| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Despite many wonderful modules and adventure paths that have appeared since I began gaming in 1985 I've always played homebrew settings. Don't get wrong, there's nothing bad about using pre-created worlds and adventures. I just prefer doing it myself along with my players.
I'm currently running a campaign with an APL of 14/Mythic 4. When the players hit 20th level we're going to be starting a new campaign from the ground up. At the rate at which we average playing, this new campaign is between 6 and 9 months away, but already the new one is being built in our collective minds. Some folks have already designed and rolled up their characters knowing the time factor involved.
The current campaign took about 3 months to get off the ground. I've only spent this much time planning a campaign once before, and that was the very beginning of the campaign world I now run (some 25 years ago). I hope that by the time this one is ready I have a fully fleshed out story arc that my players will enjoy all the way to 20th level again, as some of my players have expressed the next one may be the campaign the "retire" from gaming with. That saddens me, as some of us have been together 30 years, but all good things and such.
So, homebrew creators, how long does it take you plan a new world/setting/campaign? Maybe we can share some ideas here to make our respective worlds better and more fun, too.
I just realized this probably belongs in the Houserules and Homebrew section. If someone wants to move it there, please feel free to do so.
I write nearly everything in longhand, just an old habit, I suppose. And like you, a lot of the beginning and rougher ideas come at a rapid and sometimes random pace. Then I write and rewrite them until they make some coherent sense.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I store most of my ideas on my mind. Then when I come back to them they are gone!
I'm very chaotic when it comes to creating homebrewed stuff, as I work by inspiration so I can have a lot of ideas and a full setting done in a couple of days and then spend many months trying to get the inspiration for the last details.
I'm also too much of a perfectionist so I'm prone to throwing months of hard work away just because a single detail doesn't seem good enough. I'm gotten more and more insecure with my ideas with the years. A few years ago any idea worked, even if it seemed too weird or even goofy, I'd find a way to make it work. Now I have gotten too sective and started to discard good ideas just because they could be better.
That's why I started using pregenerated stuff as a base and adapting it to my campaigns/players/expectations.
Speaking of what, I still have a short campaign planned since 2 years ago for which I have very specific ideas but I don't know how to get into some specific things. I might start a thread one of this days to get some ideas.
About 5 minutes, after the initial idea and premise is thought up.
I tend to make up locations and plots as people go to them or they strike my fancy, respectively. In any homebrew I tend to tell players that if they want to design a town they want to go to or NPC they want to meet or have known or be friendly with, etc. that they can make it up (either in vague detail where I fill in the blanks, or fully realized from their own brain).
Keeps things more fun and loose IMO.
When they do get to a town, or dungeon, or wherever I tend to plan out that place's general layout and assortment of challenges and such in my head, but I only ever really write down custom enemy statblocks because those are the hardest to remember word for word.
This often leads to weirdness (in a Steampunk no-magic game I'm running they went to investigate a huuuuge pyramid in the middle of the desert and aliens landed on it, Stargate style) it's usually vaguely planned at the start (I knew I wanted to use Mi-Go...somehow) and it keeps things fresh for me. Running APs I sometimes feel really constrained by certain things so having elbow room is nice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Someone once asked to see all the years of notebooks I must have full of details about my world. Sadly, they're nearly all in my head. I have notebooks full of adventures we've run, but when it comes to details about the world, we don't even currently have a map! I just store it all upstairs in the Cerebral Attic.
I know how it feels ;-D
What I have is tons of drawings. I used to love drawing both PCs and NPCs and now I'm trying to get back to it.
I can barely draw attention to myself. So no PC or NPC pics for us.
|
My players are often unpredictable when it comes to campaigns, there is no telling what they will grab onto and run with. The result has been many homebrewed failures to the point the effort is not worth taking. However, when I tried I used a forum/wiki to allow for a working homebrew setting/campaign, in which the info is always available for the players. They can request info, suggest ideas, and even help build this way.
I write my campaign's the same way Indiana Jones figures out how to punch Nazis in a manner that allows him to get through the plot.
I come up with a vague end-goal, and see where the PC's and myself want things to go.
My players are often unpredictable when it comes to campaigns, there is no telling what they will grab onto and run with. The result has been many homebrewed failures to the point the effort is not worth taking. However, when I tried I used a forum/wiki to allow for a working homebrew setting/campaign, in which the info is always available for the players. They can request info, suggest ideas, and even help build this way.
We tried Wiki type things in the past, but no one used them. We have a Facebook page now that I write things on and I know they at least get read, though it's rarely contributed to by anyone but myself.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This totally depends on the game system I'm running.
If it's a crunchy system (e.g. Pathfinder, GURPS, Champions), then I'll spend weeks or months on world-building and probably a like amount on the campaign/adventure outline. I'll then do significant prep for each adventure.
If it's a rules-light system (e.g. Dungeon World, Fate), then I'll take a few hours to lightly sketch out the world and the forces in opposition to the heroes, and then let the story and worldbuilding come out of the gameplay.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, homebrew creators, how long does it take you plan a new world/setting/campaign? Maybe we can share some ideas here to make our respective worlds better and more fun, too.
Usually about a week or two.
Now, that's not enough time to get everything done, but I mostly only run homebrew worlds for my wife during our weekly solo games, and once a new game is beginning, she is pretty excited to get playing.
That's one reason most of my "homebrew creations" have some connection to an existing world of one sort or another. My most recent "full original" world is a historic fantasy setting - ie, it takes place on Earth, except that earth has more magic than usual. I fleshed out two nations, half a dozen NPCs, and then prepped the first game session - heavily relying on Wikipedia and other websites with historical information for names, dates, and places.
Then, as the campaign goes on, I continue doing more research to flesh things out. Campaign leaving the two nations I researched? - time to do research on a few more nations - etc.
Well, I came up with my homebrew world in the summer of 2016, and started working on a campaign for it only a few weeks later, once I could think of a proper hook for it... and I'm still not convinced I'd be ready to run it up to second level, let alone to a satisfying conclusion.
So... to be determined, I guess!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Most of my games have been homebrew settings as well, with one or two notable exceptions (like the third-party setting I eventually became a contributor to).
I started a new PF campaign in January--but it's the first campaign in a world that I've been tinkering with for years (literally--it started as a D&D 3E setting, long before PF existed). When I decided a few years ago that my next long-term campaign would finally be one in this setting, I started gearing up for it in earnest--picking a starting point, then working up a wiki* with info for the players about that part of the world. We had to finish up the campaign I was running when I made that decision, which took a bit longer then anticipated. As a result, most of my players had their character concepts decided a good year or two before we actually started, but then had to refresh their memories (and occasionally revamp their ideas) when it was close to time for the new game to start.
Normally, my homebrews don't take THAT long to develop. But it usually does take at least a few months for me to work out enough detail to where I'm comfortable to start running.
(* And my players are actually using the wiki this time around! They haven't always, in the past. But this time, I can tell from their questions that at least some of them have read it and had their appetite whetted for more.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Usually a week, maybe two. Although I have some ideas that I tinker with sporadically for a year or more before I actually use them.
The most time consuming part for me is that I always do some customisation of the system. Writing down that customisation so it's accessible to all the players takes awhile.