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View Full Version : Are people on here open to custom settings? (Looking for advice)



MDL
2019-07-08, 11:29 AM
Hey there. I am very active on other RP forums and just came across this beauty right now and thought I'd explore a bit. I got some questions about the RP and my intentions on here and I think that this is the place to post it, I'm not 100% but I'm 90. If it's the wrong forum someone will probably tell me and I'll do it over I guess. Anyhow...

I have been working on a custom setting for RPing for roughly 6 months now, pretty much on the daily. I've done world-building in the past but I've never really gone in for it with the level of dedication I'm doing it with for this one. So are people on here up for playing settings that are custom made and have a ****-ton of lore, roughly 80 pages so far, to back it up. Of course, I'm not talking "everyone should read 80 pages before we play", but it's there for me as a GM to feel comfortable in my storytelling and for there to be an answer to pretty much any question. But yeah, how are people about this on here? Anyone got a feeling for the situation?

My second question is about the level of detail and post length of PBP games here. Is there anyone doing more narrative-based RPing here or are people generally sticking to the table-top experience, if you get what I mean? Not that I'm necessarily more interested in one or the other. And I usually don't host games with posting requirements, just trying to get a general sense.

Thanks in adavance for any advice on these topics.

MDL

MrSandman
2019-07-08, 12:31 PM
Well, I can't answer for the whole community, but here are my personal preferences:

Custom setting I'm perfectly fine with that. But I personally like to participate in the world building process. I don't mind the GM putting a lot of effort into it, but I prefer having a say in some aspects. If not, wether the setting is custom or not, I'll probably have a harder time engaging with the game.

Post length I tend to prefer two to three paragraphs. I like stuff that can be read quickly but gives enough information for you to act on without having to ask a bunch of questions in the OOC thread. Obviously sometimes you'll have said all you need to in two lines, and that's fine. What really bores me is people who write books filled with unnecessary detail to describe one action.

Pleh
2019-07-08, 01:02 PM
I tend to prefer custom settings. The DM usually has a better idea of the world and I'm not expected to play catch up if I'm unfamiliar with the setting.

iTreeby
2019-07-08, 01:13 PM
Custom settings are great, they often let the dm tell a better story and can also help level the playing field between experienced and inexperienced players. My only advice is that you not hold on to what you have written too tightly, be willing to let the world change in response to the players actions and possibly even their backstories.


One pet peeve of mine is when a custom setting doesn't let me play a certain race or class because the DM is unwilling to refluff things.

In answer to your question about what people play, you get all sorts on this forum but I think most people stick to in person games when they can and if you want to play online, roll d 20 or discord might be better than play by post games but it still comes down to personal preference.

Jay R
2019-07-08, 01:58 PM
Ther's nothing we all agree on. There are people here with no interest in custom setting, people who love them, and everything in between.

But out of thousands of people here, you only need 3-6 to like your setting to have a successful game. I'd say go for it.

Tvtyrant
2019-07-08, 05:14 PM
Custom settings are nearly always better IMO. The players can't get cranky because "you are doing it wrong" and can't look up setting details to quibble over, the DM actually knows the setting better while being more willing to alter it, and anything you want from another setting can be yoinked regardless.

I think restricting races is one of the more important things you get from this. D&D has a weird mismatched hodgepodge, and I prefer playing with a lot less races so there is more focus on how they work in this setting and less "generic gnomes live here."

AdmiralCheez
2019-07-09, 07:52 AM
I personally hate pre-written settings. From a GM perspective, I don't really like being limited to what others have written, and worrying about players knowing more than I do. I especially don't want to run into a situation where I've changed/ignored/not known a setting detail that the players know and they end up getting disappointed because we weren't on the same page. I also just have too much fun with world-building to use someone else's setting.

From a player perspective, I don't want to have to read a bunch of source books and novel series just to catch up to what others know. I've run into situations where huge plot points relied on everyone having an understanding of characters from a novel series that I hadn't read, so I was completely lost and unimpressed by the reveals. A completely new setting brings the players onto the same out-of-game knowledge level, and gives them more opportunities to add to the world.

Pleh
2019-07-09, 12:46 PM
I personally hate pre-written settings. From a GM perspective, I don't really like being limited to what others have written, and worrying about players knowing more than I do. I especially don't want to run into a situation where I've changed/ignored/not known a setting detail that the players know and they end up getting disappointed because we weren't on the same page. I also just have too much fun with world-building to use someone else's setting.

From a player perspective, I don't want to have to read a bunch of source books and novel series just to catch up to what others know. I've run into situations where huge plot points relied on everyone having an understanding of characters from a novel series that I hadn't read, so I was completely lost and unimpressed by the reveals. A completely new setting brings the players onto the same out-of-game knowledge level, and gives them more opportunities to add to the world.

I've actually read good advice to work around these issues. When DMing a prewritten setting, make clear to the players that this is *your* vision of the setting. While you're aiming at staying faithful, if there arises incontinuity with the printed material, players must trust the DM's word first and assume anything they aren't changing has stayed the same. No reason to derail an entire session for an overlooked setting detail. Just run with it.

For players, the DM should pick a setting with an active Wiki page and the players should be encouraged to consider their characters familiar with at least the summary paragraphs at the beginning, if it possible for them to know about it at all.

Honest Tiefling
2019-07-09, 01:03 PM
I'm not fond of 'official' settings. Not all were made as an RPG setting, and a lot carry baggage from previous editions or works causing a very confusing and odd history. Sure, another planet just stopped by to say hello and then wandered off again, no biggie!

If playing in a DM's setting, especially detailed ones, I'd like to have the DM give hints or corrections in game. Don't have 'GOTCHA' moments in character, where my character would know something but I as the player don't or forgot what page it was on. Let the characters feel like they belong in the world, even if you have to give little nudges on in-character information. Else it feels like you have a party of drunk buffoons who can't name the current leader amble around the place doing nothing.

Also, plenty of workable character options. Yeah, I ****ing like tieflings, so sue me. I'm okay with not playing a tiefling, but give me some options to choose from. Human only setting? Give me some in-depth human cultures to make something out of. Allow a decent number of classes/subclasses/prestige classes. Banning a few that just don't make sense is fine, but plenty can be refluffed.

AdmiralCheez
2019-07-09, 01:38 PM
I've actually read good advice to work around these issues. When DMing a prewritten setting, make clear to the players that this is *your* vision of the setting. While you're aiming at staying faithful, if there arises incontinuity with the printed material, players must trust the DM's word first and assume anything they aren't changing has stayed the same. No reason to derail an entire session for an overlooked setting detail. Just run with it.

For players, the DM should pick a setting with an active Wiki page and the players should be encouraged to consider their characters familiar with at least the summary paragraphs at the beginning, if it possible for them to know about it at all.

Definitely good advice, and other DMs in our group have gone with this idea when doing pre-written stuff. It hasn't come up much recently since the pre-written adventures we do immediately leave the established setting to some new land, but it's still
a very good idea. When I do a custom setting, I'll give out just the bare minimum of history needed for the context of the story, and just let them come up with details on their own for backgrounds and the like.

NorthernPhoenix
2019-07-10, 10:41 AM
I've actually read good advice to work around these issues. When DMing a prewritten setting, make clear to the players that this is *your* vision of the setting. While you're aiming at staying faithful, if there arises incontinuity with the printed material, players must trust the DM's word first and assume anything they aren't changing has stayed the same. No reason to derail an entire session for an overlooked setting detail. Just run with it.

For players, the DM should pick a setting with an active Wiki page and the players should be encouraged to consider their characters familiar with at least the summary paragraphs at the beginning, if it possible for them to know about it at all.

Most of the Forgotten Realms setting books explicitly include this, and i'm sure most other DnD settings do as well. I know FFG Star Wars does, and so on.

MDL
2019-07-11, 05:26 AM
Thanks for the replies, everybody. There are too many to quote and respond but I read them all and took them to heart. So my follow-up question would be. If I post a thread looking for players for a game in my setting, how much of the lore, which is quite a lot in total, should I put in the thread. Do you think excess lore will frighten people, even if I state that it's not necessary for them to read all of it. With shorter summaries for each lore item available?

Your take on this?

DeTess
2019-07-11, 07:48 AM
Thanks for the replies, everybody. There are too many to quote and respond but I read them all and took them to heart. So my follow-up question would be. If I post a thread looking for players for a game in my setting, how much of the lore, which is quite a lot in total, should I put in the thread. Do you think excess lore will frighten people, even if I state that it's not necessary for them to read all of it. With shorter summaries for each lore item available?

Your take on this?

It'll differ a lot per person and depending on the kind of game you're playing. If a DM was looking to recruit for a political intrigue/general sneaky stuff game in their custom setting with a 40-page google-doc of background info, I'd be somewhat hesitant, because for such a game you probably need to know most of the stuff in the doc. If there was a same volume of background for a more standard 'dungeon-delving and world-saving' campaign, I'd probably be less worried.

And even then that's just my personal preference, and other people might have less or more issue with the background.

One thing that might help with making your mountain of lore more palatable is to provide a basic summary (no more than say, 1 A4 equivalent), and provide links to documents further expanding on the topics. One well formatted document, or a bunch of lore-sheets on the different topics make it easier to go through what interests you.

Another way to approach it is to provide everyone with a relatively short and compact common knowledge thing, and then provide individual players with loresheets based on their character. So for example the Aristocratic warrior would get the ' nobility' , 'history of kingdoms X, Y and Z' and ' famous warriors' loresheets, while the studious wizard might get the 'arcane stuff' and ' ancient history' loresheets. You could have more expansive sheets as rewards for investments in knowledge skills if your system has those.

By personalizing the lore like this, you decrease the load of lore that any individual players has to read and it makes players feel more part of the world if they can answer a question from the party themselves(because it was covered in their personal loresheets) rather than having to roll some dice and then get the answer from the DM.

AdmiralCheez
2019-07-11, 02:16 PM
Another way to approach it is to provide everyone with a relatively short and compact common knowledge thing, and then provide individual players with loresheets based on their character.

I am absolutely in love with this idea. It's more work for the DM to set up, but I think the payoff would be worth it. I'd love to have a scene where a party member already knows something that the others don't and gets to explain it to the rest of the party without prompting from the DM.

For general opening lore, though, I think it works best to explain only what is absolutely necessary to understand the context of the world and basic things that everyone would have heard about. In other words, keep it simple. I've found that most people don't want to read a huge encyclopedia of lore before getting into a game, and even if they do read it, there's no guarantee that they'll remember it five sessions in when it becomes important. I know I'm very guilty of both, and some players in my group have trouble remembering an NPC's name from 10 minutes ago.

That's why I'm really liking that suggestion of personalized lore sheets. Characters are not going to know everything there is to know about the world, but they are going to know a lot about what they've been exposed to. So the person with the noble background would know more lore about world history and politics, while the criminal background might know more of the local minor politics and which gangs run which territory. It might also be fun to give characters from separate countries different lore accounts of the same major events.

MDL
2019-07-11, 04:58 PM
Another way to approach it is to provide everyone with a relatively short and compact common knowledge thing, and then provide individual players with loresheets based on their character.Yeah that's real clever. I'll def consider that. Thanks!

Honest Tiefling
2019-07-12, 11:58 AM
The DM to player imbalance is such that people will probably offer you their firstborn child or a beloved pet to get into a game. I don't think that the question should be 'How much lore will my players tolerate?' as much as it should be 'How do I communicate expectations I have regarding lore and find players who want to play in a heavily lore based game?'. Just advertise that you have a setting you wish to play with tons of detail in it and that you expect players to use it. Be upfront with your own expectations and see how many nibbles you get. Try to get players suited to YOUR game and YOUR setting.

Things do change a bit if you are intending to publish this setting for general use, but there's probably other ways to tackle that issue.

RedMage125
2019-07-12, 04:07 PM
A lot of good advice here, and I stand by pretty much all of it.

I've done what you're doing. I have an entire 3-ring binder that details my campaign world. Most of that info is irrelevant to players. I do make handouts for bits of information that players DO like to know. For example, I have a list of deities that I hand out (all the Good and Neutral ones, anyway). I have only one Evil aligned deity that is openly worshipped in civilized areas, and that's because he's the LE deity of Rulership, Nobility, and Fear (also Tyranny, but who's counting?), the rest are usually worshipped secretly, or in savage wilderness. But the majority of the binder is notes for me. Details about certain cites, who the movers and shakers are, etc. Stuff most players neither need to know about before the game, nor do they probably care until it becomes story-relevant.

Player Options are somethign that I inform my players of. I classify every player option, like Race and sometimes Class (or subclass) as Green Light, Yellow Light, or Red Light.

Green Light options are permissible with no special considerations. I may have more info for you for some of them (like where your dragonborn may be from), but there's no special considerations, roleplay or otherwise.
Yellow Light options are also permissible, but I have specific criteria for the way that fits into my campaign world. My usual example is Drow. I dislike the "driz'zt clone" trope-deeply. In my world, there are 2 communities where surface drow typically live (one that's mostly surface drow, and one larger human city that for story reasons has been very accepting of non-Lolthite drow for centuries). So any Drow PC is from one of these 2 locations. They are not an "Underdark rebel".
Red Light options means my default answer is "No". My other default option is that "Great Story">"Rules". So...perhaps if you impress me with a great and compelling character concept, I will relent. Examples: Back in 3.xe, I had a view of half-orcs that, in hindsight, was restrictive for reasons that weren't very good. And paladins all came from knightly orders that were all from more civilized areas. So no half-orc paladins. But if someone could come up with a compelling concept, i would be willing to entertain the idea. Another example is Eberron races and classes. As much as I love Eberron, I simply have no place for Artificers, Warforged, etc in my campaign world. They're not a good fit, and I will likely not relent. Ravnica material, likewise.


So things like this would be on a single sheet of paper that I give to players. I have a more detailed document, which features a breakdown of each Race and Class and how it fits into my world. When a player tells me "I'm thinking of playing x", i can just handl them that document and let them read that section while I help someone else.

Tawmis
2019-07-12, 05:37 PM
I have been working on a custom setting for RPing for roughly 6 months now, pretty much on the daily. I've done world-building in the past but I've never really gone in for it with the level of dedication I'm doing it with for this one. So are people on here up for playing settings that are custom made and have a ****-ton of lore, roughly 80 pages so far, to back it up. Of course, I'm not talking "everyone should read 80 pages before we play", but it's there for me as a GM to feel comfortable in my storytelling and for there to be an answer to pretty much any question. But yeah, how are people about this on here? Anyone got a feeling for the situation?
My second question is about the level of detail and post length of PBP games here. Is there anyone doing more narrative-based RPing here or are people generally sticking to the table-top experience, if you get what I mean? Not that I'm necessarily more interested in one or the other. And I usually don't host games with posting requirements, just trying to get a general sense.
Thanks in adavance for any advice on these topics.


I have a video coming up (yeah, another player/DM with the great idea of sharing their D&D ideas - like the millions of others! :smalltongue: ) where I talk about the benefits of Custom and Existing.

So for myself, I prefer making home-brew campaign because I get to work on the world, the gods, the history. (The aspiring writer in me thrives on this!) And then I create adventures that help shape the world that the players are a part of! It's great!

The downside is - whether new or experienced - the players won't know the lore, unless they take the time to read it. (I have all of mine on my website that they can read). But I know a lot of them don't - so when I think I am dropping a cool little hint about something that's explained somewhere in the monster descriptions (that players can see) or the history or the land - and they've not read it, it doesn't pay off.

Where as in existing worlds, like Forgotten Realms, or Dragonlance - the players will potentially know the world, the history, the land - or at least SOME part of one of those things.

So if you're doing a custom world... I highly encourage keeping at it.

The way I've done mine in the past...
1. Set up the Gods
2. How do those gods impact the world?
3. How did the gods impact history? Was there holy wars?
4. What does the world (or at least continent) look like?
5. How does magic work in the world?
6. How do the races interact with each other?
7. How did some of the monsters come to be? (I enjoy explaining how some monsters were creations of magic gone poorly, or come from the Underdark [Shadow Realm])

Rinse and repeat 1 through 7, over and over - until you're settled.

And the good thing is - as your party explores your world, you're free to say, "You know what I need! I need a Thunder goddess in my world!" So you whip up an adventure where they find a temple that references some forgotten goddess...

Knaight
2019-07-12, 05:41 PM
I'm generally all for custom settings - that said, if your custom setting looks like slightly remixed D&D Generica I lose interest quickly.

jintoya
2019-07-12, 05:43 PM
As someone who has never played a single official setting, they are generally far less interesting comparatively.
(I've set in on a few)
Custom settings are (IMO) better at everything, and if they do come up short, the DM can fix it either on-the-fly or next session, obviously this is limited by how good the DM is also... But that's not the topic.

I will say this though, for all they excel at, they can also get top-heavy with lore, which can get in the way of player fun, but my advise on the high quality world-building is:
When you make in depth things, make them player interactive, and always put a spotlight on your monsters, a custom setting needs custom stabbables, otherwise it feels like you put mud in your hand etched golden bird-bath.
Never settle for basic monsters!

Pleh
2019-07-13, 08:01 AM
I'm generally all for custom settings - that said, if your custom setting looks like slightly remixed D&D Generica I lose interest quickly.

Out of curiosity, what would you say the threshold is? How far removed from D&D Generica do you feel you need to be before it starts getting interesting?

NorthernPhoenix
2019-07-13, 10:02 PM
I'm generally all for custom settings - that said, if your custom setting looks like slightly remixed D&D Generica I lose interest quickly.

I'm literally the complete opposite. Nothing will turn me off a "custom" setting more than an endless list of subversions for the sake of subversion.

MesiDoomstalker
2019-07-14, 01:57 AM
I'm literally the complete opposite. Nothing will turn me off a "custom" setting more than an endless list of subversions for the sake of subversion.

A subverted trope is no longer generic, even if its uninspired. Do you dislike same-old, same-old or lazy subversion? Those are two different things.

Knaight
2019-07-18, 02:39 AM
Out of curiosity, what would you say the threshold is? How far removed from D&D Generica do you feel you need to be before it starts getting interesting?
If the setting was presented without mechanics and I could guess that it was a D&D setting it's not far removed enough. If I see elves, orcs, dwarves, wizards, clerics, and druids my interest is gone. If I see any three from this list my interest is probably gone.

Looking at existing settings - as far as I'm concerned FR, Greyhawk, Golarion, and Mystara are all basically the same setting. Spelljammer, Planescape, and Eberron are all distinct. I don't actually like any of them enough to want to play them, but there are specific reasons for each one there beyond "it's another D&D Generica setting, pass".


I'm literally the complete opposite. Nothing will turn me off a "custom" setting more than an endless list of subversions for the sake of subversion.
I'm not talking about subversion for the sake of subversion. I'm talking about conceptual palettes here, and not using the same one in slightly different ways. If your elves are different you've still included elves, and a setting made out of variations of that where the word "elves" is swapped out with some other overly ubiquitous element I'm already done with the setting.

A lot of these endless lists of subversions have the conceptual palette of exactly D&D. Said palette gets used in subversions, sure, but it's still the same palette. Meanwhile if you're still using D&D as a system but your palette is D&D material, fictionalized bronze age monotheism, personal research around the Hittite-Assyrian wars and the societies involved, legends about Atlantis, and your own expertise as a marine biologist specialized in arthropods? You might actually make something interesting there.

Anonymouswizard
2019-07-18, 06:36 AM
I'm generally all for custom settings - that said, if your custom setting looks like slightly remixed D&D Generica I lose interest quickly.

While I have a higher tolerance for D&D generica than you do (being willing to play in Warhammer's Old World for instance), I'm throwing my hat in the ring. Even if a group does use a published setting I expect it customised (such as 'gunhammer', an extrapolation of the Old World after the Empire undergoes an industrial revolution).

I'm general if wizards learn in schools, priests get powers from their gods who are actively interested in the world, elves are ancient woodland sing songers, dwarves underground growing beards and forging axes (seems like a terrible weapon for tunnels), and so on I'll just ask 'and......'


Now I have my own standbys. Associating magic with religion, major focus on humans, middle eastern people as the 'main' minority. So I have to admit I understand not moving outside of your comfort zone.

MDL
2019-07-18, 01:17 PM
The DM to player imbalance is such that people will probably offer you their firstborn child or a beloved pet to get into a game. I don't think that the question should be 'How much lore will my players tolerate?' as much as it should be 'How do I communicate expectations I have regarding lore and find players who want to play in a heavily lore based game?'. Just advertise that you have a setting you wish to play with tons of detail in it and that you expect players to use it. Be upfront with your own expectations and see how many nibbles you get. Try to get players suited to YOUR game and YOUR setting.That's interesting. I'll keep it in mind.


I dislike the "driz'zt clone" trope-deeply.This comes up a lot. Could someone explain this trope for me?

Anonymouswizard
2019-07-18, 01:41 PM
This comes up a lot. Could someone explain this trope for me?

Drow, Chaotic Good rebel, probably a ranger, almost certainly dual wields scitimars, they're oh so 'cool' and/or 'edgy', Goblins has a comic on it (http://goblinscomic.com/comic/07112005)...

punctured spoon
2019-08-30, 01:01 PM
I love when someone goes really in depth with their own home made designs and has a reason for everything it makes me feel more immersed in their world

BWR
2019-08-30, 05:49 PM
I generally prefer published settings, primarily because I like big, deep, detailed settings. Published settings are often good in this respect because a) there's usually a lot more information for me to get into than in custom settings, b) it's usually more easily available, c) there will almost always be a community online that discusses it and comes up with their own homebrew stuff to adopt/adapt/improve. As a GM it's easier for me to alter something that exists than build them from the ground up, and I have yet to encounter in play a homebrew setting that a GM has put as much work into as your average published setting.
This is not to say that I dislike custom settings or haven't tried my hand at them.

Mr Beer
2019-09-06, 09:21 PM
This comes up a lot. Could someone explain this trope for me?

Drow are evil underground elves. Drizzt is a good drow so he left his homeland and does adventures. He's a special snowflake which is OK in novels and intensely irritating in player characters so DMs around the world have banned Drizzt clones.