Why Homebrew?

[Cadfan]

I have noticed a lot of GMs say they like to create their own world, or homebrew. I have found that, in my experience that is is just not worth it to do so. All I am doing is creating a world that I doubt my players will really care about. I admit it can be kinda fun creating my own world, but I just do not see much point in it. And I find I enjoy messing around with other people's settings just as much. I usually use the setting I am playing in as more of a starting point to put my own ideas down, and then go from there.

But, can anyone tell me any compelling reasons to create my own world beyond just the satisfaction of it?

Not every DM who homebrews is into world design. Some just create what they immediately need.

 

[Quantarum]

I've been homebrewing since 1984, the world I've created is a part of me, it's a reflection of my psyche and I love the idea of other people experiencing it. I can't imagine enjoying another world any where near as much.

-Q.

 

[Betote]

I must say that I prefer running or playing games set in a published world (and even better if it's a published adventure, too) because of the value of shared experience. I mean, it simply isn't the same fighting a vampire lord made up by your DM, however good he is at fleshing out NPCs, that fighting Stradh von Zarovich. And being RPGs a social activity, shared experience is a great value, at least in my experience.

As a DM, I find the room for creativity in side treks, NPC flavor and encounter planning. That is, in tweaking published adventures to better suit my or my group's needs.

 

[Rel]

I actually find it easier to create a world, and thus know all its details intimately, than I do absorbing all the data about someone else's world - it is far easier for me to remember all the details I made up than it is to memorize all the stuff in a setting book.

Yep.

It is far easier for me to run a homebrew game than a published setting. I know it because I made it. And when the players ask me a question during the session I can answer it without looking in a book because I either know the answer or can extrapolate one based on my intimate knowledge of the setting.

As for being able to discuss my setting with others, I'm fortunate to have some very good online friends that I kick around ideas with on a regular basis (hi Hobo and Nareau!!). Those guys know my settings (Hobo is actually running a PbP game using a version of the setting I most recently conceptualized) pretty well and frequently offer excellent adventure ideas and tweaks.

I will say that I'm not one of those people who came up with a setting back in the day and has been building and adding onto it ever since. I change settings almost every campaign (and my campaigns tend to last nine months to a year max). As a result I am probably not approaching the degree of detail that some GMs have. But I also have no compunctions about wrecking the worlds I've made. I will kill my pretties in a heartbeat if it means a more fun, exciting game.

 

[Crothian]

All I am doing is creating a world that I doubt my players will really care about.

Game with people who would care about it, it really makes a difference.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Beyond what's already been said, I always thought it was important as a DM to have a setting that I knew more about than the players did.

Of course, you can do whatever you want, but when I'm running something I feel bound to canon (if you don't stay true to the published setting the players can really feel cheated). And honestly I think it was less work to make a setting than it would have been to learn Forgotten Realms.

I also find value in customizing things to be exactly what I want, and in the creative outlet that creating a world provides.

 

[pawsplay]

I prefer my own ideas to most published setting material.

 

[Wombat]

Why homebrew?

In my case anymore, that is almost equivalent to "why breathe", but we'll pass that.

When I started with those three little books way back when there really wasn't much of an option. There was not campaign that came with the original books and by the time the Greyhawk material started coming out it simply didn't fit with the style of play I had already developed with my group.

Over the years I have used (or at least attempted to use) multiple pre-packaged settings. Some were easy to use (Alpha Complex, Al Amarja, both probably because they were purposely vague), some were a bit harder but worth the effort (Star Wars, Star Trek, World of Darkness, Mythic Europe -- they had to become "our version" of the settings), while others were harder to get into (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Theah -- in all cases I ran into folks who told me how "wrong" the version I had was).

In the end, I have found, since I don't do convention gaming often and that the players I have really like contributing to the scope of the world, that homebrewing offers a great freedom. Not only do I have, as the GM, the ability to craft a setting, but everyone at the table has an emotional investment in the setting itself, something beyond simply their characters.

I am currently in an amusing situation. I have an older setting, New Mavarga, that I first cobbled together under 3e. Of my current four players, three were in the previous incarnation; they asked that I bring the world back, but under a more appropriate (to our eyes) set of rules, so we have reworked it using 7th Sea; we toyed with the thought of using Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, which also seemed to fit the mood, but it felt just a bit "off". The point here, however, is not really the rules set -- it is the fact that out of all the pre-published settings out there, out of all the worlds the players could name, they specifically requested, nay demanded, that we return to a setting that I had created in the past.

That, as a GM, is high praise. I live for moments like that.

 

[Mallus]

... they specifically requested, nay demanded, that we return to a setting that I had created in the past.

Nice!

Also, to reiterate: I homebrew because I love making shi stuff up.

 

[FireLance]

c) I don't run in to players knowing all the secrets
d) I don't run in to players knowing more _general_ knowledge about the setting than I do

This and this. It significantly reduces the scope for flavor lawyering and setting lawyering.