QuoteDude, I'm totally jealous.  How long have you been working on that?

´bout four years.
To be honest, it grew as I was refereeing the first campaign in the sector. It was a top down approach. World maps were only added once they became important to the players. But I built vehicles and calculated economies during downtimes. If you wanna know the details of the government of the Star Republic of Vesta or the Muda Hegemony´s military, just ask, it´s all there.

I also used programs, spreadsheets and stole from websites.

It´ll be a blast once the second grand campaign will be started in this playground of ours. Right now I´m building StarGrunt and Dirtside armies, mash them up with Renegade Legion stuff. Because MTU will go right into the rebellion. The players chose to fight grandfather by becoming protectors, instead of letting themselves be concerned with some weird Hiver manipulation involving some Dulinor guy...

As a transition, we fight out the FFW, changed by the events the players set in to motion in the Far Frontiers (my) sector. I´m pretty intrigued how this will turn out, as one of the players was a Sector Admiral wanting to reform the Imperium into a more democratic government. He left the group, but I PBEMed with him his rise to power in the Spinward Marches.

He hooked up with Santanocheev and is now his prodigy and figurehead.

EDIT: But of course the real shit happens in MY sector.

I usually do. I don't have any philosophical objection to using published settings (and I have used them a few times), but most of the guys I play with prefer homebrew stuff.

Sett, that sounds like a pitch perfect approach to Trav: use the official setting to your advantage but make it your own campaign.

I've got a home brew fantasy setting I've been using since the mid-1980's.  Depending on what RPG system I'm using with it, I run it in different geographical areas, or 'ages' to match the feel of the game.  IE: the area I've run AD&D games in the world is much different in 'feel' to the area I run RQIII games.

I also, however, love the RQ version of Glorantha to death.  But I play fast and loose with that setting when I run it.  I refuse to memorize setting minutae, which I'm sure would drive Gloranthaphiles up the wall in my game.  As Greg might say "My Glorantha varies."

When I run Cthulhu, I use Lovecraft's work as a backdrop but I don't adhere to any notion of "canon".

Star Wars is much the same way for me.  Anything we saw in the 6 movies is 'canon' and I make up everything else based on that, or stolen out of old sourcebooks, or whatever.

So, I guess even if I'm running games in 'pre-brewed' settings, I customise the hell out of them.

Ima half and halfer.
 
I'll make up, and run my own setting as often as I'll buy and use an established book. I got only one rule when playing an established setting: No canon-ninjas.  My memory ain't so good, I can't be arsed to recall who the potentate of where-everville is, just because you say it's so and so don't mean it is.

This solves two problems: One, I don't have my creativity limited by what some jackass wrote

Two: I don't have players trying to read the books to figure out secrets they can abuse, since I probably ain't using 'em.


But I do like some settings, so I steal them wholeheartedly. Iron Kingdoms, say. Warhammer (perhaps someday...), Star Wars... okay, I cheat on that one. If it relates to the movies or the books, I don't use it at all. No trying to meet Luke, or assasinate Anakin before he becomes Darth. I just ignore all that. If there are stormtroopers, cool, if not, then that's cool too.  Itsa big galaxy, yo.

And others....

Quote from: SosthenesSo, now that everyone said whether they homebrew or not, I'd like to ask how many liters/gallons do you provide? Is your setting just a bunch of names or could (and do) you fill whole binders with it, with detailed world maps, history etc.?

The notes and maps for my Dark Ages setting have now filled six small ringbinders and about the same number of manila folders (sorted by geographical location). I like to work on the tip-of-the-iceberg principle.

I use homebrew settings all the time, especially with D&D.

Seanchai

I homebrew heavily, especially for my D&D games. I've run the same homebrew setting, altered, in Advanced 2nd, 3.5, and soon to be True20. I've got one decent sized binder and a plethora of notes.

I often want to run something else, but my players want that. It's fun, so I oblige.

The trick of Glorantha is that canon Glorantha is a tool for imaginary exploration. Getting it wrong is possible, but getting it right is not regurgitating facts from Greg's game, as it is in many other settings.

Oh, yeah, and if we were still allowed to use hyperbole to communicate our sentiments on the internet, I would say "people who don't homebrew aren't really role-playing."

Quote from: CalithenaThe trick of Glorantha is that canon Glorantha is a tool for imaginary exploration. Getting it wrong is possible, but getting it right is not regurgitating facts from Greg's game, as it is in many other settings.

It took me a while to learn that.

I still need to write that essay you've been bugging me about on Glorantha as a gaming artifact. I still maintain that it's a completely unique fantasy world which treads a unique and conceptually important path between the 'kitchen sink' model (Forgotten Realms) and the 'high concept' model (Tekumel, Jorune) - not to speak of the 'high concept kitchen sink' (Creation, up until the heroin pissing dinosaurs anyway).

You could view 'correct' Glorantha-praxis through the lens of certain kinds of occult practice but that would be melodramatic - not wrong exactly, but misleading despite that. It's sort of about making your own fantasy myth. Where the elements touch you is key. Arduin sometimes pushes in a vaguely similar direction but it's less cerebral (id rules in Arduin) and very much a kitchen sink. Other than that I hardly know of any published worlds which have anything similar. Glorantha is a unique approach to fantasy GMing which deserves to be better appreciated and understood.

Quote from: CalithenaI still need to write that essay you've been bugging me about on Glorantha as a gaming artifact. I still maintain that it's a completely unique fantasy world which treads a unique and conceptually important path between the 'kitchen sink' model (Forgotten Realms) and the 'high concept' model (Tekumel, Jorune) - not to speak of the 'high concept kitchen sink' (Creation, up until the heroin pissing dinosaurs anyway).

You could view 'correct' Glorantha-praxis through the lens of certain kinds of occult practice but that would be melodramatic - not wrong exactly, but misleading despite that. It's sort of about making your own fantasy myth. Where the elements touch you is key. Arduin sometimes pushes in a vaguely similar direction but it's less cerebral (id rules in Arduin) and very much a kitchen sink. Other than that I hardly know of any published worlds which have anything similar. Glorantha is a unique approach to fantasy GMing which deserves to be better appreciated and understood.

You've pretty much hit the nail right on the head.  More people need to thingk of gaming in Glorantha as a medium for exploration of fantasy, not a masturbatory exercise in memorizing minutae.

I would love to read that article, if you ever write it.

Calithena, what Gloranthan work(s) could you recommend to the uninitiated that would help them understand your idea of the setting-as-myth-exploration?  The only piece of the puzzle I've ever read was King of Sartar, which I enjoyed, but only as continuity porn.

I almost exclusively homebrew.

Where I do use other settings, I either stip it for parts/heavily modify if (D20 Mars), or use a setting that allows me to add lots of my own details/worlds/planes/areas (Planescape or the Traveller Imperium, for example.)