D&D 5E I can’t seem to DM written adventures.

[Benjamin Olson]

While it sounds like the OP has a more generalized problem, I find that the WotC full-book release published adventures are particularly cumbersome to run. Basically I think they have more moving bits and pieces than the creative team can keep track of amongst multiple authors and though multiple revisions, and that by the end product you have lots of stuff whose purpose is obtuse, subtle, or missing, which makes trying to rework it even a little without gutting it wholesale an exercise in frustration. Of the ones I've attempted to use Out of the Abyss was the worst offender as it lacked even the introductory chapter summarizing the adventure that some of the other releases have, making for one of the most difficult to follow works of fiction I have ever encountered. But even when there is a proper introduction the adventures are still often written in a way that seems designed to not tell the DM why things are the way they are. This might be fine for a DM rigidly following the book, but most people want to make it their own at least a little.

I really just think larger scale adventures should include marginalia pointing out everything consequential that comes up whenever it comes up, and pointing to when and how it is of potential consequence.

 

[zedturtle]

I always wonder how adventures written by people who don't like pre written adventures would look like...

Probably like Elfshot, or The Three Ogre Brothers, or The Serpent of Glenreddïn (that last is least likely, since it's my most trad adventure for Beowulf: Age of Heroes). I used to hate prewritten adventures and refused to run them the first two decades of gaming after a few bad experiences. What really turned me around was the adventures for The One Ring, especially Darkening of Mirkwood, which is really just a big sandbox (detailed in the companion volume Heart of the Wild) and a year-by-year list of what the NPCs will do (if certain things happen, with notes on other possibilities).

Both Elfshot and 3OB are that way, with smaller sandboxes and an inciting incident that the player(s) walk into and then lets them loose. Serpent is more trad, with a visit to the king to receive the mission, a choice between two NPCs to guide you to the adventure location and then a couple more fairly binary choices in how to proceed from there.

 

[TwoSix]

I can’t DM written adventures.

Not sure why but when I get my hands on an adventure that someone else has written, it turns me off DM’ing. It’s not that I can’t understand the writing (although some could do with an editor’s clean-up), and it’s not that I haven’t bought a lot of material/adventures, but when it’s someone else’s words and style and creative imagination, I just can’t seem to do it. Something doesn’t work for me. So I’m just doing homebrew little one-shots or three-shots before another DM takes the next big adventure on. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy to play and I just chip in sometimes when a DM needs a break.

Not complaining. It's not a problem. Just curious if I am alone here or does this chime with anyone else?

I'm right there with you. They just don't mesh with my playstyle.

 

[robus]

I will certainly check these out thanks very much!

I have very recently retired so you all may have just given me a new lease of life!

Congrats and happy gaming!

 

[robus]

Of the ones I've attempted to use Out of the Abyss was the worst offender as it lacked even the introductory chapter summarizing the adventure that some of the other releases have, making for one of the most difficult to follow works of fiction I have ever encountered.

My players quickly identified that it’s basically the same story over and over again as they visit a location and, oh dear, once again the leadership has gone crazy and the PCs have to try and sort it out. Add that to the monotony of the environment and, needless to say, we ended up nuking the story line from orbit!

 

[Azzy]

I, too, have difficulty with pre-written adventures, too. I can muddle through (like I did with Lost Mines of Phandelver/Dragon of Icespire Peak), but it's still not my favored flavor of Fanta. Mostly I feel a bit too constrained by them, but on the upside, it usually requires a bit less prep work (and that's a plus these days).

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I, too, have difficulty with pre-written adventures, too. I can muddle through (like I did with Lost Mines of Phandelver/Dragon of Icespire Peak), but it's still not my favored flavor of Fanta. Mostly I feel a bit too constrained by them, but on the upside, it usually requires a bit less prep work (and that's a plus these days).

I think the main thing that keeps me coming back to those adventures at this point is that, when DMing through a virtual tabletop, I can google any location in the module and get a detailed battlemap that someone has made for it. Our heroes want to get in a fight at any random building in Phandalin... someone has made a map for it.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

While it sounds like the OP has a more generalized problem, I find that the WotC full-book release published adventures are particularly cumbersome to run. Basically I think they have more moving bits and pieces than the creative team can keep track of amongst multiple authors and though multiple revisions, and that by the end product you have lots of stuff whose purpose is obtuse, subtle, or missing, which makes trying to rework it even a little without gutting it wholesale an exercise in frustration. Of the ones I've attempted to use Out of the Abyss was the worst offender as it lacked even the introductory chapter summarizing the adventure that some of the other releases have, making for one of the most difficult to follow works of fiction I have ever encountered. But even when there is a proper introduction the adventures are still often written in a way that seems designed to not tell the DM why things are the way they are. This might be fine for a DM rigidly following the book, but most people want to make it their own at least a little.

I really just think larger scale adventures should include marginalia pointing out everything consequential that comes up whenever it comes up, and pointing to when and how it is of potential consequence.

This.

They are too much for me to prep. Modules? Ok. Modules dropped into setting. Multiple interacting modules plopped into a setting?

Too much for me to remember

 

[Azzy]

I think the main thing that keeps me coming back to those adventures at this point is that, when DMing through a virtual tabletop, I can google any location in the module and get a detailed battlemap that someone has made for it. Our heroes want to get in a fight at any random building in Phandalin... someone has made a map for it.

Too true. I have Foundry VTT and one of the modules you can install allows you to import adventures (amongst other things) that you've bought on D&D Beyond. It imports the maps with walls, doors, lighting, and populated encounters all done for you. It's a time-saver and a half.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can't run them without significant hacking because of the way they structure things. This is partciularly true of plot-based adventures which I find very weird to DM since you have to hide the plot then hope you can still somehow funnel the PCs down it. It's really not for me. I've found that OSR adventures are actually way better than WotC adventures, both in structure and presentation. So I'm more inclined to get those and convert them to D&D 5e than try to hack apart a WotC adventure built for the system. Sometimes OSR adventures have a D&D 5e version, but I find those authors don't really seem to understand the system as well, so it's clunky. I'd rather do it myself.

Otherwise, they sometimes have the odd gem of an idea, which I'm happy to steal and claim as my own.

This is what I do. Steal stuff from adventures for my own homebrew campaigns. I'm not sure I've ever run a complete published adventure for D&D, but I've used pieces of dozens of them for my own games.