Gooday
I have two options before me -
1-Keep going with my homebrew RPG world, run it with the Pathfinder system.
2-Take the 'cool' bits from my world, places/races/groups/events etc and transplant them to Arcadia, as a continent west of regular Pathfinder world. Again run with Pathfinder system.
In the past I have run 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition games on my own world, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Darksun. The games went well but I found the settings abit rushed in their cohesion.
I can run adventures easily enough, but my own world has simply not taken off despite years of development and in-game play. By taken off I mean that no one in my group or in the larger gaming community has taken much interest in it.
If I abandon much of the work I have done then it feels like all the hours of effort will be wasted. On the other hand if I continue with my own world then I may be flogging a dead horse in a race that no one else is watching or competing in :P
I prefer a wider range of animal based races, such as Lizardmen and Tengu as PC race should I take option 2.
A brief summary of my world - middle plane of a world tree, like Norse mythos. Northern lands are ancient greek/celtic/norse mixture, inhabited by dwarves, humans, wolf-men, leopard-men, bat-men and raven-men. Southern lands are ancient egyptian with Edo japanese mix, inhabited by elves, humans, lizardmen, pangolin-men, bat-men, raven-men. Each land has a magical barrier around it which seperates each lands magical trait.
Am I wasting my time doing a homebrew world? I've put alot of effort in so far, but I am not sure if it worth doing more to get it to publishing stage and have a game world that others want to play in, or instead detail another continent and share it with you all.
Option 2 would require me to buy many of the Companions and other Paizo accessories, which is fine but I don't want to do that unless it is highly recommended, some clever boffin out there has another idea, or someone can give me a good reason to keep going with my own world.
More info on my world is here - http://www.users.on.net/~blake_ryan/Ishuka/Ishuka.html
No this is not a plug for my world/website, I would like the suggestions and opinions of my peers. (especially since my players don't seem to give a rats :P)
If there is something you want more information or clarity on in this post then by all means let me know.
Regards,
Blake Ryan
|
Is your campaign at a stage where you need your countries to interact with other continents? I don't think you have to place it on planet Golarion just for the sake of it.
If you know you want to use quite a lot of Golarion locations and elements, it seems better to start pulling apart what you have and insert pieces and ideas from your previous work wherever they will fit than to try to spackle in the two regions somewhere at the edge without internal changes to them.
Gooday. Am I wasting my time doing a homebrew world? I've put alot of effort in so far, but I am not sure if it worth doing more to get it to publishing stage and have a game world that others want to play in, or instead detail another continent and share it with you all.
Hi Blake!
Just an observation from a guy who has tinkered with a homebrew world as an intellectual exercise for years. Do you enjoy making your world?
If the answer is yes, why care what others think? Run your players through it and take the information the game generates and use it to enrich your setting.
As for publishing, why? I understand the urge for recognition, but there are soooooooo many settings available, even some that get a lot of support are very 'niche'. Enjoy your world, expand it when you have time, play people through it, and leave the publishing thing out of it. You'll save yourself a lot of worry. Just my humble 2C :)
Good points by Patrick Curtin.
Do you still want to use elements or large swathes of your creation?
Could you use it as one of many worlds in a campaign?
Sometimes a reboot (like the recent Star Trek movie) can do wonders for a gameworld.
Homebrew worlds can be a lot of fun, and I don't think it particularly matters whether they're used beyond your table. Most aren't, really. Pretty much in agreement with Patrick: if you're enjoying it, why toss it?
Yes. The two considerations are the Enthusiasm Meter and the Pocket Book.
If homebrewing is part of what drives you as a DM, don't change. Don't admit the chance it will become stale for you and then of course the players. Further if you know you're going rework or create your own modules anyway don't do it with a world you can't be as familiar with. Stay with your own world.
On the other hand, if the stuff from Paizo really excites you the reverse is true. There's a lot of great Paizo stuff. Go with your enthusiasm.
Of course if you can't afford the new material stay with the old.
Sigurd
Re - Is your campaign at a stage where you need your countries to interact with other continents?
No, there is plenty there for people to deal with.
Re - If you know you want to use quite a lot of Golarion locations and elements.
I seems like doubling up to develope norse and egyptian areas when Paizo have done this and by all accounts have done the job well.
Re - Do you enjoy making your world?
Yes, while I would enjoy developing a continent within Golarion I may not like the result, since it would strip my own calender and moons away.
Re - Could you use it as one of many worlds in a campaign?
Yes I guess. I've always liked the idea of dealing with two worlds problems at higher level, aka the Riftwar saga-Raymond E Fiest.
Re - On the other hand, if the stuff from Paizo really excites you the reverse is true. There's a lot of great Paizo stuff. Go with your enthusiasm.
What i've seen so far is really good.
One option i'm considering after the responses is put my world (moons, world tree included) in the Golarion solar system, use the same gods and have portals to various places and tie in imigrations between worlds (which makes it abit Stargate like but that's fine with me)
Food for thought anyway, cheers for everyone's responses.
depending on how much you want to inject some large geo-political action, what if your world and Golarion became linked through a massive portal? It could be the impetus for some Golarion world exploring, but always with a way to get back to the old homebrew. It could be a portal that opens up at sea, with Golarion ships arriving on your shores. Trade opens up, cultural exchange, etc. Perhaps this portal then changes connections to another game world at some point. What if there are people who are trying to subvert the portal and shift it to other worlds, etc?
If you open up your world to another whole world its going to have story implications, possibly very neat story plots could arise. The other option is just to adopt the parts of Golarion you like. Nothing wrong with adopting good stuff into the home campaign.
In my case, I decided to create a whole new world for Pathfinder rather than adapt my old world or use Golaron. But anything is good.
You might try writing up your world as if you were going to publish it. Doing so might help you define your world and see where it needs work.
Another thing you can do is look at worlds that have been made, and see what you like and don't like about them. Then in your own world, you can put more of what you like, and less of what you don't like.
(In my case, I like political factions with wildly different philosophies, like the Druids and the worshippers of Menoth in the Iron Kingdoms. I don't like fueding feudal nobles who are interchangable and whom I don't really care which guy wins.)
If you need a push in one direction or another (You know the saying about asking wizards for advice...), I would say put your continent off from the Golaron continent, and then you can benefit from inspiration from all the Golaron products, and the freedom to create your own. Maybe there is even a reason why this world has two "nordic" and two "egyptian" areas.
I'm currently working on publishing a homebrew world using the Pathfinder ruleset. In all honesty, it matters more how much you and your players enjoy the world than how much it catches on. In my case I'm hoping to sell enough to break even, but at least I'll have the book in my hand to be able to say I did it.
If your players aren't that keen on your world, ask them why. Ask them what changes would make it more interesting to play in. It's possible that they may be bored with the setting but likely they will have a plethora of suggestions on sprucing it up. Who knows, with a slight modification based on their suggestions maybe the community at large will take as much an interest as you hope. If not, you can still say you created a whole world of adventures for those who want to open their eyes to the possibilities of it.
As I and others have said, if you enjoy working ont he world and playing in it, don't give it up. By all means mold it and change it if you think its necessary but I would encourage you not to abandon it all together. I know how much work goes into creating a world, and to me it is way too much effort to just throw it all away.
grand gestures/crazy earth shattering plots are neat sometimes.
The two most problems I find with worlds, both homebrew and published settings are these:
1. Nothing to do. All the attention is on the grand sweep of things. There are 3 gods, who broke apart from the Great Cosmic Dragon at the Beginning of Time. There are mighty empires battling for control of the Vicious Sea. There are three moons and four suns. But what is a 1st level PC supposed to do about all this?
2. Nothing to care for. This guy is fighting that guy, and those two guys are fighting each other, but who cares who wins? You just pay your taxes to somebody else, that's all.
To solve problem #1, think about things from the perspective of the people on the ground. In my Audor game, there are Judges who go around the kingdom making sure the laws are followed; PCs can either help the Judges or even become one, or they might end up fighting the Judges if they choose to break the law. There is an evil baroness who is taking payments from a pirate captain and offering him safe refuge and letting him escape when he is taken prisoner. If PCs find proof of that, the Judges will be very interested.
To solve problem #2, make the antagonists different. In Iron Kingdoms, the Mennites want every human to worship Mennoth, and nonhumans can go to the lower planes. The Khadorians value the Motherland above everything else. The Cryxians like necromancy and twisted evil. If one side or the other wins a battle, there will be reprecussions for those living near the battlefield.
|
grand gestures/crazy earth shattering plots are neat sometimes.
When done right, yes.
These just completely reshaped the world. Coastlines shifted massively, the Elven capital is GONE, the Seldarine pantheon came back and they were PISSED and blighted the Elves (who used to rule most of the world) with about 7 plagues.
All Elves over a certain age. Dead.
Wyld hunt unleashed on the Elves homeland.
95% of Elven females are barren. The others give birth to monsters or stillborn children.
That kind of thing.
Oh, and then there's the MOON. Which isn't really a moon but a starbeast that's 4 times larger than Earth's moon and occupies 1/6th of the horizon.
This was the end of the God's War. At least 4 deities bought it. The one who brought the moon into orbit was totally wiped from existence.
It was awesome.
My DM runs a high fantasy campaign similar to Forgotten Realms. He is currently in the process of translating it to Pathfinder and loving it.
I run a low magic, grim and gritty setting akin to George RR Martin's Westeros. Pathfinder fits perfectly and I am translating it to the system.
Guess what I am trying to say is that the system fits well into almost any kind of D&D world, homebrewed or published. If you like the system, but like your own setting, I think it could be made to fit with little effort.
I agree that whichever is more fun for you, go with it.
Don't worry about whether someone might buy the CS or not if you ever decide to publish it; don't worry about the work you already put into it if you decide to drop it. Whatever work you've already put into the campaign helped improve your skills and gave you a better idea of what works or not. I personally think creators should give their ideas a reboot or two before thinking of publishing, anyhow.
Otherwise you can try to distill the most basic concepts of the campaign and ask a couple of questions to figure out how it might appeal to other players in your own group or as customers. Is it a unique idea, something the players won't easily find elsewhere? Is the concept something that adds in a meaningful way to the game experience?
There are a hundred different 'Greyhawks' with the names and histories switched out but only a handful of 'Dark Suns' that really plant the flavour of the world solidly into the middle of the table. Golarion is definitely a very nice, solid vintage of 'Greyhawk', but if you have a true blue 'Dark Sun' on your hands, make sure you hang on to your notes.
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and comments.
Publishing the setting is less important to me than sharing it in general. If people on these message boards include some of my ideas in their games then I have succeeded in helping others have enjoyable gaming experiences.
My players all like and dislike different things with homebrew and published settings. Also they tend to focus on what would be cool for this character right now and not a take a broader view.
I am all for world/universe changing events to make a cool story or series of stories, but it only works if the players give a damn about the world they are on. In the past I have had successful and unsuccessful experiences with this.
Utgardloki is right in that making antagonists different is a key to making a interactive ongoing game and I certainly strive for this in homebrew or published settings.
Pathfinder will be the system, of that there is no doubt. After reviewing peoples responses and throwing around all the ideas alot I have come down to these two options -
1 : If I remove the incompatiable bits of my world to slot the continent into Golarion, there will still be alot of generic stuff, eg earth cultures renamed and given mixed races, religions and magic. In which case I might aswell use a Good generic setting like Golarion (Avistan) and just slot in some cool stuff in the areas with slightly less detail. And then share the ideas via messageboards.
2 : Make my world more culturally different, so it is less generic, and leave it as it's own universe (including world tree and moons etc)
Still pondering the pros and cons of each option.
|
|
I'm always in favour of homebrew worlds. I get the reason for existing worlds. Not every GM has time to put together a world from scratch, but I firmly believe that if they do, they should. However, you do have to make sure your players are at least a little involved.
Let me ask you this, do your players seem unenthusiastic about your world but more enthusiastic about other worlds? Or do they just seem sort of indifferent toward everything? Because in my experience, most people don't seem to care what world they're playing in as long as the story's good. I know that from a game-play perspective it usually doesn't matter to me one way or the other, and my entire group of friends seems to be on that same page. If your players are just indifferent, it's not going to get any better changing the world. They'll be just as happy in any world. You just need to catch their attention with the plots instead!
I'm with you, though. The main world most of the games I play in takes place in is all about animal-people, and the world I put together for my game a year or two back had quite a lot of them too. I think they're incredibly cool and under-used in almost every published campaign setting.
Hoi Blake. I'm a big supporter of homebrews, and I've been clamoring for them on these boards for quite a while. To that end, I say, why take bits and pieces of golarion and put it in your world when it's still a work in progress? Polish your stuff until it shines, and view Pathfinder with the light it reflects to see where Golarion fits within your worldview- if it even does.
Mikhalia, every time you post, it rocks my world. I love what happened with your wife's homebrew. Do you have it posted anywhere? It sounds like something I'd enjoy reading.
Hi Blake,
As an old school player, I have to admit I've always been very fond of homebrew worlds, and generally think they're the way to go, otherwise you're just accepting everything as given when it's added to a setting.
Your players interest in a world is always going to be in proportion to their own characters stories and the stories they are interacting with.
Past love-spats and skullduggery of your world's gods are not of interest to your players unless they have bearing on the current story.
I'd suggest you take the Pathfinder system and use what bits fit with your world and ignore the ones that don't, same as any other system. If you don't like one of the six new classes coming out, you don't have to include them. Ditto the base classes, races and whatnot.
My personal thought is that while goblins as illiterate bibliophobic caniphobic pyromaniacs is all well and good for Golarion, that reimagining doesn't fit with the current imagining I've got for goblins in my own world. Ergo, while I'll use the stat blocks, I won't use the flavor as listed in the Bestiary. And that's fine.
It's also completely acceptable to change gears. Run a Golarion game by the book if you like to, then see if you want to go back to your old world or create yet another one.
Here is a new option, I will just throw into the ring. Sometimes I consider doing this:
Take an existing setting and change it. Or two or more settings and combine them. What if Iron Kingdoms were a cluster of domains in Ravenloft? What if Rokugan was really an experiment by hyper-advanced cybernetic intelligences with their own nefarious purpose? What if the World of Greyhawk was afflicted by the plague that defines the Macho Women with Guns world?
I've been thinking of using Golarion for a science fiction game, primarilybecause I thought I might be able to use one of the adventures for this game. But, there is no reason not to be as radical as you want to be.