A Growing Appreciation of Modules

[aramis erak]

So I'm just wondering who here has had similar experiences as myself. Or have you, kind reader, sworn of anything pre-written for good?

I had that epiphany in about sophomore year in college. (puts it about 1991.)

I like modules for setting-rich games in short runs. Vaesen, for example... the process for writing adventures is straight forward... but the setting isn't, and my adventures didn't feel right to me. I wasn't "getting it." and 3 of the 5 modules were excellent. The 4th was not going well - players lead themselves down the wrong way, then they had a 3 week off break due to player in hospital. (She's fine. Sans one internal organ, but fine.) The 5th looked like a rehash of one of the others. This is an issue for me with all "monster of the week" type games.

So... doing silly stuff for now. With Talisman Adventures, I know the kind of wonky fetch quests it should need. So, while adventures would be nice, they're hardly needed, and in two weeks, I should have my Talisman board game for actual "inspirational draws"...

I've not needed modules for SG1, either. but I've advanced a few timelines. Nor, for Star Wars, but I do like the ones I've used. My favorites being the one for Force and Destiny (In the playtester credits), and the Otherspace and otherspace II for WEG.

WFRP, The Enemy Within has a good reason it's been redone for each edition: It's that good.
I've always used Traveller's published adventures... but now I appreciate them more. I no longer think of them as a crutch, but a springboard.

I now have come to rely on modules more, simply because 40 years GMing I'm rehashing ideas in various ways every time.

 

[jasper]

I LOVE moduels. (Shut up Adventure League DM!).
Okay way back in 1E I would run Modules 60 to 70%. Some times because they were interesting, other times my homebrew (like some of my beer) went sour. Still other times, we had multiple DMs and I would like to finish an adventure. And like others I do have a problem with fantasy names. I just change them at the table but at the write up I use the original. This is made easier since I got D&D Beyond.

 

[Campbell]

I am a huge fan of the more open ended modules like Castle Amber and Keep on the Borderlands that basically just present a location and situation. Even the original Ravenloft is fairly good. Red Box Vancouver also has some phenomenal modules. What I am not a fan of are these campaign or story in a box modern adventures that encourage more linear play.

 

[Marc_C]

Modules are excellent canvases to start with. I always do re-writes. I'm currently modifying a Ghost of Saltmarsh adventure to fit into my Freeport campaign.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

When I was a kid just getting into D&D, I was terrible at running modules. I wasn't a great DM, either, but I was particularly bad with modules. So I decided modules weren't for me. It wasn't until 2e came along that I started improving. The Avatar trilogy of all things was where I started learning how to properly run a module. It was so railroad-y and tied to the books that I had to make changes to fit it to the PCs and the campaign, to bring it to life.

I have slowly been going back and running those old modules, to make up for lost time. After my current campaign ends, I'm thinking about running the Slavers series or something like that.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I was always a writer of setting and scenarios in the beginning. But as the years have gone by (since 1979), I have gone from writer to editor & adapter. Settings went first, because there are a lot of great settings out there that just need details filled in, but I've also found the value of scenarios in pdf with the ability to add electronic sticky notes and highlighting.

My time is too valuable to waste writing from whole cloth; I just edit and fit existing material to my needs.

 

[el-remmen]

For me it is all about the quality of a module and what determines that quality is mix of interesting setting/premise and adaptability. As such, I LOVE modules but only Basic D&D and 1E modules. In my experience all "official" modules from 2E onward were pretty horrible (though the only 5E modules I've run were adaptations of earlier edition adventures). Dungeon Magazine adventures, on the other hand (that range in length from a single-encounter to near module-length adventure) from the 1E and 2E period are amazing - if not as written, then as a source for creating your own mosaic of an adventure. In fact, I just ordered some back issues from the late 80s and early 90s to fill gaps in my already large collection.

I can't remember the last time I wrote an adventure from scratch where I wasn't taken at least some element from an adventure module (IRON DM being the exception). Sometimes it is just the map of the cool location. Frequently the thing I change the most are the motives of the NPCs (and sometimes their names - but I have a higher tolerance for the quirky than some).

I don't think I have written an adventure as written since I was teenager though.

 

[el-remmen]

I did like some the Savage Tide adventures from 3E Dungeon as well - but I didn't run the whole path. I just picked and chose the ones I liked and filled the gaps with other stuff.

 

[R_J_K75]

For me it is all about the quality of a module and what determines that quality is mix of interesting setting/premise and adaptability.

Problem for me with the current 5E adventure paths is the length. I haven't read any of them cover to cover, or ran any either but I have read bits and pieces. I don't have the time or ambition to read a 200-300 page module only to find out its not worth running. I will say though that IME quality is usually relative to the group that plays it, although there are some that are so poorly written that nothing can save them.

 

[el-remmen]

Problem for me with the current 5E adventure paths is the length. I haven't read any of them cover to cover, or ran any either but I have read bits and pieces. I don't have the time or ambition to read a 200-300 page module only to find out its not worth running. I will say though that IME quality is usually relative to the group that plays it, although there are some that are so poorly written that nothing can save them.

You need to do a little "grad student reading," by which I mean the approach to lots of reading I learned in grad school: professors assign a lot more reading than you can literally get done in the allotted time, in addition to your own independent work and reading, so I got good at doing the kind of reading that familiarized me with ideas and let me know I needed to dedicated more time to reading in depth or moving on.

When I started the Ghost of Saltmarsh adventure path (which someone sent me, I was just gonna adapt the 1E modules myself) I didn't bother reading ALL the adventures. I read the first (though I guess I was already familiar with the first two) and I didn't look closely at the later ones until after we'd already started the first one - deciding quickly if I wanted to use them or incorporate something from somewhere else.

Confession time: I probably haven't read any D&D book cover to cover and/or in entirety (including the core rule books!) since the 90s!