What do you steal from published settings?

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Anything that interests me.

My homebrew is a big place and can usually handle the odd things here and there so its not too hard to squeeze new things in.

 

[Desdichado]

Thread Necromancy. I stumbled across this accidentally while Googling something else, and figured, hey, what the heck. This discussion is always interesting, if I can jumpstart it.

In many ways, I consider my homebrewing style to be more closely related to kitbashing rather than scratchbuilding. While I do have, probably, at least a few reasonably innovative ideas, I'm much more likely to just combine stuff that I already like, modify it just a bit so the borrowing isn't too immediately obvious, and run with that.

So, first off, my racial line-up is highly modified from the D&D standard. No dwarves, elves, halflings or gnomes or orcs or goblinoids or any of that jazz. Although largely humanistic, I've got wildmen (started as shifters from Eberron, although they started migrating a bit more towards tharn from Iron Kingdoms over time with simplified rules), jann (same as azhar from Freeport, which are in turn, the same as fire genasi in conceptualization), and renamed and redescribed tieflings, including a true-breeding population of them that look kinda like Graz'zt or maybe a unicolored Darth Maul. Stole the notion of Bael Turath from the "points of light" 4e setting, renamed a bit to Baal Hamazi. Also; I have Neanderthals from Frostburn--just for fun.

I stole the notion of a kingdom of vampires from an article I read on the Wizards website in support of the release of Open Grave, although I mostly developed the details of that myself after brainstorming with some folks online first. Since I stole (and renamed and reskinned) the azhar from Freeport, I figured why not go all out and modify Kizmir into my own Qizmir--a young, vigorous nation ruled by jann who are overlords to a subjugated population of humans. They're kinda on the perifphery of my setting, although colonists, traders and especially Barbary pirates who ultimately hail from Qizmir play and important part of my setting, and the Barbary Coast is a semi-independent group of cities founded by the Qizmiri. I also made a nation of hobgoblins that bears a strong resemblance to the skorne of Iron Kingdoms--although I've since done away with goblinoids and made them just a separate ethnicity and nation of humans since first formulating my setting. The resemblance isn't as strong as it was when I first "stole" it from Monsternomicon 2, but it's also not completely gone. And my "main" kingdom in the area is actually stolen from history, mostly, not a published setting. I concieved of it as similar to the Crown of Aragon at it's height.

Although I do admit that I like the "look" of Cygnar for these guys--again, borrowed from the Iron Kingdoms.

The behind the scenes movers and shakers villains of the setting are heavily influenced by the Ten Who Were Taken from The Black Company. There's a lot of Lovecraftian influence, although I'm not sure that including Lovecraftian elements in RPGs isn't more of an in-joke these days than anything else. I had my poorly defined Cannibal Isle culture gradually start to take on attributes of the Witches of Dathomir after watching those episodes about them on The Clone Wars with my kids.

Like I said; a kitbash approach. My setting includes more elements that started out as a "stolen" element and gradually evolved into something more or less unique than it did elements that were genuinely unique to begin with.

 

[the Jester]

Whatever works.

It's most likely to be monsters, treasure, dungeons or neat locations, but I am happy to loot deities, situations, setting ideas, etc. as well.

Some favorites I have incorporated from other settings, systems, fiction or indeed other genres entirely include warforged, Boccob, trumps, the Dark Sun Creature Collection, dragonarmies, artificers, etc.

 

[JeffB]

I tend to run a "classic" S&S worlds ala nehwon, hyboria, etc. I have not borrowed anything wholesale, but I do borrow from the "grim, gritty" feel of both settings- I try to model my worlds in the same manner.

I also really like Glorantha's "bronze age" feel, so I tend to take alot from it in theory, if not actual material- mostly cultures and how cults (religion) are viewed by the general populace- IOW- religion is a big factor for everyone, not just clerics and the common people appeasing the gods. However I do not like magic so common/wahoo so that gets played down. For specific things, in particular I've borrowed alot from the Pavis area- frontier land recently taken under control of a large empire.

For D&D materials- I tend to run the old settings as they are- either Gygax era GH, or the OGB realms- I have not stolen much for my own homebrews from either-barring modules.

However despite the fact I am not a fan of the setting in general, I've ripped wholesale from eberron's Xendrik. the SoX book is the only 3.5 WOTC product I still own- The whole premise of the continent fits my needs- a once advanced culture now long gone, and it is a largely unexplored dark continent full of mystery, secrets, and things that cannot be explained in this day & age. Love it. tweak some names and races (mostly eliminate them- like drow, and warforged) and it just works for my style of games- a great big sandbox where exploration is the name of the game.

When I was running 4E, I totally warmed up to the Nentir Vale setting and used that- great little sandbox, and love the "POL" theme as again , its always been the type of game I run.

For the most part I prefer to meld the game to my setting, instead of a current trend of designing a setting around all the game rules- like Eberron proper, or Golarion do.

 

[Weregrognard]

I wanted to run an Isle of Dread campaign in which I was going to re-envision the famous island using material from Eberron's Xen'drik, Palladium RPG's Yin-Sloth Jungles, and the TV show LOST. I never got do do it, though.

I've also mashed together REH's Stygians, FR's the Red Wizards of Thay, and GH's Scarlet Brotherhood into a group of mysterious "Red Mystics" for an S&S campaign.

 

[gamerprinter]

Being a world builder at heart, I much prefer to reinvent the wheel than to ever use somebody elses creativity. Back in the day, when I didn't create published settings - the thought was always in the back of my mind, that if I ever wanted to publish one of my settings, if I borrowed from some one else's setting, I would have to make a change. To avoid that, I've done my best to borrow nothing, building everything from the ground up.

Now that I am a creator of published settings, as in Kaidan, I'm glad this is how I do things. My setting and mechanical supplements stay within the Pathfinder system - so I use classes and other rules similarly, however, the world itself, has never been done the way I've done it. And this is for the best.

 

[Gilladian]

Before I put my site on my wiki, I borrowed a lot from other campaigns, because "nobody would ever see it". Nowadays, I've weeded a lot/most of the borrowed materials out. I'm happier that way.

My original pantheon of gods came from a source way back in 2nd edition days; I think it might be Thieves Guild, but I'm not sure. I've changed all the names, added and subtracted gods, and made other changes, so I don't think there's a lot of similarity left...

Mostly, I've borrowed adventures and adventure background/history, which has been woven into my own campaign history, modified and stretched and pushed until it really isn't recognizable as much like the originals, any more. And I almost always change all the names, anyway, because generally I can't stand most fantasy names.

 

[Voadam]

Currently running a Pathfinder game of Freeport Trilogy, same world I used before but different emphasis and group.

A bunch of Green Ronin stuff including the Pirate's Guide; NPCs, Cults, and Pirates of Freeport; Pathfinder Companion, and the 4e Companion.

I use lovecraftian entities and elder gods. Green Ronin stuff, Chaosium stuff, non-RPG stuff, etc.

I've got Liberty, the city quarters stuff placed in the world as well as Sanctuary.

I've mashed in an AEG mini module and its saint Bethesda.

I use a lot of real world pantheons from Lore of the Gods and similar sources. Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Norse in particular.

I use the pantheon from Golarion for my Qadirans, plus Osirian (combined with Hamunaptra) and a bit of Qadira and Cheliax.

I use the Scarred Lands Pantheon and Charduni empire of dwarves.

I use the WFRP pantheon and their chaos dwarves in the world history.

I use Ptolus and the Lothian Empire.

I use Spiros Blaak for part of the Lothian empire.

I use Nyambe as the southern empire sort of mashed up with Garund from Golarion.

A little bit of Arcana Evolved/Diamond Throne concepts of dragons and giants has been in there.

 

[Elf Witch]

My homebrew has a lot of borrowed ideas. I borrowed the idea of dragonmarked houses for my game I retooled them to fit my world.

I use the standard pantheon from Grayhawk.

My halflings are golden halflings from Forgotten Realms, I also have Irda and dragon races from Dragonlance. The hobgoblins are from Kingdoms of Kalamar.

I use the Kingdom of Kalamar rule of clerics matching their gods alignment and the language rules form Kingdoms of Kalamar.

 

[KiloGex]

Oftentimes I will create my own setting (continent, countries, kingdoms, history, etc) and then use published campaigns as outlines for my own. For instance, I've taken the Kingmaker campaign idea and placed it into a dwarven settlement, simply using the main story hooks and characters. I've also retooled a few of the AD&D X Modules spliced into my world. Ultimately I feel that the story plot and overarching idea is what makes it so interesting; the NPC and location names aren't as important and often times it's more fun to tie everything into a single world rather than giving them a new setting every time.