your homebrew - what's your motivation?

[Doc_Klueless]

Basically, I'm too lazy and cheap to spend the time, effort and money reading up and using a premade setting.

"Too lazy? But don't you have to do more creative work with a homebrew?" you ask (or maybe you don't)

With a homebrew, I can make it up as I need it. As long as I keep notes for continuity, everything is peachy keachy Okay.

Whew. This honesty thing might bite me in the butt. Luckily for me, none of my online players come to ENWorld. Even though I keep encouraging them to.

 

[Ghostwind]

I echo the creativity statements made by others. For me, it's not only the desire and challenge of doing it myself, but it's also interesting to develop that literally becomes alive and grows as you spend more time in it. For instance, my homebrew started out as a small continent. Eventually, as the players learned more and their characters did deeds that would have effects on others in the long term, my setting changed to accomodate this. The small continent grew into more than one. Characters boarded ships for the new world and such. They are forging the legends of a new age borne from the secrets of an older age.

In short, I can take the good from all other existing worlds and use it in mine in little bits and pieces, letting the players discover new goodies on my timetable over someone else's. It is, after all, about the creativity and passion you have for your dream and those of your players.

 

[fusangite]

I wanted a world built on the premise "What if D&D was true, how would people act and live"

It's shocking how few worlds are. Isn't it?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

It's shocking how few worlds are. Isn't it?

It's just because to ask that is a subversion of the primary premise, "Why would people adventure? Or, How do people adventure?"

Asking how would people live if DnD were true is reversing the order of things.

Not to say that it isn't interesting and good, just that it's unnatural and disordering.

 

[Gez]

These will be Dragonlance (typical D&D 3.5)

Dragonlance!?

No wonder you don't like gnomes or halflings...

 

[reanjr]

You don't need to spend a great deal of time on a home brew, as you are suggesting. Start small and work outwards, staying just ahead of your players' actions. Depending on how good you are at coming up with stories and background on the fly, you can stay pretty close to the edge of what your players know.

The reason I like to homebrew is that I get to discover the world along with the players. Begin with a single town or kingdom and learn more and more about your world as the players explore it.

 

[reanjr]

To those with homebrews: Do your players help? How much are they involved in the world itself? What kind of feedback do you get from them? Do you create places/areas/NPC's, etc that they may never encounter in-game?

My players help indirectly by creating characters that need a region or culture to support their background.

My mind is always running way faster than I can commit the ideas to paper, so yes, there are people and places created outside the player's ken that in my mind become necessary to explain something they DO know about. But I keep this in my head mostly.