection, there's nothing left; you're now back where you started, with a situation the players are completely familiar with, but with added overhead from having to stick to a theme.

To get around this, some DMs will go for segregation. So, there's an isolationist Elf kingdom in the forest somewhere, a Dwarf kingdom in some mountain range, and so on. No need to deviate from the norm for the Human towns, and the players will only rarely go to those other places. But, you're still just avoiding the issue.

My suggestion is to distribute the workload. Allow the players, other DMs, random strangers, etc. to design cities, kingdoms, religions, whatever you want to add; not detailed designs, just basics like geography, culture, landmarks, key power groups, that sort of thing. With this information, the DM can make up on-the-spot information for players without resorting to the same tired stereotypes, and can plan much better long-term adventures. The player who designed that place/religion/etc. can tie it in to his own character's history, to help explain why he knows as much about it as the DM.

For instance, at one point in my last campaign, I was building a walled city that was supposed to be half "civilized" Elves (as opposed to the near-feral Wild Elves we also had in the region) and half Humans. This was one of those remote towns you'd hear interesting news from, but never actually supposed to go to, and was supposed to be the place my character's mentor retired to. So, I wrote up all this information, the players ended up going there, and the DM was able to create such a great place that it became the new hometown of the party.

 

[Centaur]

I too like to make my own worlds, they are many and all are incomplete.

I also find that there ends up being a lot of steriotypes in my worlds, although they are a starting point rather than an end point. If you start off by saying "The elves are here" and the "Orcs are there" then you can start to get a feel for how to lay things out. Later you customize these areas into something a little different....

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Who out there prefers to make his/her own worlds?

They still make worlds?

What have been your most original creations?

Where would I start? It's likely the next campaign I've begun laying the ground-work for involving an empire that spanned several worlds (by way of dominating a "planar sea" that permits multi-world travel in a manner akin to, but quite different from, the old SpellJammer Campaign). The empire is somewhat facist (governed by the military, focused heavily on the superiority of the races of the "home world") that is involved in what they call the "Faith Wars"; their belief is that deities, being dependant on their worshippers for power, are little more than (powerful) parasites that need to be exterminated. Naturally, the easiest way to slay a deity is by slaying all of their mortal worshippers, thus leading to their becoming the dominant "naval force" on the planar sea (being a place that deities can't seem to influence). This allows them to stage wars scaled to entire worlds. In addition, they also tend to inhabit the worlds they conquer (either enslaving the local population and "converting" them, or exterminating them in a genocidal strike); this provides the body-count for their legions.

In all this, however, there is another agency manipulating things behind the scenes that are far more dangerous than any deity. I had considered using Chaositech for this particular foe, but OGC designations are in the way, so I'm likely going with the Zhival (a psionic race presented in Eden Studio's Liber Bestarius).

And my real question is: How do you go about the process of creating a world setting?

Well, I come up with what I call the "meta-theme", which is a basic concept upon which all other rules and setting elements will be built upon. For instance, my current campaign was designed around "Once mighty world in the grips of a magical ice age haunted by Lovecraftian-styled horrors." From that point on, anything that doesn't fit within this world-concept didn't get added while anything that does fit gets added in.

Once that's set, I come up with a "rough map", generally giving me the continents, seas, etc. Then I go with a "continental map", which details the various lands, realms, etc. I jot down notes for both of these (cultures, trade, weather, etc.). I then zoom-in on the specific area that the game will start in (generally a few miles in size) and develop outwards as the PCs move about the world (with occassional side-development to present an exotic NPC). Of course, my current campaign is about to undergo an apocolyptic revision (read: frustrated with converting drawn maps to computer maps, I'm re-mapping it with Fractal Terrains), I'm about to break from my standard operating procedure.

 

[Corlon]

I usually create my own worlds...kind of.

I think of basic climates, regions, and such, and my friend who is much better at making maps than me (name on the boards: Jeph) draws them out and shows them to me for editting. Then there are just a bunch of random cities, and they only really matter when politics comes into play, or the characters want to go somewhere.

It's all a lot of ad hoc for me...maybe not the most realistic, but if caught in a contradicting situation, you can always explain it with planes or magic or gods or somesuch. It makes for a fun game, and not a whole lot of work on my back .

 

[Ibram]

I've always prefered to play in my homebrew world, it fits my style of campaiging rather well.

the world itself is the work of at least 4 to 5 years, much of that through playing. When it first started out it was very much standard issue D&D, but as the years have gone by it has changed into a rather unique setting (at least I like to think so).

I do copy a great deal from the real world, but thats because I'm something of a history buff.

 

[Asmor]

I've never liked the idea of using a premade world.

Oddly enough, although I love the idea of planehopping, I've never liked the idea of altering the D&D cosmology.

Wierd, no?

 

[Sigurd]

Homebrew makes for better mixing too

I always have made home brew worlds. They are substantively my own creation but module cities end up being added & mutated. Elements of other worlds creap in.

I judge a good source book mostly on how useful it is torn to its component parts and rebuilt.


Its just easier to juggle everything if you've personally put it there.

s

 

[Ravilah]

Naturally, it is almost impossible to not make your new world have echoes and reflections from either the real world, literature, or other campaign settings. I agree, however, that one must avoid stereotypes (I did, admittedly, have a city in a desert ruled by a Caliph who lived in a domed palace), though a stereotype with a sufficiently cool set-up can still keep a party on its toes (the whole city was made in mockery of The City of Brass, and was founded on the wishes granted by two enslaved efreet and a noble djinn).

Of course, the players have stereotypes and preconceived notions that the DM can play upon to shock or confound them. Once, I had a party wander into a quiet, isolated village where everyone lived in fear of nameless masters, and where every citzen tried to keep "happy thoughts" all the time. The party's first thought? Ithillid! Imagine their surprise when they had to go toe to toe with a communist, psionic halfling named Wheatblossom. They barely survived that encounter, only to discover that a few miles away was a whole villiage of communist, psionic halflings. They fled the country.

 

[Evilhalfling]

A previous homebrew world was created just after reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" - non fiction about the different levels of technology existing in the world at a single time, and WHY. This world had a race of small demihumans that were experts at bio-engineering and healing, using many concepts of living equipment from Dark Sun and responisble for many hybrid beasts. They were of course geographically isolated for most of thier history.

I would suggest Magical Ecology and Midevil Magical Society -
My current world was less ambitious, started out with a contiental map, a few world famous sites, and then went very local. It started in 2000 and has been the site of 4 campaigns. I leave a some of the societies for the players to create, a joint effort to flesh out socities and cultures. I try and restrict the range of monsters in each region, and have set a firm cap on the number of humanoid races
In generic fantasy D&D :
- 31 seperate humanoid/giant cultures which traditonally do not hold territory, and are found in small isolated lairs, yet on the far side of the world there are small lairs with exactly the same culture, language and species not to mention
that all can forge iron, up to and including full plate for leaders. Yet all are barred from human society - but human barbarians are welcomed.

- 15 demi-human cultures many of which control huge areas of land, and yet all tend to get along peacefuly, at least they are excepted into each others cities.
it seems unlikely and logically flawed.
There should be human/humanoid mixed socities where goblins form and under class or like AU where gaints are rulers- actually AU seems to have done a good job bluring the line of humanoid and demihuman.
LoR had Orcs (sub races: goblin&UrkHai), Gaints and Trolls - one set of dwarves, hobbits and 5-8 subraces of elves - only 3 of which were actually involved.
what a long stupied way we have come.