Homegrown Campaign Settings

[alcyone]

Do you use someone else's non-commercial, homebrew setting? Every once in a while I think I'd like to write mine down, but I think there are more people who would rather do that then pick up someone else's. I've downloaded some settings by other people that were interesting and would work fine, that had lots of work put into them, but in the end I use my own or a published setting.

Once you decide to make RPG stuff available for other people, you have to do a lot of work you didn't need to actually run it; what I have right now are a few maps and notes about people and places, a few dungeons and lairs, rumors, wandering monsters, etc., but not in a form close to usable for someone else (unless they are willing to invent a lot themselves).

Also, have you put your setting online? For C&C I know there is John Wright's Ilshara (http://johnwright281.tripod.com), which is very cool.

I was thinking also, maybe every setting doesn't need to be a sprawling world map with a full writeup on every single thing and might best be a 1 page thing like the 1 page dungeons.

[serleran]

No I do not use them. Or rather, very specific things. I wouldn't even say I use a "world" anymore as the adventures tend to be dungeon oriented. Or limited to a single town.

[DMSamuel]

I have my own setting that I use, but I often read other settings to get an idea what their setting is about.

I have posted a 30 page document online for others to read, but it is system neutral, not specific to C&C. I want to add a few more things to it and add in some C&C specific stuff and then I will post it up for use here.

[alcyone]

I think the best way to experience someone else's setting is to play in it, not read it, I guess. Even if I feel overbrimming with good ideas.

[Buttmonkey]

Nope. I use my own world with various elements stolen from other settings (commercial or homebrew).

[Treebore]

Technically I am using published settings, but I use what I want within it, "Canon" is what I make it, not what the publisher makes. I have my own setting, but I figure why use it when I have so much published material that is worth stealing, and done so much better than I do it? So I do a hodge podge world where I have actually put most of my favorite settings, so on my world Greyhawk is on one continent, Wilderlands on another, Faerun is another, Aihrde is another, my own setting of Cascandia is another, and so on. Not hard to do when most of the settings are the size of the Mediterranean region of our world.

[alcyone]

I don't like to mix, say, Aihrde with something else, since it has a defined history and cosmology:moving 2000 miles west shouldn't change who the gods are or whether there are gnomes, or specific things like that. I also don't really like to mix a tolkienesque world with a fafhrd and gray mouser type world. I guess when I do that, I go setting-less; you move from town to town and there isn't much rhyme or reason, but everything in PHB and M&T exists and that's what the world is.

I am not really sure how I'd mix HH and Aihrde even if one has a place in the other; they are too different to me. Like, I'd itch if I someone wanted to put, say, Red Sonja on Hoth, or Harry Potter in Little China, or Carl Kolchak in Fried Green Tomatoes, it just doesn't work for me.

Oh, well, maybe Harry Potter and Harry Dresden in Escape from New York. That might be possible.

I don't find mash-ups to be generally awesome. I suppose I am not of an old-school mind that way.

[jdizzy001]

I have a very specific world. Maps and history and even a novel, but I've played so many campaigns with so many players I've really generalized my setting to a few loosely followed overarching themes.
- Silvered weapons can replace the magic requirement to hit spectrrs and ghosts, etc.
- mithral counts as silvered
- the days of +5 bonuses are gone. I've narrowed everything down to mundane (no bonus) and not mundane (grants a +1 bonus to atk and dmg).
- the world is made up of 50% humans and 50% demi humans.

[Treebore]

I don't like to mix, say, Aihrde with something else, since it has a defined history and cosmology:moving 2000 miles west shouldn't change who the gods are or whether there are gnomes, or specific things like that. I also don't really like to mix a tolkienesque world with a fafhrd and gray mouser type world. I guess when I do that, I go setting-less; you move from town to town and there isn't much rhyme or reason, but everything in PHB and M&T exists and that's what the world is.

I am not really sure how I'd mix HH and Aihrde even if one has a place in the other; they are too different to me. Like, I'd itch if I someone wanted to put, say, Red Sonja on Hoth, or Harry Potter in Little China, or Carl Kolchak in Fried Green Tomatoes, it just doesn't work for me.

Oh, well, maybe Harry Potter and Harry Dresden in Escape from New York. That might be possible.

I don't find mash-ups to be generally awesome. I suppose I am not of an old-school mind that way.

I figure if we can mix American Indians, India, China, Japan, Europe and the Middle East, as well as other very diverse cultures, on our real world, I can do similar in my fantasy.

[alcyone]

[
I figure if we can mix American Indians, India, China, Japan, Europe and the Middle East, as well as other very diverse cultures, on our real world, I can do similar in my fantasy.

Oh, certainly. All I am saying is I want them to all be subject to the same compatible reality. Even if they have different ideas of how the world works, if behind the scenes it all really works one way, I am fine with that.

And something like Aihrde, or Lord of the Rings, it's important that there was an Eru, and an Allfather, it's important that there is Melkor or Unklar. It's important that there is epic struggle where humanity eventually pushes toward a new age and leaves ancient evil behind, with great tragedies, and inspiring stories of gardeners who do their duty in order to preserve the peace and continuity of home. This is the central theme upon which the adventures of the characters happen, if this is an important part of the setting, and not just a geography.

Where something like the stories of Fafhrd and Grey Mouser happen in an impassionate world where the gods don't care and there is no real point to anything, and it's a picaresque where two guys just get into a lot of trouble. Fun, but to me not compatible with the epic arc of Aihrde, again, if things like the cosmology and examples like the A series are ultimately in the forefront.

This is about games I run, though. I am almost always glad to play in any sort of combination of ideas another DM has cooked up, but for me, I want there to be some sort of thematic engine, even if its presence is only barely felt by the motley band of murder hobos inhabiting the world.

Now, if on our world of Earth, every legend, myth, folktale and religion were true, I'd have a hard time with that too; then I'd have a lot of local realities, and thus, different settings.

I think here, when I say setting, I really mean setting and theme, as the two get pretty tangled. At the same time, I don't mean story; the characters tell the story, but they do get pushed around by setting and theme, to be sure.

[Treebore]

Well, at one time, according to the people of the time, the gods, etc... were "true". So you can have an area where the gods really don't care, and another where they do, etc... Culture, and the belief of those cultures, define how those things work in their given part of the world. So if I wanted to put Fahrd and the Grey Mouser's world in my over all world, I would, and if/when players entered that part of the world, those Cultural rules would prevail, much like traveling from one plane to another does.

Thats how I look at it, anyways. After all, each culture has their own world creation mytho's, and today none are believed to be true, but for the people of their time and place, it was. Simultaneously, all across the world, so the same for my Greyhawk area versus my Aihrde area versus my Wilderlands area and so on...
Whats true? Who is right? Only I know, and I haven't made up my mind as of yet.

[alcyone]

There is some charm to that. I've been binge watching Xena: The Warrior Princess. In that world, anything goes, everything is true, and anachronisms and juxtapositions rule the day, and really, Xena doesn't give a crap.