Why do you homebrew? or Hombrew blues

[GVDammerung]

I have been going thru this creative dry spell. For a long time I have been using published settings. I have a busy life and it's easier to use the stuff that someone else has done. Lately though I've gotten the urge to make a homebrew world again. However while I have a basic idea I keep wanting to borrow from other settings(wow race X looks cool), then I think if I'm borrowing so much from published setting X then why don't I use published setting X and forget Homebrewing. That and combined with the fact that a lot of things have been done. What can I put in my homebrew that isn't already done in Published setting X (or Y or Z for that matter).

For those that homebrew...why do you? I see so many vanilla homebrew fantasy settings...why bother? Why not use a published vanilla D&D setting? Is your setting so unique that it hasn't been done? What keeps you from just simply using a published setting?

Enquiring minds want to know...

Just saying, there is a middle ground. Grab the pretty map from somebody's published setting and homebrew the thing, maybe taking what "canon" you want from the setting and leaving the rest. This is what I do. It gives me the map I could never draw or afford to have drawn. It jumpstarts me if I need it. But it is otherwise all mine, usually bearing little resemblance to the published "canon," unless I really like that canon.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I use my homebrew setting because:

-I don't have to worry about other people knowing more about it than me.
-By keeping it somewhat generic, the players get to add to the setting. This gets them invested in it, since it's theirs to an extent.
-The PCs (and major NPCs) are the most important characters in the setting, not some 29th-level demi-god.
-I can expand it any way I want, without contradicting other supplements out there.
-I can use it as a setting for fantasy fiction, which segues nicely with my other favorite creative outlet.