D&D 5E Greyhawk: Pitching the Reboot

[Snarf Zagyg]

I also think a lot of people use published settings like I do, I will use the maps, the locations, npc'd, and lore when I remember them but will change and ignore stull and import locations and stuff from other setting as I feel the need. Official lore and contunity means nothing. It is a starting point for me and I only remember half of it at any time anyway.
it is effectively a derived homebrew.

That's a great point.

I wonder how people answered the survey (as well as what the numbers are now). Look, I know that everyone likes to fight classifications, but there are some fine lines worth discussing. Here are a few!

1. I almost always run Greyhawk. But the Greyhawk I run is effectively a homebrew at this point, given that I have "filled in" and changed a great deal of it over time. So, am I running a Greyhawk setting (I think I am!) or am I running a homebrew that happens to use the GH map and snippets of lore? For that matter, is there a difference or distinction?

2. There are a lot of groups that just don't care about settings. They run APs. And this has always been the case. Back in the day, a lot of tables would just go from module to module. Did that mean that they were in Greyhawk? But what if they went from AD&D modules to the B/X line of modules and back again? Were they transporting between the Known World and Greyhawk? Or is that a completely stupid question ... yeah, it is. They didn't care. Same today. If a table is just running through an AP, do they really care about the setting that much?


With that in mind, I do think that there are a lot of tables that choose to create their own homebrew world. Both because there is a rich history of doing so that gets passed down, and also because people see them youtockers and ticktubers playing in their own homebrew. I mean, I will credit Critical Role et al for that!

 

[Scott Christian]

I love the fact that homebrew remains the normative D&D experience.

I don't mean to be the Debbie-Downer here, but I think Perkins is using the term "homebrew" very loose here. I can't tell you how many times I hear of someone running a homebrew, but everything is really just FR and placed on a map they made. All the history, gods, lore, races, etc. are all the same.

 

[Parmandur]

With that in mind, I do think that there are a lot of tables that choose to create their own homebrew world. Both because there is a rich history of doing so that gets passed down, and also because people see them youtockers and ticktubers playing in their own homebrew. I mean, I will credit Critical Role et al for that!

Yup, I mean, Critical Role's entire Aetting came about from just casually using the Nentir Vale setup from the 4E books and discovering stuff in play. Very old school thst way.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't mean to be the Debbie-Downer here, but I think Perkins is using the term "homebrew" very loose here. I can't tell you how many times I hear of someone running a homebrew, but everything is really just FR and placed on a map they made. All the history, gods, lore, races, etc. are all the same.

How is that less homebrew than anything else...?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don't mean to be the Debbie-Downer here, but I think Perkins is using the term "homebrew" very loose here. I can't tell you how many times I hear of someone running a homebrew, but everything is really just FR and placed on a map they made. All the history, gods, lore, races, etc. are all the same.

I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure we want to police or gatekeep how "homebrew-y" a table is.

Honestly, if they're using their own maps (with their own towns, etc.) that would certainly qualify in my mind!

Is it more impressive if someone creates a setting with completely different species, a wild history, a new map, and a completely bespoke pantheon? Sure! I'd subscribe to that newsletter, and join the campaign.

But you know what they say- Good homebrewers borrow, great homebrewers steal.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure we want to police or gatekeep how "homebrew-y" a table is.

Honestly, if they're using their own maps (with their own towns, etc.) that would certainly qualify in my mind!

Sure, is it more impressive if someone creates a setting with completely different species, a wild history, a new map, and a completely bespoke pantheon? Sure! I'd subscribe to that newsletter, and join the campaign.

But you know what they say- Good homebrewers borrow, great homebrewers steal.

I mean, I don't see how someone filing off the serial numbers from Waterdeep is all that different than Gygax or Greenwood filing off the serial numbers from Lankhmar.

 

[Yaarel]

I don't mean to be the Debbie-Downer here, but I think Perkins is using the term "homebrew" very loose here. I can't tell you how many times I hear of someone running a homebrew, but everything is really just FR and placed on a map they made. All the history, gods, lore, races, etc. are all the same.

I vaguely remember a survey from the first playtest for 2014 saying that the vast majority of DMs use homebrew settings.

Happily, it looks like homebrew is still the way to do it, despite the shift in demographics during 5e.

Heh. In my experience, the homebrews tend to invent "new gods" that are the same gods but with a mustache. But even this seems to be evolving for the better, with nontheistic possibilities and even actual animistic traditions (without "worship") are gaining traction.

In my campaigns, in order to represent monotheistic sacred traditions, I have them interpret the Positive Energy Plane as a kind of "immanent" aspect of the transcendent Divine. So existence, life, wellbeing, healing, etcetera tend to be core values. In other words, the Astral Plane isnt where to find a monotheistic Divinity, but one might find "saints and angels" there.

 

[Scott Christian]

How is that less homebrew than anything else...?

Using your own map and that's it. How is that less of a homebrew than say, taking the themes, nostalgias, and concepts of Big Trouble in Little China and bending, stretching, altering, and designing to match the movie? I am not sure if you are serious or not, but if you are, there are certainly levels to homebrew.

I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure we want to police or gatekeep how "homebrew-y" a table is.

I don't want to police it, and I'm not here to turn anyone's fun into a finger-wagging session. But, like you have done many times in the past, I think a definition of homebrew would be helpful if we are trying to determine the number of DMs that actually homebrew. That was the topic, the large amount of tables that homebrew. It seems relevant to have a definition.

Honestly, if they're using their own maps (with their own towns, etc.) that would certainly qualify in my mind!

Is it more impressive if someone creates a setting with completely different species, a wild history, a new map, and a completely bespoke pantheon? Sure! I'd subscribe to that newsletter, and join the campaign.

But you know what they say- Good homebrewers borrow, great homebrewers steal.

Yeah, a map could qualify for some. And borrowing and stealing has always been a thing. But like all things D&D, there are layers. I mean, is the hexblade warlock and warforged cleric min/maxing or just building optimally? There have been 200-page threads about it.
I was simply trying to narrow it down. Because if we are going to claim that anyone that makes their own map is homebrewing, then what about a DM that makes their own NPC? How about they make one original monster that's not in the MM - are they a homebrew table? How about the player that brings their own deity for their cleric, yet the DM is only using WotC products, yet to be flexible, they allow the player to port the god into the FR setting - are they a homebrew table?
All I am saying is there are layers, and like most things, those layers often produce a different definition. I mean, a baked good could be bread until we flatten it and decrease the fat and call it pita. And its pita until we fluff and ball it up and steam it, then it's called bao.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

All I am saying is there are layers, and like most things, those layers often produce a different definition. I mean, a baked good could be bread until we flatten it and decrease the fat and call it pita. And its pita until we fluff and ball it up and steam it, then it's called bao.

I get that. There are always layers.

Some people on this forum think my comments about Bards are a shtick. They look at my anti-Bard rhetoric, and they think it's just some kind of obfuscation. That I am layered.

That underneath this hatred of Bards lies something totally different than what's on the surface. That I am concealing a jovial tolerance of Bards underneath this harsh exterior that demands the ends of their existence.

Well, they need to realize that there's a third, even deeper level, and that is the same as the one on the top. Like with pie.

My hatred contains multitudes. I am legion. Think of Snarf as the display case at your local diner. Full of pie. Legions of pie. Snarf contain hordes of Bard-hating pie.

 

[Parmandur]

Using your own map and that's it. How is that less of a homebrew than say, taking the themes, nostalgias, and concepts of Big Trouble in Little China and bending, stretching, altering, and designing to match the movie? I am not sure if you are serious or not, but if you are, there are certainly levels to homebrew.

I don't want to police it, and I'm not here to turn anyone's fun into a finger-wagging session. But, like you have done many times in the past, I think a definition of homebrew would be helpful if we are trying to determine the number of DMs that actually homebrew. That was the topic, the large amount of tables that homebrew. It seems relevant to have a definition.

Yeah, a map could qualify for some. And borrowing and stealing has always been a thing. But like all things D&D, there are layers. I mean, is the hexblade warlock and warforged cleric min/maxing or just building optimally? There have been 200-page threads about it.
I was simply trying to narrow it down. Because if we are going to claim that anyone that makes their own map is homebrewing, then what about a DM that makes their own NPC? How about they make one original monster that's not in the MM - are they a homebrew table? How about the player that brings their own deity for their cleric, yet the DM is only using WotC products, yet to be flexible, they allow the player to port the god into the FR setting - are they a homebrew table?
All I am saying is there are layers, and like most things, those layers often produce a different definition. I mean, a baked good could be bread until we flatten it and decrease the fat and call it pita. And its pita until we fluff and ball it up and steam it, then it's called bao.

Quite serious: a DM who draws a map with Waterdeep, Saltmarsh, Sharn, and Baraovia on it, and runs Tyranny of Dragons with options from Ravnica and Eberron is homebrewing.

In fact, one of Perkins points in that partial talk was that those more...casual?...hoebrewers are the more frequent customers for WotC products. Hatdcore bespoke homebrewers don't buy as many books, they make stuff.