What is Homebrew in D&D game play?
A typical D&D game is balanced around a party of five to eight people, but it can be comically difficult to arrange schedules for a regular cast of characters in your RPG campaign.
Alternately, playing with fewer players can limit the Dungeon/Game Master's options. When players run two (or more) characters each, it can limit their sense of ownership and identification with their avatars.
But there are ways to customize the rules, stories, maps, monsters, and non-player characters to afford the DM creative ways for a smaller group to face interesting and powerful enemies.
What is a Homebrew campaign?
A homebrew campaign allows the DM to tailor content, abilities and gear to players, based on how the characters develop over a campaign. A lot of cool abilities already exist in standard RPG rulesets, and adding the occasional extra feat or class ability from a different subclass can really be a fun addition. The DM lets the flow of the game dictate the homebrew modifications and rewards the players with something special from time to time.There is no end to homebrew options available to you, and no end to people sharing what they've built. Here, Matthew Mercer, of Critical Role fame offers some wonderful tips.
Why make a Homebrew D&D campaign?
The biggest reason is simple... RPG tabletop games offer frameworks for anyone to build on. The game is fun, but can be even more fun when you sprinkle it with your own flavor.
For example, in our last D&D campaign, each character started with one "Fate Point." Expending one of these points would allow the character to pull off something amazing. Our Gloomstalker Ranger used his fate point while the party was facing overwhelming forces while attacking a well-guarded caravan. In this case, the player triggered his fate point by invoking his patron goddess of shadows, Shar, from the Forgotten Realms campaigns.
The DM quickly brought him into a private 10 minute solo session in which he was brought before Shar, who agreed to assist him if he pledged true fealty. In exchange, the DM granted our Gloomstalker a homebrew D&D Shadow Monk ability known as "Shadow Step."
It offered great flavor, maintained balance, and above all else, it fit the story.
We have enjoyed our homebrew campaigns so much that we are bringing them to you!
Keep your eyes peeled at to our Games page for more!