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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ForceUser" data-source="post: 2479292" data-attributes="member: 2785">I'm with Hjorimir on this one (no surprise to those who know us). Homebrews, for DMs with the creativity and the time, are where its at. Neither I nor my players enjoy published settings; we've tried. Published campaigns seem to lack that spark, that intimacy, that animus, if you will, that makes a well-delivered homebrew shine. There's an immediacy to a homebrew that published campaign settings can't seem to duplicate. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that. Hjormir's homebrew campaigns blow away anything I've ever seen published: on a thematic level, on a mechanics level, and on a presentation level. He puts an enormous amount of creative energy into his worlds, and it shows. Everything makes sense, events follow logically, the world isn't overrun by epic-level NPCs that make your PCs look like hammered dogsh-t next to them. In short, our homebrews are filled with the elements of D&D we most enjoy, which does not often coincide with basic assumptions of the game (such as, say, how magic items are handled). I've run many campaigns over the years. Every time I tried to run a published setting, my players quickly lost interest and I had to reboot with a homebrew. I got the message: we want homebrews. If I had to qualify why this is so, I'd have to say that a homebrew is an expression of the vision and creativity of an individual DM, while a published setting is often the expression of a team of creative people who make compromises while designing a product for market. A good homebrew embodies the DM's signature creative style, which in my experience, players value highly. Sure, you can inject your style into Forgotten Realms, but only to an extent: without a significant amount of rework (I.E., homebrewing), at the end of the day, it still belongs to Ed Greenwood and his vision. It's not yours. I think ownership is the key for a lot of DMs that homebrew. I know that for me, I have to feel like I am the sole authority on the setting before I can truly enjoy running the game. It has to belong to me, not to Wizards of the Coast. That said, I borrow liberally from published sources, but always put my own spin on things.[/ramble off]</blockquote>

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