all-published module campaign

[Snotlord]

I think it is a great idea. When I planned my current campaign I outlined a story using published adventures to figure out what I wanted to do. I strayed from the outline very quickly (something I now regret), but I do believe planning around published stuff is a great way to save time and force my creativity into new paths.

For a classic dalelands/Cormyr campaign:

Haunted Halls of Eveningstar
Forge of Fury
Zenith Tracectory (Dungeon)
A couple of the mini adventures in Lords of Darkness
Woe to Mistledale (Dungeon)
Pools of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor
(The City of the Spider Queen, or the following adventures)
Beyond the Light of Reason (Dungeon)
Headless (Dungeon)
The Storm King (Dungeon)

I’d love to merge Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and Against the Giants into a single campaign.

...or a seafaring Shining South campaign:

Tales of Freeport
Rana Mohr
Isle of Dread
The Vile adventure from Dungeon, I cannot remember the name
(I need a couple more to continue to high level play)

Hmmm. My first post? What a great place to finally delurk.

 

[CalicoDave]

I'm thinking of doing all modules for my next time DM-ing.

I'm planning on:
The Sunless Citadel
Vault of Larin Karr
City of the Spider Queen

Them seem to hang pretty well together, with the underdark at least mentioned in all of them. I may need a short adventure or two from Dungeon between them to get the PC's levels right. But other than that they look like they should dove tail nicely.

 

[Klaus]

I'm thinking of doing all modules for my next time DM-ing.

I'm planning on:
The Sunless Citadel
Vault of Larin Karr
City of the Spider Queen

Them seem to hang pretty well together, with the underdark at least mentioned in all of them. I may need a short adventure or two from Dungeon between them to get the PC's levels right. But other than that they look like they should dove tail nicely.

NeMoren's Vault
Quest for Amelia
Himrak War Party
The Ghost Machine
The Silver Summoning

 

[CalicoDave]

Thanks, Klaus!

I'll have to check those out. I've heard good things about NeMoran's Vault, but I can't say I've heard of the others.

 

[Wraith Form]

But writing this campaign walk-through makes me want to get back to playing!

Quite frankly, looking at the adventures you chose, it makes me want to DM again, too.....or, even better, be a player in your group!

I have all of those (or have access to all of those) adventures plus a few more (Barakus, NeMoren's Vault, etc) that I may have to look at for "yoinking" purposes! Good job!

You wouldn't happen to have a digital version of the map you created, so that I can get an idea of where you placed the adventure locations, would you? You could either post it here or you could email me directly at
wraith_form@yahoo.com

Thanks for the input!

 

[billd91]

I'm running a classic modules campaign (or slight variations thereon), but with all the conversion work that's gone into it, I'm not sure I'm saving that much time.

I have made use of conversions here on site, though, so I'm sure I've saved some significant time in the end.

Stuff we've done/are planning:

Return to Keep on the Borderlands
A few Dungeon adventures including Wedding Bells and Thirds of Purloined Vellum (adapted for a burgeoning trade war between Dyvers and Greyhawk)
Scourge of the Slavelords (current)
Ravenloft
Giant/Descent/Drow series

One of the tricky parts is adjusting the adventures so that the encounters are credible without giving out too many XPs. In 3E, characters gain levels much faster than earlier editions and tend to level out of adventures too quickly if you give out XPs straight by the book.

 

[Davelozzi]

My current campaign has been all published adventures, though I didn't set out to do it that way. Interestingly, during the 2e era, I almost never used published adventures, but I always used a published campaign world. Now it's the opposite -- I use a homebrew with published modules.

We started with two parties, one who went through Sunless Citadel and the other through Of Sound Mind (Fiery Dragon). Next up was "Bloodlines" (Dungeon # 94), then into "Tears for Twilght Hollow" (Dungeon # 90). A unexpected death early on forced the party to abandon the mission to return to the local city, where they got caught up in the events of The Grey Citadel (Necromancer Games), finally returning to wrap things up in Twilight Hollow when that was done. This Sunday we're following that up by launching into Forge of Fury.

Of course, I modified most of those modules pretty heavily. After Forge, we'll probably be heading into non-published stuff, though depending on what happens, I might be borrowing some ideas from Descent into the Depths of the Earth.

 

[Davelozzi]

I'm running a classic modules campaign (or slight variations thereon), but with all the conversion work that's gone into it, I'm not sure I'm saving that much time. ...One of the tricky parts is adjusting the adventures so that the encounters are credible without giving out too many XPs. In 3E, characters gain levels much faster than earlier editions and tend to level out of adventures too quickly if you give out XPs straight by the book.

Yeah, I've been thinking for a while of running a Greyhawk classics campaign one of these days. If I do, I think I'm going to see if my players are amenable to the idea of me just leveling them when I feel it's appropriate for the pace of the campaign. Otherwise, I think it'll just be too much effort.

 

[Grayhawk]

Quite frankly, looking at the adventures you chose, it makes me want to DM again, too.....or, even better, be a player in your group!

Thanks for the kind words

You wouldn't happen to have a digital version of the map you created, so that I can get an idea of where you placed the adventure locations, would you?

No, unfortunately I don't. I drew it by hand (on a brown-faded piece of paper - making it look like an old map), and I don't have access to a scanner.

One of the tricky parts is adjusting the adventures so that the encounters are credible without giving out too many XPs. In 3E, characters gain levels much faster than earlier editions and tend to level out of adventures too quickly if you give out XPs straight by the book.

True, which is why I don't bother to calculate xp. I merely give them what seems right, taking into acount how well they played, how much they accomplished and how often I want them to level up (which averages to be about every 5 sessions. Still way faster than back in 1e, but since we don't have time to play as much as we did back then, a faster progression keeps things moving.)

 

[Brakkart]

Most of my campaigns make extensive use of published modules (my current one being a rare exception to this habit of mine). I think my favourite all-module campaign ran as follows:

A Hot Day in L'Trel (Dungeon) - Party were present when city go BOOM.
Isle of the Abbey (Dungeon) - Government rebuilding L'Trel want to make shiopping routes safer, so they order the PC's (who were conscripted into the militia when the city went bang) to clear off Abbey Isle so they can build a lighthouse there.
X8: Drums on Fire Mountain - Sea Orcs begin raiding the shipping lanes near L'Trel, endangering the cities rebuilding efforts, so again the PC's are dispatched to deal with the problem, invading the jungle island of Teki-Nura-Ria.
B4: The Lost City - Whilst on Teki-Nura-Ria they discover that one of the "hills" on the island, is in fact a massive stepped pyramid, covered by the jungle over time, and home to the weird Cynidiceans, the descendants of the ancient civilisation that once thrived on the island and which built the other ruins and dungeons the groupm explored earlier.

The campaign ended there, but I had planned to work in Siege on Kraty's Freehold (Dungeon) for when the group got back to the mainland.