Anyone else of this opinion? Or not?

[Goblyn]

I've discovered something recently: I, as a player, despise playing through modules.

To me they seem prepackaged(duh, I guess) and pull the characters out of their own stories into this stock scenario that is not only immensely more deadly but also much less involving than those custom made by the in-house DM.

My ire may be misdirected, but this is IME.

Maybe I'm just a crank. Discussion?

 

[Crothian]

The module is not to blame, the person running it is. A good DM can weave a module into his story and the players are never aware they are in a module. There are some good and bad modules out there. Some modules are easier to incorperate into a campaign then others.

 

[Goblyn]

Good point. However ...

There are some modules that are close to impossible to hide due to their high profiles.

Eg the Ravenloft and Temple of Elemental Evil(including RttToEE) modules in particular.

That aside, modules generally still seem to be quite deadly judging from a thread from a little while ago that asked a similar question; this dealt with how many PCs were claimed by modules? It wasn't that long ago, and it made me think about all the character planning that went down the drain due to rugs and such.

I guess you could chalk this up to a mini-rant.

 

[Etan Moonstar]

The best games I've ever played in (on the rare occasions when I'm playing instead of DMing) have been module-based: the H1-4 Bloodstone series; N5 Under Illefarn; and Necromancer Games' Crucible of Freya. Furthermore, the games that I've DMed that my players have praised me for the most have also been module-based: a 3E conversion of the first book of Night Below which eventually moved to a conversion (pre-Epic Level Handbook, though) of Return to the Tomb of Horrors; another 3E campaign using Return to the Keep on the Borderlands; another one moving from the Crucible of Freya to Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, then cutting to a conversion of S4/WG4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth/Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun instead of RttToEE's endless mines hackfest; and a modern-day Cthulhu adaptation of House of Strahd. The trick to making modules work is adaptation--the DM uses the modules as the starting point for the campaign, then works in memorable NPCs, PC personal motivations and consequences of PC actions, and his very own Evil DM plot twists.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...The trick to making modules work is adaptation--the DM uses the modules as the starting point for the campaign, then works in memorable NPCs, PC personal motivations and consequences of PC actions, and his very own Evil DM plot twists.

Exactly. Heck, most of my campaign so far has been modules. A completely unrelated string of modules that I tweaked and twisted until they told a somewhat cohesive story (with some asides for fun), but they started as modules.

No complaints from my players yet. Hopefully it will stay that way when I stop relying on the modules and try some adventures of my own design.

 

[Goblyn]

!!

a modern-day Cthulhu adaptation of House of Strahd.

Three words: Oh. My. God. We played through a couple of (converted to 3e)Ravenloft mods using DnD chars and with CoC chars ... Oh. My. God.

Oops. I guess I don't know how many three is.

 

[Crothian]

There are some modules that are close to impossible to hide due to their high profiles. Eg the Ravenloft and Temple of Elemental Evil(including RttToEE) modules in particular..

One could easily change the names of key things and players wouldn't realize it. And even if they do, so what? Unless the players are going to meta game it shouldn't matter.

That aside, modules generally still seem to be quite deadly judging from a thread from a little while ago that asked a similar question; this dealt with how many PCs were claimed by modules? It wasn't that long ago, and it made me think about all the character planning that went down the drain due to rugs and such.

That's again up to the DM. Modules do not have to be as deadly as written. Or perhaps the players just got in over their head and got what they deserved. It's impossible to say without talking about specifics. Personally, I've run some of the deadliest modules from first edition and few have clkaimed the life of any character.

 

[Shemeska]

Arcanaloths do not 'bark' darnit...

I've played through modules that rocked beyond words and I've played through modules that now make for running jokes in my current group. The difference? The DM running them.

However I will say that as a DM I won't run modules. I have far too much fun crafting plots on my own and working them fiendishly into a campaign. Working a preexisting module into such is really difficult and takes away some of the fun of creativity. It's not impossible to do, but I prefer not to do so.

I've run modules, but only when I was first learning the ropes of DMing, and was co-DMing at the time. And even then the modules we ran, we nearly rewrote them from the ground up to fit the campaign and tailor them to the players. We turned a little one shot under a dollar adventure pamphlet into a 6 week blur of player intrigue and mystery.

Some modules are better written than others however and you can adapt them easier. Lots of the Planescape modules seemed that way to me. Not all of them, but many of them. And I've also found that modules are easier to start a game with rather than to toss into a pre-existing campaign that's already up and running. Starting off generating characters for RttToEE is different than tossing characters already extant into the same module.

Modules and homebrews both have their place and their utility. In the end though, if the players and DM are having fun, does it matter where the material is coming from? I can't argue against it if the answer is yes.

 

[Greylock]

I've discovered something recently: I, as a player, despise playing through modules.

Whoa, deja vu. I remember having a conversation about this before. Say, about 20 years ago. My friends and I back then were very biased against modules, even thought they were the ruination of the game.

Well, I no longer think they will ruin the game. I was wrong about many things back then (rap has somehow survived, for instance). But I still don't care for mods. A good DM's campaign is what it takes to get me involved. I want choices and multiple directions to go, long grass to roam in and townsfolk to interact with. Many mods don't offer this. It's not what they are designed for. A dungeon crawl or quest-thing once in a while is OK, but only as a short diversion. Just to add excitement or flavor. I like being able to venture into a mod, but if the game seems strained or TPK I also like being able to walk away from it and still have something to go to next.

This is probably where my ex-DM from twenty years back will brag about he snuck a mod on me...

 

[the Jester]

I use modules, but brutally reworked to suit my needs.

My recent epic-level run of Return to the Tomb of Horrors was great fun, and led the pcs to the conclusion of their long-time quest. (If you're interested, the tale's told in my SH "To War Against Felenga," link in sig.) The pcs had the choice to leave it behind, but they'd have had to allow their archfoe to escape them. It tied together ultimately to their quest to overthrow the Temple of Elemental Evil (completely modified from RttToEE, darn right- it's what happened when the ToEE essentially won).

Anyway, a good dm ties the modules into the game in a way that's not necessarily so obvious to the characters. Sometimes not to the players, either. And be willing to allow the pcs to flee.

Finally, your dm may run a softer game without modules; but I don't.

I am a highly lethal dm.