Do you use the DnD "lore" or do you make it your own?

[Black Knight Irios]

We usually play in the Forgotten Realms and don't restrict racial choices. We run the "lore" as written most of the time - sometimes you need to change something for your story, so we do that.

Everyone is accustomed to the FR and it is good that we don't change settings fluently so that everyone feels kinda at home settingwise, even if they have to figure out how their new char works.

 

[Jhaelen]

So both it is, huh? Like I said...I world build from the ground up. Absolutely everything. I've spent a sickening amount of time on the lore in my campaign as evidenced by some of the posts on the blog I linked above. There's 10 times that much typed and printed that I haven't put up on the blog yet.

Definitely both, for me.

One of the reasons is lack of time. I really couldn't spend the time required to build everything from the ground up.

The second and more important reason is, that I don't feel it's necessary or even desirable. As Katana_Geldar mentioned, if you're changing everything, you also have to explain everything. Excessive worldbuilding works well if you want to create the background for a novel, for a game it's a bit too much.

I feel it's better if the majority of a campaign setting is recognizable but some aspects are changed (sometimes radically). It means that most of the players' basic assumptions work, but some don't. Imho, it's more effective and suprising that way.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Both. Saves me the time of having to come up with myriad explanations for crap. I very much use the "start small and fill out as you need it" world-building philosophy. I'm happy to let someone else do the work on something I haven't had to address yet.

Example: Most of my world is established, I've managed to fit in most races and all classes, I have my own pantheon, but I don't *care* about how the divine realm works - WotC's Astral Plane works just fine, so when and if the PCs need to traverse the divine realm, it'll just be the Astral Plane, with my deities inhabiting it, in planes appropriate to their Domains.

(In fact, I have plans to incorporate Demons for the first time into my game next session. Guess where they live and come from? The Abyss. It works well enough for me. I don't NEED to reskin it.)

 

[MrMyth]

My current game is pretty much by the book, with some other elements added in. I've made excellent use of Manual of the Planes and the various location books for the party's planar traveling. They are currently invading the Abyss and getting to face off with various 4E demon lords.

At the same time, the ultimate Big Bad is Ymir, conceptually taken straight out of Norse myth - in this case, among the first of the primordials, slain by Odin and the world formed from his essence. (Whether this is literal, or simply a metaphor for the primordials providing the power that formed with the world and the gods providing the will to shape it, I've left unclear. Both are true, essentially, and neither.)

So - not a standard Primordial, but one that fits in smoothly alongside the core concepts of the setting. And thus I've been able to use both existing myths alongside 4E concepts and get the best of both worlds.

I've got another setting, on the other hand, in which I use most of the 4E concepts, but with completely different background for pretty much everything in the setting.

It all depends on what suits the game being run, in the end.

 

[Iconik]

See, when the world is built for you there's a lot of things you don't have to explain. Say when you play Star Wars, I have to do a lot less exposition as everyone at the table is a fan or can just ask someone else about it.

Agreed but if you play a Forgotten Realm game and you know the lore and no one else does (because it's so vast and old) there's nothing vested in it. You know all the great lore but the party doesn't.

This is why I take on a group world building policy. Everyone in my group has an equal say in the lore. They can come up with stories or pieces of lore/flavor and present it to me. If it's good we'll put it into the canon.

For instance...there is a race called the Nineviil (which are basically elves). I needed help writing the history. One of the group members that plays a Nineviil started writing some lore along with me. 2 weeks later and we have pages of history.

This makes the group more invested in the world. They have a hand in what has happened in the past. They have helped me shape the world and make it more believable.

Try it sometime. It's highly rewarding.

 

[DragonLancer]

I like the standard D&D lore so I stick with it. For me it is part and parcel of what makes D&D what it is.

 

[Garthanos]

I have my own world but every new character a player makes is an opportunity to add to that world and enrich it... so your character can come from a culture/race you just brought to the table.

 

[Iconik]

Exactly Garthanos. Good example of this is I brought a new guy to the party and he made a Deva. Deva really weren't introduced in the canon of my world as yet. So, I made something up. They are called Aluinde and were made by the Elder God Lomell before man first stepped foot on Mineth.

 

[Barastrondo]

I am a pathological homebrewer.

Pathological.

 

[Greg K]

I tend to homebrew. Therefore, I use what I like and make up the rest. However, I tend to keep the names of races, classes, equipment and most monsters.

If I run a published campaign setting, I'll use much more of that lore (just not, necessasrily, the current edition for things like Forgotten Realms).