FLASHCHAT     LOGIN
    INVITE     HELP GUIDE      LANGUAGE:
HOME BLOGS FORUM CONVENTIONS News comic
GALLERY SEARCH POLLS VIDEOS GROUPS CLASSIFIEDS QUIZZES MAP SIGNUP ARCADE TOP USERS e-STORE
BLOGS   WRITE NEW BLOG   EDIT BLOGS  
 
RSS

02
Aug/2008

Preconceived Notions

It may be unfair of me, but the term "homebrew system" immediately brings to mind the image of a heap of three ring binders and spiral notebooks filled with photocopied pages and hand-ruled tables, rendered in a handwriting indicative of someone undergoing a major coronary event. Surprising as this may be, I'm not a huge fan of the stereotypical homebrew. In fact, I tend to turn my nose up at them almost immediately without even giving them a chance. It's a failing of mine, but one with which I am comfortable.

Thirty minutes pass, marked by bursts of typing and then pounding the backspace key.

I've been trying to expand my initial thought -- I instinctually don't like homebrews -- into a fuller blog entry, complete with exploring how cheap desktop publishing and print on demand services have allowed them to infiltrate the gaming marketplace, but I'm not coming up with anything that doesn't sound mean for the sake of mean.

The fact of the matter is I believe in Sturgeon's Law: ninety percent of everything is crap. It holds as true for amateur material as it does professional work. Moreover, there are fewer layers of control and vetting in the self-publishing world than the professional one. My time is limited, and while choosing one thing over another to read is always a gamble, I'm going to hedge my bets towards the books put out by the bigger publishers. At least then I know what I'm getting into.

Tags: Homebrews Rpgs

Bookmark:



Viewing 1 - 7 out of 7 Comments

From: Cosmic_Emu
08/03/2008 23:14:07
"As well books the cross the spectrum of rule systems could become popular"

Have you seen the Rocketship Empires setting. It is a pulp scifi setting that takes WW2 and puts it into a trans-stellar setting. Anyhow, the point here is that their game books are systemless. they go beyond systemless though. They have written their books in what I call a "work book" style where you can plug in the applicable stats equivelants from your favorite system into their books. Yes, they expect you to write i nyour books, but I think this is a great way to have a systemless supplement and have it be usable with existing systems while staving off the additional 3-ring binder that usually comes with that.

-Eli


From: KillerDM
08/03/2008 12:57:18
I'm sorry you feel that way. Home brew games are growing; it is an untapped market segment. It is also the result of the D20 collaborative publishing environment. D20 showed us what is possible and is now creating this wide field of play for new rules or rules transplanted from one system to another. Most gamers do not want to settle for just a new system. D20 has led to this revolutionary belief “I can make my game however I want and make it better". I agree that 90% or more of these systems would not want to be played by the masses but neither are most published systems. With the slow death of d20 and the apparent faltering of 4th ED more and more home brews will begin to appear. Publishers should focus more on content and less on rules systems. As well books the cross the spectrum of rule systems could become popular. In the end what all gamers want is to have fun and our tastes our changing and so is the industry. I believe that those who appeal to the home brew market will be successful. Just looking at published works is nearsighted; a lot of good material could just pass you by. Just like food if all you do is eat-out because home cooked meals are not professional you might miss something marvelous. You could also end up broke and hungry. 

KD

From: Cosmic_Emu
08/03/2008 01:45:25
I'll give you that. There is a lot of needless reinventing that goes on. If you are going to create something from the ground up, then create something. Don't just waste your time (and likely mine) rehashing the same ol'. I have caught myself a few times when I set out on a project, deciding that what I was doing wasn't all that much different than something else or that it might simply work better as a campaign setting using an existing system.

-Eli


From: blinovitch
08/02/2008 16:42:40


Cosmic_Emu wrote:
This is sort of a funny thing to say considering the game that started it all was somebody's small press homebrew at one point. That being said, a vast majority of the professionally published stuff out there still ends up o nthe crap heap, destined to be plundered for what few worthwhile bits they contain.

Like I said, it's unfair of me, and probably irrational to boot, but how I feel about it nonetheless.


Cosmic_Emu wrote:
I must confess to being of the cringing sort every time I was in the local shop and some guy would wander over, see what I was thumbing through and then procede to tell me of his latest "Star Frontiers, Call of Cthulhu, Marvel Superheroes fusion game" or some other madness. However, some of my favorite games came out of the vast number of small press games.

It's not so much the small press aspect that bothers me, but the heedless reinventing of the wheel. It's the people who think they're going to make "D&D, but better" or "the most realistic resolution system ever" that I'm really thinking of when it comes to homebrew content.



From: Cosmic_Emu
08/02/2008 15:58:37
This is sort of a funny thing to say considering the game that started it all was somebody's small press homebrew at one point. That being said, a vast majority of the professionally published stuff out there still ends up o nthe crap heap, destined to be plundered for what few worthwhile bits they contain.

I must confess to being of the cringing sort every time I was in the local shop and some guy would wander over, see what I was thumbing through and then procede to tell me of his latest "Star Frontiers, Call of Cthulhu, Marvel Superheroes fusion game" or some other madness. However, some of my favorite games came out of the vast number of small press games.

-Eli


From: blinovitch
08/02/2008 14:31:24


laby67 wrote:
Not
enogh time to review one, might be, but in many cases to decide if it
is worth going on reading, One only needs to read the first two or
three pages ...

Or, in the case of some of the small print run/POD material hitting the market, you need merely notice the murky laser print rendering of art and graphic design.



From: laby67
08/02/2008 12:10:09

True "homebrew system" are more often than not crappy things.

But You can also find sometimes great ideas in them.

Not enogh time to review one, might be, but in many cases to decide if it is worth going on reading, One only needs to read the first two or three pages ...




MY BLOGS
Posted On: 08/14/2008 22:42:08
Posted On: 08/11/2008 17:37:49
Posted On: 08/05/2008 19:25:18
Posted On: 08/02/2008 10:05:11
Posted On: 07/28/2008 21:03:13
Posted On: 07/28/2008 16:44:26
Posted On: 07/16/2008 22:37:52
Posted On: 07/04/2008 12:44:15
Posted On: 07/02/2008 23:08:41
Posted On: 07/02/2008 15:45:13
Posted On: 07/02/2008 15:03:05
Posted On: 06/21/2008 15:05:28
Posted On: 05/23/2008 10:53:17
Posted On: 05/17/2008 16:51:41
Posted On: 05/06/2008 10:42:15


NEWS / ANNOUNCEMENTS

11/14/08 New feature “The Tavern”


Check out our newest feature “The Tavern” located in your account profile. The tavern is a place to talk to people on your friends list. If someone is not on your list they won’t see your post. If you don’t want to see someone’s posts you can just delete them from your friends list. This feature gives you the ability to say what ever you want when ever you want. So have a blast!

Thank you, Staff

Copyright©2008 RPGBomb. All rights reserved.