Starting a Homebrew D&D Project with Gaming Brew

boose i don't

yeah you can

m

boomicaboos any time

uh

yeah you're fine

oh yeah

okay well welcome to the podcast real quick bruce let's start with a warm up

your ready

i'm ready

perfect okay so oftentimes at the start of an adventure the players have kind of

an inciting event m and oftentimes that's like someone near and dear to them you

know something happened to happens to that person i want you to come up with

an inciting event and if it's connected to an individual you know flesh that out

a little bit but just something that would be emotionally impactful enough to get a

bunch of players going on in it venture

ah

the most exciting event in the history running table top games people are sitting in

a tavern you now i'm just getting

yeah

yeah

amazing

yeah

where did you

okay

come up with it

i personally like to start my games my campaigns with like new players this combat

happening in the first five to ten minutes what

nice

i'll do is i'll have the meat up in some way usually away from town

times on the road

oh

and some of some of the old school sky room where you're on the wagon

you're just waking up like

yep

to throw them in the combat immediately right away let them get the jitters out

of ther system and push him

love

from there

it great and so you just show up immediately with combat give us an example

one of my previous combats was sort of inspired by one of the disiomodules one

of the old ones the dragons

hm

they are in the city kind of exploring the city slowly meeting each other looking

to each other through the crowd and the red dragon attacks starts to burn the

city around them and it forces them to run for cover dive into some ends

in some taverns or

m

the nearby chapel fight their way as all the kobolds and the draconic usually i

kind of like to start my stuff something something that really

i

gets

love

the

that

blood pumping

yeah i like that because it's like it's action but not i mean i think

a lot of people when they think of action like right from the get go

they think oh it's got to be like a group of goblins or wolves something

but you're like oh no they're going to be a doin mix they're gonna be

fighting some people sure but they're also running for cover which is like a very

intense like interesting start i love it love it love it love it um but

let's just you know going from here let's just hop into the into the podcast

so listeners welcome back to how to be a better dam i am tanner wayland

and i'm here with my co host justin lewis as well as bruce from gaming

bruce he is a wonderful content creator and we'll have some more more in depth

introduction for him later but first some announcements first off we just wanted to say

that the september one shot got pushed to october first at four p m mountain

time as we mentioned earlier you will be able to watch that just go to

better dungeon master dot com forward slash listen ah

sorry that's that's forward slash

m

watch totally

for

my

lash

bad

watch okay i was wonder was like oh

yeah

that changed um

yeah my bed

yeah you're good we had to change it just because schedule issues um so justin

will running that one i'll actually be out of town in chicago at that

yeah

time but

yeah

but it should be great honestly very excited for that m other is as far

as it goes we're going to be doing a give away soon on instagram it's

our how it's at how to be a better d m on

oh

instagramum make sure to follow us we'll give you some more info but it has

to do with the software dungeon alchemist um as they've been so kind and they've

given us a key so that you can download it so we're goin doing a

little competition a little give away

oh

on instagramso keep your ears and eyes and phone screens open

oh

okay also another we have one more announcement we have one slot opened for the

recording in october um that's going to be with rob from this dungeon is occupied

or bone daddy as people call them over there so yeah we're super excited for

that it's going to be horror theme you're going to love it definitely sign up

for that otherwise we'll definitely catch you in the next one near the end of

the year in november december is um otherwise let's just hop into is so bruwseintr

use yourself a little bit

guys bruce from gaming brew i'm a

yeah

edition content creator make a lot of supplemental stuff glasses up glasses so have a

pretty good gore following we run west march living world game i run a bunch

of adventures for our team

oh

stream it

oh that's

all

awesome

on twitch it

yeah

it's a great time

great great

yeah

and we'll have you say it again at the end but what's your how can

people reach you on twitch what's your handle

twitch

oh

it's

m

a gamin brew use a game across

same thing

the board you can go to gaming

great

bred

you killed

dot com

it

and find all my stuff uh

man it's great don't love it when you find a good handle just cross the

board

was at least surprised

uh

you're like has no one come up with us

yeah

we our whole approach was just make a lot of words and no one's got

to have the same same order of war it's really

yeah

um

hm

how to be

yeah

a better dam uh anyway

oh

so yeah honestly we loved

yeah

your your instagram is just amazing i've been looking over it right and it's just

like you're so good at creating content and looks so professional and like the the

polish and shine on it is incredible um i guess my question is did you

well first off how did you first get into d and d m

i've been lucky enough to play an d since second i've been playing d indiana

for over twenty years got my start

yeah

amazing

way back in high school freshman er high school

great so did did a friend invite you is that how it you know invite

you over

my my next or neighbor my buddy's older brother and all his friends house always

play down in the basement yeah kind of went from there

that's awesome that's great and so was it pretty soon after that that you started

you know home brewing content

it was a once third edition came out all those years ago edition is

h

to hold

m

i mean

ye

did a lot of home bred for that then when fifth edition came around and

with the rise of stuff like critical role in adventure time

yep

i really got back to the roots and i really started to dive in to

seeing how how big

m

many people were joining the genre

yah

yeah honestly it's incredible

yah

and so uh so i was curious specifically because a lot of your stuff if

not all of it is it's the aran fiction fictional universe right

that's correct

so like tell me how that came about like what that something you been working

on for years or have you branched out from that like what was kind of

the inciting incident with that with creating that

oh

so

ah

and critic as getting really big

kay

my my fiancee and her brother were getting into it and they wanted to start

playing and and they had never played before so i wanted to give

hm

them a home brew experience started to write aron basically around their characters as we

ran the campaign and over a time it just kept growing and growing and i

kept having to add more stuff and then more friends wanted to come and play

uh

it's kind of snowball from there nd then it's just turned into this huge campaign

setting

that's amazing

yeah

how many people are playing right now

and so i run a campaign every other friday with five really close friends then

we have a couple of great deems in our dis core that also run campaigns

inside the fictional world an we all come together

amazing

there's about thirty of us that do the living world west march

snap

tenner can i ask question real quick

please do

awesome so bruise what you said just sparked a big like interest in me personally

because i'm actually trying to kind of flesh out one of my own home brew

world and obviously that's the selfish reason why i'm asking this question but more for

the listener more for the listener quote quote in creating a home brew project a

home brew world it is a pretty intense undertaking and the way you described it

was very interesting you said you created it around their characters and then started fleshing

it out from there so if i can dig a little deeper on that was

it you had your girl friend and her brother create characters and back stories and

then you use those elements to start creating and kind of as the seed for

eronel or did you supply them details and that also became the seed for air

now like welcomes through that

i know there's there's two ways that people usually go about creating worlds they usually

go top in like they start with the big universe

hm

in the dates or they go

m

like regional and expand from there i started

yeah

top in and i had a couple of ties for my head like it overarching

content form and then i waited to

nice

see kind of what classes grabbed him one of them one person was like really

into like druid circles so i was like i need to make a bunch stuff

about druids and nature stuff another one was really big into holy light and clear

stuff so i started toss like a aspect to them too and then after seeing

were they went and just find tune there and then i just built all the

details around their characters and then let it expand out from that direction

that makes sense

yeah that's that's great so like do you think that that's the best way you

could i mean i'm not i don't have any issue with that but i'm like

looking back are you happy that started it like that just kind of took what

they were interested in and built on that versus just i don't know

oh

doing a world just off the cuff that isn't necessarily regarding them

worked really great at the time and then about a year

h

and a half or so and

m

when we started to have more and more people interested i pulled back a bit

i went

m

started very broad built our pantheon a lot of the nations and the armies and

really started at the time lines and the universe then i built down that way

i figured

m

that doing that way it's

m

made it a lot more accessible to everybody you know i went with the

yeah

s a pretty major of things a lot of pomebrewers use and they go you

know geography religion

hm

adomics politics

yeah

and so structure and i really dove into those five things so i had a

idea of like made my said in unique

yeah i see that you put out a lot of content as well and so

with that in mind like because because you do all kinds of content right like

you do you do the monsters you do races sub races you know the sub

classes just just basically everything right

eh

um how do you like what's your process going into that because i imagine that

if your process was poor you could only do a few you know every once

yeah

in a while right

yeah it's definitely been

yeah

fine to after a couple of years of doing this but now it's to the

point where put out poles or themes everyone to vote on what they want me

to focus on for the month for example

that's great

this month is our our theme is thieves killed so it's all about rogues and

thieves skilled stuff and that gives me like a good action always need a little

bit of direction for doing create outlet then

yeah

i'm lucky enough to i can make classes or races or monsters whatever really a

whole of me that day than i have awesome team to play test and i

have like a method that i used to play test content comes out hope it's

retty balanced i feel like it's pretty balanced

yeah

it comes out in a very polished state

yeah yeah

i mean i feel like you do a lot more than most people going

uh

into home brew

uh

right

yeah

that's great though because because i do love that you get input because frankly the

same for me if i have perameters given to me by someone else or like

a general kind of thrust of what i should be working towards so much easier

like twenty times you're to come up with ideas you know

helps to corral

yeah

the brain

uh

exactly

h if we can dive deeper a little bit could you describe let's say with

the example of you know magic item maybe not magic item i don't like a

a tree monster i don't know what would be your method for play testing that

monster okay

if i was to do a monster to play test t once you kind of

have the cr that you want to do even though car is a little little

yank for five once you ave

yeah

that cr

yeah

you you

yah

play tested i have a lot of different sit in training dummies a lot of

set classes

hm

and sub classes built that i can just toss in and i run combats with

myself and with other people just

hm

it off that way it's also once you make so much content and since i've

been fifth edition now for so long it's always a good idea to try to

mold it around stuff that wizards has already made wizards gives a nice once you

understand like the theme and how they kind of make their content you can kind

of keep yours really close to theirs

yeah so kind of using them as similar temples or genera to like you know

create alongside it so you're not going crazy

i just like a tense you can kind of see they

yeah

have ranges for their health and maget put in the back of the d m

g that really helps out to you so you know you don't go to to

extreme on damages or too light we're getting

m

into the power creep of the it

m

h

perfect honestly that's like that's a great way to to put it you know like

hey with home bruin you don't have to learn everything from scratch right you kind

of need to base it on other examples you know that's that's how most everything

starts right if you're gonna if you're going to write a story you gotta you're

probably going to base aspects on it on other stories you've read you know same

if someone is like making making a game you know you can't just don't expect

to start from scratch certainly not at the start right so other than that what

do you find i mean since you have so much experience with us what are

some major mistakes or missteps

yeah

that you've had when you've been home brewing

my my biggest one and i was lucky

oh

enough to be corrected by some of our very well read and

oh

good proof

yeah

readers in our discord but wizards has very say things a

yeah

certain way how they

yeah

present themselves in their features and their abilities and their sub classes and you want

to make sure as a home brew that you match what they say and all

of your stuff an try to you try your best to have the same kind

of warding so that people that still learning the game or new to the game

and reading your home brow can pick up on the ideas understand what you're trying

to get across in your home brew

okay yeah that's that's great you know just making sure that that you're just like

being very clear because that's the thing that wizard kills at they have that of

saying things that makes it so incredibly clear that you know you're not going to

have players just confused or um or you know questioning or trying to break things

you know certain

yeah

ways yeah because that just happens all the time

yea

and so when you've been like creating all of these different parts of aranelum what

like so aside from like turning to wizards products are there any specific products that

were like very useful

yeah

that you reference all the time or any other tools in general or or places

for content just just like where what tools do you use typically

try to just be a sponge and just read as much about different campaign settings

as i can or like checking out of the new kick starters the biggest

hm

one that's been extremely helpful for me is midguard world book cobalt press

yeah

have a very

hm

large i think it's

yeah

like a five hundred page campaign setting just seeing how they laid out their content

to make it easily accessible been ge for me and setting and planning like what

i need to hit out going like two to detailed because you want to give

m you know room to add their own when they run their games but giving

them just

exactly

enough detail like they do in their products been massive for me

that's great and i was very curious specifically about so i noticed that you i

mean you kind of kill it when it comes to matching the look you know

like each of your posts on instagram like so this isn't from the book you

know like how do you how do you like go about creating that is there

like an app or do you just kind of uhphotoshop that together have you been

doing that so far

so i use a mix a website called home brewery

yeah

you that does a like b b code that you can use to kind of

put stuff in there and then i export out of that into my photo shop

and then make sure everything thinks up and looks the same

that's great

i've

awesome

been lucky to i'm not much of an artist but ive been lucky enough

m

to meet some artist that are really good

oh

like an send stuff to you and we're awesome and get back to me real

quick

that's great um so justin do you have any questions

yeah this is one that kind of just came up you know in building out

an how have you kind of determined you know whether or not an has different

time periods and eras like have you just decided to focus on one specific era

or have you already established that technology will change or things like that i'm

m

just kind of curious

i was always really interested in players could watch technology like evolve in front of

them in real time for arne was this this this big event that shifted the

era to the era that the players are in now the era that the players

are in now it's only been seven hundred years so it's still very a very

new world and people are still exploring but in all these lost ruins and what

not ah we've been slowly introducing a big part of the world is there are

multiple universes

oh

and one universe is very far along in technology and they just started coming to

aran nd these are like here called exiles in arbor but hose are kin of

like our war forged they've

h

been

yeah

slowly bringing

m

this technology in and then the players have been reacting in real time to you

like how goes from flint lock pistols to actually like war bots walking around and

thought

yah

that was always like a really

h

cool

amazing

way

yeah

almost like before it hit steam punk but kind of a steam punkyvibe what they're

hm

h

getting to now

m wow

fascinating so then because based on some of the things that i've seen as well

there are classes and sub classes that are geared towards kind of the low fantas

as well as high fantasy um so do you just kind of have like reservoir

of resources for any time period and then you just kind of slot your players

in and wherever they fail or wherever you want them to fit

that's that's pretty way look at it a lot of it is some because the

air is so new

yeah

and they're still kind of getting

m

the field for it some

yeah

kingdom some civilizations are you know much more far along than others that are so

kind of prehistoric and then players can kind of pick you know they want to

come from this prehistoric lace compared to like some that's really far along where they're

starting to build like airships they can kind of mold it together

oh

that way

yah yah that's really cool um another question real quick and in doing all this

how much i guess what types of research have you done outside of the d

n d research you know like research on politics or military tactics or economics like

have you done anything like that or has it just been kind of all mostly

focused on just learning what is in the space right now

always tell everyone that if i wasn't a unique creator i'd probably a history teacher

uh

i

ah

just love diving

uh yeah

into

yeah

all kinds of warfare and cultures have evolved over time and it's that's been really

big too for putting the world together

any particular resources that you'd recommend to the listener

i have my head think a big thing of it is as long as you

just always have a hunger to read whatever you can get your hands on then

you can if you can find parts of history

yah

that you think might mess really

h

well like if you were really even to like as

m

tech you could read about some of the old

m

as tech and man

ah

stuff or if you're

i

in too like there's just so much that you

m

can dive

yeah

into if you could just take little little bits of real history

oh

and mesh it into your world only like adds details to it but lets players

kind of that they know what it is

m

and it lets him feel more part of the world to which has always been

a big deal

m

yeah that's oh first off before we continue we actually typically take a little intermission

and

oh

continue grilling you now

uh

we

m

can

uh

but we like

ah

to you know

yah

take an intermission stretch

h

our creative muscles a little bit

h oh yeah

one thing we would like to do

oh

is

oh

h now since you're so good at home brewing um let's let's have you home

brew um yourself for a moment

oh

uh

uh

man

h

yeah so uh first off do you feel like you have a fairly distinct damning

approach

i think i do good

okay perfect perfect that makes this easier if you were to create a class to

describe your deming style what would it be

class i think it would be something very

oh oh

i was putting like a mix between like a sorcerer and a wizard

okay love it

i'm a big foundry v t t user i like to do a lot of

online right now i like to have

yeah

all

yeah

those flashy graphic and spell effects

uh

and animated maps and stuff

h

so i think that kind of fits with the spell caster little flashy

yeah totally

my

you know like i think a lot of people do really well at the you

know the censory like impact of campaigns yeah i love that oh oh

probably give myself some sort of ability called the rule of cool i'm always preaching

m

about the rule of cool

it's

yeah

true it's a really important rule

yeah

honestly just

does that

rule

rule

of cool

mean that either you can be cool or you can be effective is that how

that would

yeah

work mechanically

yeah it's like a wild magic search you never

exactly

know what yo're

yeah

gonna get

either you look cool doing something or you actually do something

it's

m

like if you get over a ten do the coolest thing that you can think

of

yeah

um

hm

oh i love that yeah that's great so kind of a mix of

oh

sorcerer wizard in terms of just the flashy

yeah

abilities and everything love it well justin should we continue then yeah

of course we should yes indeed

good good good okay

ah

so getting away kind of from your experience home brewing and more you know let's

talk more about like people that are new to home brewing

oh

first off do you find that a lot of people are just intimidated

oh

by how good you are at home brewing

oh

hope not i get a lot of questions people

oh

asking like tips and tricks

oh

all the time through social media and on discord i hope i

yeah

hope i answer their question as well

okay

oh

that's

like

good

put

i

their

mean

mind dates

yeah and do you feel like do you feel like anybody that is you know

maybe daunted by the idea of starting home brewing um i mean is it is

it a scary thing is

oh

home brewing hard would you say

yah yah

say home brewing is like the learning any other trick of the trade he's got

to

oh

do it nd then you're

yeah

gonna fail at it and ten you on to do

oh

it again then the internet until you suck then you do it again

yeah

you'll get better at it

yeah

just can't be afraid

that's

to fail because you can always tweak the numbers

oh

that's how you know you're making real progress in something when there's enough people out

there that know you're doing something that at least one of them thinks you suck

that's true

oh

yeah

it's absolutely true you know because like especially with the amount of content you're putting

out there there's no way like i was reading a comment actually was reading multiple

comments on instagram because

oh

you know troll through comment

ah

sections and see

ah

what can make me angry

yes

uh

but

h

i saw a few people who are like you know you had a very cool

you know

oh

sub race or sub class i saw this a lot where you were like you

know at this beautiful thing um

oh

and then they were like it's just this you know

yeah good

it's

point

just like oh

ay

that already exists and it's like i just thought it was so funny because i

was like this isn't going to stop him from creating you know but like

yeah

easy to be like oh am i that creative you know

like

yeah

one of the things with home brew is

yeah

you want to make stuff that isn't there that you that your players are really

into so

yeah

if it like you're making a sorcerer sub class and it touches a bit on

the bard that's okay because they want to be a sourceer you know where

hm

the coast makes the official stuff and we we feel the lines in the cracks

as the home bees

yeah and actually i would even add that it's also important to like for your

home brew project to say yeah there are elves in this world but they're different

in these specific ways and none of these ways are mechanical they're all narrative but

these are important reasons why this elf is different in aronel or any other brew

project and and that's in my opinion that's still worth creating that content because someone

is going to read that and be like wow i really want to be this

kind of elf even though none of the game mechanics change the narrative and the

way you act will change so i do think that even even if it is

the same exact mechanical thing having a different narrative is still important or even if

it's the same naive just that way people know for

oh

your home bred project right

a hundred percent especially because usually when people turn to homebrew they've already played

yeah

addition and they've played through a lot of the standard stuff for so long they

want something a little fresh and that's really

h

what i'm just trying

m

to give an sure all the other hombres are too just a fresh new experience

in the same game

m

yeah

hm

and what i love is that with a view point you know it's very approachable

yeah

for for new for new dams for new home brewers

oh

because like i was one post that you had was

yeah

or comaronel race and i love

yeah

that like i hadn't even read it when i first looked at it and i

was like oh i love that you know that

oh

you essentially were like he is an they're different you know you have a different

yeah

you know different ability slightly but as far

oh

as it is it didn't work you know but you can stick get into it

you can still you know scratch

yeah

that creative itch and make them unique to your to your campaign in your world

without having to be like no it's not nor i a lark

yeah

with an l

ah

you know like or something right

yeah

ah

i love that

i mean that's that's a big part of it

yeah

people identify like they know they have an idea what orchis and then people

oh

will will feel attached

oh

to the york and then the

oh

home bred weekend you feel a little different so it's not

oh

like every other or that they always

oh

play my

uh

ores are from out of space

yeah

so it

oh

just a little little tweak

love it

of what it is

yeah

no

and changes like so much and in a way it actually makes those changes

yeah

more impactful because you're like

oh

hey you know what this is it's in or however you're stereotyped in your assumptions

don't quite fit it's it's different in a certain way right

and honestly i think that's one of the reasons why i would encourage the listener

to give a try you know try their hand at home bring

yeah

because m we all played d and d to have adventure at least you know

in a fantasy way and kind of have that escape and i feel like by

doing home brew you are making it so you are the only person that can

provide particular story in a sense and in a way you're giving something to the

world that no one else can because it's only coming from you right

great point like i've made a spartan fighter you know shield and spear ancient greek

oh

and home brewers that's like one of the first things that they make but you

know i wanted to make

oh

one and a little different han everyone else is but you definitely want to encourage

next one brew also make one and see how fun there's it's just a and

your your creative creative mind

exactly

um oh so we're just about to end here but i did have a question

that you just something you said just brought it up so with you being the

d m and also kind of the main person charge of creating for this world

how often do you invite your players to you know take an active part in

creation

yeah

do so in a couple of ways one is a lot of people in our

discord have made sub classes in some of the races that are on my patron

all credit actually have a couple of guys that we're making a couple of things

for my patron and they've kind of branched out now and they're starting to make

their own been great too

amazing

because we have we have multiple d ms

ye

the way that they go because they use the setting so whatever they do in

their setting we try to incorporate to get their

oh

notes try to incorporate their law into the law

oh

it's

yeah

just at always want to make your players

yeah

feel part of the setting so whenever a major event happens like one of our

players became the king of the north lands like a like a viking establishment so

he is forever submitted character is now

yeah

on the on our campaign setting

yeah

page as art and he's he's part of the world so the story he told

in game we tried to add it to

oh

over done

well

that's

i'd love

really

that

cool

m

can i ask one question on that how and this is me speaking from my

my ego brain how do you manage to delegate that creative control to other people

who aren't you i know that i might have

oh

particular problems being like yeah take my home bred project and do something with it

that i may not like but it might be permanent

question i'm also a little bit of a control freak with it too i just

tell

uh

them going in that i might

yeah

tweak it a little bit

oh

so just be aware which as you get into it that

h

i might make some changes

yeah

h

pretty okay with it it's been working really well so far

i like it

being oh friend beforehand with it

yeah

yeah

yeah

i love that i mean what i love especially what during

yeah

our talk today obviously you are very experienced you're very good at at home brewing

and you have this whole um

yeah

you know patroon with wonderful content but you also seem very ah very chill about

you know you're not like a perfectionist obviously and also m

oh

you know just like hey you can get better at this

oh

i love that because i

oh

think i struggled the other way where i'm

yeah

like oh i probably

oh

have to be great at this before i show

oh

it to anyone

oh yeah

i've

ah yeah

we have a channel in our discord that's solely for people to feel out of

form and give feedback and i always read the feedback and if it's you know

ve had a lot of really good responses and we've tweaked and changed a lot

of my home to match their responses all these class up dates because classes are

the most intensive by far

yeah

and just keep updating and play testing into old content making it better

i mean if anything that kind of shows that you know if you're insecure about

your work you should be showing it more right because the more feedback it's like

hey if you're so insecure about it then the only way you can actually make

it better

yeah

or one of the main ways is getting that feedback right

absolutely and you'll you'll find too as your home brewing that some people just have

better ideas and you can better ideas with what you've already made and then you

can mix it in and just improve what you made

yeah absolutely like some of my the best home bring i've done has been when

i've just bounced you know simple ideas off of you know friends because i'm like

oh i think this is okay but i'm not sure and then they suddenly have

like something

m

that makes so much more sense and yeah

hm

i love that um well honestly i think that we've we've just learned a lot

from you today we're just so grateful that you came on to the podcast bruce

honestly

excuse

yes

me if i really enjoy it's been great talking to you guys

yeah

was really excited coming up to it had it marked on calendar rat

me too

awesome

me too

yeah

so

oh

how can people reach you

so the easiest way to reach me is to go to gamin brew dot com

i'll

kay

give you the links to all the goods the campaign setting

yeah

call it the content the patron with a lot of free and paid stuff so

you can still go on to join you can still download we have almost three

hundred different pads now you can dialed for free lot of creatures lot of sub

classes

that's great

oh

that's

and

awesome

you can find me on twitch every tuesday wednesday

yeah

and friday so on cambrewdaca

that's awesome so gave me gaming bre dot com um and so yeah i'm definitely

gonna be checking out that twitch everybody else you should as well

oh

and till then everybody let's roll initiative