D&D 5E Published Adventures: Yea or Nay?

[77IM]

This is brilliant. They should start selling select third-party adventure titles on here.

 

[Hylo]

I would pay for 5th edition conversions of the good old adventures. I don't have time these days to convert them myself, but I'd love to have the variety available. Surely that wouldn't be that tough to do - hire somebody to just start converting and sell the pdfs. It seems like it would be profitable and fix the content gap.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm running a published adventure for organized play, but generally use published adventures only as starting points when running home games.

However... I wound up playtesting an adventure for my home game...

 

[dmccoy1693]

Surely that wouldn't be that tough to do - hire somebody to just start converting and sell the pdfs.

Legally speaking, it would be very difficult. If you are talking any if the old 1e modules, Wizards owns them and I highly doubt they are going to just let anyone do that. If you are talking an OGL publisher from the 3e days, first you have to find a publisher willing to sell. I tried a while ago and was not able to.

But let's say you did find one. Then they need converted. That is the easy past. Some will be happy to see material updated, others will complain about paying twice for the same adventure.

In alog of ways, creating a new adventure is easier.

 

[Bupp]

I run published adventures, sort of. I use the core and general idea, but change plenty.

For example, my kids just started playing D&D, and I started them off in one of my favorite classic adventures, The Keep on the Borderlands. Except my Keep, Fort Kyntosh protects a good sized town, and it has a layout much more like Hackmaster's Little Keep on the Borderlands. I've also blended in elements from other variations of the adventure. I lifted the kobold caves from Return to the Keep wholesale, I liked them much better. I also have used some of the NPCs from Return. I also found a version that was converted for the Fantasy Hero rules that have a bunch of interesting side quests and NPCs that I've used. That version have also fleshed out chieftans and shamans a bit more.

A side quest also sent the party to fight some bandits at an old abandoned moathouse, from the Temple of Elemental Evil. There they found clues that the Ebon Triad was behind the humanoids gathering at the Caves of Chaos. At this point they've cleared the humanoids and are about to go into the what was the cultist cave, but is now the Whispering Cairn, the first part of the Age of Worms AP.

 

[Morte]

I remember an ENWorld thread many years ago, I think it was started by a publisher, which was called something like "why don't you buy published adventures?" And by far the most common response was "because I can't fit them into my campaign". Published adventures, at least if you read that thread, were all for level 11 characters adventuring in Illusk with a cleric of Azuth and a halfling ranger in the party and they featured a nine page introduction describing what the characters did at levels 8-11. What GMs wanted was an adventure for adventurers at level 10-12, with an introduction of "the party are looking for a missing paladin (reasons left to GM)".

Of course, this was exaggerated; but I thought there was a fair degree of truth in it.

After that I noticed an uptick in material that solved the "doesn't fit" issue. There were short modular adventures that took place in "a ruined castle in a secluded valley", that would plug into any campaign that had valleys and castles. And at the other end of the scale we saw adventure paths, which didn't have to fit into the campaign because they were the campaign. And times were good, and adventure sales appeared to pick up.

 

[fjw70]

I run highly modified published adventures or regularly steal pieces of them.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I remember an ENWorld thread many years ago, I think it was started by a publisher, which was called something like "why don't you buy published adventures?" And by far the most common response was "because I can't fit them into my campaign". Published adventures, at least if you read that thread, were all for level 11 characters adventuring in Illusk with a cleric of Azuth and a halfling ranger in the party and they featured a nine page introduction describing what the characters did at levels 8-11. What GMs wanted was an adventure for adventurers at level 10-12, with an introduction of "the party are looking for a missing paladin (reasons left to GM)".

Of course, this was exaggerated; but I thought there was a fair degree of truth in it.

After that I noticed an uptick in material that solved the "doesn't fit" issue. There were short modular adventures that took place in "a ruined castle in a secluded valley", that would plug into any campaign that had valleys and castles. And at the other end of the scale we saw adventure paths, which didn't have to fit into the campaign because they were the campaign. And times were good, and adventure sales appeared to pick up.

WotC used to have a bazillion of these "put them where you want them" adventures for free download on their website, released over the course of 3e. They were almost all short 1-2 session adventures (though a few were longer). I'm not sure if you can still get them, but there is a decent change you can find them in the archives section. (They also used to have a lot of pre-3e pdfs available for free download. I'm glad I got those when I could, as now it would cost hundreds of dollars on dndclassics.)