Homebrew settings and player appeal

[The Lemon Merchant]

As a GM I love Homebrews because it gives me absolute creative control, though in my case I share that creative control with TerraDave (his comments are already posted above).

While the homebrew I use has many of the familiarity benefits traditional settings have, due to the fact that it has its basis in our own Earth, I tend to prefer using "official" published settings when approaching a new group.

Published settings are universal, particularly if you are using the core Greyhawk setting, allowing players to easily enter play without learning any unique homebrew house rules.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm having trouble grasping the thinking behind the question. Is a pre-published world better for a player because he can read a ton of stuff that his character would probably never know and use that knowledge for some advantage? If you need basic information on what the local political structure is so you know how your Knight would fit in, a decent homebrew should have that as well as a published world. What is the difference if your character is a small town guy who has a sword and is going to go explore a set of ruins that is supposed to be haunted, if that small town and piece of countryside is in Greyhawk or if it is in a DM's homebrew world? How does that effect the quality of the DM'ing, the challange of the specific adventure you are one, or other matters that directly impact how the game is played? Cletus the level one fighter who just got rid of his plow for a sword probably isn't going to know about the NPC's of the setting, the history of the kingdoms on the other side of the globe, or that kind of stuff anyway. So how is being in a decent homebrew a problem?

Do you only enjoy published adventures and feel the same way about the DM writing his own?

 

[gizmo33]

With a published setting the DM can add or remove most anything that they don't like (I removed the uber NPCs from FR, NBD) because there is such a wealth of material to use.

Published material is guarranteed to contain no mysteries, because once it's published it's not a mystery (and if your players aren't reading the published information then they can't very well be building a background on it.) So really the core engine of the campaign still has to be developed by the DM. Campaign settings (as opposed to adventure modules) contain some of the most superficial and irrelevant information in DnD anyway.

Secondly, if you're adding and removing things from the published scenario then how does that help the amateur novelist and his 18-page character background? What if you removed an element (like Elminster) that was cruicial to his character? Now it's about the DM having to communicate his particular vision of FR to the player, which has the same problem as the homebrew. I have to ask you, as the DM, what parts of FR you're using and what you're not using.

And it's worse if the campaign has any sort of longevity. A real campaign world is going to have organizations change, mysteries are revealed that changes the truth behind published information etc. Maybe Thay gets taken over and turned Lawful Good. That pretty much renders irrelevant any future modules, novels, or setting expansions that use Thay in it's original form.

Granted, those changes are pretty monumental, and are rare. But subtle changes might not be. Whether because of differences in interpretation, or development in a game, the way a particular organization or NPC behaves in a DMs vision of FR, versus the way they acted in the latest FR novel that a player built his background on, could be different enough. Basically, IMO a player hardly knows anything about a FR campaign that's more than 2 years old. His character background is unlikely to be compatible with the threads of interest that the DM has established for the game.

I'd bet a lot of DMs aren't running a game anywhere near Waterdeep, so of how much use is my encyclopedic knowledge going to be as a player? What if the Knights of Silverymoon aren't as "silvery" (or whatever) in that campaign world as they are in the novels? As a DM I might actually have to do more work to break the player of his preconceived ideas than I would to educate them on a homebrew order of knights.

It also introduces the problem that I might not be listening as carefully to what the DM is saying because I already think I know the setting. I might have read enough FR novels to know that Elminster is not the advanced agent of a demonic invasion on the prime, so I'd be likely to miss the clues. And any player predisposed to see "ego" involved in a DMs decision to run a homebrew is unlikely to look kindly upon me turning Elminster into a demon. I'd probably have to deal with comments about "ego" in that case as well.

 

[werk]

Is a pre-published world better for a player because he can read a ton of stuff that his character would probably never know and use that knowledge for some advantage? ... Do you only enjoy published adventures and feel the same way about the DM writing his own?

It's not so much using the information for an advantage... OK, here's an anlalogy. Would you rather go into a restraunt that has a menu listing items that you can order, that is a little flexible (dressing on the side) or would you rather go into a restraunt with no menus that say "what would you like?"

While one allows for a lot more freedom, you really don't know if what you order is the specialty of the house or just something that they slap together to fit your request rather than suggesting something that is done well there. Some people would go into the menu-less place and, being overwhelmed by possibility, order chicken nuggets, because they know what to expect.


As a DM that uses soley published settings and self-made adventures, I prefer adventures that the DM has written themselves. But I also know, from years of experience, that self-made adventures do not always play as intended because of some little unrealized detail.

There are definitely pros and cons to both approaches, which is the reason for this thread...to hear some of them. Obviously I have some preconceived beliefs about homebrews based on previous experiences, and it's nice to challenge those with shared experiences from my respected peers.

 

[Mycanid]

I have only adventured in one technically full blown "home brew" campaign setting, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, although that was YEARS ago.

There is something nice to the player in not really knowing everything that is going on setting wise. It builds suspense, information and history discovered is more interesting, etc., etc. Not for all people of course, but this was my experience with it.

 

[Shadowsmith]

I have run games set in Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, the Known World (Mystara), Eberron, and several other published settings over the past 30 some years. Games set in published settings can be great fun to run. But player knowledge of the setting usually far exceeds character knowledge of the setting.

My current campaign is focused on exploration of the world. For this I am running a homebrew world. The PCs started in a small isolated region (Three Rivers) that was been cut off from the rest of the world by geography and magic for about two hundred years. All that is known of the greater world are legends of the Empire that used to control Three Rivers.

Right now the PCs are about to find a way out of Three Rivers into the greater world. The PCs and the players have no idea what they are going to find out there.

So, why are they enjoying the game? It is new, they have a sense of discovery that matches what their characters are feeling. And a game run by an interested and involved GM is much better than one run by an unhappy GM.

 

[GuardianLurker]

From the opposite end...

I'm a homebrew DM. Other have covered all the responses I could give on that point as well, or better, than I. I also play.

I *prefer* to play in homebrews. Because, contrary to your original post, I've found that it's the GMs who rely on published settings who are lazy. After all, from the GM perspective, that's what using a prepublished setting does - it *spares* you effort. I've found time and again that "published setting" GMs are less invested in the setting, and thus in the game. Which detracts from *my* enjoyment.

I also enjoy seeing other people's homebrews. I learn and get inspired by them. Plus, it tells me a lot about the kind of campaign the GM runs, and what I can expect.

I've also run into another problem - I'm very much a run and find out player, and I'll read up on as much background info as I can (that relates to my character). This has caused problems. Example: I played in an FR campaign based in the Silvery Marches. On pure random chance, I had my character be from Silverymoon. Then when "Silver Marches" came out, I bought the book and read up on Silverymoon. Just as I had read up on FR in general. This caused my GM problems, because (unbeknownst to me) he considered some of the info (rightly or wrongly) as priviliged info. Which I now knew, because I hadn't known it was out-of-bounds beforehand. When I found out, I of course promptly put the info in the "Meta-game OOC Do Not Touch" folder. But it still caused a problem. And I've run into that response more than once.

This doesn't mean that I buy and read the adventures, but I do consider setting supplements to be fair game. Basically, I get miffed if my GM gets miffed that I did my research.

And, of course, if I'm forbidden from getting those supplements, I might as well be playing a homebrew setting anyway.

The upshot is that I've had many more poor RPG experiences in campaigns using published settings than I have otherwise.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

As a DM, I prefer published settings because it saves me time to spend on adventure creation.

As a player, I prefer published settings because they are -- in my experience -- more consistent, more readily available, and have more information ready to provide players. I'll bet there are some great homebrew worlds out there, but the one's I've experienced thus far have varied from bad to frightening. Not that all published settings are anything to write home about, either -- some of them are equally bad. But I'm generally more comfortable with having my expectations met by playing in Greyhawk or similar settings. I know what to expect from Greyhawk, so long as the DM hasn't significantly modified it, and it suits the sort of fantasy D&D gaming I like.

It's all about the DM here, though -- I'll bet there are some great DMs with great settings out there.

 

[Valesin]

That's all good, but my question was, why would a player want to play in a homebrew? I understand all the benefits to the DM.

The benefit to the players is that I am better at constructing a world that we will all enjoy playing in than WotC (or any other publisher) is. Most companies design worlds in order to sell books...period. My campaigns are generated in order to entertain and challenge...period. My PrCs, gods, politics, etc. are all developed by me and influenced by the personalities/gaming styles I have come to know over the last 10 years.

Plus, many of us feel that playing something truly unique has value.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I know that when my fiancee read the first entry in my Wasteland setting posts on my LiveJournal, she was fascinated by it and urged me to write more.

Then again, she was also fascinated by Eberron when I introduced her to the setting.

I think that any given person is as likely to find a homebrew setting appealing as a published setting - how many times have you heard about a game you wouldn't want to play in because it's set in the Forgotten Realms, or Dragonlance, or some other setting you don't like? How is that really different from not liking a DM's own personal setting?

I would say the advantage for players is that, in what I would consider the ideal situation, they contribute a great deal to the setting: either through direct collaboration on the world as peers of the DM, or by letting the DM know what they want out of the world so that she can make sure it's in there.