How much Homebrew to Brew?

[Gez]

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)?

Classes, races, and generic background of the world -- I want to know if my character concept fits. If, say, I want to play a halfling wizard, and in that homebrew halflings are often rogues, rangers and bards, but never wizards or clerics; then it's something I need to know.

But it's gradual. At low-level, I don't need to know how does the homebrew cosmology work. Once the character is able to cast planeshift, however, it's an info that is needed.

 

[Henry]

As a GM and as a player, my answer is the same, because I wouldn't want to ask of my players anything I wouldn't want to do:

When making a basic homebrew (generic D&D but with my own geography), I might give 'em one page at most - double sided if I need to. ANYBODY should be expected to read one page of material. If you give them 5, 10, 15 pages, it has the possibility to turn 'em off more and more, especially if you provide no pictures, no graphic elements, etc. When I look over the internet, and see the VAST array of homebrew rules that people have on their web sites, nothing makes my eyes glaze over than pages of flat text - I wouldn't want it in my Gaming Books I buy, why would I want to read it as a fan creation?

If I lavish a lot of detail on my fantasy game, I will put in pictures - I'll find pictures at wizards.com, I'll create simple diagrams with CorelDRAW or Photo-Paint, I'll make maps with Campaign Cartographer (gotta try dundjinni some day), and in general I'll try to dress it up and make it evocative.

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

I'll make maps with Campaign Cartographer (gotta try dundjinni some day), and in general I'll try to dress it up and make it evocative.

Speaking of CC, the world Stormborn and I are working on is, geographically, an analogue of the southeastern US (mainly Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi). I imported a real map of the US using Fractal Terrains, exported it into Campaign Cartographer, and am now mapping the wilderness area and a couple of main cities.

Of course, there's my tendency to overdo here too--I've used A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe and can now tell you exactly how many structures of each kind are in each ward of the main city.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

When I created my Dragonhorn homebrew, I had probably about 100 or so pages.

Yeah, nobody read all of it.

I do have kind of a nifty idea, though...if I ever start another homebrew campaign, I'm going to create a single city and small surrounding area to begin with. Everything else will be created as we go, whether by me or by the players, as it's needed.

Want to play a whacked out race not in the core 3.5 books? Well, then, you get to explain how they fit in. With restrictions, of course.

I think that's kind of a cool idea. Hrmmm.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

My personal philosophy is to create a lot for the players to explore, but only require that they know very little. My group can best be described as "casual gamers". I try to cater to their tastes.

 

[the Jester]

My 'Players' Guide to Cydra' is around 100-200 pages I think, and I'm constantly adding and revising things to it.

I have hundreds and hundreds of pages of campaign stuff, but a lot of it is out of date- past eras, etc. I need to remake some very crucial stuff that's been lost, too- including one of my main maps. It's amazing how I have no frickin' clue how something this important and large could get lost...

 

[RFisher]

I put as much work as time permits into preparing a campaign. The vast majority of which doesn't directly impact the info I initially give to the players.

Robert's guidelines for creating player guides to your homebrew world:

1. Go through the chargen process &, as you do, note anything your players need to know to create PCs. How are ability scores generated? What races & classes are available/banned? What languages are available? &c.
2. Write: "What your character knows:" & then write out the information any PC would know. Just keep going until you get tired.
3. Write a one paragraph summary of "what your character knows". Assume that this is all the players will read. Find the most important stuff & put it here.
4. Write a one sentance summary of the last paragraph. Assume this is the only thing the players will read. What's the single most important idea about your campaign to get across?
5. Put 4, 3, & 1 into a handout for the players. Put 2 in a handout that's available to the players.

I really like the "10 things to know about Ebberron" thing. I'm trying that in place of 3.

Step 2 isn't really so black & white. Probably more often I kind of skip it. I'll usually end up with some mini-guides that go into depth about specific things that players can read if/when they're interested. e.g. Religion usually gets such a thing.

As a player...I guess I like whatever I get.

 

[Stormborn]

I hadn't thought about the Top 10 Things You Need to Know tactic. Thats a good idea.

 

[The Other Librarian]

As far as being a GM goes, the more info you have the better. It'll never hurt, and gives you more resources to draw on. That said, you don't need to sit down and write a novel. ANytime you come up with something, make a note of it and sling it in the ol' notebook. You can refine things as time goes on, but just let stuff accrete.

For a player, the "10 things" idea is great. Beyond char creation mechanics, just try and distill what most Americans, for instance, share as common knowledge. Stuff that might be on the citizenship test. Important historical events for the region, how races or nations interact, how the government or church works. Big cities, major holidays, that sort of stuff.

 

[Buttercup]

I try to give the players a World As You Know It document. It includes the pantheon, the calendar and a really general overview of history. Then I also give them a map & details of their starting location, on the assumption that even the most ignorant bumpkin knows a bit about their local area. Note that some of what they think they know might actually be wrong. I also provide a sheet with house rules.

The total package is probably 4 pages plus a full page map.