Howdy!
Today, I figured I could try to write an article here to go along with the homebrew I'm posting on reddit at the same time, in order to explain the design behind it. But first, I should start with some theory as to why I'm doing this.
Mental Load
I like to make my own worlds for D&D, as some of you might have guessed. Part of it is the fact that I like making stuff, and I don't really enjoy studying someone else's work. And while it does have huge advantages, like the freedom of doing anything and using or limiting any materials as I desire, it does have its downsides. Primarily, the fact that players have to learn about a new world from the ground up.
We are all human on the inside, who tend to forget stuff every now and then. My games usually happen once a week (though right now they're all on hold), so during those 6 other days of a week, we tend to either forget about stuff that was going on at the table or misremember it. Mainly because we have other stuff to care about in our daily lives: this is just a hobby.
At the same time, there's the worldbuilding aspect of it all. How far do you want to go when building your world up? Because the less similar to our world it is in its names, patterns, and structures, the more realistic it can feel (as long as it remains internally consistent).
So the big question is... where should one draw the line? Let's take for example time-measuring. What are the names of days in a week? How many days does a week have? Should you even use weeks? How many hours in a day? How many days in a month? Months in a year? What are their names? How does the Moon's cycle fit into all this? Is there just one Moon, or multiple? How about the Sun, and its cycle? Or Suns, maybe it's a binary system?
You see what I mean? With each of these questions, it takes more effort to remember it. Sure, you can have your world use 13-day weeks, with 40 to 43 days a month, and a 7 month year, with unique names for days in a week, as well as weeks and months in a year, or even years. It's a wonderfully creative piece of worldbuilding, but don't be surprised if your players forget which month has how many days, or that it's still the same week and not a new one.
(Note: D&D 5th edition does use some of these terms, and assumes it's the same as our world's.)
That being said, I've experimented with time measuring too. In my last campaign I ran, I've used a 13-month calendar, each of the months 28 days long, and there were 1 or 2 days that belonged to no month. Besides that, no changes. Years had 365 or 366 days (heck, for the game's purposes just 365, we didn't even do a leap year), names of the months were the same and in the same order, with the exception of Mercidinus added between July and August, and one Moon was in the sky that aligned perfectly with the months of a year.
I'm pretty sure you've spotted the difference there. My system is going for simplicity and minimal mental load. One could argue that it's even less of a hassle than the real world's system! If I asked you "What day of the week is 17th August of 1960?", it would take you a while to figure it out. Within the calendar I used for my world, I can firmly say that it's a Wednesday, because the 17th of every month was a Wednesday.
I suppose this is an opinion of mine, so take it with a dash of salt, but making minimal changes and saying that everything else either happens to be the same or is translated (which is the excuse I used for the month names being the same)... it all pays off. With that being said, let's move on to the homebrew and the meat of this issue.
Homebrew and Mental Load
I like to add homebrew stuff into my games, either self-made or made by other creators I like. Races I like a lot because they allow for the greatest degree of passive expression. Subclasses are great too. When it comes to backgrounds, I don't necessarily search for those since PHB already contains rules on adjusting them, so at best I pay attention to the features homebrew backgrounds provide. Monsters are single-use very often, and magic items are something that the DM can control the presence of in their games.
The two missing things there that I see often in the form of homebrew are spells, and classes. Spells are the less surprising part, so I'll address it first. Truth is, I don't always know how much would addition of a spell change the world. One could argue that it doesn't have to be a publicly known secret, but even then I always believe that players aren't the only beings in the multiverse to know that spell unless they make it up themselves.
Classes are easier to understand, or at least I assume so. Usually, they take up multiple pages, so they take a while to read through, they add new mechanics, new subclasses, possibly new spell lists, ... Which at the end causes more mental load. Not just for the players at the table, for the DM running the game for those players too.
That all being said, it's not like I've never added new spells or even full classes to my games. I did, but when I do, I make sure I'm familiar enough with them.
So! What's the solution then if you want to spruce up your games? Well, may I introduce you to...
Variant Classes
With Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, class feature variants became official. And once I saw those, I figured that I may as well try to use them for something tangible. The first experiment of mine, the variant cleric that's a Monarch, was fairly successful despite not being perfect, so I'm going to continue with my works.
This time around, I'm presenting you with my own take on an idea I've seen numerous times in the homebrew community: a magical master of games. Gambit is a variant bard, that replaces the Song of Rest with various ribbons, and uses a gaming set as a spellcasting focus instead of a musical instrument.
I feel like this whole article could have been a lot shorter, but I needed to say all those things some day. I hope you've enjoyed reading this, and wish you tons of fun at your tables, regardless of whether you use my homebrews or not. Most of all though, have a nice day!
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