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What do players want from a homebrew?

Why the hate for plate? It was in use during the 15th Century, which is the time period that seems to form the D&D baseline. I guess I'm not seeing the vast departure from history that you are. Now, that said, if the baseline for D&D was the 12th Century, yeah -- full plate armor would be horribly out of place. The 15th Century, though? Not so much.
 

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I'm not searching for originality personally. Vanilla D&D homebrews are perfectly fine with me. What I want as a player is : 1/ the setting to be coherent, whatever its logic may be, 2/ a whole spectrum of possible character concepts, so that I can get create the character I really want to play, and 3/ I want my character to have a possible impact on the world, i.e. I want to have some input on the evolution of the world as a player.
 

What I look for in a homebrew:

1: Cool places to adventure
2: Enough sense to not make things un-fun
3: See number 2.
4: Easy to drag and drop literally anything I might want. If it can't handle dinosaurs, nazis, spaceships and warforged, it's not for me.
5: Doesn't let its "vision" get in the way of having fun. See number 2.

Hmm... Now I really want to make a homebrew with the four central elements being dinosaurs, nazis, spaceships and warforged.
 

1. I'm not picky. A good DM will get me to play in anything. A good setting is a second choice. However, a negative (like the almost-inherent Gloom and Doom of Midnight) will get me to pass.

2. Your rules for PCs. Lay it out like the PH. You don't have to give all the classes, but I need to know the changes. I especially need to know

a. character creation methodology (roll, point buy, something else)
b. starting level, gold and hit points
c. any non-core books and rules
 

jdrakeh said:
Why the hate for plate? It was in use during the 15th Century, which is the time period that seems to form the D&D baseline. I guess I'm not seeing the vast departure from history that you are. Now, that said, if the baseline for D&D was the 12th Century, yeah -- full plate armor would be horribly out of place. The 15th Century, though? Not so much.

But the 15th century had guns...
It's not plate-hate, it's just that I like playing in a setting thats lower tech then the DnD baseline (13th century). I have no problem with playing a guy in plate armor, just not in my current setting.Thats all.
 

Eltharon said:
But the 15th century had guns...
It's not plate-hate, it's just that I like playing in a setting thats lower tech then the DnD baseline (13th century). I have no problem with playing a guy in plate armor, just not in my current setting.Thats all.

Ah! Gothcha! I'd like to play a more 'stone-age' fantasy game, myself (e.g., GURPS Fantasy II), though these don't seem to be very popular outside of established IP (e.g., Conan).
 



I have been running a survey of various questions to determine what my players are looking for in a new campaign. (I create a new setting for each campaign, because I like the opportunity to exercise my brain, as well as tailor the game to the current desires of my players.) Here are the trends I've seen in their responses so far:

So far, it looks like most people appear to be looking for a high adventure swashbuckling game set in a low fantasy world. That also supports the generally more cinematic gaming style that seems to be the desired ideal.

Most of you seem to want character development, high skill utilization, exploration, cultural diversity and new monsters/ecology. In short, it sounds like you guys want a few surprises (rules-wise) and the feel of something new, not tromping through the "same old stuff". There's also a desire for a balance between roleplay, combat and puzzle encounters, so that none of the three overshadow any of the other categories. If there is a bias, it appears to be towards roleplay instead of combat.

Almost all of you supported humans as one of the dominant races, and dwarves and elves also showed up repeatedly for desirable PC races. There definitely seems to be a bias against gnomes and the half-breed races.

As an aside, Eberron's warforged came up on both sides of the equation, but as they aren't core D&D nor OGL, I doubt you'll see them in any of my games. (The concept of the race doesn't thrill me, to be honest.)

In terms of climate and terrain, most of you don't care, so long as there's variety. Among those with an opinion, there's definitely a call for mountains and forests.

In terms of magic, almost all of you support a low magic environment, where spells are harder to come by and magic items do not define the character.

Hope This Helps,
Flynn
 


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