Why Homebrew?
- Thread starter Tinker Gnome
- Start date
Tinker Gnome
Adventurer
BryonD
Hero
Ktulu
First Post
I don't "create a world" so much as start running adventures surrounded by a theme. As the players explore, more and more exists, being built upon what they know. In my current game, most of the players started out as thieves and slaves and are now lords in the empire (due to their actions). Each cares very much about the game-world, because they helped shape it.
I think the real benefit comes from extended play. I've "used" this world in three different campaigns. The first one failed miserably after two sessions. The second I used it with Expedition to Ravenloft. And the third is my current one that's gone on for almost 30 sessions, now. The first two I used the general themes and styles, but the games didn't take off, so I just filed the stuff away.
On this current game, those themes resonated a little stronger and the players latched onto some NPC's.
Also, don't forget the value of a good game-blog. Obsidian portal and epic words both have some great options for logging a campaign. Without it, I know my game would have fallen apart months ago.
I think the real benefit comes from extended play. I've "used" this world in three different campaigns. The first one failed miserably after two sessions. The second I used it with Expedition to Ravenloft. And the third is my current one that's gone on for almost 30 sessions, now. The first two I used the general themes and styles, but the games didn't take off, so I just filed the stuff away.
On this current game, those themes resonated a little stronger and the players latched onto some NPC's.
Also, don't forget the value of a good game-blog. Obsidian portal and epic words both have some great options for logging a campaign. Without it, I know my game would have fallen apart months ago.
Raven Crowking
First Post
First off, let me say, "Great Thread" & some very interesting posts so far. Worldbuilding is near and dear to my heart, for reasons that many have given already.
When you create your own world, you automatically have the authority to say what that world is like. No one can go flipping through Forgotten Realms novels to "prove" you wrong.
When you create your own word, you have carte blanche with the future. No later novel or supplement is going to "invalidate" how your PCs took the reigns of the world and twisted it to their needs.
Creating your own world is creative and fun. It is also fun, from the players' perspective, to learn about the world as it unfolds around them. Shadowdale means Elminster, and is just a place made up for someone else's gaming group (at best); Selby-by-the-Water is part of a unique world, and what happens there is personal.
When creating your own world, you can steal whatever you like from other worlds. You can twist, fold, spindle, and mutilate until you have a setting that matches your (and your group's) desires.
I would also like to point out this:
In the 1e DMG, Gygax mentions as much, and I agree completely. Worlds can obtain real depth through extended play.
RC
When you create your own world, you automatically have the authority to say what that world is like. No one can go flipping through Forgotten Realms novels to "prove" you wrong.
When you create your own word, you have carte blanche with the future. No later novel or supplement is going to "invalidate" how your PCs took the reigns of the world and twisted it to their needs.
Creating your own world is creative and fun. It is also fun, from the players' perspective, to learn about the world as it unfolds around them. Shadowdale means Elminster, and is just a place made up for someone else's gaming group (at best); Selby-by-the-Water is part of a unique world, and what happens there is personal.
When creating your own world, you can steal whatever you like from other worlds. You can twist, fold, spindle, and mutilate until you have a setting that matches your (and your group's) desires.
I would also like to point out this:
In the 1e DMG, Gygax mentions as much, and I agree completely. Worlds can obtain real depth through extended play.
RC
Scribble
First Post
I've usually been like you... I will take a world and then modify the hell out of it. I found scarred lands like that because I just wanted a map to use, and they had that Gazetteer thing when they first started...
Lately I've been building my world because I'm having fun with it, and I want the world to be "mostly" unknown to he players. I've also been trying to heed their creative input as well, including areas based on their own back stories, and goals.
I'm also creating the world somewhat "organically" as well, in that I have a basic "idea" of the layout of the world, but I'm filling in the details as the campaign progresses.
Nellisir
Hero
This.
Lord Ipplepop
Explorer
I have been playing since the days of 1ed, and have been dming since then as well... and in that time, I have "created" numerous homebrew campaigns... and yet, none of them (except for the one I am working dilligently on now) needed the entire world created.
I usually decide what style of game I want (as has been mentioned before). Some of the genres were:
undead heavy (not Raveloft, per se... just something to make clerics and paladins drool)
pre-Greyhawk
mostly water areas
etc.
Then, I decide what monsters fit most into what I see in my mind.
Then I create one small town, and start the adventures there (and rarely in a tavern). I usually figure out a few adventures that I would like to run, and figure out how to get the party there, and by doing so, come up with recurring characters, towns, major NPC's and such. If any characters die, they are given a name change, and made into major NPC's. By the time we get tired of playing it, or the entire party dies, the world has a rich history and is a memorable place that I didn't need to kill myself to design.
Oh, yeah... one last tip...
Let the players take as much of the burden off your shoulders as possible, even when they don't know they are doing so. If your players build their characters with a backstory, then you can use that in building adventures, history, artifacts, etc... and those items will, in turn, lead to other bits of world building, which will- in turn- lead to... get the idea?
Players also have the bad habit of talking out of game, or saying things like "watch this be..." or, "I bet we run into (come across, land in, find)..." or, "If <this> happens, we're hosed". Use those pieces of ad lib from the players to help build your world.
I usually decide what style of game I want (as has been mentioned before). Some of the genres were:
undead heavy (not Raveloft, per se... just something to make clerics and paladins drool)
pre-Greyhawk
mostly water areas
etc.
Then, I decide what monsters fit most into what I see in my mind.
Then I create one small town, and start the adventures there (and rarely in a tavern). I usually figure out a few adventures that I would like to run, and figure out how to get the party there, and by doing so, come up with recurring characters, towns, major NPC's and such. If any characters die, they are given a name change, and made into major NPC's. By the time we get tired of playing it, or the entire party dies, the world has a rich history and is a memorable place that I didn't need to kill myself to design.
Oh, yeah... one last tip...
Let the players take as much of the burden off your shoulders as possible, even when they don't know they are doing so. If your players build their characters with a backstory, then you can use that in building adventures, history, artifacts, etc... and those items will, in turn, lead to other bits of world building, which will- in turn- lead to... get the idea?
Players also have the bad habit of talking out of game, or saying things like "watch this be..." or, "I bet we run into (come across, land in, find)..." or, "If <this> happens, we're hosed". Use those pieces of ad lib from the players to help build your world.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
As others have said, it keeps things fresh, it allows a better memorization of details and relationships for the GM, they are not locked into someone else's work that may not have adequately conveyed reasons behind it, it fills a niche not commercially available,
I do believe you are right to point out commercially "known settings" do offer a sense of community beyond one group's gaming table. The problem is, once a game begins that published setting will stop be the same as any other has been, is, or will be. Compounding the problem is that fact hasn't stopped publishers from trying to publish progressed versions of the worlds as if anyone's campaign led to such a new configuration (except perhaps the game designer's).
Frankly, the biggest requirement to homebrew settings and adventures for RPGs is the need to continually have unknowns for the Players to guess. Without unknowns roleplaying becomes little more than repeating back the answers in a book the players have already read. This isn't roleplaying, but instead scripted acting. The ones who are meant to improv don't. Reading the module is like reading the teacher's copy of an exam, when it comes time to actually perform the player knows the answers because of cheating rather than ability/roleplaying.
Folks game design house rules for the same reasons they game design modules and settings, they want to focus the game on the role elements the group finds fun. And without those predefined world aspects a group can't roleplay.
I do believe you are right to point out commercially "known settings" do offer a sense of community beyond one group's gaming table. The problem is, once a game begins that published setting will stop be the same as any other has been, is, or will be. Compounding the problem is that fact hasn't stopped publishers from trying to publish progressed versions of the worlds as if anyone's campaign led to such a new configuration (except perhaps the game designer's).
Frankly, the biggest requirement to homebrew settings and adventures for RPGs is the need to continually have unknowns for the Players to guess. Without unknowns roleplaying becomes little more than repeating back the answers in a book the players have already read. This isn't roleplaying, but instead scripted acting. The ones who are meant to improv don't. Reading the module is like reading the teacher's copy of an exam, when it comes time to actually perform the player knows the answers because of cheating rather than ability/roleplaying.
Folks game design house rules for the same reasons they game design modules and settings, they want to focus the game on the role elements the group finds fun. And without those predefined world aspects a group can't roleplay.
Thanks to this thread, I now have ideas for a homemade setting.
Wombat
First Post
I know I answered earlier, but an image struck me today that I had to share.
Have you ever worn tailored clothing, true tailored clothing? Sure, you can buy something off the rack and it might well fit and even look good ... but it bears no resemblance to something made specifically for you. The fit, the way it moves, the colours, the pure choices -- it is dead-on amazing as opposed to purely serviceable, something that thousands upon thousands of other individuals have. It is you, a statement, and a perfect fit.
I wore that outfit down to its bare threads, I tell you -- nothing like it.
And a well-crafted homebrew gives that same feeling.
Have you ever worn tailored clothing, true tailored clothing? Sure, you can buy something off the rack and it might well fit and even look good ... but it bears no resemblance to something made specifically for you. The fit, the way it moves, the colours, the pure choices -- it is dead-on amazing as opposed to purely serviceable, something that thousands upon thousands of other individuals have. It is you, a statement, and a perfect fit.
I wore that outfit down to its bare threads, I tell you -- nothing like it.
And a well-crafted homebrew gives that same feeling.
