Homebrewers: How old is your world?

[s/LaSH]

Major settings I've detailed:

Other-Earth (2000 or 12 billion BC) - my current campaign, which is just medieval Europe with a couple of nations replaced with elves and orcs and stuff, so it doesn't require much development. Oh, and there are monsters and one heck of a metaplot. It forms the basis for my webcomic and thence my ability to draw the artist's benefit, so it's keeping me alive in an abstract way. It has a uniquely down-to-earth epic feel.

Yggdrasil (1991) - working name for a fairly vanilla-seeming fantasy world. Only it's got several thousand years of history, a very broad scope (it's not a globe, it's an infinite plane), and the geography is wacked - if you cross the biggest fjord you've ever seen, you find a hole bigger than most countries that opens onto Hell. Very medieval, very nature-lush. I've rarely gamed in it, but I suspect it would be fun on a regular basis.

SkyRust (1994) - Earth didn't like humans polluting it. So it did something really, really drastic about it. I worked some unusual magic types into this, such as visiting the akasic plane of existance for knowledge. It's extraordinarily bleak. I've rarely gamed in it, but it got the interest of the players.

Arcturus (2002) - an evening's work upon which I've based three novellas and have barely scratched the surface. Think modern science fiction attempting to deal with Edgar Rice Burroughs or horrible '50s B-movies with a healthy dash of Planescape-style D&D. Again, I haven't actually gamed in Arcturus. But I'd like to, because of the sheer coolness of the setting (IMHO).

ISAF (1989, I was 8 at the time) - a science fiction universe I've been trying to adapt to RPGs for roughly a decade now, on and off. (It stands for Imperial State Armed Forces, a sort of mercenary standing army arrangement in an age of megacorporations and religious conflict - between good and evil forces of immense power.) This is my dearest baby, and I've never actually run a game in it, but for sheer cybergothic space opera supernatural horror and butt-kicking, I've never found better. Now I just gotta write that novel... make that a dozen novels. Is there such a thing as too much development?

These are just the major projects. Now, I know I haven't gamed in many of them... but they're game-oriented (except for Arcturus, strangely enough, which is best suited to heroic fantasy).

 

[Desdichado]

I must be the exception; most of my homebrews aren't very old, and I often move on to new projects. I borrow shamelessly from older homebrews, so you could say that some elements have been around since the mid-80s or so, but the world as it is in a recognizable form certainly is fairly recent -- within the last year or so.

Of course, I'm not actually running it at the moment, and I'm still deciding for sure what mechanics I think best fit the world, but that's another issue.

 

[The Dungeon Master]

My world is about 4-7 years old and always being worked on or developed.

 

[Belen]

My current world is around 5 years old. It was a lot of fun, but also my first attempt at world creation. I recently decided to begin building a new world for after the current campaign ends.

Of course, a publisher found it interesting it, then ruined it for me with all their changes. The changes gutted the entire theme. Now that publisher has sold off their RPG assets to another publisher and I never got a dime!

Of course, the guy who originally took my stuff got paid for all his "hard"work. Makes me loose faith in the d20 industry. Bunch of crooks!

 

[Mercule]

I started DMing in 1983 and I've, theoretically, used the same world the whole time. Of course, it grew from a single, unnamed province and didn't have a name until about 1986, but everything done in previous campaigns are still part of Albathador today.

So, I'd have to say going on 20 years.

FWIW, I'm starting up a campaign this summer (a friend is currently running RtToEE, I'll take over when he's done). I plan on it being a 2 year or so campaign and will tie up most of the loose ends I've sown over the last 20 years (I have a couple of players who've gamed there since about 1991, so they'll remember most of the good stuff). When it's all done, I'll probably shut it down and start a new world.

 

[F5]

My current homebrew is new...less than a year old. The one before that was just as new and short-lived.

BUT...pretty much all of my homebrews have bits and pieces shamelessly borrowed from one another. Classes, creatures, places...all of these things that I developed for one world, never got around to using, and re-tooled for a new world later.

So, since elements of my first homebrew from a good 15 years ago are still floating around in the campaign I'm working on now, you could say it's been around that long. But it hasn't been a continuous 15 years, so I can't really take credit for it.

 

[carpedavid]

My campaign world has been around for about 10 years or so (wow, that's a sobering realization). It has, of course, evolved tremendously since it was first developed, but much of its core theme still remains.

Interestingly, I have found that the advent of 3E and the OGL have spurred my development of the world. I feel comfortable now that if I ever complete it and decide to publish it, I'll have the legal rights to my creation.

-DMG

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

3 1/2 years.

... wow ... time flies.

 

[Katerek]

My Homebrew begain in 1988 when we the players wandered off the beaten track and starting walking west off the maps of Greyhawk.

That was in the 560's CY (Greyhawk time)

Since then, about 1500 game years have passed and we are in the "Fourth Age of Man" and everything is changed. No more greyhawk maps, just the memories.

It is pretty cool, my players like it.

 

[barsoomcore]

Barsoom is about four years old, though it's largely based on a brief Fantasy Hero campaign I ran about ten years ago. Which took a lot of elements from a novel setting I poked around at fifteen years ago. Which was broadly based on my first AD&D campaign twenty-two years back. Which of course grew out of my games in OD&D back in... 1979...

Come up with new ideas? What for?