I love running games in published settings and worlds, filled with endless amounts of characters, cultures, and rich histories. Well, the good one’s do at least. The settings for games like Legend of the Five Rings, Warhammer Fantasy, and of course Forgotten Realms (How could I forget). These settings provide and already established world to write, and roleplay all kinds of exciting stories. However, many GMs, myself included, like to make our very own original systems, either from scratch, or inspired from movies, tv, or literature that we’re familiar with.
I have a long running homebrew setting that I’ve use for both D&D 3.5, pathfinder, and soon to be adapted upon request to Traveller, for a science fiction version of the setting. My world consists of npcs, maps, countries, cultures, laws, and other cultural details that vary from one location to another. I absolutely love running, as well as playing in homebrew settings. Unfortunately… not every homebrew setting is made with the same love and care as the one’s we enjoy playing. With that thought, I present to you four tips for making your homebrew setting one of the better, more enjoyable one’s for your players.
- Don’t make that novel you’ve been working on into a game setting. I know, you’re probably going to stop reading right about here. Look, we’ve all tried it. We want to write a story that seems like it would make a great setting. The backdrop for a book might make a good homebrew setting, but the plot won’t. In a novel, the author gets to decide the desires and motivations for all of his characters. In an RPG, you’re players should be the main characters. The GM’s job is not to railroad the players through the narrow plot of a book, no matter how well written the story might be. If you’ve played a roleplaying game before, you know that the second your players get ahold of your plot, it’s gone. I’m not talking about the story arc, I’m talking about the plot of a novel, which requires the author have full control over every character. Most experienced role players cringe when they hear “Yea, this setting is based on a book I’m writing”.
- You don’t have to build the literally the ENITRE WORLD. Making new worlds is very fun, albeit time consuming. We want to create every person, building, and mushroom within five hundred miles of where our players are going to be. It really isn’t necessary. Once you have the basics down, just prepare like you would for a normal game. You don’t need to know who the blacksmith’s nephew is. If he’s important, you’ll figure it out. When we prepare too much content, that will end up being irrelevant to our players anyway, we run the risk of making our selves too inflexible to change. If we know anything about our players, it’s that they’re going to change the world that we’ve built.
- Good artists create, great artists steal. Seriously, it’s just an RPG setting, you’re college English professor isn’t going to make sure you cited your sources properly. Many of the most rewarding parts of my homebrew setting are inspired, or shamelessly stolen from other works. I only use these settings with my friends, when running them through the game, and they’re all very aware that many of the themes, and character concepts in my stories are not original (how many are these days anyway). You don’t have to be a literary genius to write a good campaign setting.
- Have fun. I know, it seems like a cliché thing to say, but it really is important. There’s no reason that you should have to put in copious amounts of extra work, if you’re not enjoying it. Remember that it’s not only the players that are supposed to have fun, but the GM as well. I’ve run into situations where I’ve had immature players who didn’t understand the work that wen t into world building, and therefore didn’t appreciate the amount of work I would put into it. Rather than sulking about it, I simply stopped running the game, and moved onto something that was less labor intensive on my part, since the players couldn’t tell the difference at the time anyway. Now, the mistake I made here was giving up. I clearly was playing with a bad group, as I would later come to realize (perhaps another blog post in the future will tell the mighty tale?). What I did do that was smart, was I stopped wasting my time with something that wasn’t fun for me. If you’re group doesn’t appreciate you, then ditch them, don’t just quite. However, always make sure that you’re coming to the gaming table every week to have a good time.
I hope you find these tips helpful. I’ve learned this from mostly trial and error, as well as seeing other people make mistakes, and do things well. Do you have a homebrew setting that’s going really well? I think we both know you do. I’d love to hear about it, and any other tips you have for creating campaign settings in the comments!
-Goluptious Geek
Goluptious Geek Blog 