Pre-designed world Vs Starting from scratch

[Psion]

And to me, it's the player expectations that make NOT homebrewing more work. I have to make sure I know the setting well enough to answer who knows what kind of questions if they get asked. If I'm homebrewing I either know the answers because I made it up originally anyway, I make it up on the spot and take a note so it's consistent later, or I can easily come up with a plausible reason why the player's character wouldn't have access to that information anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Though I am of the belief that it's harder to roll your own, I think there is an element of truth to that. Once I am "done", I don't feel I have to swim upstream whenever I want to make changes. It's all the way I wanted it to be in the first place.

I guess I look at it as an investment. I feel the initial investment is high, but there's a payoff.

 

[EricNoah]

I am frankly not great at worldbuilding and so I find that something pre-designed helps me jump in quicker and get games and campaigns going. I never let a pre-designed world ruin any of my fun, though. I only stick to canon when it's to my advantage as DM.

 

[Vedic Wizard]

I find it alot easier to sit down and work on my own creation than read the published stuff. Though I admit I could have read a published setting and all its supplements a couple of times over in the time I've invested in my homebrew.

As a few other people have already said, I find the process of world building enjoyable in itself.

I ran a few adventures in the ravenloft setting which worked really well, but even then I used Ravenloft as an "add-on" to my old homebrew setting.

 

[Aus_Snow]

From scratch is much better, but there have been times when avaiiable time was a factor, and at those times published worlds were very handy. Some tweaks, name changes, this and that. . . and they were good to go.

There are some exceptions to this though - generally worlds I'm already familiar with from say, literature that I happen to like. In these cases, it's not just the convenience factor nudging me that way.

The majority of the time, I still tend to go with a homebrew, regardless.