Denizens of Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop role-playing games have long debated the role of homebrew versus published materials. Though most dungeon masters agree that homebrewing a game’s narrative and setting is an effective way to run a game more tailored to the table, tolerance levels vary more for game mechanics. Some DMs draw the line at magic items and monsters. Others will spin personalized systems to run their deep-space cyberpunk slice-of-life campaign in Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition and simply pile mechanics onto it until it would burn Gary Gygax upon skin contact.
I can show you the different spice levels, ranging from mild salsa items and potions, all the way to the ghost pepper of making your own RPG system whole cloth. I wanted to showcase some of the incredible work that my friends have done in their own home games and offer some thoughts on how you might approach each level of design. I believe a DM who isn’t pressed for time should consider homebrewing significantly in the interests of their campaign.
Magic Items, Potions, Feats
Years ago, my friend Caden ran a D&D 5E campaign inspired by Japan’s Sengoku, or warring states period. When our adventuring party staved off both a siege and a life threatening illness that afflicted a rebel daimyo, he rewarded us each with a unique magical item that he created. For my mastermind rogue named Oye Shiko, he gave a rapier called Quickling’s Ivy, a +2 Rapier with a chance to entangle the target it hits and deal some poison damage at the same time. Caden could have (and did) give us items straight from the player’s handbook, but it meant a lot to me when he went the extra mile and gave us items tailored to our characters, specifically.
Items are one of the best places to start for homebrewing, as they can be pretty mechanically simple, interesting to the players, and don’t take a ridiculous amount of time to make. And these items do not have to be vastly mechanically unique. There are only so many combinations of different damage types, spell effects, and utilities that can be done. Use an item from the Dungeon Master’s Guide or another sourcebook as a baseline and then add or alter a little. This also applies for abilities, battle master maneuvers, fighting styles,
This is perhaps the most common way for dungeon masters to reward their players in a unique way. It doesn’t take too long as a game master. But I would also pitch some less common ways for people to do this that are in the same caliber of difficulty as a game master. Feats, maneuvers, and spells are all also reasonable ways to reward players for making cool and unique choices with their characters.
Classes, Subclasses
My friend France (not the country) spends a lot of time thinking up custom classes and subclasses for Pathfinder 2E and D&D. Recently, Paizo vindicated one of his D&D homebrews when they published the Way of the Vanguard. France’s idea was thematically similar, but he turned his into a full class rather than a Way. Both thematically focus on a martial character that takes defensive stances. See if you can spot the other differences in thinking between France and Paizo’s versions (aside from them being meant for different systems, of course.)
While popular TTRPG systems typically cover their bases with regards to fantasy archetypes, there are some specific character concepts that can’t be effectively achieved through a specific class or multiclass mix. It takes some diligence and a willingness to make mistakes, but creating a new character class is well within the abilities of any seasoned DM or player. Once again, using the sourcebooks as a starting point is very useful, and I would recommend trying out a unique subclass before writing a whole class.
The System Itself
If you have oodles of time on your hands, you can take things further by developing your own RPG system in its entirety. This is more common than one might think. At least three of my friends and myself have made our own TTRPGs at some point. The rationale is, modding existing games can only lead you so far from the experience the designers originally intended. Specific and niche experiences are easier to make happen with a specific and niche system. In D&D for example, death will never feel quite as present as it does in Old School Essentials. Getting a unique tone often requires making dozens of significant changes in order to accomplish that, at which point a new framework entirely is worth considering.
My friend Nathanael Herman developed a system called Welcome to the Universe, which those of us who play affectionately call Wubbatu. If you’re ever lucky enough to meet him, please call it that as well. as trying to approximate the feeling he had hiking down the Appalachian Trail, and the strange people that he met along the way, through the medium of science fantasy. His system is classless, though the image above may deceive you in that regard, and instead offers categories of abilities such as Genetic, Robotic, Eldritch, Martial, etc. These abilities are not really leveled, and power scales mostly through chaining abilities and teamwork rather than higher tier spells doing an additional die of damage.
And Welcome to the Universe hit the mark exactly. I played a character named Grodger Thatcher, a roboticist frat boy with a -5 to perception, who spends all of his time modding and improving his giant robot crab named Jumbolaya. Alongside a crew of oddballs, we unraveled a conspiracy by the eldritch being Loneliness and the Dark Forest, each trying to create an apocalypse where one person or nobody survives, respectively. Along the way, we fought beings from the fourth dimension, a manic, grief-driven ally stuck in a time loop, amongst other things. But what gave us the most trouble was a fish-man mercenary wearing light armor and rocket boots.
Now you, homie!
I hope I accomplished two things: convince you to homebrew, and convince you that I have really, really cool friends, and no, you can’t have them. But if you ever want other people’s thoughts on your homebrews, send me what you make, or share it in our Discord channel.
Featured Image: Timothy Dykes (via Unsplash)
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