Do you homebrew your own worlds?

[random user]

I've just started to create my own world a few months ago, and I really wish I had made a blog of it as it has been quite fun and self-educational.

I started with a concept. It was basically of a race of semi-divine beings which co-existed, to some extent, with the rest of the world.

From there I created a creation myth and a map of the world. Then I divided the world into territories. Into each I named a capital city and placed it.

From there I decided where I wanted my players to start. I created that city and populated it with a government. I decided it was big enough (it's one of the biggest cities in the world) that it would have almost everything, ie multiple taverns, inns, guilds, shops, services, etc.

One of my players was considering a cleric so I made a list of gods.

Their first adventure dealt with going to an adjacent town, so I placed that town on the map and put a village in the middle. After a few adventures, they started hearing about other areas, so I started putting them down as well. One night I sat down and named all of the major geological and ecological sites (mountains, forests, etc) of the territory.

Just last week they started on a mission that might take them out of that territory so I did a similar thing to the neighboring territory. I also mapped out the major roads. My players know my map isn't all inclusive -- indeed there are towns there I haven't even named yet.

And I haven't done anything to the other territories yet. I know in my mind a rough concept of what sort of governments and stuff I want there, but none of it is written down yet.

If you are curious, my world is in my .sig, and the maps and information about the territories is under the Nyternia link.

By no means do I think I'm doing it "the right way." But it's working for my players. One thing I do is I like to look at other people's sites and hear their stories to help me with my world. It's been a ton of fun so far. I'm lucky in that my players are ok with the information I provide them, and they don't split hairs about the exact structure of everything (ie... they haven't asked "what's the heirarchy of the government in the outer city of Pavalar, and about how much would we have to bribe each title with to get them to do something"... instead they've asked, "we're interested in bribing someone to help us. With the money we have, about what kind of guy could we get and how powerful he is." Having players being cool like that helps a lot in terms of starting a campaign running quickly. I'm sure they would like to know the answer to the former (as would I really), but I only have so many hours I can devote per week to this, and they're cool about not asking for every little detail. That works well for us; your milage may, of course, vary.)

 

[dren]

I, too, am a DM who prefers to use their own homebrew rather than use a published setting. I really enjoy the creative challenge, and I try to avoid cliches found in so many other campaign styles, not that there's anything wrong with FR or Kalamar...just not my style.

 

[Stormborn]

"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."

I cannot help but messing with worlds. In fact that is one of the greatest joys of the game for me, i love reading about and making new worlds. Currently the players are immersed in a world that all of them have said is the best game they have played (limited experiance, but I take it as a compliment.)

In fact, one of them is in process of creating this: http://www.passarola.com/leviathan/index.html
based on the player handouts and pointed questions. It is by no means complete, either from her end or mine.

I started out wanting to create a Baroque game of swashbuckling and intrigue, and I wanted it to be different than anything we had seen or played.
I began buying up swashbuckling/pirate source material and didn't find anything I wanted. Lots I liked, just not the perfect thing.

So I cannablized and created the world book. Some 40 plus pages. Its in flux, there were things I mentioned there that I later dropped, retconned out since we hadn't used them. Things have been added. Its an evolvign world, and the players are OK with that.

While no doubt Monte Cook or someone else can answer the question better I say:
1. Start with the core idea, usually with some inspiration. What makes this world unique? How does that fact effect all others? What secondary charateristics impact the world? Do I want it to be like Movie/Book/Comic X? What am I going for? What will PCs do? What might they do?

2. Cannablize and research. No point in reinvinting the wheel everytime (although that can be fun) there are a lot of d20 and other products out there. If its just for fun: steal everything. If its for eventual publication: steal all open game content and keep up with where you stole it from.

3. Intigrate mechanics and setting. Smooth out the wrinkles and warn the players that the unexpected might happen.

4. Fill in the gaps with your own flavor and setting material. This, more than anything else, will make it different.

At first start small. Subtle changes to race, relgion, tech will have big impact on games. Work your way up to the big world stuff.

 

[ForceUser]

I have homebrewed for 15 years. I might plunder a published setting for ideas, but I always use my own world. For me using a homebrew creates a sense of immediacy and relevance that I just don't get with a lifeless "boxed set." It's hard to describe - perhaps it's because a homebrew springs from my own imagination that it feels more alive. When I run my players through my homebrewed city Veruccia, Pearl of the South, I feel in control and ready to answer any question on the fly. When I run someone through Waterdeep, I'm constantly afraid that I'll forget some important detail about the city and it will haunt me later. Worse, if I'm running Waterdeep I might have to pause the role-playing to crack open a book and reference material. I'd rather just run the city off the top of my head and play uninterrupted.

So those are my thoughts regarding why I homebrew. Also, when I create my own setting there's a sense of ownership I enjoy. It's mine. I made it. I can do what I want with it without feeling like I'm contradicting campaign canon. And I get a huge kick when players buy into the world and interact with it through role-playing. They're there. They believe it. That's a huge thrill as a DM.

 

[Album Cover X]

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.

I've pretty much always gone the homebrew route and its lead me to my current world that I've spent a decent amount of time developing.

For me, creating all background and then seeing your players enjoy it is why I do it. Its nice to hear that your players see and appreciate the effort you've put forth.

I think the WotC setting search had the right idea in requiring submissions to boil their world down to one sentence. It helps keep focus and consistency. The best worlds I've played in or ran myself could be summed up in one sentence. Whatever the "hook" of the world, the DM/creator should find himself asking how does this new thing I'm adding relate back to my main story/theme. Some things can exist outside the box, but that should be exception not the rule.

And the other thing, this may have already been mentioned... The Dungeoncraft series was very helpful to me and I know other DMs out there. Rule 1: only create what you need to. It helps to avoid burnout. If the DM has a world he feels passionate about there a better chance some of that could rub off on the players. When that happens, a great experience for all and a memorable campaign can result.

 

[the Jester]

The campaigns I run are always set in my homebrewed setting, though years ago I had a Greyhawk campaign that ended when Tharizdun awoke and ate nature.

Shortly after that particularly spectacular tpk my (ex-)players demanded I start a new campaign. So I sketched out an island, decided to make the culture a monolithic monotheistic theocracy and winged it.

The world grew quickly- in a few sessions I had made a map of the surrounding islands, then a few maps of some of those islands...

Now, about a decade later, I have literally thousands of pages of campaign notes, logs, art, maps, and so on. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say I prolly have, oh, about 3K worth of pages of written stuff, plus another couple thousand on the com-pu-tar.

 

[Scotley]

I do prefer to create my own worlds. I have been gaming for 25 years and started working on my first world after my 3rd session. I like to play and create characters, but I love to DM and create worlds. My gaming group is now a bunch of crusty old farts with jobs, families and mortgages. We don't get to play as frequently as we would like, so I get my dnd fix by world building.

I don't have a formal methodology for creating worlds. I prefer to just write down (type up) ideas as they come to me. I keep a word doc of snippets--just a few lines that are enough to help me remember the idea. When I'm planning for a particular game I decide which ideas fit together and which ones to save for the future.

I like worlds that have a logic to them. Most traditional historic settings don't really hold up once you add magic to them. I try to make sure that the presence of magic and Gods are fit into the world. For my most recent world I started with an idea I had for a cosmology and creation myth and then started adding pieces from there. We've played a lot of elves over the years and I decided that it might be fun to make a somewhat stereotypical elven forest nation the villians. I'm still trying to decide if an elf is an elf regardless of color or if the Drow could be potential allies or if they exist at all.

However, at other times I started with a city I liked the flavor of and built out from there. Another game started with some assumptions about magic and gods and built down from that. Once I have some basic assumptions, a hook I suppose, then I look at the role of races and classes in the world. I don't feel obligated to make every race and class, especially prestige classes, available. Doing so tends to force one into using stereotypes. I usually try to throw in a few less traditional options to keep the players from feeling limited. I find that having a timeline and bit of history makes it easier for the characters to have an interesting background and it gives me a chance to make magic items more special once the players learn something about them.

The different nations need to have a different feel and are usually based on more than just climate and dominate race in my worlds. Its important that the different powers in the world--nations, guilds, organizations, epic characters, etc. have some conflict to make a more interest backdrop for the stories the characters create.

As far as the actual documentation of the world I tend go with whatever mood takes me as I'm writing. Some stuff is almost like a textbook or users manual, while other stuff is told by npc's in the world to give it more flavor. I do everything in word and have been working to master campaign cartographer for maps. I was fortunate enough to have a player with a good grasp of CC to do the maps based on the ideas in my head. It is far superior to any hand drawn maps I've done in the past. I used to keep everything in a big binder and everything was handwritten or drawn. I find that word and CC go a long way towards making the presentation of my worlds more appealing. I'm sure my players prefer typed spellchecked notes to the old hand written photocopied stuff I used to do.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. Hopefully, there are some ideas in here that your student can benefit from. Everyone has to find their own style and level of detail.

Scotley

 

[Clifford]

I had the problem of making severeal words so i just splated them all togeather and smotheed out the rough edges it turned out pretty well..
Cliff

 

[Turanil]

When I created the world of my last campaign, I came to the conclusion I didn't need to design a whole planet. I just designed the "Highlands", a region of mountains where all the action took place, and nobody knows what lie beyond the highlands (even if I have a few ideas).

However, even like that, I just hadn't the time to describe it fully, so it's another incomplete work. (For those interested in getting a look: Highlands Campaign Setting

Now, I much like doing my own homebrew worlds, but it's so time consuming, and finally not worth doing it, that next time I will probably use something pre-made, probably Amethyst.

 

[megamania]

I do both. Using standard campaign worlds become too fixed to me after a while however. Usually I develop a world largely based on an existing one but with my changes.

Currently, I am trying to create something from scratch that has promise but needs to be tweaked. Mainly the limitation of Feats and Dieties I want to use. (There are so many out there!)