Homebrewers: How Publishable is Your Brew?

[dougmander]

Here's one DM's story of getting a homebrew into publishable shape:

I started putting PDFs of what would eventually become Northern Crown on the web for free as early as 1998 or so. Writing up my homebrew to share it with other DMs forced me to maintain a certain standard of clarity and consistency that I could have handwaved past if I'm was just winging it with my own gaming group. I thought I was done at that point. But I later found that "written up" is a long way from "publishable" when I started working with a real editor (shout-out to Michelle, yeah!). That was a two-year, painstaking process, and I still got some of the monster and NPC stats wrong (skill points, BAB, that sort of thing). So I guess my point is that moving the ball downfield that last ten yards from written-up to publishable was pretty taxing and not something I'd care to do again anytime soon.

For my own D&D homebrew (World of Generica), it's more fun to wing it off of hastily written notes and maps in a coffee-stained notebook. Been running the campaign for over ten years and it's still pretty sketchy, meaning flexible. Publishing something, on the other hand, is like sticking a butterfly to board -- pretty, but static.

 

[Nifft]

Me thinks you are far too modest Nifft.

Some of your stuff you have provided in the house rules section, I value very highly indeed.

Modesty is one of my many excellent traits!

Sadly, in this case I'm also being honest. The stuff I put the most work into polishing isn't the same as my setting.

But thanks! -- N

 

[DrStalker]

When the core of a campaign is a flexible GM with little to no prep and communal improvisation... there's nothing publishable.

If we wrote down and documented all the details a rich fantasy world would evolve stealing bits from all sorts of places meaning lots of IP hassles; if those were overcome you'd be able to make something publishable, but there would be no market for it.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm between "in my head" and "needs tweaking for another GM to run". I mutilate everything I incorporate, so copyright isn't an issue...but actually writing it down is. It's an ongoing process; I just compacted my setting to eliminate the boring stuff and bring the cool stuff closer together, making it more accessible in game.

One thing I suggest is to put adventure hooks into every description. If it's worth writing up, it ought to be worth an adventure idea or two. Also great fun to go back and read a few years later.

 

[Wombat]

My worlds would take a little bit to actually get into publishable shape (including making sure to remove copyrighted material that I borrowed from other game systems), but it wouldn't take as long as all that.

Ask my players: "Trees hate Wombat's games..."

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Thog not name! Thog job.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I just had to go for the 'I'm already published'-option, although it isn't strictly true! The lure of 'shameless self-promotion' was too much to resist. Even if I'm not published yet, I've completed a 300 page book on my own Vikings setting; which will be published by TheLe games as soon as Le finishes editing it.

 

[frankthedm]

The Copyreich Gestapo might take issue with the amount of stuff i borrow should my homebrew be published.

 

[jdrakeh]

It could be published, though who (other than me) would get excited about things like gelatinous bears, rivers of chocolate, etc. It's like Candy Land but lethal.

 

[Pell-Mell]

Another "Another GM could use my stuff if I worked on it ..." vote. Besides some of the things mentioned above, I think it would probably take some effort to formalize all the non-standard rule elements of the setting.

For instance, my current D&D homebrew uses a lot of modern elements, like cars and airplanes. I have worked out the elements that matter to the PCs, like importing the Drive skill from D20 Modern and using the excellent Hot Pursuit rules for car chases. But, I haven't really given a lot of thought to aerial dog-fighting rules, as it has never come up and probably won't.