Homebrew vs. Premade Campaign Worlds

[SHARK]

*BUMP*

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Old school Dark Sun was pretty special though. It had a certain feel to it as well. But they screwed that up as well, and it's all ashes, blown to the wind now.

I think the starfish-bioweapon-wielding halflings kinda ruined it for me. (That and the fact that no one should have been able to kill the Dragon or any of the sorcerer-kings.)

Bleh.

 

[Schmoe]

I agree very strongly with rounser's approach. I use a homebrew setting simply because I focus on the story and the campaign and I don't want to try to shoe-horn my story into a pre-made world. It is so much easier to be able to create the necessary setting elements as I go, and I think that it ends up creating a more engaging game experience. Obviously, I draw inspiration from many sources, and if I see something somewhere that matches well with my needs, I'll happily transport it into my campaign world. In the end, I guess I prefer to put the work in on creating the setting elements I need to work with an existing story rather than creating the story elements I need to work with an existing setting.

 

[Bonedagger]

Oh... I got one. I got one.

Ever tried having a published NPC try and bluff the PCs into believing he had motives not agreeing with his alignment...... One of my first sessions and where I learned that most players can't help themself metagaming... They ended up telling ME I was doing it wrong?!?

 

[The Allamistako]

I run a homebrew. It all started off with me doodleing a map on a A4 page and thinking "Hey, I like this!". So I transfered it onto a A3 page, and filled in the gaps. Then Borders and kingdoms appered, and the huge grand empire that is Hismar arose. And I thought "Hey, this is great! I wonder how all this developed" So the Role of Years, the history of Vamesh - for thus is named the continent - started to get written down, and the peoples and the Gods made themselves known to me. And then it happened.

3e made itself known.

So I wnet back, and reformed some of the basic approaches, away from Palladium's Fantasy rules, and wrote some more. And redrew the map, to accomodate the background. And wrote up some more. And developed some NPC's, including Goveneur Isilpar, the Dragon, or Aneth Deparel, the Halfling thief, or Mighty Pardos, most gloryous of all the Gods of the Hismarim. And If I#m not dead yet, I'm still wrinting up the setting, and playing in there with my group - who have not yet found out that they are mere research rats in my mighty creation... *RG*

-Alla

 

[Bagpuss]

I use Scarred Lands, mainly due to time since using a published setting gives me more time to work on adventures and NPC's.

How much the setting actually comes into the campaign should be another question I think.

Although I use Scarred Lands, since the players travel on foot they don't actually interact with the whole rich world that has been published, and since they are in part of the map that isn't really covered in great detail yet about 80% of what the players interact with is my creation, or Dungeon Mag adventures or adventures published for a different setting. The other 20% is world events and plot paths linked to the Scarred Lands setting that the players might hear about or occasionally interact with.

For example....

The party are currently leading a band of refugees from the town in "Speaker in Dreams" (which I situated at the edge of the Hegemony of Virduk (sp?)) to the dwarven fort from "Forge of Fury" which the party cleared out in a previous adventure.

I ditched the Mind Flayer and instead had a High Gorgon as the main villian in "Speaker" the Gorgon was allied with the Calastilan Hegemony (sp?) and "won" allowing the town to become part of its ever expanding border.

The fort is in the Hornsaw Forest so the current adventures involve lots of creatures from the CC1 and CC2, but is basically my invention. "Speaker" was heavily modified to make its plot make some sense, "Forge" was played pretty much as is.

This saved me a lot of work and provided a on-going story instead of a series of unlinked senarios.

In a campaign we are playing in based in FR, the maps are the same but the political borders have changed, some of the gods are different and the DM doesn't even own a copy of the campaign setting book. So is it Homebrew or is it FR? If it wasn't for the place names you couldn't really tell the difference.

 

[Numion]

I use a published world because it gives me more time to prepare adventures and such. For me the world is just a backdrop for the PCs actions. Mostly the game is about them and not the world.

I also don't understand the fear of some DMs of players knowing more than them - that belongs, in my mind, to some old-skool thinking that the players are your enemies. In my group I trust my players and they trust me. I've got no fear of them trying to tell me "How it really is".

Basically it boils down to lazyness; I'd rather spend my time doing things that further the actual gameplay more efficiently than world-building. And when using premade world you won't be caught pants down if PCs go on a tangent to somewhere you haven't thought about...

 

[Snoweel]

When homebrewing, I prefer to map out the campaign structure and adventures first, and design the setting to support and enhance those themes.

<snip>

I know a lot of other people try to shoehorn campaign structure around a setting they've already developed rather than design the setting specifically to meet campaign needs.

"Campaign structure"?

It seems like you're shoe-horning your PC's into your grand plan for the direction your story will take.

There shouldn't really be a campaign structure other than what's already been.

As for setting-heavy, creating a snapshot of your setting (which doesn't have to be a big geographical area, so long as your PC's don't decide to travel somewhere you haven't yet detailed adequately) full of situations the PC's may react to if they want to is highly preferable to mapping out the glorious saga your PC's will be a part of, whether they want to or not.

 

[Numion]

As for setting-heavy, creating a snapshot of your setting (which doesn't have to be a big geographical area, so long as your PC's don't decide to travel somewhere you haven't yet detailed adequately) full of situations the PC's may react to if they want to is highly preferable to mapping out the glorious saga your PC's will be a part of, whether they want to or not.

For some groups yes. For others maybe not. Some groups need strong adventure hooks. (=maybe a full-blown plot from the beginning). Just stumbling to a scene doesn't work for some groups.

 

[Desdichado]

Snoweel:
As for setting-heavy, creating a snapshot of your setting (which doesn't have to be a big geographical area, so long as your PC's don't decide to travel somewhere you haven't yet detailed adequately) full of situations the PC's may react to if they want to is highly preferable to mapping out the glorious saga your PC's will be a part of, whether they want to or not.

I fail to see the dichotomy you present. Creating a campaign setting is all about creating situations. In order to do that, you need to create a lot of locations, characters, themes, what types of adventures are available to be had, etc. That's called mapping out campaign structure. It hardly precludes letting the PCs make their own decisions.