Homebrew to Published?

[Turjan]

As funny as it may sound, but I don't have anyone in my group who knows a lot about the FR. Two of the players actually don't know anything, and the other two don't have any knowledge surpassing the "Baldur's Gate" CRPG series. This means, I can even treat the Realms the way I like without anyone interfering with my course . No problem at all here .

 

[barsoomcore]

Tell us... what would motivate you to do such a thing!?

The hotness of the chicks in Iron Kingdoms illustrations.

 

[Demogorgon]

Demogorogon likes chicks with eye-patches and guns!

 

[Demogorgon]

Or, Abyss, just guns, IYKWIMAITYD!

 

[Demogorgon]

Or Knives & Tattoos!

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Did you mention "guns" ?

 

[Desdichado]

And check out this hottie!

Err... waitaminute...

 

[Gundark]

And check out this hottie!

Err... waitaminute...

That was good.

Anyhow I was a staunch homebrewer, however it got to the point that I just didn't have time to "write" for my homebrew. So I had to turn to published settings. It was nice to turn to page x in setting book y and find out information. I would suggest starting small, and working out from there. The Iron Kingdoms world book is going to weigh in around 400 pages, and the actual territory it covers is small (compared to say FR) so there should be lots covered. And since it's new there isn't a lot of history and you can all learn together.

I don't know why there is this sense of "it's published so I can't mess with it" I feel the same thing at times with the FR and Iron Kingdoms games I run (well I haven't actually started the IK game as I was waiting for the fluff book).

 

[der_kluge]

Just wanted to touch on one of your original points - I don't think *most* people do run a published setting. According to polls I've seen on here, I think most people utilize a homebrew of some sort. In fact, I would tend to think that the number of people who run a published setting as is is probably very low, percentage-wise.

 

[SWBaxter]

I know most people who play D&D do so in a published setting. Are there any homebrewers around though, who picked up a setting and ran a campaign in it? What was your experience like? Was it fun or painful or did you end up homebrewing the whole thing anyways?

In all honesty, I've never much worried about how a setting is supposed to be run according to the author/publisher/whatever. I buy the stuff I like, and anything I haven't bought does not exist for the purposes of my campaign. For example, I have in the past run games in the Forgotten Realms, but my FR collection is pretty much restricted to the first box set published way back in the mythical 1E days; I neither know nor care about most of what's been detailed since then. So I guess you can put me in the "homebrew anyway" camp - I use a published setting as a resource that I may or may not use, not a roadmap that must be followed.

The important thing, I think, is to get a sense of how your group feels about the matter. RPGs are collaborative endeavours, after all. If folks in a given group are real sticklers for TSR's and later WOTC's official FR metaplot, then I simply wouldn't run FR for that group, since it'd clearly lead to problems - either I'd run something else, or one of them would run FR the way they like it. No sense wondering how your players would feel about deviation from the "official" setting material when you can and should just ask them how they feel.