D&D 5E Buying Adventures

[Olaf the Stout]

I honestly never understand the negativity about modules. Over the years, I've seen lots of people turn up their noses at modules as if it were somehow beneath them. I've never felt that way. Some of my greatest gaming experiences have come from modules. Actually, I'd take that a step farther, most of the best gaming I've run or played over the years, has come from modules.

Yeah, I really don’t get why some people are against adventures/modules either. Some people try to make other DM’s feel inferior if they are running a pre-written adventure, rather than something they thought up on their own.

I’m a pretty easy-going and even-tempered guy for the most part. However, as a DM, nothing used to press my button more than when a player in my old group would ask a question about some bit of information or detail in the current adventure and, as I scrambled around to find it or make it up, another player would say (in a really condescending voice), “Not in module.”

It made me want to stop the game right there and then and say, “Listen here you buttwipes, you guys are so far off the adventure as written that I’ve basically had to make up everything up on the fly. So if you have a problem with the game, how about you step up and run something yourself instead of making snarky comments!”

Now of course, I never said that, but I did ask them to quit making the comments several times. Thankfully none of those players are in my group any more.

 

[MerricB]

The first reference I remember to demons as gods was in the 1e Deities & Demigods, in the Nonhumans section.

It's one of three, all in 1980.

The second is in an issue of Dragon Magazine - a Leomund's Tiny Hut article by Len Lakofka.

The third is in Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

My expectation is that D&Dg was before Queen, but Leomund's seems independent - Len was talking about how things work in his campaign, not in D&D in general!

Cheers!

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I’m a pretty easy-going and even-tempered guy for the most part. However, as a DM, nothing used to press my button more than when a player in my old group would ask a question about some bit of information or detail in the current adventure and, as I scrambled around to find it or make it up, another player would say (in a really condescending voice), “Not in module.”

I wouldn't tolerate that. That sort of behavior would end really quickly or he'd be kicked to the curb.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yeah, I really don’t get why some people are against adventures/modules either. Some people try to make other DM’s feel inferior if they are running a pre-written adventure, rather than something they thought up on their own.

FWIW, I'm not trying to make a value judgement on it. It's just a completely alien concept to me.

 

[Alarian]

I'm easily in the many hundreds, and if you count Dungeon Magazine, which I owned pretty much every issue ever released while in print, I'm probably over 1000. (I started playing in 1978).

I used to work at a hobby store in my youth and pretty much my entire paycheck every payday went into purchasing modules, rpg's etc. I've been hauling it all around with my for the past 35+ years and finally broke down and sold about 200 pounds of rpg's, moduiles, magazines, board games etc about 3 months ago as I figured it was better to let someone else use them instead of me storing them. I still have all my 1st, 2nd edition D&D stuff as well as all the Judges Guild stuff ever produced because I could just never sell those. But pretty much everything else is gone now.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

FWIW, I'm not trying to make a value judgement on it. It's just a completely alien concept to me.

Yeah, no worries. Like others have posted I'm also not sure how you managed to play D&D that long and not encounter any pre-written adventures. One of the wonders of the pre-internet days I guess.

 

[jokerman]

I think the bar is set pretty low here at 11, but I guess that depends on how long you've been gaming. For example, even as someone who runs mostly self created adventures, I still would be over eleven during 1e alone.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I've picked up 11+ in one Half-Price Books run before.

 

[Roland55]

Back in my early days, I bought lots of adventures - 1e, Marvel Superheroes, 1e and 2e Shadowrun mostly.

Later 2e and 3e, I was working homebrew mostly.

Now, for Deadlands, I am finding adventure *seeds* to have been crucial to the development of the campaign. Some stats for NPCs and monsters, and a situation. The Deadlands rulebook is chock full of such stuff, and it formed the underpinnings of the thing that developed, though the adventures as a whole are still homebrewed. A city or nation setting of similar would be awesome for other games.

Now, as I look to running some 5e Shadowrun, I again find that prepared adventures may be a very good way to go.

If I pick up 5e D&D, I wouldn't be surprised if I find either seeds or published adventures a pretty solid sell.

I simply haven't the free time for anything BUT prepared adventures, these days. And that's not going to change any time soon.

 

[Alarian]

I've used a combination of homebrew and modules for the past 30+ years. I rarely run them as written though. Quite often, if I'm using a module and a player mentions they have played through it before I tell them, go ahead and use what you know about it in character. It can be something they learned while researching information in preparation for the adventure or perhaps rumors and tales they have picked up over the years. Other than the map, I have always changed the contents enough they while memory of the layout of the map might be a bit of a perk the actual adventure itself will be so different that previous knowledge is usually not of much help to them.

For example, I've been running an adventure using the Judges Guild module Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor for the past several months. A few sessions ago one of the players who GM'd the module himself years ago commented jokingly the room they were in reminded him of the module. He was shocked when I told him they had been running that module for the past several months.

For me at least, Prepared modules provide a wealth of adventure seeds.