Homebrewers, where do you borrow from?

[MatrexsVigil]

I own at least one book from every major d20 publisher out there, so I had to choose 'other'. Oddly enough, I hardly ever grab ideas from non-gaming movies or other media. No ideas from those sources ever strike me as usable gaming material. Although, I admit that is only because my gaming group has collectively read every fantasy/sci-fi book known to man, so I find it easier to surprise them with actual material from d20 books. I seem to be the only person in the group who actual owns more than three d20 books. x.x

-P.C.

 

[Katerek]

I answered Greyhawk but that is only because my campaign began as greyhawk and has progressed through 1500 years of time since then.

I honestly take more from other non-gaming sources.

Joseph Campbell, Shakespeare, and Biblical resources drive my raw story ideas. Not that I necessarily keep the overtones, just the themes.

As far as cosmetic resources, I just borrow from where ever. As an example, I HATE the typical DnD racial stereotypes, and I hate aligment, so those things are always the things I change up first. In my setting, all the races are as culturally diverse, or have the potential to be, as the humans.

Also, if the players know that every red dragon isnt necessarily evil, I have found that it makes for soem very interesting encounters, and interactions. Also, it takes a large bite out of meta gaming.

 

[Altalazar]

I certainly look at many different settings, and may take tiny pieces here and there - but mostly they are for inspiration. I get my other ideas from non-gaming sources - from movies, from history, even from my own personal experiences. Inspiration can come from anywhere. I once based an entire Shadowrun adventure on an episode of the X-files I saw once - and it worked out really well - and none of my players had seen it, so it made for an interesting bit of problem solving. The interesting thing was it took them about as long to figure it out as the characters from the show - and they ended up with as little margin for error - none of this by design. Though I must say that is more of a fluke - it just hit me as inspiration and the timing was right.

I really enjoy taking bits and pieces from everywhere. I took a book on Egypt, complete with a map of the pyramids and surroundings, and used that as the basis for another adventure - I hand drew a new map, inspired by the real one, and then populated it with different innards. That was also a rather memorable adventure.

 

[Desdichado]

Good heavens, even I don't remember this thread, and I started it. Who's been reviving all these old threads the last few weeks?

 

[diaglo]

all of the above.

i borrow from everywhere.

 

[Altalazar]

Good heavens, even I don't remember this thread, and I started it. Who's been reviving all these old threads the last few weeks?

I revive threads when I find one that interests me enough that I have something to say. It is far far far better than what usually happens - someone has something of interest to say on a topic that has already been said in another thread and they start a new thread.

The only drawback to keeping a topic in an old thread versus starting a new one is that all these people with nothing better to do feel the need to point out that the thread was dead, that they forgot about it, that it is rising from the dead, etc. etc. ad nauseum. As if there is anything special about it - there isn't. In fact, a thread often dies, not because it is "dead" in terms of having been fully discussed, but simply because lots of new threads have pushed it off the first page before everyone who would have something useful to add have seen it there - apparently the 1,000+ posters here have forgotten that, "gasp," there are threads that don't exist on the first page of the thread list - there are thousands of pages of them, in fact. But I digress.

 

[Nightfall]

I don't point out dead thread. Undead ones just need to be eliminated!

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

The FR books have some pretty inspiring art, and some of the geography is good. My campaign doesn't take place on the planes (none of it has yet anyway) but I drew a lot of inspiration from Planescape. My campaign's first main villain was a Prolonger being chased by a Dustmen splinter group and a planewalking bounty hunter with a score to settle who enlisted the PCs help.

Mostly though, I draw inspiration from everything. The History channel, dreams, movies, books, RPGs, my own life, EN World ... The list goes on.

Edit: I ignore D&D's racial stereotypes in favor of what I've come up with myself. Interestingly, no matter how original some of us think our ideas are, someone else is thinking the same thing. I was reading a thread in here not too long ago when I saw that someone's campaign had orcs dwelling in a desert with black obsidian sand... just like mine.
I wasn't under the illusion that I was a genius for having thought that stuff up though, so I wasn't crushed to find out that it's, apparently, on the verge of becoming something of a cliche'

 

[The Forsaken One]

Midnight does it for me =]