What Makes Your Homebrew Great?
- Thread starter Sholari
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A'koss
Explorer
Looking at this thread I see many of the same points I would make in describing "what works" in my own homebrew. "Style of Campaign", "Personalization" and "Possessing Greater Knowledge of the Campaign than the Players"... 
The devil is in the details as they say and I did a metric ton of research for it before getting into it in earnest, particularly on how I wanted it to look. I've downloaded probably thousands of images of villages, ancient towns, structures of all kinds, various terrain, stylized architecture both fantasy and real-life images from around the world. I spent many an hour cherry-picking certain elements here and there to build a baseline look I wanted for the various city-states in my game. For example, one of my cities I amalgamated elements from a French Village I liked for the garden elements, pinnacles of stone similar to those in China, organic flowing structures similar to a fantasy painting I downloaded, connected by bridges of my own design and then gave it all a flavor that felt appropriate for it's setting.
I find that once I create the "look" I'm searching for, the culture, social structure, government, ecology, adventure hooks just seem to flow from that baseline vision. I try to keep human civilization interesting, even extraordinary (in capability), but always believable. NPCs play a big part in keeping it real. Population centres are generally smaller than you'd find on many other fantasy worlds - especially FR. Even the largest city-states have no more than 35-40,000 people in them. Many of them are just well-fortified towns of 16-20,000. This gives your home-city a more personal feeling I find and the more you can make the players care about their home, the easier it is to motivate them to do something for it.
What I like to do for NPCs is jot down, in just rough point form, events that *will* happen to them in certain intervals in the future. Perhaps they have a child or perhaps a prominant NPC they rescued has turned to drink and violence from his ordeal. Just things that ground them to the campaign and can be points of discussion when the PCs meet up with them again. And I try to do that on a broader campaign level too. Things continue to happen in the world even if the PCs aren't around to witness them.
But what I think is one of my favorite things to do in the campaign is what I like to call "unintended consequences". What happens after the adventure is over and the PCs leave for new adventures elsewhere? Did they just touch off a domino effect with their efforts that they did not anticipate? Did they leave a huge power-vaccuum begging to be filled? Did they unload a metric ton of gold into an economy unable to handle it? Are the guild masters they rescued in any better position to defend themselves after the PCs have departed? Will there be a civil uprising against the local authority for "allowing" a BBEG to do so much damage in the first place? Is there collateral damage the PCs need to answer for? Is someone looking for some payback? Things of that nature...
There's certainly more I could talk about, including introducing "fantastic" elements to a campaign in moderation so that they have greater impact. Fleshing out your major races to make them more believable - eg. Fire Giants IMC have a rather large empire on one of the southern continents and are known to appreciate great sculpture (stone, metal & glass) and (though rather violent) "theatre". It's a society that built around fire, stone and iron like we are drawn to water.
The devil is in the details as they say and I did a metric ton of research for it before getting into it in earnest, particularly on how I wanted it to look. I've downloaded probably thousands of images of villages, ancient towns, structures of all kinds, various terrain, stylized architecture both fantasy and real-life images from around the world. I spent many an hour cherry-picking certain elements here and there to build a baseline look I wanted for the various city-states in my game. For example, one of my cities I amalgamated elements from a French Village I liked for the garden elements, pinnacles of stone similar to those in China, organic flowing structures similar to a fantasy painting I downloaded, connected by bridges of my own design and then gave it all a flavor that felt appropriate for it's setting.
I find that once I create the "look" I'm searching for, the culture, social structure, government, ecology, adventure hooks just seem to flow from that baseline vision. I try to keep human civilization interesting, even extraordinary (in capability), but always believable. NPCs play a big part in keeping it real. Population centres are generally smaller than you'd find on many other fantasy worlds - especially FR. Even the largest city-states have no more than 35-40,000 people in them. Many of them are just well-fortified towns of 16-20,000. This gives your home-city a more personal feeling I find and the more you can make the players care about their home, the easier it is to motivate them to do something for it.
What I like to do for NPCs is jot down, in just rough point form, events that *will* happen to them in certain intervals in the future. Perhaps they have a child or perhaps a prominant NPC they rescued has turned to drink and violence from his ordeal. Just things that ground them to the campaign and can be points of discussion when the PCs meet up with them again. And I try to do that on a broader campaign level too. Things continue to happen in the world even if the PCs aren't around to witness them.
But what I think is one of my favorite things to do in the campaign is what I like to call "unintended consequences". What happens after the adventure is over and the PCs leave for new adventures elsewhere? Did they just touch off a domino effect with their efforts that they did not anticipate? Did they leave a huge power-vaccuum begging to be filled? Did they unload a metric ton of gold into an economy unable to handle it? Are the guild masters they rescued in any better position to defend themselves after the PCs have departed? Will there be a civil uprising against the local authority for "allowing" a BBEG to do so much damage in the first place? Is there collateral damage the PCs need to answer for? Is someone looking for some payback? Things of that nature...
There's certainly more I could talk about, including introducing "fantastic" elements to a campaign in moderation so that they have greater impact. Fleshing out your major races to make them more believable - eg. Fire Giants IMC have a rather large empire on one of the southern continents and are known to appreciate great sculpture (stone, metal & glass) and (though rather violent) "theatre". It's a society that built around fire, stone and iron like we are drawn to water.
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I haven't DM'd for awhile, and when I did, I sucked. But I can give you a player's perspective of why PLAYING in a homebrew is fantastic. My DM is trying to become a published fantasy author, and while I can say that I doubt they'll ever get published, it does mean that he has written several -novels- set in the world.
When we made our characters, we told him our backgrounds, and he fit in plot hooks perfectly with our character motives. I love this more than anything else, because it means we can actually roleplay, and not do things "just because we're supposed to."
He can completely roll with any situation. My first character in his campaign was a bard with amnesia, who came to while walking away from a wild-magic land, holding a Santa-like bag full of worthless odds and ends. I said "Matt, you figure out where I've been. I have amnesia." He made me the reincarnation of an ancient hero, who would be critical in an arcane order's plans to save the world. I gave the order the finger, became quite nihilist, and ended up hanging myself after an argument with another PC. Without even blinking, he looked at the rest of the party and asked "What do you do?" And off they went in a completely different direction, in the same game session, without missing a beat. He can do this because he knows what sort of powers are in the world, and he knows what sort of things will happen if -anything- happens.
Because the world is completely in his mind, he can add on the fly, and it works. What I -know- was a randomly rolled combat encounter with bee-people led to the formation of diplomatic ties with a powerful hivemind that had been living in isolation in the mountains for decades. I'm certain these folks "weren't there" 5 minutes before the session began.
He also makes up entire cities on the fly, and I love it
So, I guess I'm saying familiarity is key. Or something
When we made our characters, we told him our backgrounds, and he fit in plot hooks perfectly with our character motives. I love this more than anything else, because it means we can actually roleplay, and not do things "just because we're supposed to."
He can completely roll with any situation. My first character in his campaign was a bard with amnesia, who came to while walking away from a wild-magic land, holding a Santa-like bag full of worthless odds and ends. I said "Matt, you figure out where I've been. I have amnesia." He made me the reincarnation of an ancient hero, who would be critical in an arcane order's plans to save the world. I gave the order the finger, became quite nihilist, and ended up hanging myself after an argument with another PC. Without even blinking, he looked at the rest of the party and asked "What do you do?" And off they went in a completely different direction, in the same game session, without missing a beat. He can do this because he knows what sort of powers are in the world, and he knows what sort of things will happen if -anything- happens.
Because the world is completely in his mind, he can add on the fly, and it works. What I -know- was a randomly rolled combat encounter with bee-people led to the formation of diplomatic ties with a powerful hivemind that had been living in isolation in the mountains for decades. I'm certain these folks "weren't there" 5 minutes before the session began.
He also makes up entire cities on the fly, and I love it
So, I guess I'm saying familiarity is key. Or something
I have said elsewhere:
I have run so many campaigns (good and bad)...but here are 2 things I do that REALLY work:
1) Taking the time to print up game world news-sheet of some kind. When I ran a 1900's superheroic game, it was a memo sheet from the PC's organization, the "G.A.I.A Gazetteer." For a D&D campaign, it was a printout of all the various proclamations in the town square...including one in Zapf Dingbats for the illiterate Barbarian (but only once-he quickly took a language). The sheets get placed wherever your players can just look it over. In it, there are "reports" of the last session's events as if it were news, as well as little news blurbs (read: plot hooks) from all over your game world. Your players will read these blurbs and reminice over their actions, then read the blurbs, thinking of them as flavor...but eventually, they'll start to wonder about the news as if it were real. The first time I did this, the players' table talk about the Gazetteer was so full of specualation and conjecture, I didn't have to think of another plot line. Essentially, they spun off so many theories, all I had to do was turn the theories into adventures.
It is, in a sense, a great way to satisfy all 3 criteria I mentioned above, especially with all that feedback you'll get.
2) The running battle. These are tricky, but they add a lot of realism to the game...and it is something I've noticed is lacking in most modules. Any time you have the PCs fighting while keeping in motion, it increases tension. It will remind the players (at least subconsciously) of the action sequences from all of their favorite movies. It will also (almost) get them operating in real time. They'll be more submerged in their roles, and may make decisions in haste (heh heh heh).
You'll have to think this kind of encounter out carefully. Most players (in my personal experience) unlikely to move or retreat their characters unless they have to. They will stand toe-to-toe with a beastie until its clear they can't...like when the last guy falls dead. So first, you need to have the PC's in a situation where motion is REQUIRED, like the classic burning house or flooding room. Sometimes, just overwhelming numbers or attackers from unusual angles will work. Forcing a character to run because of Fear effects ALWAYS works, but its hard to do.
However, once you do it a couple of times, your players will be more accustomed to moving and fighting, and may even do so on their own volition, turning a set encounter into a moving battle because of tactical reasons (getting the horde of goblins to move into a choke point, etc.)
I have run so many campaigns (good and bad)...but here are 2 things I do that REALLY work:
1) Taking the time to print up game world news-sheet of some kind. When I ran a 1900's superheroic game, it was a memo sheet from the PC's organization, the "G.A.I.A Gazetteer." For a D&D campaign, it was a printout of all the various proclamations in the town square...including one in Zapf Dingbats for the illiterate Barbarian (but only once-he quickly took a language). The sheets get placed wherever your players can just look it over. In it, there are "reports" of the last session's events as if it were news, as well as little news blurbs (read: plot hooks) from all over your game world. Your players will read these blurbs and reminice over their actions, then read the blurbs, thinking of them as flavor...but eventually, they'll start to wonder about the news as if it were real. The first time I did this, the players' table talk about the Gazetteer was so full of specualation and conjecture, I didn't have to think of another plot line. Essentially, they spun off so many theories, all I had to do was turn the theories into adventures.
It is, in a sense, a great way to satisfy all 3 criteria I mentioned above, especially with all that feedback you'll get.
2) The running battle. These are tricky, but they add a lot of realism to the game...and it is something I've noticed is lacking in most modules. Any time you have the PCs fighting while keeping in motion, it increases tension. It will remind the players (at least subconsciously) of the action sequences from all of their favorite movies. It will also (almost) get them operating in real time. They'll be more submerged in their roles, and may make decisions in haste (heh heh heh).
You'll have to think this kind of encounter out carefully. Most players (in my personal experience) unlikely to move or retreat their characters unless they have to. They will stand toe-to-toe with a beastie until its clear they can't...like when the last guy falls dead. So first, you need to have the PC's in a situation where motion is REQUIRED, like the classic burning house or flooding room. Sometimes, just overwhelming numbers or attackers from unusual angles will work. Forcing a character to run because of Fear effects ALWAYS works, but its hard to do.
However, once you do it a couple of times, your players will be more accustomed to moving and fighting, and may even do so on their own volition, turning a set encounter into a moving battle because of tactical reasons (getting the horde of goblins to move into a choke point, etc.)
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