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Nov 26, 2012 -- 11:57AM, Centauri wrote:

I don't "homebrew," but I don't try to get settings "right" when I do use them. Not all of my players are going to be far enough into a given setting to read and memorize facts about it, and information downloads from the DM tend not to work. I'm also not interested in correcting players if they misremember or misassume something about the world. As a result, I'm in a very collaborative mode now, and while there are many generally recognizeable aspects of our game, we're mostly making it up as we go along.

That's great when you have a circle of friends/players you play a lot with.

The problem with this is when you start a new group and have a player who is more knowledgeable than you about the world.  You either have to convince that person to suspend what he/she knows or use them as a resource.

I happen to be playing in a game where I know the world as well as the DM, but I am the sort of player who is willing to defer to the DM when he changes something, but he does use me as a resource because now and again he does not know something that I do.

Getting back to the original questions.

I have run in a campaign setting (2e FR) and I have created my own (3.5).  I can tell you that when you are running a homebrew it can be all consuming.  Like someone else stated I did not make my entire world at once.  In my opinion, first that is way too much work to do all at once and second, players are notorious for ruining your well planned intentions.

So, I laid out a continent, I broke it up into kingdoms, and then focused my creative efforts to developing one of those kingdoms for my players to play in.  I also lightly developed the surrounding areas of that kingdom to add to the history of my world and just in case my players decided to venture somewhere I did not intend.

Events progress around the players and the players influence events.  This leads to a lot of daydreaming about what is going to happen next, about how it will impact the players and how they might impact it.

Things to avoid...

as said earlier, inconsistency.

changing too many rules at once.  Again as someone else said, two page rule is a good guide.  I broke that rule and the only thing that saved the game was the fact that the overwhelming majority of my changes were optional tweaks to customize races and classes; most of the players ignored them .

Nov 28, 2012 -- 4:25PM, SwampDog wrote:

Tip:  before you have any PC's set foot in your world, before you create any bad guys, or grand schemes, etc., have the world be livable.

That is, unless you're running some kind of nearly empty world, the average joe citizen needs some stability.   There needs to be an economy, and ways of goods exchanging hands, food being produced, etc.   All the standard things an average person has in the world.   Create all these things first.   Ask yourself what a typical day is for a typical citizen of your world, and there should be some variance in this from area to area.  

The world first.   Then decide what systems of government.  Then some interesting stuff going on in it that the players could stumble upon, complete with interesting NPCs.   It is only then is your world ready for adventure and PC's.

This is really good advice.

Nov 23, 2012 -- 9:55AM, Sir-Zalphon wrote:

Question I: What are everyone's thoughts regarding the usage of Homebrew Worlds as opposed to Established Ones?

Question II: What is required to make an entertaining Homebrew World?  

Question III: What are things to be avoided when creating a Homebrew World?

I:  I like creating my own homebrew campaing world.  I'm not very fond of the Realms, at all, and I don't know enough about Eberon or anywhere else to really care, beside the fact that what I do know about Eberon, I don't like.  Having my own world and creating as I go is fun, especially when my players/friends get tinto it and help give me idea or just names for towns or something.

II: Create a town and build out from there as you go.  Based on which way the players decide to go, start creating the world in that direction.  "You need to get to the lake of the Blind Guardian, this lake is 40 miles to your east, you can make it there on foot in roughtly two days.  (asuming PCs can walk 25 miles a day or so, and belive me, if you have even one Marine in the game, they'll tell you a PC can make 25 miles in a day.)
      Alternatively, you can create a continent by drawing a light outline and placing your Party in a town wherever you like.  From there you can create the world as you see fit in any direction as the story goes.  It sounds hard to do, but it's really not.  This is how I run every Saturday.

III:  Avoid Cliche.  You can have a Wizard's tower in the very center of a large lake, just make it different somehow.  Maybe Elves or Dwarves where created differently than they where from the Realms or maybe a PC race doesn't even exist.  I took a note from Darksun and made Gnomes non-existant in my campagin world...nobody seems to like Gnomes, and they just don't seem to have a reason to be in the setting.  Hell they didn't even have a reason for being in the 4e PHB at first.