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View Full Version : Who uses homebrew settings verse premade worlds (greyhawk, FR, etc.)



randomhero00
2010-12-02, 12:30 AM
I wish there was a vote feature.

We almost always use homebrew. Though we draw heavily off the other settings. Unless we're trying something new, like pathfinder or 4e, then we go with something official.

Soren Hero
2010-12-02, 02:44 AM
both as a player and dm, i've always had home-brewed settings

the premade worlds are rich in detail and depth, but the home-brewed settings have a certain panache to them that I find irresistible

Acanous
2010-12-02, 02:51 AM
I've actually played in and DM'd both.
I really like Eberron as far as campaign settings go. I feel like I can screw with it more without Elminster or a Thayvian wizard stopping me (Depending on my alignment).
Homebrew settings can be cool as well, but it's much more taxing on the DM. Trying to figure out politics, trade routes, production and exports, Etc. takes a lot of work and usually isn't taken into account. This leads to a really combat heavy rather than political game.

When the DM DOES do that kind of homework, it can be awesome, but it's a lot of stuff to keep track of, and the game is usually much shorter.
Using a premade world gives you all the weird world trivia you never expected to be important until your players decide they want to disguise themselves as farmers and smuggle a prisoner out of the city in a wheelbarrow of cabbage.

JonestheSpy
2010-12-02, 03:08 AM
I've used homebrew settings since I was a teenager, the only exception being Glorantha for playing Runequest. Oh, and Alpha Complex for Paranoia..

Tvtyrant
2010-12-02, 03:38 AM
When I DM I make Homebrew worlds. Weird, time traveling ones with cities named things like Metiphisto (guess who runs it?). I have played in others, and I steal openly from premade worlds (it would take me years to reinvent Spelljammer; easier to just steal and mod).

The real question is how much can you take from other ones and still consider it yours? If I have Baator and the Abyss is it still my world, or a mod of the generic one?

hiryuu
2010-12-02, 05:54 AM
Homebrew here. Pretty much always. I've run Eberron once, though, and I love playing in it; I also used to bang 'round in Planescape back in the day.

I didn't always use homebrew settings; I was working on a milieu for years before I even ran across roleplaying for use in short stories and novels, and we were going to start a game when we returned to my home to pick up some materials when the friend I was with found my filing cabinet, discovered it was a world, and asked "why aren't we playing this?" Pounded together some horrible, piecemeal rules, and started in on it.

It's now three filing cabinets and nearly two gigs of nothing but flavor material.

Crossblade
2010-12-02, 06:10 AM
Homebrew. When DM'ing, it makes it easier to throw in whatever I want, whenever I want.

Airships? Gnome tinker city? Artic zone? Desert area?

All on the fly as wanted or needed. High magic means "A wizard did it" can explain even the oddest out of place things that I didn't think up before hand. Like... how is the ice city only 4 days boat travel from the desert?

EccentricCircle
2010-12-02, 06:41 AM
Home Made worlds...

While the Preexisting settings can be interesting and a great source of ideas I find that rather than making a game easier to run they actually introduce more problems. somewhere like the forgotton realms is so vast and complex that you can read dozens of novels and sourcebooks and there will still be something that you are missing. or which some of the players may know from having read a certain novel or played a certain game that the DM doesn't.
with a home made setting the DM controls the way the world works, and while it takes a lot of work to build a coherant and enjoyable world it will always be taylored to the themes and style of the campaign.
I find that researching a prewritten world to be more work, or at least less enjoyable work than creating something fresh, new and taylored to the campaign I want to run,

but then I am really interested in world building.

Ormur
2010-12-02, 07:01 AM
Always played and ran homebrew although I myself retained most of the cosmology and pantheon. I find it way to much fun to build worlds including stuff like trade routes, political systems and so forth.

KillianHawkeye
2010-12-02, 07:21 AM
For 3.5 games, I use a homebrew "generic" setting. It basically contains nothing but the places the PCs have gone and the places I plan for them to someday go.

For 4E, I am running Dark Sun.

Engine
2010-12-02, 07:29 AM
Pre-made settings most of the times. I have two homebrewed settings on my HD for years now, so they're pretty complex because I always add something when I feel like it.
But I found that explain these setting to players is a waste of time, most of the times the game will be short and talking to them about this great setting for a couple of hourse that they will play for four-five sessions tops it's boring for them and for me.
So I'll take them off from the virtual shelf when I'll find a solid, long-term group. Anyway, for the records, I really prefer homebrewed settings as a player. A good homebrewed setting is surprising. I know all too well a lot of official settings, so while they're not really boring they lack the freshness of a homebrewed setting.

Eldan
2010-12-02, 07:34 AM
Would it be cheating if I said "Planescape is both"? Because while I use the basic framework, I use tons and tons of homebrewed races, cities, countries, planes, planets...

Simba
2010-12-02, 07:37 AM
As a DM I used both over the years. I mainly played in the Forgotten Realms and in various incarnations of our world (WoD, Shadowrun, etc). It has some great advantages, but over time I found homebrewing much more satisfying. And it has the advantage of you knowing your own world better then your players. It is tireing to have the group's libarian (the guy with all the rulebooks and worldbooks at home) find obscure little details you have to overrule to keep them from ruining or at least influencing your game. And it keeps people from metagaming too much.

Aotrs Commander
2010-12-02, 08:22 AM
For preferance, I homebrew, because world-building is something I enjoy for it's own sake (even if the players will never see a lot of it). Heck, all my games and wargames take place in basically the same multiverse, with a shared history. The Xakkath Demon War, for example, which happended about ten thousnds years ago was a galaxy-spanning event, despite the lack of high-tech involved and was instrumental in directly setting up two of my major game worlds. Though it hasn't had a direct impact on, say, my starship wargaming, it happened and it does explains some of the things in the overall setting. Such as the existance of lots of "high fantasy" worlds, from which arose at least four of the major space powers. I look at pretty much all my gaming as being part of the same, (probably overly complicated...) narrative.

If I'm running a module, though, (which happens more often these days for my weekly games) I'll generally follow the world of the module as far as it goes.

hamlet
2010-12-02, 08:23 AM
Both. They both have their places.

Pre-made settings are great in at least one way. You can say "let's play some Dark Sun!" and immediately people will know what they're getting into. Plus, some of the "boxed" settings are just great fun. Come on, who hasn't wanted to strom through the Temple of Elemental Evil at some point in their gaming career?

Homebrew, on the other hand, is a way for the DM to really stretch his/her creative legs and to avoid the hemmed in feelings that premade settings can create.

Both are great for what they serve.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-12-02, 08:28 AM
I've not run pre-made settings since I was about 14 - there's too much scope for the players to know more about the setting than the DM...

The closest I got was running Star Wars RPGs - even then, I set it far far away from the film and EU action, in a time frame that wasn't well detailed, and the whole background and plot and major NPCs were my own inventions.

But in D&D, I may STEAL a scenario here and there, or a style of setting, but I make up all my own factions and antagonists. I just hate the players knowing more about the campaing than me.
... or at least, that's the original driving force. Now that I've been making up worlds and cities and nations and gods for twenty years or more, I'm addicted. :smallbiggrin:

J.Gellert
2010-12-02, 08:44 AM
Homebrew, since pretty much forever. Only when we were really new to D&D, did we use Forgotten Realms.

So one could say that world-building is very closely tied to the game, for my group and me.

Curmudgeon
2010-12-02, 08:56 AM
I prefer homebrew. The limits of the rules are enough, without imposing additional restrictions dictated by the campaign setting (prime example: no Clerics dedicated to a cause in FR).

Optimator
2010-12-02, 09:40 AM
My group uses all homebrewed settings. We allow any setting-specific material.

JediSoth
2010-12-02, 10:20 AM
I've used both. I've found if players are die-hard fans of a particular setting, they sometimes have trouble adjusting to a homebrew setting of which they know nothing. On the other hand, if they're lawyery, then it's hard to monkey with their beloved setting.

I used to run Forgotten Realms extensively, but it just got too bogged down by its own canon (at least some of the 2E add-ons, like Al-Qadim are fairly modular). Eberron became my D&D campaign world of choice, though if I want to run an urban campaign, I LOVE Ptolus. I try to shoehorn it into just about any setting I can (though some of its conceits don't play well with Eberron).

When I run a fantasy RPG again, I will likely use Ptolus in my homebrew setting. That way, I can pick and choose the stuff I want. This presupposes that I have time to develop my homebrew sufficiently for such a game, otherwise I might just use Paizo's Golarion setting.

I've also found that certain setting lend themselves better to certain games. I think Greyhawk works great for AD&D 1E and 2E (and would work great for the new Hackmaster), but starts to break down some when you start adding the magic-rich and gonzo elements of 3.X and 4E. By the same token, I don't think Eberron would work very well for the grittier fantasy-styles of 1E and 2E.

valadil
2010-12-02, 10:20 AM
I did a homebrewed setting for my first campaign. Never again.

Here's why. While I'm creative enough to come up with a setting, communicating that setting to the players was a problem. Not only did I have to invent the world, I had to extract the world from my head and put it on paper. And then I had to convince the players to read up on the world. All in all, maybe 1% of what I came up with ever reached the players. They just assumed everything else was a generic D&D setting.

As a player, I want some background information on the setting before I play. The more I know about the world, the more involved my character is with that world. I've played enough FR that I've got a pretty good idea of what's going on, but I don't know everything. I'll still do research when writing a character and that research will translate to future FR games. This is not necessarily the case with a homebrewed world. If I don't expect that knowledge to be useful in future campaigns, I'm less likely to spend time studying the setting.

All that said, I can understand people who use homebrewed settings, provided the setting is used long term. I think it would be awesome to play a game in a world, then advance the world 50 years, and start a new game using the original game as history. You'd end up with a game where the players were completely involved in the world and up to date on recent events.

Aotrs Commander
2010-12-02, 11:27 AM
Here's why. While I'm creative enough to come up with a setting, communicating that setting to the players was a problem. Not only did I have to invent the world, I had to extract the world from my head and put it on paper. And then I had to convince the players to read up on the world. All in all, maybe 1% of what I came up with ever reached the players.

Now, you see, if you're like me, that doesn't matter so much. I homebrew for the sake of homebrew, and often when writing my own quests I spend as long filling in the appropriate bits of the world as I do actually writing the adventure. Writing it is as fun as running it, even if the players never use it. If you're not of that mindset (and even of those who are, I doubt many are as sad as me anyway!) then it's probably not worth the timesink.


All that said, I can understand people who use homebrewed settings, provided the setting is used long term. I think it would be awesome to play a game in a world, then advance the world 50 years, and start a new game using the original game as history. You'd end up with a game where the players were completely involved in the world and up to date on recent events.

Well, I've sort of done that with Dreemaenhyll. The first adventure proper was set in the Dark Wars which occured 200 years before the "present". Now, the PCs haven't sort of been movers and shakers as such - yet (though they have contributed to events that have gone on the official timeline). The party I'm currently writing for also is related to the first ever group we did in the world (a one-off to show my sister's friends what roleplaying was actually like). One of the player's current character is the Evil Identical Twin Brother of the same player's character in that one-shot1.


As a player, I want some background information on the setting before I play. The more I know about the world, the more involved my character is with that world. I've played enough FR that I've got a pretty good idea of what's going on, but I don't know everything. I'll still do research when writing a character and that research will translate to future FR games. This is not necessarily the case with a homebrewed world. If I don't expect that knowledge to be useful in future campaigns, I'm less likely to spend time studying the setting.

You'd probably like the amount of potential reading material I generate for my most recent and best world, Dreemaenhyll, then. I've even begun the painstaking process of writing up the Dark Wars as a fictional history; which is actually a really hard job, because filling 80 years of real-world-timescale conflict over an area the size of western Europe is a damn big job; doubly so when you realise you actually have fight the war blow-by-blow! (I even posted the first part on the boards a while while back; in the highly unlikely event anyone is interested, I can dig out the link.)



1The two are identical except for the fact that the good brother is jolly and corpulent and clean-shaven and the evil one thin and mean with a proper Evil Circle Beard. Oh, and the nearly inconsequential fact that the good brother is full-blooded human and the evil brother is full-blooded Dark Elf. The reason why that is (and the reason said Elf has a beard, which is impossible for a full-Elf to grow) is considered to be a topic no-one needs to know about.2

2The actual reason is, as the player now lives in Russia and we get together only once/twice a year, I generated his character. For this new, evil party, I though it would be jolly to have the Evil Twin theme (as both character were going to be clerics, as the player had said to start with he didn't mind what he played.) Just after I'd finished generating it, the player got hold of me and said he'd like to play a Dark Elf Rogue. So, after I'd finished facepalming, it occurred to me to just go with it anyway. And, rather like V's gender, I envision the mystery never being fully explained (a bit like the Klingons in ToS to TNG, before Enterprise...) Basically, it's a laugh, innit.

valadil
2010-12-02, 11:45 AM
Now, you see, if you're like me, that doesn't matter so much. I homebrew for the sake of homebrew, and often when writing my own quests I spend as long filling in the appropriate bits of the world as I do actually writing the adventure. Writing it is as fun as running it, even if the players never use it. If you're not of that mindset (and even of those who are, I doubt many are as sad as me anyway!) then it's probably not worth the timesink.


I enjoy writing it up to a certain point. But if the players don't get anything out of that writing I get demoralized. For this reason, I think I'd have to do my homebrewing when I'm not also GMing.

It's not worth the time sink to me because I don't get much game out of it. Maps are especially bad. I can spend 6 hours making a color map and the players will look at it for all of 30 seconds. I'd rather spend my prep time on something that will create more game time than that.

The Big Dice
2010-12-02, 11:57 AM
I used to prefer homebrewed game worlds. Then I left college and simply didn't have time to spend the hours necessary on them to make them work. Between the research needed to make sure cultures are consistent, designing locations on an ever shrinking scale, writing up hundreds of NPCs and giving it all a history that explains why things have got to the point they are at when the campaign starts, it's easier to just buy a premade setting and then tinker with it to suit your needs.

Aotrs Commander
2010-12-02, 11:58 AM
Maps are especially bad. I can spend 6 hours making a color map and the players will look at it for all of 30 seconds. I'd rather spend my prep time on something that will create more game time than that.

I only do maps if they have some importance to the quest, and even them only in as much detail as I need. Because, yeah, you can waste a lot of time that way otherwise. My prior camapign world, Caranda, had required the PCs to travel up and down it several times, so that map got a lot of use. Dreemaenhyll is a bit more up-market, since I went digital and the map is on a CADs package, so I can update it as I go.

dsmiles
2010-12-02, 12:07 PM
Homebrew, but I draw heavily from published material. Mostly 3rd party published material, at that. My current 4e project is a homebrew world that is Lovecraftian Horror (via Call of Cthulhu) vs. Steampunk (via Iron Kingdoms).

I draw all my own maps, but I only detail them if I need it. The people I game with are pretty happy with basic maps, so no need to waste a lot of time on drawing maps. That time is better spent coming up with homebrew organizations, governments, plots, etc.

The Rose Dragon
2010-12-02, 12:13 PM
Both.

For example, in Mutants & Masterminds, Freedom City is a fantastic "go-to" setting, because it has enough detail that most of it will never come up, but vague enough that you can insert most whatever you like into it. However, M&M is also incredibly fun to create settings for, and I have four settings created so far, not including alternate universes.

It depends on the system, though, and the settings available for the system.

arrowhen
2010-12-02, 12:47 PM
These days I prefer small-scale, tightly focused campaigns to the sprawling epics of my youth. Homebrew lets me design exactly the elements I need and just handwave the rest, rather than adding so much stuff that the campaign becomes a jumbled mess.

Quietus
2010-12-02, 01:45 PM
These days I prefer small-scale, tightly focused campaigns to the sprawling epics of my youth. Homebrew lets me design exactly the elements I need and just handwave the rest, rather than adding so much stuff that the campaign becomes a jumbled mess.

This is what I've found, too.. I'm only starting on tightening things down, but when I used to write campaigns, I wanted to go EVERYWHERE, do EVERYTHING, see every neat thing my homebrew worlds had to offer.

Now, I'm finding that I'd rather focus on one section of the world. It can still be a large section, but rather than going "I want them to see everything in this world!", I can go "I want my players to explore this theme within the Central Plains, and surrounding area". Tighter area, stronger theme and mood, easier recurring NPCs, better game!

Yora
2010-12-02, 02:02 PM
Would it be cheating if I said "Planescape is both"? Because while I use the basic framework, I use tons and tons of homebrewed races, cities, countries, planes, planets...
Once you leave Sigil, you're pretty much deep in homebrew territory.

I'm doing my own homebrew setting, and I've ended up with something that covers are rather small area about the size of China. Even in such a small area you can have mountains, tundra, jungles, plains, and the open oceans, with dozens of different cultures inhabiting the borders and easily 10 to 20 independent countries. Somehow a world loses it's wonder when the edges of the map are not left white. There's a lot more going on outside the area, but the people living inside it don't know about it. And for the campaign, it's irrelevant.

bloodtide
2010-12-02, 02:15 PM
I do both. I run a Homebrew Forgotten Realms game.

I've never had the 'NPC problem' in my game. For example when the PC's had to attack and destroy a city as part of a plot...Elminster did not show up and stop them. And again, when an ancient evil awoke, the characters had to fight it all alone..at no point in the battle did Elmister pop in and save the day.

I like the setting and the history and story. With plenty of Homebrew thrown in.

And I do love when the players meet a wizard in a red robe in Waterdeep and assume that he Must Be A Red Wizard. Only to find out later that he is simply a wizard in a red robe.

DisgruntledDM
2010-12-02, 02:29 PM
Homebrew pathfinder setting, with a lot of inspiration from the game "Mount and Blade".

I have Eberron, but never used it...just never got around to it.

Ormur
2010-12-02, 03:25 PM
It's true as pointed out that making an entire earth sized world is very difficult and probably unnecessary. I only made up the details for an area the size of Western Europe and that is pretty big and can include diverse cultures and environments. I'd have to make something up if the players travelled outside of the map but if you don't offer an incentive they probably won't.

randomhero00
2010-12-02, 08:09 PM
I felt I should elaborate from yesterday. When I do homebrew I go all out. Almost everything is world built by me...BUT I am extrememely off the cuff. I never plan adventures. I let the players write the story and come up with things on demand. I guess I'm lucky that I can do this. Anyways, my point kind of is that if I couldn't make up stuff off the cuff then I wouldn't do homebrew (probably...never underestimate my free time lol).