Homebrew: How-to?

[Tinker Gnome]

Well, I have some ideas in my head for a homebrew setting that I want to make, but I am unsure how to begin putting them down. Do I start with a map first? Or do I open up Word and begin typing down my ideas for how the different races cultures and how they interact with each other first?

 

[Crothian]

What ever is more comfortible for you. There are many ways to start a homebrew. I personally start writing and brainstorming the races, cultures and things and then place them on a map once that is done.

 

[jdrakeh]

Download the excellent Rich Staats' Guide to World Creation. Any questions that you have, Rich answers. Also, explore the rest of his site.

 

[Odhanan]

Crothian's got it right: you begin with whatever feels right to you. That's a bit like singing: you've got to find your voice, and after a while, you'll have your own.

As a matter of example, I can speak of the way I do it. Usually, it starts with an idea. Like... Atlantis just before its fall, for instance. I have a start of background in my head.

Then I start to draw a map. And I try to imagine the regions as I draw mountains, hills, forests, rivers, cities. It sort of comes together for me that way. Then I get a grasp of the kind of climate there is, what kind of ethnicities may live here or there. I adjust the geography and topography according to where I want to go (from my initial idea), or I modify my goals with whatever comes up from the pencil that seems better than what I originally had in mind.

Then I return to the background, and start to flesh it out with a Chronology on my note book. I will modify this Chronology fairly often, until the past reflects the Present, vice versa, and both Present and Past inspire me to create adventures for the PCs.

I usually turn then to the crunch. The races available, what kind of character classes would fit, what kind of PrCs I could come up with. I go down to the details, until I reach the point of houseruling on this or that point of the rules I'd like to use to fit the setting.

I then go back to the background and modify it again. This time, I fit in whatever races and ethnicities I'd like to have to represent a good pannel of choices for the PCs. I start describing them in a D&D format with background, rules information and so on. I insert events here and there, modify others by domino effects.

And I go on like this, switching between rules and background so that each answer and reflect each other. It may take years for me to get where I want to be with the setting, but it's one of the best creative activities I know, if not the best, because it blends so many different types of logic and arts.

I hope it helps you out Galeros. And remember: any long term endeavor is a war between despair and hope. Things take time to grow. You've got to arm yourself with patience and work at it consistently to be truly satisfied, I think.

 

[Nyaricus]

Hey man, let me tell you that creating your own homebrew can be SO rewarding - i have been doing it for 6 years now, and i have been playing D&D for 7 yrs. since i was 11. Crothian is right when he says do what feel right for your campaign. Start where you wish. If you want to choose races, classes, cultures and such, then do it that way, by all means!

For myself, it has always been about the maps - I was intrigued by Tolkiens maps in his books, and so i have always been creating exactly how i want my world to look, etc. Crunch time came last summer (of 04) and i really started to look at what races and classes i wanted in my campaign. from there, it has been a melting pot of ideas and such and i am haing great amounts of fun with it all

A few things to keep in mind:

Theme - what do you want your world to be? A few examples are D&D campaign setting, which actually pretty much cover the width and breathed of themes

Stone Age
Classical Greece and Rome [Bronze/Iron Age]
Ancient Orient [China, etc] [Oriental Adventures]
Ancient India
Dark Ages
Middle Eastern Al-Qadim, Dark Sun (well, sorta)
Medieval [Birthright]
Renaissance [and or the Reformation] [Forgotten Realms
"New World" [The Americas]
Feudal Japan [Oriental Adventures]
Industral Evolution
Modern Day [d20 modern]
Sci-Fi/Future [d20 Future/Star Wars d20]
Post Apocalyptic [d20 Apocalypse]

Also, you need
Bestiary - a bunch of monsters you want in your world
Classes and PrC's - what sort of "jobs" can your player have their charatcers take
Races, cultures and ethnicities - what races are featured in your campaign

And here are a few websites to get you started

The Mythopoets Manual - Religion and Campaign Creation
all about myths in a campaign and how they affect everything IYC
http://www.metamythos.net/world_building/mythopoet/religion.asp

Encyclopedia Mythica
a great web reasource for mythology, folklore and religion - great for races and monster ideas
http://www.pantheon.org/

Wikipedia
just a great, general reasource - you can look up anything in it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

anywasy man, hope those things can help you - see you around the boards ;D

 

[arscott]

a good peice of advice I've heard for creating homebrew settings for personal use (as opposed to settings you plan to publish) is to start small and work your way out. That is, start by thinking about the villiage and get bigger, not by thinking about the continent and getting smaller. Of course, if you're planning a campaign where characters don't ever really remain in one spot, that advice is less useful.

Rich Burlew (The Order of the Stick guy) has a series of articles regarding world development on his website at www.giantitp.com. They're well though out, and can help to inspire something that's a bit more unique than just another Forgotten Realms Knockoff.

 

[Tonguez]

Personally I leave the drawn map until the very end (although I have a conceptual one in my head)

the most important thing for me is to set the theme of the setting - the timeperiod, cultures, major realities of the setting and then I sit and write a few descriptions and legends and create a worldview, religion and thus the world.

Start with the overview statement
eg I want a late neolithic culture descended from nomadic hunters but who are now agrarian. The wolf (and the dog) are venerate in this culture. Druids, Rangers and Barbarians are the dominante classes and the culture is a druidic theocracy.

Okay the druids live on the seacoast in a cool temperate enviornment. To the north are some rugged mountains (with foothills well forested) beyond which lies a huge grassland

and then go through and look at the implications of this overview
1. Druidic culture - Lots of plants, landscaping and terraforming going on
2. Venerate wolves - Awakened wolf guards, good Werewolfs, Gnolls, Wolf god(dess) - the Den Mother
3. Neolithic - no metals. But this is mitigated by Druidic magic and Ironwood trees

etc etc

 

[el-remmen]

a good peice of advice I've heard for creating homebrew settings for personal use (as opposed to settings you plan to publish) is to start small and work your way out. That is, start by thinking about the villiage and get bigger, not by thinking about the continent and getting smaller. Of course, if you're planning a campaign where characters don't ever really remain in one spot, that advice is less useful.

Just as an opposite point of view - I have always preferred starting at the macro level and then focusing in on small areas to detail and then zooming back out to make whatever changes/additions that inspired and then zooming back into another small area.

That is I make a big map, maybe mark some villages, towns, cities, landmarks, etc. . . decide some of the over-arching cultural/societal/environmental conditions that bind the larger area together and then "zoom in" on the village of X and detail it and the basic surrounding area and maybe while I did that I came up with the idea of the "gravemaster" (this is just an example) - a cultural role regarding a person who guards the stone cairns people are buried under and oversees worship and prayer in this "stone gardens" and decided this is a cultural aspect true to all the surrounding villages - so I zoom back out - make a note of this for when I am detailing other places and then zoom in to the next village or city. . .

maybe that gives me an idea for a city guarded by these cairns that take the place of walls, creating a maze of great graves that help make entering the city more difficult - so I make a note of that to develop later, etc. . .

But still I have more macro stuff to deal with - how does the neighboring country see this kind of thing? The interplay of culturals and tension and reaction between then can help develop cultural and societal attitudes that can have a large effect on how you develop places.

My point is, working from the bottom up only is as bad as working from top down only - you can lose the sense of interdependence and the sense of flowing tapestry of setting - and end up with "the asian-like place", "the stone age-like place", etc. . .

 

[luke_twigger]

Well, I have some ideas in my head for a homebrew setting that I want to make, but I am unsure how to begin putting them down. Do I start with a map first? Or do I open up Word and begin typing down my ideas for how the different races cultures and how they interact with each other first?

Start by downloading and reading this series of Dungeoncraft articles by Ray Winniger, originally published in Dragon magazine.
http://dnd.castellan.net/random_adventure/dungeoncraft.zip

 

[Greylock]

Wow!

Damned good stuff here, ya'll. This will be my second evah thread subscription.