How much Homebrew to Brew?

[Stormborn]

Two seperate question sets here:

FOR GMs: When creating a homebrew setting that does not drastically alter the core rules (iow you might restrict some classes or add some alternates or whatever, but no major revisions of magic or how AC works or anything) how much work do you put into it ahead of time? Do you provide the players the same level of detail that they might find in Eberron or the Forgotten Realms campaign guides?Or do you just give them a general idea of the setting and go from there?

EDIT: Ok, certainly you aren't going to write 300 +pages of information for a homebrew. I was thinking more along the lines of level of detail. Such as a gazetterre of major cities/regions, timelines, and histories and the like.

For Players: When you begin playing in someone's homebrew setting how much information about that setting do you need? How much do you want? Are these two things different? If you made a list of things that the player info for a homebrew HAD to include what would it be (classes, races,monsters, rules, major NPCs, etc)?

 

[Desdichado]

Even when I do make such radical changes, I'm sure not going to provide as much detail as the Eberron or Forgotten Realms books. Geez, those books are, what, 300-350+ pages long? I'm sure not going to write that much before I can even run a game, and I doubt very many players will want to read as much too.

 

[jerichothebard]

As a player, I like to know:

General direction of the campaign (i.e. 'undead hunters' or 'stuck on an island with orcs' or 'looking for the crown of the dead dwarf king', etc...)

Anything that will affect character creation (for example, changes to class skills, forbidden classes, differing magic systems.)

everything else is really icing on the cake.

 

[Belen]

GM: I try to create an outline (Races, Cultures, Deities etc). The outline focuses on RP stuff. I do not create many rules as I can leave that to designers. I will write treatises on how mangic works, creation myths etc. This is mostly for me. The players get a very short document detailng races, classes, and some basic info regarding the starting area and then I ask them to take that info and write a brief history for their character and ask them what they want out of the game.

Player: I pretty much want the info listed in my GM response.

 

[MonsterMash]

As GM I'd have a general outline of history, religion, politics, major population centres and geographical features, but probably not more than 3-4 sides of A4 paper on each (for North Americans think 1 sheet foolscap = 1 sheet A4). Also do any house rules, class/race restrictions, etc

I'd give the players a rough outline of things they would know,any house rules and the restrictions on characters - probably condensed down to about 3-4 pages total.

 

[Gez]

I start with reasonnably few details (rough outlines, unfilled map, and so on), and I complete it as time goes. Eventually, the cosmology gets modified twice or thrice, the map is affected too, and the rules get totally upheaved...

 

[Psion]

I have a campaign guide that I give out to all players. About 30 pages or so of history, background, nations, who's who -- that sort of thing. I need to update it for significant recent events.

I also have an eternally unfinished house rules / new classes / feats / OCG-stuff-that-the-players-don't-have-but-I'd-love-to-use document.

 

[Vlos]

As a GM: In the world I am designing/running now, I give out little information.

01) Usually a rules overview, changes that I have made on specific things.
02) General geography where they come from (but not world level detail).
03) History as the players would know it (limited to class/age/etc).

As a Player: Rules is the most important info. I also like a history.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I pretty much make an outline of any rule changes or variants being used; an outline of the major things that all characters would know about the world (recent history, major world powers, and so on); and then I also make a list of the races and classes allowed in the campaign.

Beyond that, I merely write down some notes whenever I get a good idea about how the world functions or any background information. Heck, a lot of stuff is made up on the fly which I then write down in my campaign journal.

Kane

 

[Stormborn]

So, looks like we go between 2 or 3 pages to roughly 30. That sound right? I have to admit that I tend to err on the long side, since world building is the best part to me. However, I am realizing that to much detail is that good, it either never gets used or you would liek to change stuff later in the game as things evolve. I am cooperating on a homebrew with a friend and I am trying to check both of our impulses to over write.