Pre-published or self-written modules?

[Umbran]

I'm not running a D&D variant at the moment. Deadlands has some published adventures, but not nearly the vast library of D&D adventures out there, so most of the adventure detail is my own, based upon stuff found in the setting material, which I find rather evocative.

 

[Treebore]

Typically what I do is take pre written adventures, keep what I like, turn what I don't like into something I do like (via my own writing) and then run it based off of what my players do.

But I buy them because they do have ideas I likely would have never come up with, and have it already mostly written and mapped out, which still saves me a lot of time. The main thing is seeing how much I use as is, or how much I change.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I never use a module. I would say that almost 100% of the monsters I use are highly modified or totally homebrew. All my sessions are based around the PCs, their goals, and their personalities. It doesn't fit right for me to use premade modules. It wouldn't have the same personalization that my current games do if I used pre-written adventures.

 

[S'mon]

I tend to use published, but site-based, sandboxy published stuff that still gives me plenty of freedom. Stuff I've used recently (in the past year or so) includes 3e Vault of Larin Karr, 4e Dungeon Delve, 3e Forge of Fury, 3e City State of the Invincible Overlord, Dragonsfoot's OD&D Endless Tunnels of Enlandin, 3e Wilderlands of High Fantasy. The 4e mass battle I ran on Sunday was set in the Vault of Larin Karr setting, used some VolK-derived NPCs (and Great Ulfe from Forge of Fury), but basically all my own work.

 

[wolfpunk]

I would vote for, re-write/tweak and add my own content to published adventures if that was an option. Otherwise, run stuff I write is what I have to vote.

 

[Richards]

I'm at about a 50/50 split nowadays, because I have a bit more free time to devote to writing my own adventures of late. In previous campaigns, I relied almost exclusively on my Dungeon collection for adventures. (Of course, some of the pre-published adventures I've run in the past have also been self-written, so they're kind of in both categories....)

Johnathan

 

[Stormonu]

In my younger days, I mostly wrote my own (terrible stuff, pretty much too). More and more starting with 3E, I've used prewritten adventures. I just don't want to devote the time I used to on making adventures. I feel like there are better things I could be doing with my time these days (like playing with my kids).

 

[Lanefan]

I mix and match my own stuff and pre-published; and also get adventures from a third source - stuff my friends have written.

I'll usually have some sort of plotline at least vaguely storyboarded out in terms of what adventure follows what, and if I find I can shoehorn a canned module in there that's great; as it's one less I have to dream up. But sometimes I just have a module I want to run, so I drop it in anyway whether it fits the story or not (there have to be *some* red herrings, don't there?).

And sometimes I'll just take a canned module or series and butcher it into unrecognizability, then run it. A recent example:

I wanted to run the Slavers series A1-A4. But just before I started, another DM (with whom I share players) decided to run A1 by itself, so I had to improvise. I dreamed up a two-adventure substitute for A1, then ran A2 pretty much stock, ran A3 but nowhere near the way the writers intended, and bailed on A4 as I don't want Suderham destroyed quite yet (I have plans for it later). They then went back to Suderham and got captured which let me run a homebrew variant on A4 anyway.

A long series I hope I'm just starting - in other words, if the party don't bail on it like they did the last series I tried them on - will go:
1. canned (0e)
2. canned (4e, very modified and with lots of homebrew elements around it)
3. homebrew (new)
4. canned (1e)
5. homebrew (barely touched in a previous campaign thus I can recycle it)
6. canned (1e)

Another series I'm just finishing went:
1. homebrew (new, inspired by a song)
2. homebrew (new, but partly inspired by an old adventure a friend wrote for his game)
3. homebrew (new)
4. canned (1e, and not planned at series start; it just happens to fit so well!)

Lan-"I love it when a plan that isn't a plan comes together"-efan

 

[steenan]

In my 15 years of GMing I ran 2 or 3 pre-published adventures. Even now, with a wife, a baby and a full-time work, I don't even consider running something that's not my own.

For me, putting my ideas in play and seeing how players interact with them is what makes GMing fun. Using published material would would probably save me a lot of time, but it would take away both the creativity and the emotional investment (and probably also introduce several things I wouldn't like). It would feel much more like work than like something I'd like to do in my free time.

Another thing is that I don't write "adventures" or "stories" for my games. I don't like giving my players a plot to follow - they are to create plot and story. I create an interesting situation: NPCs, places, connections, things that happened. Players get to interact with it and decide what to do. While I can't say I know a lot of published modules, I read some and they all seemed to be very linear, with a lot of assumptions about what PCs will do. Something neither I nor my friends would like.

 

[fanboy2000]

I write my own stuff, mostly. The reason is that it's less time consuming, for me, to write my own campaign world and campaign world because I just make it up as I go along.

Also, I don't have to worry about conflicting interpretations of different worlds. Often me and the players have completely different takes on settings like Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Forgotten Realms. That can really put a damper on a game when one or more players is like "this doesn't feel like X." I don't have to worry about that with my own campaign world.

Also, I've noticed that my players pay more attention when I'm not running a published adventure. For example, I just ran Reavers of Harkenwold. It took a few game sessions, and there were a few times when they were like "wait, what are we doing here?" Ugh. I wrapped that section up pretty quickly to get them back something they recognized. And it's not even that complicated an adventure.

Now that it's been over for a while, they seem to know exactly what their doing and why there there.

Frankly, everyone seems to have more fun when I'm pulling stuff out of my bum.