Homebrewers: How Publishable is Your Brew?

[Phlebas]

I went for "Another GM could use my setting, but it would require tweaking to publish" 'cos although i have it on a website (see sig), its too much of a mess to consider it published in any way shape or form

plus I haven't updated it in over a year and the game's moved on since then...

 

[Mafro]

Got Good Homebrewed Content? Check Out Eruvian.com

Hey all, this is for those of you that take pride in your homebrewed content....

Yesterday a new site called Eruvian.com launched with the purpose of allowing gamers to easily craft and publish their own RPG content in an online format that is standardized, searchable, and easily navigable. The web-based tools are free and easy to use and anyone can publish their homebrewed content, from individual characters, maps, or items to entire campaign settings complete with adventures.

The site currently has some 650 pieces of published content, with the gaming community adding more every day. Plans are in the works to release the best of the best content in print - say, a compendium of the best 100 characters, the top 50 maps, or even entire campaign source books. If you've got great content and aspire to see your name in print, here's your chance.

So, please check out Eruvian.com and please give feedback...cheers!

Mafro

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

The previous homebrew, developed with TerraDave, was considerably more publishable than the homebrew I'm currently working on. I voted based on my current state, as I'm no longer developing on the previous world. Realistically it was probably ready to publish, if you are curious it's here - Terra Viejo.

My new homebrew - Vetus - is more just for me and my group. I want something I can run wild with and develop on a wing and a prayer. 20 years from now it may be publishable, but I'm not going to concern myself with that.

 

[Mafro]

Very cool. I like the "feel" that you built for Vetus in the introductory paragraphs - wild and unknown.

If you'd like to post it in an environment that encourages collaborative efforts, and perhaps have other people fleshing out Vetus under your guidance, feel free to post it on Eruvian.com. The system allows you to publish one area, character, spell, class, etc. at a time, so only those portions of the setting that you feel are ready for publishing are visible to the world at large - the unpublished areas are for your eyes (and those of any collaborators you invite) only.

The other cool thing is that your published components then become part of the searchable index. So, other GMs can see and review your characters, classes, deities, domains, items, locales, organizations, races, spells, and vehicles, and you can do the same with theirs.

Cheers!

 

[robberbaron]

Hmm. there are two major reasons why I couldn't publish my homebrew:

1. Most of it is in my head.

2. Many of the ideas were stolen from other sources.
For example, the basic world-premise is taken from Moorcock's Hawkmoon books, thrust 50,000-odd years into the future.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

Very cool. I like the "feel" that you built for Vetus in the introductory paragraphs - wild and unknown.

Thanks, it sort of evolved that way. I started throwing out ideas I have been wanting to implement into a homebrew and this is what happened. It immediately struck me as a "discovering a new world" sort of setting, very much like early colonial North & South America, in fact the Halflings of Vetus are directly inspired by that aspect.

 

[Sundragon2012]

Funny you ask....I am working on writing up my home brew for publication with the True20, Runequest, Conan D20 or heaven forfend the D&D 4e ruleset if it is OGL. It'll be about 2yrs before everything is done.


Starlion

 

[Celebrim]

Written? Sort of. It's in peices. Could I make it publishable quality if I had the time? Sure. Do you see how much junk is out there being published that isn't of publishable quality? Could/would other DM's use it? Probably. Some DMs seem to be using snippets of things I've put on EnWorld.

But is it publishable? No. I never made a concerted effort to be original. I was trying to support a game, not publish my own work. I liberally stole and borrowed from other sources. In fact, the original heart of the campaign world is evolved from the map of the known world that came in 'The Isle of Dread' back when I was a 12 year old just starting out DM. I moved somethings around the map to get the climates to make more sense, and much of the culture is just my fanciful interpretation of the few clues found there. New places appeared around the edges - the Matriarchy of Panonia, Highsheen, Murlgamor, the Trifani city states, the City of Dee, the Lochlands, the Keltan Confedarcy, and dozens of places with names even I forget because I've never ran a campaign there won't be found on anyone else's.

Plus, even my original ideas have been independently had by other people, so that things that at one time were 'far out' are now strongly reminesent of things that have already been published.

If I was serious about publishing, I could probably rework alot of it. I'd definately want to map a 'dream world' that existed parallel to world, and probably an underworld and overworld as well. I've never really done that, but as my homebrew matured, it got more and more tightly woven with arcane planes and I've always felt that these should be as detailed as the main world to really play the world the way I'd want to play it now. Plus, I've always loosely ran 'the thousand gods' of the world's pantheon, and just made up gods on the spot for whatever role that I wanted, but I've got alot of ideas in later years for structuring the panetheon and I'd want to at least give a paragraph on a hundred or two of the major deities, plus write up a chapter on the 'theology' of the game world.

All of that though comes rather secondary to having a family and a job right now.

 

[Aussiegamer]

Yes pretty much ready to rock now, well for the character side any way. And it is dry word stuff, as I am useless at making pretty pictures.

It is an entire new system, so it takes time.

A lot of the stuff is usable by other d20 systems, but works best in the one system.

 

[seskis281]

My homebrew is available free via dragonsfoot.org.

Ilshara: Lands of Exile, which is actually developed from multiple differring campaigns and other influences. With so much out there I knew it would be impossible to "market" it, so I just decided to share it and the good people at Dragonsfoot provided a place for online distribution.

I wrote it for C&C, but made it as generic as possible so that others could use, crib or just get ideas (I'd be surprised if anyone uses my setting as is). I was hoping to write and put out more stuff for it, but life and job have conspired to keep me too busy to date - plus the Trolls are putting out so much good stuff right now that I want to also play all the new Gygax setting material (Yggsburgh) and Aihrde stuff.

Still, I felt pretty good about the setting and have enjoyed sharing it.