Why do a homebrew?

[Desdichado]

I think one of the big reasons why I'm into homebrew settings instead of established ones is due to the information base--especially for settings like Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Star Wars, Marvel/DC, Lord of the Rings, etc. Though there are some players who may have knowledge about the game to understand certain nuances & reference, not all of the players may share that level of knowledge.

And to a certain degree, some players emulate elements of an established setting a bit too much, whether it's a prominent NPC (Elminster, Drizzt, Raistlin, etc.), a unique race (draconians, saurials, thri-kreen, etc.), or even unique abilities/concepts (spellfire, Chosen of XX deity, wild magic, etc.). It gets a bit tiresome after a while.

That's potentially a major weakness of homebrewing as well, though. It's hard to have characters who actually know as much about the world as they should assuming they grew up there, unless you've got players who are willing to read small books of background material. Of course, that's the complaint here at the beginning of the thread, though, isn't it?

 

[Jeph]

I've found that the best way to get players involved in a world is to create it with them, or at least with their input. It's worked quite well the few times I've tried it.

 

[Psion]

Re: Giving players a reason to care.

It's not easy. It really isn't. At least not up front. Players are into their faves.

I'm usually pretty lenient about letting players play what they want. But lately, in indocrinating new players, I find myself saying "no" a lot. My players already know my stance on kender when I told them the "exploding kender" policy. More recently, I had to tell a player NO she could not use the FRCS as a source of races (and this went over rather well when I introduced her to sources I do use) and had to tell another NO kagonesti (or anything DL) or grugach. It was the first time that I had to do this in a long time, but I think it should prove important in letting the players break the ties with their old world and get into mine. Which, in the past, has been complimented by people as having grandiose storylines and a sense of mystery.

The sooner you can get your players receptive to your world, the better. The above is step 1. Step 2 is to show them interesting events that wouldn't happen in any published game world. Strut your stuff! Then they see the beuaty of breaking out of their old molds.

re: Why homebrew.

The pure joy of creation is one of them.

The sense of freedom and control is another. I know that some people are not bashful about altering a published setting. In truth, I am. Guessing at "authors intent" is constantly a mental bugbear for me; I feel as if the author is looking over my shoulder. In my own campaign, I can create, destroy, and alter NPCs and not have to worry about whether that is the "way it should be" by some standard. If I do it in my own game, it is inherently the "way it should be."

I don't have to worry about things not fitting or if something is missing or coming down the pipe that will make my setting changes more work.

Never has there been a better time to homebrew than now. Before d20, you were pretty much on your own if you wanted to homebrew. Now, dozens of publishers make ready-to-steal bits that you can pull into your campaign that are made with being ported to your own campaign in mind. This is awesome, IMO.

 

[ciaran00]

I've found that if what you add to the core rules is SLIGHTLY more advantageous to go with, the players will take the carrot. Your additions don't have to be unbalanced, they just have to have a teeny tiny edge.

Have the other gods, but your god is special.

Ie: all my core classes are customisable (a mechanic that I took some time to devise). This makes them more valuable than they already are (though balance-wise they're the same), almost eliminating the race for a PrC.

ciaran

 

[Luddite]

Here are my randoms assortment of quips and advice about using a homebrew...

You can write all you want, but don't expect the players to read it up front. I wrote quite a bit for my world mostly so I could nail down some important points. Then I would mention I would post something on my web page and let the players know. I would highlight a few aspects that I wrote about, otherwise I just use the information myself to make sure I stay mostly consistant.

Also let the players have some creative liberty. For my cleric, he proposed what type of god he wanted. So I worked up one that would work and figured out the god would go. This was early on, where I had the pantheons I had in mind were vague at best. I had "The Elf Pathneon" but I did not need to fully develop it since it was not going to be in play for a while.

If a player wants to just be stubborn, you can always play the "...comes from far away" card. One of my players wanted to play a Hobbit, and my halflings were not Hobbits. So he came from "far away," and could not understand the customs and behaviors of the halflings I had. He had no problem being a complete forienger. (It also helped that I had made the inital setting a Boardertown/Crossraods of Trade to allow for any character to be there.)

-The Luddite

 

[blackshirt5]

Just speaking from my personal experience, I like homebrewing because it allows me complete freedom in running my game.

 

[KenM]

I created my own world. I use the same world no matter what system I'm running, just change the monster stats. I just started small, a basic map of the main landmass, and I focused on on kingdom where the campiagn started, then work out. Since I stink at coming up wioth names, I took a couple of names for published gods and used them for my gods, but they are not the same gods.
I hate running published settings because the players always assume that you are running it excatly as published.

 

[Nightfall]

LOL@Psion.

Exploding Kender. Btw another good reason to homebrew: you can now make Skaven. Which reminds me Psion, how goes the Chaositech conversions?

 

[Nightfall]

bump for the Homebrew crew.

 

[Christian Walker]

As I was posting my question about making magic distinctive, I asked myself "Self, why even bother? The players either won't care, or complain."

After you suppress the urge to kill them and take their stuff, ask your players to follow a simple rule that has served me well: "Please, build a character to fit the setting rather than bending the setting to fit your character."

If they can't accept that simple (and reasonable) request, then by all means, make with the killing and the taking of their stuff.