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

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't think there's any real difference, leastwise not a difference that wasn't already present.

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.

Pretty sure you have the right of it. Newer DMs are often less confident, so a canned adventure or a premade setting to riff off of are ways to take off some of the pressure. Likewise, everyone has reason to buy reasonable-quality adventure paths just to reduce the overhead, feed nostalgia or see what the "old ways" were like, or other things.

With large numbers of new DMs coming in, the knock-on effects of "many new, inexperienced people" are going to be more obvious. I'm sure that, over the next decade, interest in homebrew content will grow. Things like Critical Role, Paizo APs, and Acquisitions Inc. will ensure that some interest in premade content remains, but I think anyone who sits behind the DM screen eventually gets the itch to make things their way.

 

[Reynard]

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.

This is the way it has always been, at least from Keep on the Borderlands onward. The only thing I think has changed significantly has been the avenue into RPGs. It was originally direct personal connects, then adjacent Fandom, but since RPGs became a spectator hobby the numbers have just exploded.

 

[dave2008]

Speaking as an older player who DMs for younger players, there is little interest in the Forgotten Realms, even though they have been playing games set there for years. If an opinion is expressed at all, it is that it is a bit dull. There is lots of interest in anything Critical Role, and marmite interest in settings like Eberron and Ravenloft. And maybe a little curiosity about Greyhawk.

My experience had been similar, with the exception that they didn't care about any other setting either. They just took what I gave them and were not really interested in the wider world or its lore or other settings.

 

[Parmandur]

My experience had been similar, with the exception that they didn't care about any other setting either. They just took what I gave them and were not really interested in the wider world or its lore or other settings.

That's not necessarily a change, as EotC has said for years that homebrew is the most popular choice.

 

[Dr Magister]

I'm a Millennial, albeit at the older end of the scale (38), and I primarily run using homebrew settings. I have run published stuff (Lost Mines of Phandelver, for example), but it's rare. I own Curse of Strahd, and Tyranny of Dragons and Rise of Tiamat, but I've no idea when I'll get round to running them.

 

[el-remmen]

I have long assumed (perhaps erringly) that even when people run APs they plop them in a homebrew or any version of a published setting they like rather than being beholden to where the book says it is. I am running Ghosts of Saltmarsh (kinda) but am not running in Greyhawk, just my own micro-homebrew that I will only develop as needed - but stealing place and people names from the AP without hesitation. (Heck, I have had a "Saltmarsh" in every homebrew I have ever made)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My experience had been similar, with the exception that they didn't care about any other setting either. They just took what I gave them and were not really interested in the wider world or its lore or other settings.

Being interested in the lore of a setting is something I have only ever seen on the internet, never in actual players of the game. Interest in Eberron equates to "cool, flying ships!" and Ravenloft "I love ghost stories".

 

[Mind of tempest]

Being interested in the lore of a setting is something I have only ever seen on the internet, never in actual players of the game. Interest in Eberron equates to "cool, flying ships!" and Ravenloft "I love ghost stories".

people who love a settings lore tend to be rare and are always a fraction of the fandom but they are there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

people who love a settings lore tend to be rare and are always a fraction of the fandom but they are there.

Yeah, it's clearly a sample size thing.