Embedded Files
Below are a collection of highlights from my five years creating content for my D&D homebrew campaigns: an adventure, mechanics to enhance character creation, and a regional map.
Responding to player character-creation
Responding to player character-creation
For this particular adventure, I didn’t start outlining the plot until I had input from the players on who their characters were. Before getting player input, all I had was a setting and a basic structure for a mystery adventure. The challenge in creating this adventure was to tie the players' backstories to both the setting and the mystery so that their motivations would align.
I began by identifying each character's most important motivation. Then, I invented plot devices that would unite the player characters' behind the same cause. For example, the key to the rogue's freedom would be the same holy sword that was stolen from the barbarian's shop.
Diagram of each of the PCs connection to the larger plot of the adventure.
Diagram of each of the adventure's nodes
Designing a Mystery for Player Agency
Designing a Mystery for Player Agency
Furthermore, in order to craft a mystery for a TTRPG adventure, I needed to ensure that the players' found the right clues to move their investigations forward. I also had to make sure not to curtail their freedom to approach a situation however they saw fit. To do this, I divided this adventure into location-based nodes, and made sure each node had at least three clues leading to the next nodes. I also included a branch in the middle of the adventure, to further give the players a sense that they had the agency to make decisions about where to go next.
2. Character Creation Mod
2. Character Creation Mod
The D&D 5e rules provide few mechanics to encourage the creation of dynamic characters with drives, motivations, and connections to the game world. For many of the D&D playable races, I created additional mechanics to ensure all player characters have a unique narrative hook to build a character around. I've made sure each hook doubles down on the fantasy of playing each race, while also remaining open-ended enough for players to make decisions and retain the sense of ownership of their character.
Lessons from testing
Lessons from testing
In an earlier version of these rules, orc PCs and DMs had no guidance regarding what a player could do to anger their ancestors. After playtesting, I updated the rules so that ancestor behavior was tied directly to whether or not players used the orc race's special features from D&D's Player's Handbook, such as night vision or extra movement. In the latest version, orc players appease their ancestors by using their special traits, and anger them whenever they fail to use these traits.
Orc's Ancestors
Orc's Ancestors
How to engage with the fantasy of a proud and pugnacious character tropes while staying clear of essentializing stereotypes? My answer: ancestor worship with a twist. Orc ancestors are barred from moving on to the afterlife. Instead, they haunt their descendants, the orc PCs, and wreak havoc in the physical world when angered.
In order to permanently prevent an ancestor from creating destruction around their character, an orc PC must find a way to immortalize the memory of their ancestors and turn them into a minor god. How they do so is left up to the players, but they must ensure the world knows their ancestors' stories for generations to come.
3. Regional Map and Worldbuilding
3. Regional Map and Worldbuilding
I created this topographical map in Linearity Curve to hand out to my players. This region of my world is heavily inspired by the Atlas Mountains of Morocco where I lived from 2018 to 2020.
What's in a Name?
What's in a Name?
I created four distinct civilizations to inhabit this corner of the world. To make each civilization "read" differently on the map, I borrowed from real world languages. Here is each culture and its real-world inspiration for place names:
A semi-nomadic culture that worships dragons living deep in the mountains. Their towns and cities are inspired by words in the Tamazight languages of North Africa (eg Tin Tazert "With Dates" or Asher Nuzrem "Serpent's Falls").
A river-based dwarf civilization that is essentially an ancient Egypt analog. Their place names are borrowed from words in Coptic (eg. Meshtol "Tower" or Damiadi "Port").
A collection of city states based on Saharan salt-traders, with names all pointing to salt production (eg. Port Halite, Briner's Bay).
An Ottoman-like empire expanding from the north, with name patterns inspired by Turkic languages (eg. Sen-i Kiral, Ulbator).
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