homebrew history

[Ampolitor]

Im putting my campaign book together for a homebrew, but i need an opinion. Im doing sourcebook for each country like Birthright did and in the history section should I do the detailed history which could be quite long or should i just do like a quick timeline. Does anyone ever read the history? Like scarred lands i believe had a detailed history section, is that too much or just right?

 

[Khairn]

I personaly read, re-read and then take notes on the history of settings I GM or play in.

When I wrote the detailed histories of my homebrews I started with the overall history first, developing the themes and major events that I wanted to use as hooks for adventures and any mega-plot I was working on. Only after the overview was completed did I focus on the area's where the players would most likely begin their journeys. Sometimes the players screwed up my plans and ended up starting elsewhere, but by having a core area done, I was able to use it as a reference when I worked on the other area's.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Why don't you do both - a quick timeline and a more detailed section? The quick timeline can then serve as a 'mental hook' allowing the reader to more rapidly grasp the long section.

 

[Ampolitor]

thanks

thanks for the input guys, I ve been writing the game history for a long time and it encompasses 3 ages, I might do a quick timeline with the major aspects detailed and save the specific items for the campaign guides for each kingdom.

 

[Ron]

Usually, my players don't care much about the details. They want just a short description of what their characters know, which is usually limited to their country and a little bit of the recent history. Nevertherless, you have to prepare a little more to be consistent, but I don't take the trouble of detailing to much anything.

 

[fusangite]

Im putting my campaign book together for a homebrew, but i need an opinion. Im doing sourcebook for each country like Birthright did and in the history section should I do the detailed history which could be quite long or should i just do like a quick timeline. Does anyone ever read the history? Like scarred lands i believe had a detailed history section, is that too much or just right?

I guess it depends on how "modern" you want your campaign world to be. In my opinion, the history that is presented to players is often uninteresting or not compelling because it is presented as a complete, coherent, inert whole.

I love writing histories for my worlds and so I've evolved a presentation strategy that keeps me entertained and my players interested. I would therefore recommend this:
1. Present a brief and highly generalized history in writing to everyone, the kind of general knowledge of history that one would expect an uneducated peasant to have. (Imagine the level of historical knowledge of a modern American 10 year old.)
2. Present some primary documents from the past or about the past -- documents where someone with an axe to grind is making a case about a time in history based on their political views and ideas about the world. For example, a member of a particular religious cult might be writing a polemic about how a particular battle went and blaming another cult's members for it going badly.
3. Continue having the characters run across more documents from both past and present that have an axe to grind about some historical event and are written in an antique style. Another example: a piece of crappy poetry about the new prince regent that everyone actually hates.
4. Make sure that these documents are (a) entertaining on their own (b) inconsistent with one another.

In my view, this is a great way to do history. It gives you a wider variety of things to write. It takes less time at the start of the campaign and it keeps the players interested in the history because they aren't just passively receiving it, they are figuring it out. And that's what keeps players' interests -- anything in which they are a participant rather than a spectator.