So why do people like making their own original settings...

So why do people like making their own original settings? I find it much easier just to take something that everyone knows and expand that rather than try to develop something that my players won't bother to read.

Because I have yet to find a setting that emulates what I'm currently making.

I'd like to use a published setting but it's hard to find one I can get my players invested in since they're new to TTRPGs. It's much easier for me to make my own kitchen sink setting including only the parts they like, then adding on to it later as needed.

>that my players won't bother to read.
Well that right theres the problem.

Let's assume they don't.

Why the fuck does that even matter? Is it not enough to build settings because you enjoy it? Most of the time I spend gaming is actually solo, and my setting is derived from those sessions.

Its more fun to share ideas with people and make the setting collaboratively.

I don't even know how you would "solo" game, is that like those CYOA waifu infographics?

>So why do people like making their own original settings?
This is a fundamentally different question than:
>So why do people like running their own original settings?

As to the former, see >because you enjoy it?
You might as well ask gamers why they game.
Creating a setting is an enjoyable creative experience.
I could detail all the nuances that make it enjoyable, but that's what it boils down to.

As for the latter, I prefer to run my own unique setting primarily to be free of the expectation to adhere to setting details and established facts that I may not subscribe to or know as well as the players do.
>Who is this Vecna guy and why do all your starting characters have his body parts?

Because I find that kind of boring. Worldbuilding and tracking player interaction with it is like half the fun as a GM for me. I don't like working within the constraints of someone elses world, especially some big media franchise, because then some autist can tell me tht I've been doing it "wrong" and that's not how it should go.

I just honestly don't like pre-established settings and think GMs who can't be bothered to make their own content should get the fuck out from behind the screen, even if I end up as a forever GM for doing so.

Retreading the same content which the players have already read about is boring as tits and I don't want to go to Waterdeep or Cadia to fight the corrupt nobles or the Black Legion for the 50th time. I want to explore new places and meet new people and see new and interesting sights and poke them with a stick and watch what happens, and if I don't get to enjoy that as a player then I'm damn well going to ensure my players get that experience, forever GM or no forever GM.

As for the appeal of world building, personally it's about the idea of wondering how a society would operate under these parameters and constructing a setting that appeals to what I and my players like. We like Low Fantasy with our fantasy and Forgotten Realms where everything is magical all the time because it is for the purpose of HIGH ADVENTURE doesn't really appeal to us, and I also like the theoretical aspect of considering how the introduction of certain elements like BBEGs or (un)natural disasters could affect a demographic or group overall. Also, it allows for divergence from the norm of fantasy, which most pre-established worlds cleave desperately to because they're afraid of turning off one part or another of the playerbase that uses them.

As for why they wouldn't be bothered to read them, why the fuck would you be trying to force them to read things when you could be opening up the world to them through storytelling and actually give them agency upon the world as it is introduced to them?

TL;DR, OP is a faggot, worldbuilding is a labor of love and OP missed the point.

Honestly the next setting I run is just going to be a Standard Fantasy World - probably pretty much this map - but with the technology and culture and stuff advanced by about 300 years.

Because I'm neurotic enough that attempting to run something in a published setting would fail because I'd constantly feel the compulsion to cross-reference things to make sure that I wasn't ruining canon.

>why do people like being creative
gee OP, that's a tough one

>CYOA waifu infographics
Brilliant! I shall make a waifu CYOA with overelaborate depictions of made-up statistics!

>Brilliant! I shall make a waifu CYOA with overelaborate depictions of made-up statistics!
That's the joke.

You don't need to have a 1000 year history and a global map drawn up before starting an original setting.

Get a hex mapper and start with one town. Maybe map out 24 miles in each direction (8 miles a hex, that's three hexes out, 24 hexes total) Have an abandoned mine, a dungeon, some woods, a little mountain with an evil occupied castle, a little river going off somewhere. You have plenty of areas for varied random encounters. If your players decide to go off into the horizon just keep mapping. If they desperately need refuge put a little village in a hex. If they get bored have them discover a tomb or a cave. Just keep track of it all as they come across it.

The players fill out the world as they play and it gives you time to make up whatever history you want and present it as it becomes pertinent to the situation.

I do it and I don't even play traditional games. It's literally the only reason I come to this board. Where the fuck is /wbg/ by the way?

BECAUSE THEY ARE FOOLS

THEY ARE GODDAMN FOOLS

Personally I do it so I don't have to read a whole setting book. I start with a single village or w/e and then expand out from there.

This is unironically the most interesting world map I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of world maps. I know it's just vaguely earth but that's part of the reason I love it.

Well, yes, but the existing waifu CYOAs don't actually resemble infographics much, and a more literal waifugraphics CYOA would amuse me.

Because my elves are DIFFERENT.

Get better players. Or stop being a shitty writer. One of the two.

One reason is that players wouldn't be able to look up tons of stuff on a wiki and metagame.

It could also be a fun way to try something new, something that if it existed in the default pre-written setting would basically break the lore and history.

Also because unless you use a clusterfuck of a setting like Pathfinder's Inner Sea, a setting might not have something that you want.

They are already literally infographics.

I can make shit up without being corrected, literally the only reason for me.

If they aren't reading your stuff, what makes you think that they're going to read the significantly larger amount of material available for a published setting?

The only difference is if you enjoy world building then you get bonus fun and are more likely to let your passion leak through and hype up your players.
or
You now have a lot of reading to do, hope you get drawn into the setting and really like it. Because if you don't that passion necessary for a gm to get good and invested into their own game isn't going to be there.

I like both. I play and GM in a Star Wars game so we use a lot of existing material but we've also set up a lot of other shit as well.

I also play in a 5e game where the DM has made his own world, but has asked us all to populate parts of it with our ideas and such, so it feels diverse and full of life rather than there just being 2 places that have been fleshed out ala Sword Coast.

Best reason in this thread.

>. Where the fuck is /wbg/ by the way?

Fuck off, fag. Make your thread about your setting and talk about what makes it great. Don't bury it in a general for people to circle-jerk to.

some people like coming up with hero concepts, creating back stories, theory crafting, etc. now take that, and apply it to a setting. it can be fun.

>So why do people like making their own original settings?

1) Fucking metagamers and/or canon purists.

2) I'll always have more familiarity with something I've written myself, which makes GMing it easier.

3) Oddly enough, I ENJOY setting-building, and I enjoy running stuff within my setting. I enjoy it a lot more than running a 3rd party campaign, and GMs - even Forever GMs - are allowed to have fun too.

Bonus) Oddly, there's a dearth of pre-written RPG settings which include sufficient amounts of futas and both deliberate and accidental gender-swapping for my tastes.

I use those threads to get help/ideas for my setting and because I like helping other people with theirs. Nobody really dumps their setting there as far as I've seen.

...it doesn't look like Earth at all, though...

At first, I agreed with OP.

Then I realized that a homebrew meta can be revealed gradually, bit-by-bit; one session at a time.

I had this one DM that tried to shove her entire meta down our throat up-front, as-if the PCs were omniscient or something. We simply couldn't absorb all of it on day 1 and lost interest.

Kind of like what OP is referring to. I think that's probably what happened.

"Don't be an autist."

That's all you had to say.

Worldbuilding is fun.

It is literally Eurasia on top and Africa/South America superimposed on each other for the southern half.

It's actually easier for me to memorize details about the world if I made it up myself.

Plus the players are always asking questions that don't have a canon answer anyhow, meaning that I have to improvise and make something up. Why not use that?

>I can't make a thread asking about help/ideas for my setting

Garbage logic.

So instead of everything being contained to one thread you want me posting a new thread for my setting around twice a day? Okay user.

Yeah. So long as the first thread dies first then you aren't shitting up the board.

Stop being such a baby.

>rather than try to develop something that my players won't bother to read.
It's not for them.

You're the one bitching about shit that 100% does not matter to normal people.

>I'm defensive about my faggy behavior so now I'm going to turn it on you instead of admit I'm being a baby

Seriously dude what about my original post made you so unreasonably angry?

omg that caption is fucking hilarious

>I'm going to double down on calling you the retard instead of admitting I've been retarded and a coward

Homie, I'm picking up that you aren't actually trolling unless this is some next-level shit so I'm going to say that you will be way happier when you start saying shit like "Fuck, didn't think about it that way."

You can even throw in a jab back to the person you are calling fag. Like, from there I feel you are committing to the internet fight but you could easily walk away and leave the other guy as the loser who cares about internet fights.

I don't care about your feelings user. Good night.

People really like that map, it even gets its own fanart.

>slowclap.jpeg

There are exactly three kinds of people who pick up a game of Pathfinder/D&D and decide to worldbuild a setting:

The first is the kind of smug, self-satisfied, pretentious person who has active disdain for a number of foundational fantasy conventions and thinks that "subverting the tropes" constitutes quality writing. This is where you get all the the eye-rollingly "wacky" settings that people propose instead of the dreaded "Generic European Fantasy:"
>What if we ran a D&D game with gunpowder weapons in a post-apocalyptic wild west?
>What we ran a D&D game set in a magiteck age of sail where the whole world is covered in water and boats can fly to city states floating on sky islands?
>What if the only playable races were gnomes and bugmen, and everyone lives underground, and magic comes from eating mushrooms that grow on the backs of wild elves?

How twee. How wacky. How inteszzzzzzzz....

The second is the kind of person who's too lazy to run someone else's world consistently. They can't put in the effort to memorize the base details of Dragonlance or Ravenloft or even Forgotten Realms, so they create their own Forgotten Realms with the serial numbers filed off and the geography mixed up a little bit. They throw another bog-standard fantasy setting on the pile: another laundry list of proper nouns that the players have to re-remember even though they mean the same thing as any other D&D setting.

The third is the failed fantasy writer; the wannabe Tolkien who is actively more invested in showing you their fantasy realm than running your campaign. They're no less self-congratulating than the first, no more creative than the second, but has become so enraptured with their own escapist flights of fantasy that they'll stew in disdain for their players not caring as much as themselves on the obligatory globe-trotting slog.

In all cases it's not a good sign for the quality of your GM, both in the sense of the quality of their game and the quality of their character.

You realize you are doing exactly what you accuse him?
What's your excuse.

ok this made me irl laugh

>How twee. How wacky. How inteszzzzzzzz....
How are those boring at all? Your post makes no sense.

...

Did a setting designer molest you back when you were young?

>What if we ran a D&D game with gunpowder weapons in a post-apocalyptic wild west?
So AD&D Greyhawk.

>What we ran a D&D game set in a magiteck age of sail where the whole world is covered in water and boats can fly to city states floating on sky islands?
Sounds rad, I'm in.

>What if the only playable races were gnomes and bugmen, and everyone lives underground, and magic comes from eating mushrooms that grow on the backs of wild elves?
Gnomes, eugh.

You sound like a faggot. Stop being one if you want to get laid sometime this century.

>What if we ran a D&D game with gunpowder weapons in a post-apocalyptic wild west?
I'd unironically would like to play that.

There's several conceivable reasons for why one might do that. For example, world building being a hobby, or no published setting being enough like the setting that is wanted to create.

Aaaand saved.

This so much. I want to be the master of my own setting, and I'm not willing to learn someone else's setting and all its little details. I like creating the world by myself, because being the creator makes building a story so much more flexible and easier.

It's actually Shitty Offbrand Golarion.

how original

>I find it much easier just to take something that everyone know
Easy isn't always best.

I was about to go with the idea that everyone knows it. What are the chances of everyone knowing a setting without every game you run having started with a like minded group of people who all know a specific intellectual property so much they want to play in its world?

That seems like a super inefficient way to set up games.

I say this like I'm not about to run a full metal alchemist game in wild talents.
Me and a friend read the book
fma was used as examples for what powers could emulate
wait that's a great idea let's do that
I'll ask around.
I just can't imagine that being the only way you go about setting up games

The less you know a setting, the more there is to discover. Well explored setting like the German DSA/TDE run into huge problems because everything has already been explored in one publication or another.

>I don't even know how you would "solo" game, is that like those CYOA waifu infographics?
There are solo rpgs user. Lots of tables, decks of random events, even maps and character sheets. Heck a lot even have random combat encounters and "bosses"

That is some really amusing level of insecurity on display there. You should really consider re-evaluating your attitudes, man. This some unhealthy shit.

I usually assume posts like that are fishing.

>I usually assume posts like that are fishing.
Considering that he is not replying to others, I doubt that. Not everything that is cringeworthy or stupid around this site is fishing. In fact most of it is genuine insecurity, that sometimes, come disguised as shitposting because that gives the posters the option to backtrack when they are being dismissed too easily and pretend they were just baiting...

>It's not fishing unless you're poking the fish with your bait.
sure bub.

have a good day user.

>It's not fishing unless you're poking the fish with your bait.
Well, considering that baiting is for getting continuous attention and manipulating others into displaying emotions, yes. Actually. It's a pretty big part of it. How new are you here?

Homebrew world's are completely worthless in respects to actually getting anything done.

If you want to run a game you need to make actual game design content then run the fucking game. Your players aren't going to give a shit about your homebrew world document , they only care what's infront of them in game.

I'd you want to write a novel you actually have to write the fucking novel not jerk off over your meaningless homebrew world document which no publisher or editor is going to give a fuck about.

So yes homebrew world design is mostly just a masturbation exercise for people who can't create actual content.

Granted if that's what people enjoy doing more power to them.

GOLARION is shitty offbrand Golarion.
Seriously, a map made to poke fun at minimal effort kitchen sink fantasy world building isn't the best thing to call out for bearing too much resemblance to your preferred setting.

WHERE'S THE COMPASSS ROSE

Why do people bother to make settings? All you need is a few establishing sentences, and then you can build the world around the characters actions. I dont get people who adhere strictly to a premade setting OR people who worldbuild to the extreme.

I'm not really seeing it. I see the basic Europe/Asia/Africa triangle intended setup, but the actual contours of the map don't resemble Europe, Asia, or Africa at all.

Here's what Afro-Eurasia and the Americas superimposed over each other actually looks like.

I do sometimes use an existing setting, but here are the reasons why sometimes I don't:
-Can't find a setting that does what I want
-I want the players to know nothing about the world so they can explore it
-I prefer to avoid misunderstandings and bad appropriation of a setting, i.e. I get something wrong about the setting

>What if we ran a D&D game with gunpowder weapons in a post-apocalyptic wild west?

>How twee. How wacky. How inteszzzzzzzz....

Fuck you, man. I would play the shit out of that!

>Who is this Vecna guy and why do all your starting characters have his body parts?
Ha!
It's even funnier cause I've been running greyhawk for 30 or so years now

>so they create their own Forgotten Realms with the serial numbers filed off
This line made me chuckle, but the rest of your post reeks of "no fun allowed". Learn to relax and have a bit of fun user, you might enjoy it.

God, I'm so guilty of the second one that it's not even funny.

At least I don't make up words for things that aren't needed.

I can see adhering to a premade setting. Premades can have a shitton of fun stuff in them to design an adventure around. They capture the DM's imagination and they use that to hook the players. Personally I just can't be bothered to read that shit.

>who do people have different preferences than me?

I just do. The GM also likes having a player/loremaster.

And the players which don't read are the ones which don't read at all, no matter the origin of the setting. Even with a wiki everybody can acess at any time.

Funny thing is that I started from the GM's setting which he always used, just added and reconfigurated here and there, keeping the soul of it even if details change.

this also applies. It has elements one can find in Warhammer Fantasy, Spelljammer and Elder Scrolls, but I don't know any setting which has all of them together.

>leyships
>dwarven geomancy allows for the cultivation of geodes into city-sized chambers
>imperial bureaucracy uses around 30.000 seers to find out the worth of your taxes a month from now
>a nation of megatherium herders based on gaucho romanticism
>universal Soldier-esque frankstein-like steampunk cyborgs opress the populace serving a titanic analogic computer
>ley lines are metaphysical links between people which conduct prana and are the basis of the whole Creation. If you have any kind of feelings for someone, you have a ley line connecting you to that person. If that person has feelings for you as well, the ley line goes both ways. This web sustains reality. Love and hate literally move the world.
>orcs are unplayable bone-scarred necrogenic apes
>the war god's avatar is made of 300 soldiers acting in perfect unity
>Slavery is legal
>spontaneous combustion is diagnosed as a disease
>two gods don't exist 364 days of the year
>Repetition muskets
>a prison made from chained ship hulks in the midst of a lake
>therapeutic curses
>giant divine snakes made of ruby
>sea centipedes with fins instead of legs
>sultans are djinns and the superior caste of their land
>mountain dwarfs build citadels of pykrete
>two unique races
>Sun is hollow
>the above invented handheld rocket launcher pods
>dwarven war shovels
>samurai use firearms

chocobump

>So AD&D Greyhawk
Negro please