More people should treat homebrew the same way a lot treats published modules.
More people should treat homebrew the same way a lot treats published modules.
Btw, feel free to share any good homebrews I could pillage.
The biggest problem with homebrew is that most of it is unbalanced crap made up by people who think rule of cool is an appropriate substitute for learning why those numbers in that book they barely skimmed are arranged the way they are. Yes, there's some good stuff out there but like the internet in general Sturgeon's Law is usually a generous assessment.
A great example was in a game I briefly played the DM allowed a homebrew class with seven different class features, most of which could be used in the same turn combined to great effect, at first level. Why? Because the DM didn't know half the rules to the basic system, the class came from a pretty website that was designed to look like an official source book, and the abilities sounded really cool. Nevermind that it made one PC more powerful than the other four party members combined.
Take homebrew with a large grain of salt or everybody will end up very salty.
I am begging you to just try another system. Even a same-but-different system like pathfinder. Most of them are much easier and require a lot less work.
People think every game is going to be as weird and "15 is +2" as D&D, but a lot of them aren't. (Ok, a lot of close relatives of D&D, especially in the OSR space, are, but that's not all of RPGs)
Fate is one of my game crushes and it's so much more how people imagine RPGs to be.
I love the Genesys system because it's designed specifically to homebrew any genre of setting you want (including custom magic systems), along with multiple official settings.
It is so easy to take NPCs, items, etc, from fantasy to sci-fi to current day, to post apocalyptic, etc. Since the rules and stats are intentionally setting agnostic.
And I absolutely love the narrative dice system.
If OP likes plating a variety of settings it's worth checking out. Or one of the billion other games out there
I'm already running Blades in the Dark for another group, first session in two days. Wish me luck ;)
I still want to throw crazy homebrew shit at my d&d group.
Yeah, no, this is exactly what I mean - you didn't describe any "crazy homebrew shit", you described things that are just in other systems (even older editions of D&D) without any additional work. One of my PF2e players is a time traveller, without me having to add anything. One of my PF1 players was basically a power ranger, entirely RAW. hell, one of the players I played 4e with was a dimension hopper, even if it was largely flavour.
When I say try another game I don't just mean try something on the opposite end of the ttrpg spectrum like FitD, I also mean try one of the many "5e but better" systems (including previous editions of D&D) to get rid of these ridiculous illusions about all the work you're having to put in.
Good homebrew you can pillage? My calling.
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/liOJvZSBDaur
Have fun!