Homebrew vs. Published settings

[Shadowdancer]

I'm all about sickly twisting.

 

[Turjan]

I have no idea if this was meant as a compliment or a criticism (or neither, or both...).

Sorry, it was definitely not meant as criticism. You have a coherent world with interesting conflicts as background. I like it that those conflicts are more based on culture and society than on the outbreak of undead hordes or the opening of the gates of hell. I see loads of different plot hooks in you short description. I have similar concepts in my homebrew (of course, details differ vastly ). The AU influences can also be found IMC (mojh are too good a concept to let it stay unused). You have dragons and elves, so it's still D&D in its heart . You have Arthurian knights (paladins without alignment struggle threads ). You have Jack Vance in the mix (vats are definitely underused ).

Looks like a lot of positive checks as far as I am concerned .

 

[Akrasia]

Sorry, it was definitely not meant as criticism. ....Looks like a lot of positive checks as far as I am concerned .

Thanks, and sorry for the confusion!

I should mention that that version of Ilmahal was specifically designed for AU (I submitted it as part of their 'campaign search' competition). It was modified greatly for my current campaign.

But I agree -- it is pretty "generic" in many respects.

 

[Liquidsabre]

I'm all about sickly twisting.

Oh yea, not to mention importing "crap" too! Some published maps just have too many blank and open spaces to add things into!

 

[Arnwyn]

Published: A massive FR/AQ/KT/SJ/PS multiverse campaign that's been running for more than a decade.

Sure, I certainly change things, but not to a ridiculous degree. Option #2, uh, I suppose.

 

[Shemeska]

Planescape campaign for the past 2+ years that has spanned into DarkSun, FR, Greyhawk, etc but I twist oh so brutally over time. Let's just say I make large changes in places and the death rate is fairly high for important setting NPCs at times.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I steal the crunchy bits and throw away the fluff.

 

[IronWolf]

I prefer to run my campaigns in the Forgotten Realms. Tons of source material to pull from (especially if you pull from the 2e days where the books were mostly fluff and little crunch). I make very few changes to the setting for the games I play.

When I run published adventures I ten to modify them liberally to make sure even if someone has done it before they most likely won't recognize it.

These days with a career, wife and kid I just don't have the time to make my own world as full as I would like, so I prefer to draw from published settings.

 

[Psion]

I am a dyed in the wool homebrewer. My "classic" homebrew world uses just a smidgen of third party stuff since d20 era evolved.

My latest project - the River of Worlds - and some stops along it, is much more heavily a kitbash of third party projects, but still not a published campaign setting.

 

[francisca]

Well I'm running two:

Mystara B/X/C game, complete with all the classics.

A homebrew 3.5 game, about 10% of which is cross-pollination from other sources, mainly monsters, rather than adventures/setting material.

So, obviously, I see benefits to both.