Homebrewers, where do you borrow from?

[Desdichado]

Forgive the sentence ending in a preposition, but what settings do the homebrewers out there find the most useful to borrow from?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Well, it's more of the opposite. I read about a setting and decide what I don't like about it and try to make sure I don't repeat the same "mistake" (though I realize what I don't like may be what someone else loves).

 

[Tsyr]

Most of the above and then some.

 

[wolfpunk]

Here I thought it was a lopsided victory for the book I voted for, then I noticed the total number of votes at the moment.

 

[drowdude]

Any that I have access too

 

[Ravellion]

You should have made the poll so multiple options were alvailable. I borrow from GH, FR, KoK, Dragon magazine. You'll get a lot of "Others" now, ruining your poll.

Rav

 

[BluWolf]

Everywhere and everything.

The world structure and basic concepts of how things aork are mine. The details and all the window dressing has probably been done a million times over.

I read a lot of homebrew websites and borrow thier ideas. Dragon magazine is a huge influence on me for inspiration.

Other soruces of inspiration, books, movies, the news, art.....

The major creative goal behind my world was to include every cool idea I have come across in a logical manor.

As a matter of fact when describing my world to new players I tell them I wanted the whole world to look and feel like the bar seen from Star Wars in Mos Esley.

 

[EOL]

Generally I'm to busy to create all the multitude of secondary details that don't directly impact the story line or the characters, but add richness to the world as a whole as such I use FR as the setting because so much has been written that it's easy to pull something in if things go in a strange direction. All of the basic plot and adventures are mine, however.

 

[Darraketh]

When I started there was no setting, then Greyhawk came out. Other than that first product I haven't followed Greyhawk. Since the beginning I set about creating my own world as a result I get my inspiration from the modules. If I like a module I make a place for it in my world. I doing so it influences the surrounding enviroment of where ever I plop it down.

Thinking back... most of the products I have bought are the "How to Create a World/Kingdom/City/Adventure" variety.

I've never limited myself to TSR, er uh... WoTC, er uh... Hasbro products which of course is less of an oddity in these days of "D20."

Now days the "History" and "Discovery" channels are my biggest influences.

 

[Mulkhoran]

I know this is a bit tangential to the question, but:

I borrow from here: http://wordsmith.org/awad/index.html

I subscribe to the word-a-day list. I'm making a homebrew now, and many of the words on the list are helpful in creating names.

I got the idea when I saw the word "numen" cross my path. It's a word meaning creative force or energy. Tolkien's men of the ancient world were called Numenorians, and it occurred to me that one of the great things about his works was the fact that he was a linguist. I bet that's where he drew their name from. Everything he wrote made sense linguistically. So now, I scroll through the list, building names.


Uh, sorry. Um, any and every source I have.