Katerek |
How much effort do you put into your Homebrew setting? Do you write your own Companion and/or Players' Guides, Glossographies, and Classes? Do you draw your own maps?
Do you have your own creation stories? What is your DM philosophy when it comes to what to include in your game?
This is why I ask...
Over the years I have taken great pains to write my own creation story and basically my own 'fluff' heavy players' guide. It isn't even remotely entirely original - I make no bones about lifting, borrowing, and blatantly 'ripping off' other settings, worlds, pieces of fiction, real-world mythology, etc. Im not trying to get published - Im trying to have fun with my friends.
It occurred to me that there may very well be other GMs out there that do the same and as such, they would be a great resource for data-mining. And as such, they may also be interested in exchanges of ideas for the express purpose of hijacking another's work for their own gain.
So, in other words, tell me about your homebrews!
brassbaboon |
I think there are some other threads that cover this at some level.
I do a lot of custom work for my campaign world. I've run several campaigns through it in the last three decades.
But I've never written a "players' guide" for it. I do have a sort of custom "bestiary" with a bunch of custom monsters statted out (and some even drawn) as monsters using the same formats in the monster manual and bestiary. I've got several custom spells and custom effects (I like "wild magic" for example) that I've written up. I have a notebook full of the geopolitical descriptions of the nations of the world, and have tons of maps and lots of description of trade routes, etc.
Typically I don't give that to the players. I give them an overview of the world as I believe their characters would understand it (meaning a dwarf from the main dwarven city would know different things than an elf from the main elven city).
My maps, descriptions, spells and monsters fill up two small three ring binders, probably a total of about 200 pages of material.
In the past decade I've put new material on my computer, and I have folders for a lot of material supplementing the written material, so if I printed it all out and added it to the existing paper material, it would probably be about 300 pages.
Neverwillibreak |
<Specan're Players please divert your attentions. ;)>
I support your idea of taking ideas and using them to suit your needs, and here's why: Pathfinder Chronicles is easily the best setting I've ever read, simply because it takes elements common to other fantasy settings and twists them just enough so they're original, which is what makes it so useful...And I recommend the same for you, and have some ideas for what I did to my setting to do so.
But as far as my own campaign setting goes:
At the start of each campaign I write a primer, depending on how the world changes between campaigns, featuring relevant game and fluff information by race and class. To that end, mixing crunch and fluff seems to deliver both to players in an efficient fashion. IE, if they understand that the reason their spellcaster has a reduced threshold for higher magic spells due to an Old God surfacing on their material world, and that magic functions through leylines, they seem to accept the mechanics behind it.
That's my primary advice to you: Make your mechanics and fluff be reasonable in context of the game world rather than Earth.
Throughout the Campaign I namedrop locations or characters without giving the players a fullset of information about the world around them; that gives me freedom to modify things on the fly, and be consistent without having to go off a complete hardback ruleset. To that end, you have to drive the story around the players. While a war may be going on elsewhere, and the player's want to get involved, hook a reason why their characters would want to go there into your primary goal, so you don't have to rewrite your plans for the night too greatly and you have time to prep a session the players want to do.
But as far as the actual regions/modifications I'm running (in the next version of my campaign, anyway.)
The Central Idea:
Specan're is very much a mixed setting, but it panders to wuxia films, steampunk, and horror. As such, it borrows from Eberron, Rokugan, Golarion, Ravenloft, Iron Kingdoms, Bas-Lag, and other such sources pretty heavily in idea if not name. There's a little bit of Dark Matter and 1984 in there too.
Core Races:
-Human, Gnome, Dwarf. That's it. Humans and Gnomes are largely unchanged from Pathfinder: The idea of a fey race for gnomes was honestly refreshing from the standard halfling/dwarf wannabe or tinker gnome variant.
Dwarves: I like dwarves quite a bit, particularly that heavy loads don't encumber them (ie Armor) I extrapolated this a bit and made them common miners and so forth, but without a lot of culture on their own. Flavorwise, changing their racial dodge bonus with "Warding Spirits" representing spirits that alert them to harm and allow them to quickly dodge.
"Lifted" Races:
-Wood Elves, Ghost Elves, Trow (Based on Trollkin from Iron Kingdoms), Selk (Selkies from FF:Crystal Chronicles), Scarecrows (Warforged), Nezumi (Rokugan).
Elves: I've never really liked the natural/arcane elf distinction that seems really prevalent or mixed. (There's also no Drow, because why would I like them?) Instead, Wood Elves represent spring and summer, and have horns Ala Midsummer Night's Dream or Lorwyn. Ghost Elves represent Winter and Fall. As such, the wood elves are well-built, strong, and attractive, but are fanciful and not too bright, whereas the Ghost Elves are pale, conniving, and have powers that let them fade in and out of reality.
Trow/Trollkin: I really liked the idea of trolls being bridge-focused monsters and not wandering brutes. The Trow are a combination of the Scandanivian myths of Beowulf, the actual Trow from welsh mythology (which in turn lets me extend Robert E. Howard's Pict mythology to their long-integrated culture), and the voodoo trolls from Warcraft. They function in an Imperial society as taste testers and weapons-dummies, being able to regenerate fairly quickly.
Scarecrows/Warforged: I really liked the warforged concept, but didn't like the idea of a race being essentially fabricated and whose sentience amounts to GM fiat. Instead, the scarecrows use warforged traits, but are representative of a planar event which sparked life into constructed items in a farm-belt region. The scarecrows were the most humanoid, and therefore obtained the greatest sentience. (Plus it has a darker underlying conspiracy in that they're essentially a possessing, unborn spirit manipulating objects with positive energy.)
Selk/Selkies: Selkies in FF:CC are the fastest, most agile race, and have just enough weird tendencies as a culture to make an interesting race as humanoids who long ago formed pacts with beasts. While relatively human in appearance, they have an innate ability to communicate with animals and are incredibly agile and fast, so they're a little bit shifter, a little bit human, and a little bit something else.
Nezumi: Nezumi are basically fine as is and were generally lifted wholesale from Rokugan.
Other Races:
-Aventi, Mothran, Xeph
Aventi are as gillmen from Golarion. A while back, I made the innsmouth connection as a source for their powers, but seeing it used to great effect in
Mothran: Are essentially player character versions of Mothman from the Bestiary 2, much toned down with an innate attraction towards bright lights...They're also the original vampires, as their vampiric curse manifests as mosquito forms...nasty.
Xeph: Xeph are largely modified to be reptillian offshoots of humanity that live beneath the earth. Shamelessly adapted from "Worms of the Earth."
Regions:
To keep it simple, I've only got five areas that I can further subdivide when I want to introduce new material:
Ikai-Hiren: The Oriental analogue, people are controlled through a strict caste system, each of the domains of the country are representative of a pseudo-Asian real life culture.
Vyte: Eastern Europe analogue, with magical communism and necromancy run rampant.
Steam Baronies: Western Europe/US analogue, heavy emphasis on the virtues and villains created by a purely capitalistic plutocracy.
Calicaeseri: A sand and sandals styled country in the throes of a civil war between theocrats and oligarchs.
Bleaklands: Burnt out wasteland in the middle region of the four countries where taint, magical abominations, and other horrors lurk. (IE Shadowlands, Mournland, and the Withering Wastes combined and taken to 11)
If you're more interested, feel free to hit me up. I've got a lot of adapted ideas you're free to utilize.