Never homebrewed!

[ForceUser]

If you do homebrew, what gets you motivated?

The exercise of creating the campaign world is just as fun to me as running the game. What motivates me is the desire to "get it all down," or at least enough of it that my players will feel as though they adventure in strange new lands. I love coming up with "big picture" stuff, inventing campaign-spanning plots and NPCs with longterm goals, then revealing those things little by little in-game. Yes, of course you can do such things in a published setting, but in a homebrew it's guaranteed to be new, and you don't need to worry about players who may have read DM supplements you'd have preferred they hadn't read.

The absolute BEST part of a homebrew is knowing that you are the singular authority on your campaign setting. Players don't get to crack open books and correct you about campaign particulars. They rely on you completely for setting material, which you can then dole out at a pace that suits the tempo of your campaign. Also, there tends to be less onus on the players to know things about the world, whereas in a published setting they may feel the need to read reams of book information to get a feel for things.

Finally, creation itself is just fun. Drawing maps, placing landmarks such as mountains, cities, and ruins - I find that by simply drawing a map I am charting a course for my campaign, inventing things that I can quantify and inject into the backstory. Things that I won't have to stop the game to flip through a sourcebook to recall. This is information that once invented remains with you, information that keeps the setting fresh and interesting in your mind. Players can tell when the DM is excited, and that makes the game more fun for them. For me, knowing that they are exploring a realm I created is exciting indeed.

 

[thundershot]

I've played for all these years, and never really made my own setting. I used to use Greyhawk extensively, as well as Spelljammer, which caused me to create a few temporary worlds, but nothing major.

I don't want to be constrained by a single map. The towns on my map are basically the towns of the modules I've run. I don't have time to write my own adventures (ARGH If only the Master Tools had put in the adventure creation program!!), so I depend on modules. It's also nigh impossible to use modules if you have too many strange quirks about your setting without major modifications.

So... I want to, but I just can't find the time and/or motivation.



Chris

 

[Voadam]

Nope, I've used a bunch of settings (Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Dark Sun) and I've run modules without specifying what the world was, but I've never fully made up my own world from scratch.

 

[Tzarevitch]

As a DM, I have never created any substantial homebrew setting. Sure, I've put together the bare skeletons of worlds -- you have to do that now and then when you run Planescape. If PCs wind up on some alternate Prime Material world, you have to have something. But I've never really mapped out and run a campaign that was set in a setting of my own design.

I started contemplating doing this very thing, and have discovered that it's hard work. I'm starting with some core rules changes surrounding the issue of clerical healing and resurrection, and am finding that these changes start to cascace down in a big way. It's fun, but if I don't "make myself do it" I find that I don't work on the setting for weeks at a stretch.

Anyone else here play D&D for years and years but never created a homebrewed setting?

If you do homebrew, what gets you motivated?

I had almost exactly the same experience. When I ran Planescape I created worlds and demiplanes as necessary, but I don't have the patience to do a real homebrew from scratch. I have started before and then I get lazy and stop. It is simply too much work for me, especially when I can find elements I like from published worlds.


Tzarevitch

 

[Numion]

I've never homebrewed either. Seems like too much work for the rewards involved. I just want a ready-to-use backdrop for my adventures. Backdrop; that's all it is.

 

[Katerek]

If you do homebrew, what gets you motivated?

I think Force User summed it up pretty well. Although I think I can add a few comments here.

The same thing that pulls me to homebrew is the same thing that pulls me to games like SimCity4 (which totally rocks by BTW), Civilization, Black & White, et al. The god design mode aspect.

If you are seriously considering this, I STRONGLY advise that you track down a copy of the World Builder's Guidebook published under the 2ed Rules Set. It is invaluable to a first timer.

The best thing that you could get from it probably is ideas and approaches that may have not occured to you yet, plus a structured chapter by chpater gradual approach to world building.

This may be just the discipline approach that you need to get you motivated. I know it really worked for me. I have been running the same world for 20 some odd years now myself and when that book came out it helped me really flesh out some things that I had never really considered.

Alsthough I haven't actually read it yet, that new book by Gygax sounds like it would be of use as well, but only after you have gotten started on the construction.

Another thing I cannot urge strongly enough to the world builder is the Laws of Dungeonmastering as presented in the first 10 or 12 articles of Dungeoncraft when it first appeared in Dragon. There are timeless tips, hints, and other advice there that if heeded will save you alot of headaches.

to be perfectly rewarding, world design needs to be taken seriously enough so that you get the appropriate level of reward out of the time and energy that you invest in it.

Good Luck if you decide to go this route! It is very rewarding at times, but it can also be very frustrating.

 

[alsih2o]

If you do homebrew, what gets you motivated?

bob dylan "the diplomat on his chrome hosre with his siamese cat"
"punched me in the cigarette and smoked my eye"

i don't know what it all means, but it gets me going

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel
To be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible"
As he hands you a bone

Fortune calls.
I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace,
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down.
She's smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born,
On midsummer's eve, near the tower

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

 

[Darklance]

I couldn't run anything but a homebrew (with the possible exceptions of Dark*Matter, Planescape or Iron Kingdoms)

Just curious but do you use Alternity with Dark*Matter or have you adapted it to another system?

 

[Psion]

If you do homebrew, what gets you motivated?

I am a longtime homebrewer. Soon after my first year or so playing, I started doodling continents on graph paper and running campaign for my friends. My first primitive world and ideas slowly developed over time. Some of those formative ideas were a bit too out-there and I eventually had to scrap. On the other hand, some of the ideas were so great, they remain part of my game to this day.

Trinalia, the world I am running now started about 15 years ago. It wasn't my first or second try at a world, but it was related to those initial tries. I didn't want to scrap my first world, but it did seem a little patchwork at the time. So what I did is orchestrate an exodus to my new world, so I could reuse some major characters, deities and concepts.

Trinalia was very sketchy at first. I built upon the old history, and started defining the more native cultures and their history. Pretty soon, I had a rich font of ideas to draw from. And it is that which has kept me running my homebrew all this time. I understand my world's entities, their backgrounds and motivations. That makes conceiving adventures a snap.


My world was pretty sketchily defined for a lot of years. I must confess that the 2nd edition World Builders Guide helped me fill in a lot of the blanks. If you can scrounge up a copy -- or get the ESD -- I definitely recommend it.

I have toyed with other worlds since. Part of my world background is that (unbeknownst to the PCs), my world is part of an 8 world matrix aranged in a multi-dimentional tesseract arrangement. These other worlds are the subject of past adventures and will be part of future adventures. I recently remade my previous world, Aphrodomis, as an ice age world that my normal campaign's characters visited and my players loved it (see http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5498 and http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5143). I am also toying with a fresh world idea (see http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32667)

Finally, two relatively recent tools that I have come to adore for worldmaking are Fractal Terrains and Campaign Cartographer. Makes making world maps a cinch.

 

[alsih2o]

o.k., last one, i promise-

Standing on the waters casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing.
Distant ships sailing into the mist,
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing.
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

So swiftly the sun sets in the sky,
You rise up and say goodbye to no one.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don't show one.
Shedding off one more layer of skin,
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

You're a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds,
Manipulator of crowds, you're a dream twister.
You're going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain't nobody there would want to marry your sister.
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame,
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers.
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed,
Michelangelo indeed could've carved out your features.
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space,
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Well, the rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame,
Preacherman seeks the same, who'll get there first is uncertain.
Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks,
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain,
False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin,
Only a matter of time 'til night comes steppin' in.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

It's a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray,
A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet.
He'll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat,
Take the motherless children off the street
And place them at the feet of a harlot.
Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants,
Oh, Jokerman, you don't show any response.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.