Do you make your own adventures?
- Thread starter Jolly Giant
- Start date
Like many of the above, I mix and match - my MO since getting back into the DM chair has been to grab very old published stuff that most of my players have never seen (only two members of my group are old enough D&D gamers to remember the original AD&D mods, and the only Basic/Expert mods they remember are B1, B2, and X1, so I'f got a lot of wiggle room) and then gut it so it fits my game.
Example: used an old Dragon mag module from the early 80's (Forest of Doom for those playing the home game) that was full of drow, quaggoth, drow, goblins, spiders, orcs, and more drow. I dumped the drow, replaced them with githyank, kept the drow leadership as elves (as befit the campaign world), made all the humanoids goblins of varying sizes, and replaced every mention of a monster with an appropriate flesh-golemy construct mechanically built on the old Psionics Handbook's Astral Constructs. By the time I was done, about the only thing that remained intact was the map and the basic set up (storming the tree fortress).
Example: used an old Dragon mag module from the early 80's (Forest of Doom for those playing the home game) that was full of drow, quaggoth, drow, goblins, spiders, orcs, and more drow. I dumped the drow, replaced them with githyank, kept the drow leadership as elves (as befit the campaign world), made all the humanoids goblins of varying sizes, and replaced every mention of a monster with an appropriate flesh-golemy construct mechanically built on the old Psionics Handbook's Astral Constructs. By the time I was done, about the only thing that remained intact was the map and the basic set up (storming the tree fortress).
Psion said:
Heh, caught me.
. The Buffyverse gets by because its so flexible. I mean the basic setup is- World was once ran by demons, they kind of want it back
- There are infinate other dimensions where these beasties can come from with any kind of property you can imagine. Including one that consists entirely of shrimp.
- There are the Powers that Be that fight for goodness, at least after a fashion. They're sort of inscrutable. Then there are various forces of evil, such as Wolfram & Hart's senior partners. They both work through pawns on Earth.
- Anything that sounds cool is in. Except leprechauns. No such thing.
IronWolf
blank
I use a variety of methods to work up adventures for my group. Some I make up from scratch, maps included. Others borrow portions of a published adventure and tweak it into the arc I have going on. In other cases I use the majority of an adventure with tweaks to make it more my own. I rarely run a published adventure without making some changes to it, tailoring it to my campaign.
One thing I notice is if I made the adventure up or made a lot of tweaks it seems to run better. I can improvise on the fly faster, no need to check the module to see how they expected something to be handled. In the end it leads to a slightly better flow in my opinion.
One thing I notice is if I made the adventure up or made a lot of tweaks it seems to run better. I can improvise on the fly faster, no need to check the module to see how they expected something to be handled. In the end it leads to a slightly better flow in my opinion.
Desdichado
Hero
I mostly make my own because I'm a cheap bastard who can't be bothered with buying adventures.
Also, it's not very hard to do; in fact, I think it's harder for me to run someone else's work than come up with my own.
Also, it's not very hard to do; in fact, I think it's harder for me to run someone else's work than come up with my own.
KB9JMQ
First Post
Well from the Red Box up until Eberron I used only published adventures and just did stuff on the fly if the players deviated from it.
Now I am doing my own with only a base story (Fallen Angel Dungeon 117) that I yanked.
So far so good. I have been very scared of going out on my own but it has been fun so far.
Now I am doing my own with only a base story (Fallen Angel Dungeon 117) that I yanked.
So far so good. I have been very scared of going out on my own but it has been fun so far.
ElvishBard
First Post
What I normally do is make my own adventures because it is more enjoyable and you know it more. My players tend to skip about 75% of what I made though (they always seem to know the exact room the BBEG is in). I have more than 60 premade adventures that I use when they finish my stuff and want to do more, which is somewhat often. I could make stuff up but by using the premade adventures and how easy they are I hope to show my players that they can do it too so that I get a chance to be a player lol. 
Rel
Liquid Awesome
I mostly just make my own these days. I find that when I use published material that I have to spend so much time modifying it that it would have been more efficient to just make it myself from scratch. The two circumstances where I will use a module are at the beginning of a campaign or when the point is to be lazy.
I find that a module can go in at the start of a campaign without a lot of problems and I used Forge of Fury in this capacity as well as Sunless Citidel (in different campaigns). The reason for this is that there is less groundwork already laid at the start of the campaign that you have to shoehorn the module into. After the start of things I've usually got so many other plot hooks running that it is hard to fit a module in that works seamlessly whereas my own creations do.
Then there is the lazy campaign. I ran a very casual D&D game for some casual gamers (including the wives of several guys in our regular group) and I didn't want to put a huge amount of effort into it. So I said, "I'll run Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil if you want. Roll up some 4th level characters and we'll start." I read and understood the module but made a concious choice not to change it. This game was fun while it lasted but eventually petered out due to scheduling problems and a new round of babies being born among some of the participants. But I'd follow the same format in the future under similar circumstances.
I find that a module can go in at the start of a campaign without a lot of problems and I used Forge of Fury in this capacity as well as Sunless Citidel (in different campaigns). The reason for this is that there is less groundwork already laid at the start of the campaign that you have to shoehorn the module into. After the start of things I've usually got so many other plot hooks running that it is hard to fit a module in that works seamlessly whereas my own creations do.
Then there is the lazy campaign. I ran a very casual D&D game for some casual gamers (including the wives of several guys in our regular group) and I didn't want to put a huge amount of effort into it. So I said, "I'll run Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil if you want. Roll up some 4th level characters and we'll start." I read and understood the module but made a concious choice not to change it. This game was fun while it lasted but eventually petered out due to scheduling problems and a new round of babies being born among some of the participants. But I'd follow the same format in the future under similar circumstances.
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