Never homebrewed!

[Templetroll]

Re: Re: Never homebrewed!

with one particular gaming group, i just got so tired of being handed a new worldbook for each new game (they loved creating new homebrews), i figured i wouldn't put myself through the trouble of writing up all of that information (and having no one really read it)

I started gaming with a group where 7 or 8 of us had our own worlds. When I joined I thought creating a world was what you did as a DM. We didn't do books, we just explained to the group during character creation about our world. if we had a map, we passed it around. Now, we would put it on a website.

My homebrew wasn't as complete as some folks make their's. it did have a good depth to the main adventuring area and I gladly filed in areas when someone decided to go off in an odd direction. The best part was when my players would work on something that I had put in the world to help me fill in blanks. I took the clue that those things were something they wanted more of so would use the stuff in an adventure or three. it made for a better time for us all.

One thing I did first was doodle a map on the back of a computer card. (yes, it was so long ago that computer cards were still in use, at least by the DLA)

Another thing I did was steal mercilessly from every published world and rework the reason for their being so it fit MY world! That was fun as players found out things; I loved to surprise them.

 

[Zappo]

I did, but only for monetary reasons (ie, I was like 10 and couldn't afford setting books or modules). Looking back, it sucked hard and I don't consider it valid, so yeah I never homebrewed.

Save for one skeleton-world for Planescape, that is. It was a couple of pages about the aftermath of a HUGE religious war which destroyed a major religion and forced almost all the wizards to flee to the arctic zones. Just a nifty idea for a quick visit, which was exactly what it was supposed to be.

 

[Desdichado]

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

None of the above, I said Dark*Matter is one I could run "off the shelf", not one that I'm currently doing. I'd do it with d20 Modern, though. Man, I hope Wizards wakes up and either publishes or licenses that property under the Modern SRD.

 

[La Bete]

If you do homebrew, what gets you motivated?

Ive homebrewed most of the time with my fantasy games. In the past however, Id often beaver away for a few weeks, promising to start the game "once I was ready", and then either stop, or start the game half cocked.

What Ive done recently however, is I started with a "grand scheme" idea, fleshed out just a small bit, and then played. Since I run this game as a lunchtime game, I am able to fill in the details around the players, as in the course of an hour, they arent able to get too far ahead of me.
WHile you are running a game, as someone else said, its easy to keep the motivation up for world building - I find myself addding stuff while I GM, as well as the odd bit every few days.

I find if you do the work while you have people playing in your world it seems less like 'work'.

As many people have already said - World Builders Guide and/or Dongeoncraft - yeah baby yeah.

 

[La Bete]

If you do homebrew, what gets you motivated?

Ive homebrewed most of the time with my fantasy games. In the past however, Id often beaver away for a few weeks, promising to start the game "once I was ready", and then either stop, or start the game half cocked.

What Ive done recently however, is I started with a "grand scheme" idea, fleshed out just a small bit, and then played. Since I run this game as a lunchtime game, I am able to fill in the details around the players, as in the course of an hour, they arent able to get too far ahead of me.
WHile you are running a game, as someone else said, its easy to keep the motivation up for world building - I find myself addding stuff while I GM, as well as the odd bit every few days.

I find if you do the work while you have people playing in your world it seems less like 'work'.

As many people have already said - World Builders Guide and/or Dongeoncraft - yeah baby yeah.

 

[Napftor]

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

Me! I attempted to once but it did not make it past 2 modules because we were too busy playing our Realms campaign. My world was populated with those people who had potential. Of potential to what, you might ask? Potential to break through the shell surrounding the world. These people were "killed" on their home worlds (I used Krynn, Faerun, and Oerth) and then brought by the OverForce to my world of Tolmeitar. The OverForce could bring souls in through the shell and reinstate their forms, but could not break out himself. After millennia, someone would eventually find a way out of the shell (which I was going to have as the inside of a black hole...Spelljammers were available on Tolmeitar) and then the OverForce would escape to once again do its evil thing on the multiverse.

 

[Desdichado]

I honestly cannot comprehend the idea that if you're a busy person, you just can't homebrew. That is the most counter-intuitive argument against it I have ever heard, unless you have the very strange notion that in order to homebrew you have to write the equivalent of the FCRS book for your world.

I mean, really -- if you're running FR, you have to at least read that humongous book, probably also Magic of Faerun, Monsters of Faerun, maybe Lords of Darkness, and some regional book like the Silver Marches, or whatever other region you set your game in, and whatever adventure modules you run. That's hours and hours of research before you can play anything.

If you homebrew, especially if you use Ray Winninger's philosophy (Dungeoncraft Rule #1, I think) you only have to spend an hour or two coming up with some really high level details of the setting, and another hour or two before each session coming up with the details that are pertinent and relevent right now.

I think that excuse is just that: and excuse for folks who don't homebrew for some other reason entirely and don't want to admit it.

In my case, for example, I add details very slowly, so it's hardly overwhelming to create. I also "kit-bash" extensively -- borrow, borrow, borrow. Why create something whole cloth if someone else has already taken the same concept and done something cool with it?

Homebrewing really doesn't need to take much time at all.

 

[Shallown]

I homebrew but for different reasons than most people. My inability to remember Detail. I have and have read FR since it first came out but for the life of me couldn't Tell you much abou the details so referencing a book all night didn't appeal to me.
So I homebrew. Almost entirely off the cuff. I tend to follow the two rules have the really big picture and the character veiw picture figured out. To explain I know what each nation, the government etc is doing who trades with who etc. ; And I know what possible things the characters could encounter in one to two sessions. I work both ends of the spectrumn. I do write a big over veiw of the Gods and world/society but it amounts to a paragraph each. If the players need to know more they ask. I spend lots of my free time planning but only in my head. I hit every possibility I can think of and have a few fall back positions in case they surprise me.
Luckily I am A GM who can give an answer to a question in a half second then spend the week figuring out why I gave that answer and what exactly it means. Sort of Intuitive Gaming. And yes this has bit me in the buttocks but I never let a player know I was wounded.

I also Ran my present goup in my own Homebrew game so the world was all new as well I worked it the same way as well as designing rules etc. I do the technical/rules design much better than the world design before hand meaning I have very complete rules in an incomplete unformed world. I have found my inspiration when the pressure is on is ten times better than my pre planned work. My pre planned work always lays the foundation for my inspiration so I cannot do one without the other.

Just a few thoughts

Later

 

[Alzrius]

I never make truly home-brewed worlds, simply because, like Eric said, its very hard to do, and I frequently end up in a "make myself work on it" mode, which I don't enjoy at all.

The closest I've ever come is to take bits and pieces of various world sourcebooks and patch them together into a single world with some personal tailoring.

The only reason I don't use a single prepublished world is because the PCs invariably depart from the "line" set out in that world. They go beyond where the map shows, kill known NPCs and help unknown ones into power, start and finish wars that rearrange political boundaries, etc. In short, they make the world dynamic and changing, and no single campaign has supplements released fast enough for that, nor tailored for my group. Hence, I use a medley of stuff.

It's just what I find works best.

 

[haiiro]

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

I've mapped out worlds and parts of worlds, and sometimes even winged sessions in them, but I've never sat down and developed a real homebrew setting. I've been playing seriously since 1989.

I often envy the many DMs who have a homebrew that they've worked on and added to over the years, but over time I've come to the conclusion that that just isn't my thing. I love thinking about world elements, and I love taking a published setting (generally FR) and changing things as needed -- heck, I can even see myself writing fiction in a homebrewed setting -- but that's generally about where it stops for me.

I enjoy tinkering, but it's nice to have a well-established base to tinker with.