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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 6766434" data-attributes="member: 5100">I consider myself a "world-building DM". I've used Greyhawk, and I'm currently using Eberron. I've definitely done the whole "implied setting" thing. I think I even ran Dark Sun for a few sessions. But, the vast majority of my 30+ years of gaming has been in settings I've created more or less from whole cloth (game stats not withstanding).A lot of my "restrictions" have come from philosophic points. One of which is that too many spices spoil the soup. I don't really have anything against any (most) of the 70 flavors of elves that were presented in various 1E and 2E resources. I just didn't see much point in specifically adding aquatic, wood, wild, high, grey, valley, arctic, sand, aerial, dark, etc. elves. I used high and grey to separate the fey elves and the more common (all things are relative) elves. Gnomes filled in the role of the "little people" and I cut halflings based on them not really having a distinct racial identity or purpose -- only one PC halfling ever got played and he was easy enough to recon into a short elf. I even started paring down the list of "monstrous" humanoids to be meaningful. Orcs were a bit like neanderthal savages; they could be reasoned with, but it was hard and they were prone to use violence first. Goblinoids were as intelligent as humans and ended up looking a lot like Eberron goblinoids, except that I had one group that ended up converting to the worship of a LG deity and had a reasonable number of paladins. Gnolls were truly feral scavengers who lived off the social carrion of other races, even going to the point of worshiping dead gods (which played very nicely with Vestiges from the 3.5E Tome of Magic). Giants of various stripes still existed, but only ogres were common. The point being that each PC or monster "race" had a niche. I didn't explicitly exclude most things (halflings aside), but it would have taken some convincing to "discover" another race rather than just using one of the existing races -- really, why can't you play that halfling concept as a gnome, elf, or human; no really? I did add a few things in, though. For example I cribbed the trollborn from the 2E Vikings book to allow for a large and/or monstrous PC who was able to cast magic.If a player had an idea for a character that really needed a different race, I would definitely have worked with them. The concept would have had to fit within parameters I was comfortable with in a game. I dislike merging sci-fi and magic, so there was no room for a character who shot laser beams or anything like that (I've softened a bit). I also really hate pun names or things that continually break the fourth wall. Those are just non-negotiable in a game I GM (or play in), not because they're inherently badwrongfun, but because I dislike the flavor enough to not want to be at the table. I don't read books with certain flavors, either (Piers Anthony does nothing for me, but I'm glad some folks enjoy them).The above all seem like good reasons to limit options, but weren't necessarily "world-building" as much as table rules. Things like allowing gnomes but not halflings had some momentum based on history, but could have easily gone the another way.Now, what have I learned over the years?My grand home-brew started out as an implied setting based on BECMI and 1E rules and flavor nuggets. It was built around the players I had in junior high and high school. There was no name for the world, initially. The first couple campaigns I ran were set in a nondescript area that allowed me to run a couple modules and build my own. It took on life based on the actions of the players. My second "batch" of campaigns was similar, but eventually was placed in a different part of the same world and a different, earlier time. I discovered the synergy of being able to use shared place names, major events, and the above paring of options for a consistent experience. The best part was that each new campaign could include references to stuff from the last one, so that natural retelling of previous adventures that happens with gamers could be worked into the story. The players got to feel like their characters could make permanent, important changes to the world -- they had bragging rights to founding a kingdom, even if the next game advanced the timeline past the character's death.This fun continued to the next group, in college. Even though there were no shared players, the fact that there were actual answers to some questions really helped things come to life. They also knew their stories would get passed on to the next group. Those stories took place in areas that bordered on the earlier areas, but didn't conflict with them.The thing is, there are only so many "new areas" you can have before the world gets too big to be a single thing. But, if you don't add new areas, the next group doesn't have a chance to make their mark without tearing down what came before. Also, tastes change over decades of gaming. What was super cool in my teens and early twenties now looks cheesy and hackneyed; even if I still remember the games fondly, I don't always want to have the goofiness on center stage. I finally sunset my world after 20+ years about the time 3.5 came out, though it took about five years to tell that tale. Now we're doing Eberron while we get used to 5E.I'm looking forward to building a new home-brew world and doing it around my current players. That's the best way to do it. A world can last through a few campaigns, but it doesn't work well to cling to it too tightly. The DM has a lot of say in what it looks like -- and that's totally right and proper, even necessary. But, the world needs to fit the needs of the players, too. I'm afraid I'm going to have to include halflings in my new world, since one of the guys is a fan. I'll live. I still won't allow kender, tinker gnomes, or other comic relief races, though. And, no crashed space ships or laser guns, either. I don't want to participate in a game with those. Sometimes what's missing is as important as what's present.</blockquote>

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