Homebrew Campaign Setting, is it worth it?

[Baptor]

Hey everyone!

I've been DMing the Forgotten Realms for a very long time. Since 2001 at least and I think I was messing around with the setting sooner than that (I had the 2e boxset). I've run it in 3rd, a custom game design, and now 5th edition.

Anyways, I love the Realms dearly and so do my players, but I've always wanted to try my hand at creating my own custom Campaign Setting.

I tried a few times when I was younger and failed, and now that I am middle aged I know this is probably my last shot if I go for it. My question to you all is: is it worth it?

I mean I could keep on running Realms games until they bury me, and I wouldn't miss a step. I'm not bored with the setting or anything like that. I just feel that at some point a DM should make his own setting, amiright?

Or am I? I look at this blank sheet of paper and think of all the sleepless nights its going to take to realize this dream. If I'm content with the setting I'm in, is this even worth it?

[Dusk Raven]

Well, I always find making a setting to be its own reward. If you don't enjoy the worldbuilding process in and of itself, the finished product probably won't be very good, so I'd say in that case it's not worth it.

[Yora]

A good advice is to start small. Make a country with some rough outlines for what the neighboring countries are like and what kind of people are there. You don't need a full continent and most certainly not an entire planet to run a campaign. I've seen lots of long FR campaigns that never went anywhere outside the North, and most of them never even got to visit 90% of the cities and sub-regions. It helps to know that there is the big city Waterdeep in the south, and beyond it lots of exotic lands like Calimshan, Cormyr, and Thay, but to run a campaign, you don't need to have any real information about those places. Just have an occasional group of wizards from a distant land looking for a magic item that is burried in the area or a merchant captain who is selling a treasure map in a harbor tavern.
Just a single country can be way more than you will ever use for several very long campaigns.

[jqavins]

Well, I always find making a setting to be its own reward. If you don't enjoy the worldbuilding process in and of itself
then it's probably not worth it, no matter whether the end result is solid gold or solid crap. I can think or a few reasons for making a new world from scratch; some are good reasons, and some not so much.

"I have interesting ideas that I'd like to develop and I think my players would enjoy, but they just don't fit in any published world." Good reason. Is it your reason?
"My players and I are bored with published worlds and we want something new." Good reason, but I'm pretty sure not your reason.
"My players are bored with the published world. Making a new one is a lot of work, but I'm willing." Noble and pretty good reason. But again, I'm pretty sure it's not yours.
"It's something I'd like to achieve." Good enough reason. Sounds like it might be yours.
"I'm supposed to." Bad reason. Also sounds like maybe it's yours.


And I'm sure there are more. So what is your reason for taking it on? Think about that seriously before you comit to it, and decide for yourself if your reason is good enough (i.e. don't go by what I say.)

Also, what Yora said. I've read lots of Yora's posts, and that is one smart cookie.

My reason (and I'm not exactly doing a world at the moment, I'm just collecting bits and pieces and plans and intend to pull it all together one day; real soon now, honest) is that I want to make some changes in the game (3.x) that involve stripping out a lot of what I find superfluos - like 19 dozen classes, a hundred races, and uncounted exotic feats, special abilities, etc - but the published worlds just seem to add to the very things I want to strip off; a fresh new world feels like a necessary part of the clean slate version of the game I want to play. So count me in the first bullet.

[Milo v3]

My reason would be three-fold; because I like making worlds, that I have a lot of ideas that don't fit into published worlds, and that me and my players I don't have the time to read through tonnes and tonnes of published fluff.

[Eldan]

Most of my projects never see the gaming table. And yet, I love developing them. My longest as a word document almost a hundred pages long, by now, with many more ideas to be put in. It's really more a hobby in itself than anything I do for a group.

[GungHo]

You've got to enjoy making worlds and be able to tolerate watching someone else(s) unmake them before your eyes. A lot of people get into the world-building business for games and then get frustrated when they discover they're not just writing unedited novellas for their own consumption.

[Thrawn4]

A good DM is able to do many things, but I wouldn't say creating your own setting is a must. Other things are much more important. Think about it: What are the most important things for a DM? Improvisation? Having a good time? Being rules-savvy? Vivid descriptions? Creating situations people will remember?
Creating your own setting - not so much, imho. That's designing. Not a must for a DM.

That being said, maybe you will find it to be a lot of fun. If you want to give it a shot, sit down and write down your ideas. Maybe you are going to enjoy it. But don't do it because "a DM ought to".

[gom jabbarwocky]

You've got to enjoy making worlds and be able to tolerate watching someone else(s) unmake them before your eyes.

Yeah, that might actually be the hardest part. Spend eons of your free-time meticulously designing an entire cosmos unto itself and then these clods players show up and ruin it. A homebrew setting isn't like a model train set, where it's made to be admired, it's like a cake that's made to be devoured.

It may seem obvious, but I've done it myself where I've made a cool sounding campaign setting and then realized that it wouldn't actually be fun to play in. Oh, those precious formative years, when my understanding of this hobby was so very shallow and every experience new and unexpected....

Of course, nowadays, myself and my players are all mature adults, and I find myself with the opposite problem. I make entire worlds for my players to destroy, and they don't even have the decency to raise some cain. Come on, people! It that too much to ask? I hand them a blank check for mayhem, and this is what I get.

[oldgamster]

In short building your own world is fun. I've been playing/running since the early '80's. I started with published worlds but like most people that play, I have an imagination. I came up with all these wonderful ideas and started building this hard coded world. Sadly it was a doomed venture from the beginning. My players were just as creative as I was and inevitably failed to go where the action I'd concocted for them was laying in wait for them.

My solution? Create the starting point, usually a settled location. Develop my adventure and the adventure locations but don't place them on the map. Once they started playing and decided to head west young adventurer I simply plopped event #1 down on the map in their path so they had to trip over it.

At that point the place became locked and static, always to be found so many hours or days march due west of said small starting village.

By following this method I didn't have to build and populate a whole world, continent or even country before we could start adventuring in this new world. The world was being created and placed around them with each step they took. It removed a lot of frustration due to players getting off script. It also added the feeling that I was playing the game as well rather than having to work hard at running the adventure.

Remember in these worlds the Game Master is the supreme being and can create and change his world on the fly as the need arises. If you do this you will always be in position to catch the ball no matter where they throw it.

So build your adventure with a couple go no where paths that don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things or that can be red slippers (an event to catch their curiosity to lead into another adventure), place these things in their path as they go no matter what direction and build your world that way so you can start having fun in that world now.

[aspekt]

Lots of good suggestions here, but for me it's mostly this...


Most of my projects never see the gaming table. And yet, I love developing them. My longest as a word document almost a hundred pages long, by now, with many more ideas to be put in. It's really more a hobby in itself than anything I do for a group.

[CinuzIta]

Lots of good suggestions here, but for me it's mostly this...

I agree with aspekt and eldan! Creating the world and seeing it taking shape as you write can be a reward in itself!

[Baptor]

"I have interesting ideas that I'd like to develop and I think my players would enjoy, but they just don't fit in any published world." Good reason. Is it your reason?
"My players and I are bored with published worlds and we want something new." Good reason, but I'm pretty sure not your reason.
"My players are bored with the published world. Making a new one is a lot of work, but I'm willing." Noble and pretty good reason. But again, I'm pretty sure it's not yours.
"It's something I'd like to achieve." Good enough reason. Sounds like it might be yours.
"I'm supposed to." Bad reason. Also sounds like maybe it's yours.



I'm not sure if my reason fits into any of those reasons. Here's where I am. When I was a young DM, I neededa published setting like Forgotten Realms. I needed a setting where every city was mapped out, every guild fully realized, everything provided. It was hard enough keeping up with hit points and coming up with a better story than "the princess has been kidnapped." As I matured and became more experienced, I was able to use those elements in a smarter and more clever manner.

Recently though, I've felt terribly constrained. Yes Faerun has everything I need in it, but it's also just so and so, and I don't feel free to do what I want (and more importantly) to let the players do [I]what they want.[I]

All of us are star-struck by the Realms, and find it hard to do anything that might "ruin" the setting for us. Burning waterdeep to the ground and turning it into a zombie prison might be cool, but it would soil the Realms as we see it.

Yes I could just start running "how ever the heck I want" and declare that Cormyr is actually run by drug lords, but none of us want that.

I think we want to put FR on a shelf, step back, and admire it. That's nice, but it's NOT a good D&D world.

Contrary to the world builders who are afraid of thier players wrecking their world, I actually want to build a sand box specifically for my players to wreck, and rebuild, and remake, and wreck again.

Where the PC can become the king, or assassinate the king and install a republic, or create a false relgiion and a tyrannical theocracy, or...gosh these are dark, ther are nice ideas too...somewhere.

Is that a good reason to make my own setting?

[GreatDane]

Why I homebrew my settings: I'm too poor/cheap to purchase the material for published settings and/or adventures in them.

Why you might homebrew a setting:

For the reward of guiding your players through a world you created.
You love developing worlds.
You have a LOT of free time.
You have a story to tell that fits best in its own world.


Why you might NOT homebrew a setting:

You don't have that much time to kill, or you'd rather spend it actively playing / DMing.
Your players don't explore their setting; all that fluff and work would be wasted on them.


Was it worth it for me? I've homebrewed two settings for two campaigns now. I've hardly spent a dime on the game and heartily enjoyed developing the worlds, so yes, it was definitely worth it for me.

[jqavins]

I'm not sure if my reason fits into any of those reasons. Here's where I am. When I was a young DM, I neededa published setting like Forgotten Realms. I needed a setting where every city was mapped out, every guild fully realized, everything provided. It was hard enough keeping up with hit points and coming up with a better story than "the princess has been kidnapped." As I matured and became more experienced, I was able to use those elements in a smarter and more clever manner.

Recently though, I've felt terribly constrained. Yes Faerun has everything I need in it, but it's also just so and so, and I don't feel free to do what I want (and more importantly) to let the players do [I]what they want.[I]

All of us are star-struck by the Realms, and find it hard to do anything that might "ruin" the setting for us. Burning waterdeep to the ground and turning it into a zombie prison might be cool, but it would soil the Realms as we see it.

Yes I could just start running "how ever the heck I want" and declare that Cormyr is actually run by drug lords, but none of us want that.

I think we want to put FR on a shelf, step back, and admire it. That's nice, but it's NOT a good D&D world.

Contrary to the world builders who are afraid of thier players wrecking their world, I actually want to build a sand box specifically for my players to wreck, and rebuild, and remake, and wreck again.

Where the PC can become the king, or assassinate the king and install a republic, or create a false relgiion and a tyrannical theocracy, or...gosh these are dark, ther are nice ideas too...somewhere.

Is that a good reason to make my own setting?
Ah, well, this sounds a lot like the second reason I listed: "My players and I are bored with published worlds and we want something new." (I never meant that list to be exhaustive, by the way.) So I obviously misunderstood your original post badly. And, it sounds like a very good reason.

So here's my advice, in no particular order:

Go for it.
Don't be a perfectionist.
Take the advice that sounds good to you.
Freely reject advice you don't like, no matter who it comes from (especially me.)
Make up enough in advance, but don't be afraid to keep making it up as you go.
Expect it to be a lot of work.
Expect some of the work to be hard and some easy (but still a lot.)
Have fun; if you discover it's the opposite of fun, quit.

[Baptor]

Ah, well, this sounds a lot like the second reason I listed: "My players and I are bored with published worlds and we want something new." (I never meant that list to be exhaustive, by the way.) So I obviously misunderstood your original post badly. And, it sounds like a very good reason.

So here's my advice, in no particular order:

Go for it.
Don't be a perfectionist.
Take the advice that sounds good to you.
Freely reject advice you don't like, no matter who it comes from (especially me.)
Make up enough in advance, but don't be afraid to keep making it up as you go.
Expect it to be a lot of work.
Expect some of the work to be hard and some easy (but still a lot.)
Have fun; if you discover it's the opposite of fun, quit.



Wow, are you sure you aren't my good friend in disguise? I asked how he felt about it and he gave me more or less these same parameters. Thanks for the advice!

[johnbragg]

I think we want to put FR on a shelf, step back, and admire it. That's nice, but it's NOT a good D&D world.

Contrary to the world builders who are afraid of thier players wrecking their world, I actually want to build a sand box specifically for my players to wreck, and rebuild, and remake, and wreck again.

Where the PC can become the king, or assassinate the king and install a republic, or create a false relgiion and a tyrannical theocracy, or...gosh these are dark, ther are nice ideas too...somewhere.

Is that a good reason to make my own setting?

Yes. Your FR gaming isn't hitting the spot for you or your players. That's a perfectly good reason to stop playing Forgotten Realms and play something else.

Options:
1. Get to homebrewin'. You know what you guys like, you know what you guys want in a world and what you don't want. You're experienced enough to take on the project.

2. Buy a different published setting with tons of background. Greyhawk, Eberron, Golarion, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Known World/Mystara etc etc etc. It doesn't really matter if it's not supported any more, I think that you can do the edition conversions without a problem. You and your players won't have the same case of the sads if you turn the City of Greyhawk or whatever into a Shadowpocalypse.

Oh, and don't be that afraid to fail. It won't be "as good as FR", it won't have decades of played experience and bulging shelves of support material to enjoy, but it will be different, and you guys will have fun.

[Yora]

Contrary to the world builders who are afraid of thier players wrecking their world, I actually want to build a sand box specifically for my players to wreck, and rebuild, and remake, and wreck again.

Where the PC can become the king, or assassinate the king and install a republic, or create a false relgiion and a tyrannical theocracy, or...gosh these are dark, ther are nice ideas too...somewhere.

Is that a good reason to make my own setting?

I would even say it's the best reason to do it.

If you are willing to make a small investment, I can't recommend this little book enough (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/89888/Red-Tide-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Sandbox-Toolkit)! It's only $8 and I think it's absolutely perfect for your situation. It's a very good guidebook for just the type of campaign you seem to want to run that also comes with a sample setting to illustrate how it would look in practice. (And it's actually a really interesting setting worth using as a starting point for actual campaigns.)

Since you want to make a setting for a specific campaign and not write things for publications that you might not actually need, it's probably best to first figure out what specifically you want to do and how that would work as a campaign. With that knowledge, the actual work will be significantly easier because you know what things you will need and what things would be completely wasted efforts that won't show up in the campaign at all. A pirate sandbox would have to be build pretty differently from a sandbox for the secret war between to secret societies of mages.

[Gritmonger]

I'm a homebrew homebody - I end up making new settings simply because I end up tailoring it to the players. One of the new campaigns I am running has one advantage - the way the world is built, the player's starting point is isolated in place and time, so they have vague ideas of what the history of the region is or was or used to be, and some vague ideas of what might be out there, but no concrete ideas. It means that the unbuilt world is unbuilt for me and them - I can build as they discover.

This has a number of advantages, in that I only need to build what they actively seek out, so I don't waste effort on something they don't want to see or aren't going to see. Additionally, they can help frame and build the world as well by discussing their ambitions or dissatisfaction with the status quo.

If you choose to run something like this, there isn't a reason you can't take an existing resource and plop it down as a new location nearby. It can be a strange sandbox, where things only exist as they turn their attention to them. Similar to how it was discussed above, to fix something in place and time only as it is discovered.

This approach only more formally lampshades the fiction that the world is unknown.

[Iceforge]

I would say you should definitely go for it, and its not as hard as one might think (but it's not going to be easy)

One thing you already partly done here in the thread, which you should do before anything else when world building (in my humble opinion) is the make clear WHY you want to homebrew a world rather than use a published setting.

Make a list of demands/requirements that you feel is better reached by using a homebrewed world rather than a pre-published world.
This would be where the whole "players can wreck the world, rebuild it and wreck it again" thing would come in.

Now, many say start small, but I'd say you should actually start on the highest level of design.

To be fair, when people say start small rather than start big, they are talking about making a small detailed region with a map, rather than start out by drawing the entire world, then dividing into nations/empires, into states/kingdoms, regions, cities and so forth, and on that, I'll agree.

But before you get to that, I'd serious advice you to consider something as high as the divine: You guys have played Forgotten Realms a ton, a world where the Gods are quite undeniably real (as they are in most DnD settings).
You want Gods that are knowable in the same way (i.e. interact with the world) or what do you want?
Also, which Gods do you want? You want just 1 faith (which I will repeatedly argue is the classic in almost all DnD settings) or you want several that are both similar and very different from each other?

If I was you, I would make calls and decisions regarding the divine in my world (preferably with input from your friends who play with you) before anything else and make a rough draft of the various religions and/or Gods that exist in my world, and then I'd jump into small scale and design a small hamlet for the players to start in (or section of a city, if an urban campaign)

Have a rough idea about what lies north/west/south/east of the start location is also good and what nation/kingdom/empire starting location belongs to, prior to starting the game.

Also, even before getting to the Gods or anything else, try and involve your players; There is no reason this has to be a solo project, if the players will spend time designing elements for your world too: If you have several faiths in your world and non-interacting Gods (interacting Gods really don't allow multiple faiths, why believe in Zeus and the olympians Gods if the Norse Gods keep turning up in person and interacting with people while identifying themselves as the Norse Gods?(Given the Olympian Gods don't also show themselves)), then perhaps one of your players want to and will thrieve in designing their own religion with Gods, principle of faith and structure of church and everything, that can then be added to your campaign to add depth to the world and get your player(s) heavily invested

[Maglubiyet]

Contrary to the world builders who are afraid of thier players wrecking their world, I actually want to build a sand box specifically for my players to wreck, and rebuild, and remake, and wreck again.

Where the PC can become the king, or assassinate the king and install a republic, or create a false relgiion and a tyrannical theocracy, or...gosh these are dark, ther are nice ideas too...somewhere.

Is that a good reason to make my own setting?

It's an excellent reason to make your own setting!

Start off in a remote unpopulated/de-populated area and have your players be the ones that are carving civilization out of the wilderness. Initially you won't need to flesh out the distant kingdoms and their politics. Your players can build a new region from the ground up -- as they clean out old ruins, wipe out raiders, monsters, and evil humanoid tribes they will attract settlers to these newly safe areas.

As they establish themselves as protectors and builders they will begin to attract the interest of the other Powers That Be. THAT'S when you start filling in the blanks about who or what is in the wider world.

Perhaps the neighboring kingdom has a claim on the land and is willing to sponsor the adventurers...provided they can collect taxes for their sovereign naturally. A merchant guild has heard that the Troll Road is now safe and wants to establish a caravan route through the area and wants the players out of the picture. A minor lordling sees the character's re-furbished castle in the wilderness on his border as a growing threat and is threatening war. Etc. etc. etc.