One popular way that a Dungeon Master can bridge this gap between what they had in mind for an adventure and what the basic rules of Dungeons & Dragons will allow in the game world is to turn to Homebrews. This is how DMs and players are able to bend the rules of the game (and even sometimes the laws of physics) in order to make the game more approachable or interesting.
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What is a Homebrew?
The concept of Homebrew is nothing new to longtime D&D players, as the practice has been in full swing since players first started crafting their own stories in first edition. However, in 5E, the current version that most players follow these days, the rules themselves have been simplified in a way that makes crafting everything from characters to worlds much looser. As a result, the concept of creating Homebrew spells, weapons, and even monsters has become fairly common as players continue to push the limits of what the 5E design can contain.
This can range from more tame encounters, like pitting players against cannon fodder hollows from Dark Souls, to drawing in memes from the internet like the bear with shark hands. The latter of those two encounters can actually be quite the fight for an unprepared adventuring party, and the combination pelt can make a nice set of clothing for a Warforged Artificer and his Steel Defender. Of course, this could also lead to players roaming through Dungeons & Dragons’ fantasy locales as a self-insert Witcher OC who replaced their steel and silver swords with a lightsaber and keyblade.
The Pros and Cons of Homebrew
To list out the cons for Homebrew could take all day, especially when considering the implications of the aforementioned Witcher OC and all the weapons that mesh horribly with D&D’s high-fantasy world. Letting players go crazy with what they can and can’t take on their adventure can make for a disjointed experience that could be funny or cool at the time, but doesn’t have the lasting impact of some of Dungeons & Dragons’ best campaigns. Regardless, pushing the limits of the rules and introducing both original and external ideas into the game can make for some of the best one-off moments for an adventuring party.
Forming an adventuring party consisting of a keyblade wielder, the Lord of Cinder, and Sauron to take on Final Form Kefka isn’t exactly in the spirit of D&D, but it’s stupid and fun and exciting. It stops being about the integrity of the game and turns into a group session of writing fan-fiction. Other times, the Homebrew classes and items can be much more in line with how the base game is constructed, creating unique experiences that only the DM or player can have thanks to their own original ideas.
What Makes Crafting Homebrew So Difficult
Introducing Homebrew into a game can alter the rules and even introduce new abilities that don’t have a consensus from either the larger player base or Wizards of the Coast. When the question comes up of if a Homebrewed Empath character can calm a raging Barbarian, the answer is up in the air, and a DM will have to make an arbitrary ruling. So, for the sake of balance, the rules around something players built to do a specific thing might make their original design useless, otherwise it might derail the Dungeon Master’s original campaign.
For this reason, plenty of DMs choose not to allow Homebrew in the game at all, instead adhering strictly to what has been written in official media. There already is plenty laid out across the basic rules, to Dungeons & Dragons’ various expansions like Xanathar’s Guide to Everything or Eberron: Rising from the Last War. However, even 5E’s rule set still has limitations on things like weapon types and enhancements, something that Homebrew can expand upon in unique ways that offer more rewards for even minor quests.
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Why Dungeons and Dragons Should Embrace Homebrew
At the moment, developer Wizards of the Coast doesn’t really have much of a stance on Homebrew, essentially treating the practice like how modding is treated in digital games. However, unlike some digital titles like Minecraft or Skyrim that embrace the modding community and include ways to bring mods to more players, Wizards has been more or less unresponsive to Homebrew in the past. With the entire practice being something devised and delivered entirely by fans, it isn’t exactly strange that the developer would step back.
All of that being said, the titles that have the largest modding communities in digital games tend to be the ones that have the most staying power, with the Minecraft and Skyrim examples alone each having dominated gaming for over a decade. In the case of a tabletop title like Dungeons & Dragons, Homebrew has the same ability for players to impact the enjoyment of the game for everyone. So, it may be in the best interest of Wizards of the Coast to embrace the community that crafts Homebrew races and classes, giving them tools to build lasting modifications for all players to enjoy.
How Wizards of the Coast Could Guide Homebrew for Players in 6E
There aren’t exactly strict rules for how anything is crafted in Dungeons & Dragons, something that is made perfectly clear in the pseudo-beta-testing that is the Unearthed Arcana. The classes, items, and spells that players currently have access to are all rigorously play-tested and designed to keep the world and its creatures balanced. In this case, the best thing that Wizards of the Coast can introduce into the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons 6E is a type of guideline for how to introduce new concepts.
This guiding can start simple, such as giving a way to help players determine the power that unique weapons might have. Instead of calling every sword with a curved edge a scimitar, Wizards of the Coast can introduce a range of damage and combat modifiers that could apply based on the size, weight, or shape of different weapons. It’s only going a step further than what 5E has already done by making Dungeons & Dragons’ combat and other features more accessible, with the world-building and Homebrew crafter easier to balance as well.
Dungeons & Dragons 5E is available now.
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