D&D 5E Has the culture of campaigns change, re: homebrew vs. pre-published?

[Urriak Uruk]

strange you have a very different experience to mine as I am gen Z and only end up in homebrew games, you live in America as I'm in the UK and wondering if that is the difference?

Not only do I live in America... I live in Seattle, just a 30 minute drive from WotC's office!

I will add, most people I know are really new to D&D and only have experience in 5E. That doesn't mean they're bad at the game (I know a couple of players that actively tried to build kind-of broken characters) but they mostly are happy with 5E and don't want to try other editions or other game systems. It strikes a very happy medium of easy to quickly learn and play, but has more complexity if you want to try different combinations and rules in newer books.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Not only do I live in America... I live in Seattle, just a 30 minute drive from WotC's office!

I will add, most people I know are really new to D&D and only have experience in 5E. That doesn't mean they're bad at the game (I know a couple of players that actively tried to build kind-of broken characters) but they mostly are happy with 5E and don't want to try other editions or other game systems. It strikes a very happy medium of easy to quickly learn and play, but has more complexity if you want to try different combinations and rules in newer books.

I'm also gen z but the basic culture is not too different but people only make homebrew worlds and there is no longer even one group in my town.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I'm also gen z but the basic culture is not too different but people only make homebrew worlds and there is no longer even one group in my town.

This is pretty interesting, I haven't had that experience. I've only had one time where I played in a homebrew world, but that was a one-shot. I've also run several one-shots of my one set in homebrew worlds, but I purposefully built them to support the concept of the one-shot (I had a very 1920s version of City of Greyhawk, where gnolls were essentially the mafia who owned casinos. Casino heist ensues!)

 

[Mind of tempest]

This is pretty interesting, I haven't had that experience. I've only had one time where I played in a homebrew world, but that was a one-shot. I've also run several one-shots of my one set in homebrew worlds, but I purposefully built them to support the concept of the one-shot (I had a very 1920s version of City of Greyhawk, where gnolls were essentially the mafia who owned casinos. Casino heist ensues!)

mine were all sort of making it up as you go along stuff for the first two, the third was some guys super dense setting.

I have yet to find a setting that I just gel with or a race for that matter.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

mine were all sort of making it up as you go along stuff for the first two, the third was some guys super dense setting.

I have yet to find a setting that I just gel with or a race for that matter.

Actually, I almost joined a campaign where this guy had his own very dense D&D world, that was meant to be a "escape this dreamscape afterlife" kind of thing. But his dream was to write novels set in that world, so it was super crazy detailed.

 

[Mercurius]

Wait, there are people not only under 40 (which is jarring enough), but under 30 on this forum? No way!

Joking aside, I'm curious, @Urriak Uruk and @Mind of tempest : did you both start playing with 5E? (And by Gen Z, I assume you mean born in the 21st century? I've heard variable cut-offs, from 1996 to 2005, but I generally just prefer the clean two-decades per gen approach).

 

[Mind of tempest]

Wait, there are people not only under 40 (which is jarring enough), but under 30 on this forum? No way!

Joking aside, I'm curious, @Urriak Uruk and @Mind of tempest : did you both start playing with 5E? (And by Gen Z, I assume you mean born in the 21st century? I've heard variable cut-offs, from 1996 to 2005, but I generally just prefer the clean two-decades per gen approach).

about 18ish as I am 22 now

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Wait, there are people not only under 40 (which is jarring enough), but under 30 on this forum? No way!

Joking aside, I'm curious, @Urriak Uruk and @Mind of tempest : did you both start playing with 5E? (And by Gen Z, I assume you mean born in the 21st century? I've heard variable cut-offs, from 1996 to 2005, but I generally just prefer the clean two-decades per gen approach).

I'm 25. I suppose it's debatable whether I'm Millennial or Gen Z (people argue whether it starts in 1996 or 2000) but I feel like I have more in common with Z than M.

I started with 5E. I can't remember why I picked it up, I think it was a YouTuber I watch movie reviews on who recommended it.

 

[Argyle King]

Anecdotally, most newer D&D folks I know prefer to have some basic framework to get started (such as a starter adventure or a basic town with a few established facts about the game world) to get the ball rolling but then start to deviate into their own stuff once they become more comfortable with the system.

 

[Steampunkette]

Yeah, by and large people start out with book based campaigns and adventures, then move on to creating more specialized settings that are more tailored to the stories they want to tell.

But even us old hats at the game sometimes love to pull out a pre-written adventure to save ourselves time and get right into the fun with our friends.