So obviously this is an odd question. There are homebrew forums everywhere (this one included) that support creating your own feats, spells, worlds, races, and classes etc. But it seems like for every place you find that supports homebrew, there are camps that oppose it vehemently. You'll find people that love the idea of homebrew, then you'll find people that seem to think that if it's not a piece of officially released material, it's garbage. Or there are the moderates. Groups that find playing in homebrew settings amazing, but find the idea of homebrew races or classes despicable. Can't find something that fits your idea for a character or preference? Make it yourself. But then if you submit it to somebody else for review it may be taken as a waste of time, or useless. I think with pathfinder it's a bit more prevalent since everything is OGL content, and so is basically freely available on the SRD.
This also comes into question with things such as published adventures, or Adventure Paths, and PFS play. If paizo is running a sanctioned play event with PFS, why should anybody care about homebrew ideas? They'll never be allowed within events like this (as far as I'm aware). I'm not knocking PFS either, I think it's great. For a lot of people, that's probably the only way they can play. But then doesn't that crowd lose something from Tabletop RPG's that's supposed to be there? Isn't there supposed to be an element of creativity among not just the GM, but the players too?
And you can tell all the cool stories about homebrew adventures that you want. But telling somebody "My group played with a Witcher class, and a Dragon Knight, and we put together a class to mirror a Warlock from 3.5, and a Necromonger from Riddick." Then if nobody else can experience them or find information on those classes, the enjoyment isn't there for them. I've always felt like letting my players work from third party sources, or homebrew ideas (with approval of course) was a treat for them. But does anybody else think that homebrewing is generally frowned upon by a large part of the gaming community?
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I've seen a lot of Pathfinder players that dismiss third-party without much thought, so the idea of homebrew usually isn't worth bringing up outside of a group of close friends - especially in online games/PbP.
It's a shame because Paizo content really only covers a relatively small spectrum of games.
PFS is fine. I certainly appreciate the ability to pick up and find games a lot easier, but the actual structure is too restrictive for my tastes.
Zeroth: Nothing wrong at all with homebrew campaigns.
First, creativity can be found with just the CRB, the bestiary and good times with friends, I don't think you lose anything with just those sources.
Second, from my point of view - Not so much frowned upon as looked upon with caution/scepticism.
Too much homebrew stuff (and I am as guilty of the this as the next person) is wish fulfilment of the worst kind. Trying to cram all the abilities you want with only a token lip service to balance if any at all.
When you finally get to the genuine attempts at balanced creations,when you break it down it really isn't balanced at all. I'm not criticising anyone, I genuinely believe it isn't easy - even the professionals get it wrong.
Trying to eyeball whether something is balanced isn't easy, and often it's easier to just say no.
In my games, I approach 3rd party material on a case by case basis, and what I do allow is with my usual proviso of if it's not working it goes.
H@?"$&"w! H@?"$&"w! H@?"$&"w!
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Not really. It's much more accepted in the OSR community than in Pathfinder, but homebrew is generally accepted. Even attitudes about 3PP are a lot warmer than it was five years ago.
Too much homebrew stuff (and I am as guilty of the this as the next person) is wish fulfilment of the worst kind. Trying to cram all the abilities you want with only a token lip service to balance if any at all.
Why would you think quantity of homebrew would have an effect on balance?
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@ Milo,
A GM friend of mine brought in a "homebrew" version of the splitting enchantment from dnd 3.5. One archer later and the campaign was relatively unfun in the combat area, to the point that the player decided to retire his character in order to bring balance back (a +3 enchantment to double the number of arrows you fire...)
Higher quality homebrew version of this would better balance the ability, to perhaps only 1 arrow a round (kinda like a free manyshot) or limiting the ability to epic levels. This, of course, was back when UC first came out, no mythic was around yet.
@ Milo,
A GM friend of mine brought in a "homebrew" version of the splitting enchantment from dnd 3.5. One archer later and the campaign was relatively unfun in the combat area, to the point that the player decided to retire his character in order to bring balance back (a +3 enchantment to double the number of arrows you fire...)
Higher quality homebrew version of this would better balance the ability, to perhaps only 1 arrow a round (kinda like a free manyshot) or limiting the ability to epic levels. This, of course, was back when UC first came out, no mythic was around yet.
That has nothing to do with that I quoted and asked.
You are discussing quality (which is the correct way to talk about whether a homebrew is unbalanced IMO)... But he talked about quantity.
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I dislike the word, but only because it sounds like one is talking about beer.
I'm quite fond of custom content though, and I use it in every game I run (not just D&D/Pathfinder). Of course I've made tonnes of races, classes, archetypes, and rules systems for Pathfinder games that I run. I've also written systems for my own White Wolf stuff too, like rules for using Aberrant to play as X-men, or a modern Exalted.
To me, these games are about creativity and imagination, so I use both. If there's something I want to do with a system, I'll figure out how.
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I live and die by home brew. My villains, setting, history, and practically every monster I throw at the players is homebrewed in some form. My players have fun and so do I.
It all boils down to preference really. I wouldn't say homebrew is a dirty word but yes there are elitists in both camps that get quite nasty. I personally would not have fun DMing a preset campaign, but someone else might. All the power to them!
In short, D&D is not about homebrew v. preset, fighters v. wizards, or if that natural 20 appraisal check on troll poop will get you a few gold pieces, but if everyone has fun
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I actually don't think I've run a game of 3.5e/PF where homebrew wasn't involved.... being a homebrewer that isn't surprising though.
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You are discussing quality (which is the correct way to talk about whether a homebrew is unbalanced IMO)... But he talked about quantity.
I think you just misunderstood his initial sentence. By "too much homebrew is wish fulfillment," he meant that too many homebrewed creations are low-quality wish fulfillment pieces, not that too much homebrew in any one single game is unbalanced. That can be true too, of course, but it would depend on the quality of the individual homebrewed items, not the aggregate.
"Too much homebrew is wish fulfillment" imo is a very interesting and partially true statement, coming from someone who homebrews a lot. After running two of three arcs of my current campaign and homebrewing most monsters, I can tell you most of homebrewing started with "wouldn't it be cool if..."
However, quite a few of my homebrews have also been counterbalances to my minmax players. Rather then punish my players for minmaxing (which all of my players do), I introduce enemies with interesting mechanics to counter the their minmaxing. It makes for some very interesting and fun fights.
But for the most part, I do think that to much homebrew can be a bad thing.
Flagged for offensive language. Thread title has the word 'homebrew'.
I'd really like to know the reasons why some people hate homebrew so much. Not to incite an argument, but I'm curious why.
I typically don't homebrew Feats, Skills, Classes, Spells (unless the players specifically create their own spells, since there's a section listed there). Modding existing things, like Monkey Grip, sure.
I've homebrewed Rituals using the rules for creating Rituals in Occult Adventures, mainly as a means to reign in some of the more absurdly-powerful & campaign-breaking spells (can't cast 'em in combat, there's a distinct possibility of failure, and they're reduced to primarily out-of-combat or Downtime utility).
And Holy Mary Mother of Steve do I homebrew magic items.
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Basically, I'll homebrew things if there are particularly hard-and-fast rules for doing so.
I've created, for one campaign setting alone, over 700 magic items, ranging from Lv0 items to lv30 (using the old Magic Item Compendium level system as sorting reference).
This is precluding mundane or pseudo-magical items, etc.
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Flagged for offensive language. Thread title has the word 'homebrew'.I'd really like to know the reasons why some people hate homebrew so much. Not to incite an argument, but I'm curious why.
Probably because homebrewed things often are a combination of:
1) very rarely playtested, so they're all over the place for both balance and ease-of-use
2) relatively unnecessary as existing features can probably already do what the homebrew feature attempts to do but better
3) extremely situational and/or fluff masquerading as mechanics & vice-versa
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A skilled & experienced player or DM CAN produce homebrew content that is balanced & just complex enough to fit the feature, is unique & fills a role better than any content existing (or which doesn't exist at all), is useful in many situations (rather than just "when this exact thing happens...) and is an appropriate mechanic that's actually a mechanic that doesn't force a certain style of RP, etc.
However, Sturgeon's Law being in effect at all times everywhere, for every 1 GOOD piece of homebrew content, there's another 9 pieces that are utter garbage.
So people look through 9 pieces of jank homebrew and by the time they reach the tenth, they're burnt out and assume that ALL homebrew is awful, so they don't read that one piece of gold in the large pile of turds.
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The fact that this isn't just experienced people putting up content (who have a better feel for the overall balance of a game), but also complete noobs or "wish fulfillers" who want something absolutely bokers only makes the problem more pronounced.
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Sadly, there are published works, as well, where overzealous writers throw in high levels of fluff into the mechanics, or have an ill-conceived sense of where the power of a game should be, etc., and the content ends up being wasted time & money.
That's the reason I don't allow 3rd Party works in my games - hell, I barely allow non-SRD Pathfinder things like the Toolkits, etc., until I've read through them and vetted them.
Pathfinder's SRD works have proven balanced enough for my group, and we know there's more than enough content for us to build worlds with as-written, magic items excluded (there's always a bit of customization with that). If a player's core concept doesn't seem quite possible, or they'd like to be altered ever-so-slightly, we tend to follow the "there's a magic item for that!" model, and the "fix" item because the target of a new fetch-quest (which helps to establish a goal for the next few sessions as well).
I've fiddled with the idea of allowing Dreamscarred Press' works in, because they've proven to be extremely balanced & well-written, as well, but so far no-one's really expressed any specific interest in pursuing that, so we've always just stuck with the SRD books.
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Anyway, that's my personal reason for being wary of "homebrew" stuff; not an out-and-out hatred, just having seen enough really awful homebrew things in my time that, unless something is a Magic Item, I'm probably going to be highly suspicious of it.
I'd imagine a number of other people follow basically the same outlook.
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I think you just misunderstood his initial sentence. By "too much homebrew is wish fulfillment," he meant that too many homebrewed creations are low-quality wish fulfillment pieces, not that too much homebrew in any one single game is unbalanced. That can be true too, of course, but it would depend on the quality of the individual homebrewed items, not the aggregate.
I did not consider this interpretation, if that is the correct intent behind the statement then I rescind my comments and apologize for creating confusion.
I'd rather play someone's Homebrew game than a game that simply included 3rd party manuals and such.
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Homebrew is a dirty word, but for little good reason. Pathfinder in it's entirety is just homebrew 3.5 D&D.
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The instant the PCs affect their world, the game becomes a homebrew.
The way I've always seen it is that homebrew is different than house rules. Homebrew is cities, legends, and campaigns. House rules are classes, items, and feats.
Under these definitions I am a big fan of Homebrew, however I do not like houserules as much because unless they are specifically trying to fix a mechanical issue they are usually extremely unbalanced, Even then things created to fix imbalances can create their own imbalances.
tl;dr Homebrew fluff is great, Homebrew mechanics not so much.
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If we're talking about 3rd party material the problem (for me at least) lies in the concept of ballance and the effort implicit in judging an host of new options. I use houserules from time to time but I believe it's better to implement them sparingly, especially because not all players know the system that well and changing things further implies confusion.
As for homebrews I think they are the best form of RPGing as long as the GM knows what he's doing and has the time to build on things.
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I think you just misunderstood his initial sentence. By "too much homebrew is wish fulfillment," he meant that too many homebrewed creations are low-quality wish fulfillment pieces, not that too much homebrew in any one single game is unbalanced. That can be true too, of course, but it would depend on the quality of the individual homebrewed items, not the aggregate.I did not consider this interpretation, if that is the correct intent behind the statement then I rescind my comments and apologize for creating confusion.
AnimatedPaper has nailed my intent, I have seen (and created) a lot of low quality material.
And I think the apology must be mine. I am sorry I worded it poorly. :)
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The irony is that Pathfinder is literally a 3PP homebrew of 3.5.
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Since most comments have been homebrew friendly so far: I could imagine someone opposes homebrew, because...
a) He invested a lot of time and energy into learning Pathfinder and Golarion. Now he is confronted with a game world which is different, even contradictory sometimes. It's not only that his previous knowledge becomes rather worthless, it actually harms when understanding the new world.
b) He is sceptical whether it's worth the effort. Probably he just met the GM, and this guy bombards him with details about the game world. Keep in mind not every GM is good at introducing someone into rules, especially when enthusiasm catches them. You want to learn all that stuff, for a campaign which is probably good and probably lasts long? Maybe. Maybe not.
c) He fears unpleasant surprises. Yes, most GMs give some introduction. But I am pretty sure it's usually not complete, and even then a homebrew game world is going to be changed during the campaign. Imagine a GM suddenly discovering his love to firearms, when you expected a very traditional campaign.
d) He prefers diversity. Yes, Paizo doesn't cover everything. But a single GM usually covers much less, simply because he is just one person. And depending on preferences, he could cut or heavily modify existing options ('no, I don't want this anime crap here' or 'bah, arcane magic sucks' or 'we need much more elves'), to the detriment of players who are interested in them.
If you read this thread, some horrible playing experiences come from homebrew.
That said, homebrew can be pretty good, even better than original Pathfinder - especially when tailored towards the players. I have seen good and bad examples of it.
Finally, homebrew and official content are not exclusive. You can always mix some homebrew into an AP or (carefully) adapt rules. The result tends to be better than homebrew or official content alone...
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I lack the time to do much homebrewing as far as classes and feats and such go these days, though I've done some in the past - the biggest, for certain, was when I got involved on the WOTC forums in the massive thread for making homebrew Vestiges for 3.5's Binder class from Tome of Magic.
That said, I'm very much in favor of it, and have found several examples of some such here on the forums that I make regular use of.
Furthermore, 99% of 3rd-party stuff is basically just homebrew stuff that got successfully published and marketed, and as many people in this thread and elsewhere have said, Pathfinder itself is just 3.5 homebrew that likewise got published and sold successfully.
And to top it all off, my group has lost almost all interest in published settings in favor of our own homebrew world, complete with several homebrew races.
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The irony is that Pathfinder is literally a 3PP homebrew of 3.5.
Finally someone else who understands! My day is better now.
It depends on the content.
I've been known to homebrew a lot, but I am very selective and critical of most things 3PP and homebrew. Usually, anything that is parallel to something that already exists is fine, but once you start designing things from scratch you get into 'way overpowered' very quickly.
As a general rule, I do not homebrew feats. Full Stop. I have homebrewed a couple classes (which can be found on this website), and they come with new feats designed around them. General feats, or homebrew feats that make an already strong ability stronger are the places where you have to be really, really careful.
I also have a homebrew setting, but most of the games I've played in do. I'm not necessarily a fan of Golarion, and I like to have more creative control over my game world.
The biggest thing for me, when using homebrew, is making sure you have consistent reference material available. If you're just addlibbing, then you should skip using that particular homebrew.
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I better just stay out of this thread...
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Oh, yeah... One of the dirtiest words ever!
In our (completely real) moments of passion (that actually happen in the real world), my girlfriend (who totally exists) and I always shout "Yeah! Call me a dirty homebrewer!", "Who's your 3pp!", "Ignore the errata HARDER!" and "Say how many skill points Fighter get! Go ahead! Say it!".
Really dirty stuff... And I'll not even mention the times we dabble in BDSM! Yeah... We love ourselves some Balanced Design of Spellcasters and Martials!
I better just stay out of this thread...
Why? Seriously, if you have input on the thread then make a post. I don't care if you're for or against homebrew (despite how my original post may look), I just want to hear everybody's thoughts. Good or bad, a thought is a beautiful thing. Don't waste it.
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Dirty word???!!!
Ah... So that's why the PTA is protesting at my doors!
I started playing in 1985. It was a homebrew setting and that's all I've ever run since. Sure, I'll cherry pick from some published material and I allow a lot of 3PP classes and rules, and to some our games might some either over or under powered. But this system works for my group and always has. I wouldn't even know how to run an AP and have only run a published module two or three times, and those were very short ones from the 2e years of Dragon Magazine. Homebrew is in my gaming blood and I have never considered it to be a dirty word where that is concerned.
Probably because homebrewed things often are a combination of:
1) very rarely playtested, so they're all over the place for both balance and ease-of-use
2) relatively unnecessary as existing features can probably already do what the homebrew feature attempts to do but better
3) extremely situational and/or fluff masquerading as mechanics & vice-versa
Yep, sounds like a good description of Paizo products.
As a side note, I've noticed (without any statistical rigor, so take a salt shaker with this post) that homebrew posted in a format which is editable by the author (but not by everyone else) tends to be higher quality.
Yeah, this site is horrible for homebrewers. When I first came here and started posting homebrew I was rather annoyed that I couldn't touch up and edit my work.
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Game design is pretty flippin' hard and even very experienced GMs can totally suck at it. A lot of the common things I see with homebrew material are:
A) Blatant wish fulfillment throwing balance out the window in favor of buffing their character. For example, I've seen someone homebrew a feat that lets them cast two spells as full-round action with significantly less
B) Classes that either read like an archetype with only one or two notable features or read like character specific builds than a foundation for creating character concepts. For example, a generic archer class that gets a bunch of free archery feats or a class that has only one or two notable abilities or a class that has nothing but the best abilities poached from multiple classes into a single overpowered mess.
C) Bloated overcomplicated mechanics with heavily flawed math that obviously wasn't playtested at all. Or mechanics that try to reinvent the wheel well established rules, but made more complicated and awkward.
D) New feats or mechanics that try to fix things that don't need fixing, or rework things without actually making the game more fun and interesting.
But I'm not suggesting Paizo material is without flaws. No, no, no. With Paizo material, we get issues like:
A) Archetypes written by freelancers that obviously don't understand the design and mechanics behind the class they're authoring material for.
B) Material that has to be utterly gutted in errata because it was rushed and not tested.
C) Material made deliberately underpowered for the sake of organized play.
D) Mechanics or solutions to problems in the game made way more complicated than they should be for relatively simple concepts.
E) Schizophrenia with design directions.
F) "Safe" design decisions most of the time. And when there's bold decisions, it's usually inelegantly or without polish.
Game design is hard, yo.
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C) is the worst.
Ever heard of 'Kirthfinder'?I better just stay out of this thread...Why?
I....wut? I just googled it. What am I looking at? It looks like a complete rules revamp. Am I missing something though? Personally I couldn't handle a total rules revamp (and I fully understand the irony there), but isn't it common to see somebody do that for most game systems?
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It pretty much is a complete revamp. And no, it's not that common, at least to the extent Kirth has gone.
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I....wut? I just googled it. What am I looking at? It looks like a complete rules revamp. Am I missing something though? Personally I couldn't handle a total rules revamp (and I fully understand the irony there), but isn't it common to see somebody do that for most game systems?Ever heard of 'Kirthfinder'?I better just stay out of this thread...Why?
Kirthfinder is more of a rework to fix core 3.5 problems, imho, not necessarily a fix for or rework of Pathfinder.
The name is catchy though :)
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Sorry to reawaken a thread that fell asleep a week ago, but I just found this and had some thoughts:
- Most of today's professional game designers started by homebrewing. People upthread called Pathfinder a "homebrew of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5"; likewise Dungeons and Dragons itself in its original form was a homebrew system building on the game Chainmail, and I'm fairly sure Chainmail started with people messing around with rules for more traditional wargames (IIRC the term "Armor Class" was borrowed from a naval term for the quality of armor on a battleship). How you practice game design and tweak and adjust for your group, and so on, is by homebrewing. So basically, without encouraging homebrewing, we don't get new game designers, and the industry dies.
-- So, at the risk of sounding terribly dramatic (I'm not trying to be), if homebrew is a dirty word, and we discourage it, we destroy our hobby. So I'd say, no, it shouldn't be a dirty word in the least.
-- Does this mean all homebrew is inherently good? Of course not. Part of the point of homebrew is we're testing, building, trying new things, seeing where rules boundaries do and should lie. As part of this process, we're going to come up with stuff that's crap.
-- But, ideally, we process through the crap to eventually achieve the good stuff. Hack homebrewers might make broken stuff just in hopes of cheating or making things break for the fun of it. OTOH, talented homebrewers with the potential to become tomorrow's game designer solicit feedback on their homebrewed items and tweak it constantly to make it work right.
- So we need homebrew, and talented homebrewers should be encouraged to develop and improve their skills.... BUUUUT this does not mean we must homebrew everywhere, all the time. There is a time and place for it: namely, in my opinion, in the hands of relatively experienced players who are already familiar with the rules-as-written. I favor this advice in many arenas, RPGs included: learn the rules before you break them. I've seen in my days, that in RPGs, what you see on paper often plays out differently in practice. If you homebrew or houserule what you think MIGHT be a problem before trying it, you could be fixing something that isn't broken--and breaking it in the process. Learn how things play out, then change to fit the needs of your group, etc.
-- Of course organized play is not a good place for homebrew. The point of that is total strangers come in to play with each other, and you need in that specific environment therefore consistency of rules. But just because organized play is not a homebrew-friendly environment, doesn't mean either organized play or homebrew is bad. There's just different times and places for each of them. People who want to do both may have to find separate opportunities for each.
-- Likewise, I wouldn't homebrew with folks new to the game. Again, I think it's important to know the rules before changing them. I've been screwed up myself by playing games where a GM homebrewed tons and then joining another GM's game to realize I totally didn't know how to play at all. Or at the very least, it's important if teaching rules to someone, to be clear on what are the rules-as-written and what's homebrew.
-- And also likewise, every gamer is different, and every gaming group is different. Some are really going to want to play with things, wiggle stuff around, adapt the game to their style; these folks can hardly play without homebrewing. Others really are comfortable working within boundaries others provide them or want to spend time really just playing, not experimenting or testing stuff that could turn out to be crap. Does it mean it's "dirty"? Of course not. It's just right for some and not for others. Yes, there are always going to be vocal members of the WrongBadFun brigade who declare whatever it is they don't do is horrible and anathema and people are wrong and stupid to do that thing. How dare people have fun wrong!
But just ignore the WrongBadFun Brigade and just play the way that is most fun for you with good people who appreciate a similar play style.