D&D General Do You Run Published Adventures, Homebrew Adventures, or Some of Both?

[Hexmage-EN]

Since I started DMing back around 2007 I have only run one published adventure, the one that came with the 3.5 Beginner's Box. I've bought and looked at plenty of published adventures, and sometimes I've thought about running them as is, but so far I always end up choosing to make things harder on myself. I think it's because I've collected so many D&D publications over the years that I don't want them to go to waste by only choosing one, instead preferring to blend as many elements from as many different sources as I can together.

The closest I've gotten to running a published adventure since has been when I once had the party in my previous campaign go through a portion of Citadel Coldsteel from the AD&D adventure A Paladin in Hell. For my current campaign, though, I've taken the Seven-Pillared Hall from Thunderspire Labyrinth to use as a central hub and branched out from there to include elements from Kingdom of the Ghouls, Shards of the Day, Demon Queen's Enclave, and many other adventures (not to mention details from many non-adventure publications).

 

[Richards]

When I started out in our 3.0/3.5 campaigns with our current group, I almost exclusively ran adventures published in Dungeon magazine. Gradually, I started writing my own adventures and now I run them almost exclusively, only occasionally using a pre-written adventure. (Every once in a while I end up running an adventure that technically qualifies as both types.)

Johnathan

 

[Guest 7034872]

Mostly the folks I've played with write their own adventures, but not entirely. Especially when someone DMs for the first time, some of them like using a published module to ensure they've something to guide them through the mess when things go off the rails.

 

[overgeeked]

Primarily home brew. It's so much easier to tweak and alter stuff rather than read a module and try to mimic what's presented at the table. It also prevents players from having read the module and I'm not a fan of railroads, so it all works out.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Here's what I'm currently doing, and is typical of what I normally do:

Revisiting Reavers of Harkenwold
1: Expanding the Iron Circle || Part I: The Iron Circle || Part II: The Iron Circle (cont.) || Part III: The Fell Court || Part IV: The Ashmadai || Part V: Gardmore Abbey
2: Building the Adventure Outline || Part I: The (Original) Adventure Synopsis || Part II: Just Add the Starter Set || Part III: The Revised Synopsis (Part I) || Part IV: Regarding Eladrins, Elves, and Goblins || Part V: TBA

 

[BookTenTiger]

I run only homebrew. It's just what I enjoy. Coming up with stories, settings, NPCs, and so on is a big part of how I participate in the hobby.

Also I've always been terrible at homework, and reading and preparing premade adventures is a little too much like homework for me.

 

[Hussar]

Don't have the time or energy anymore to do 100% home-brew. It's pretty much adapted published for me now.

 

[DND_Reborn]

About 75% homebrew/ 25% published modules (adapted to my world). I have a couple favorites I like to run with new players, but otherwise it is all homebrew adventures.

 

[el-remmen]

Until my most recent games I would say about an even mix, but more recently I just adapt pre-published stuff, sometimes a whole lot, but I use the module as a core.

So for my "Out of the Frying Pan" campaign I ran back at the beginning of the century (listed below), of the 16 distinct adventures I ran, 8 of them were homebrew (marked "OO") and the others were modules or from Dungeon Magazine. However, something like "The Circle of Thorns" despite being a plot and setting of my creation, featured a circle of humanoid druids I lifted from a Dungeon magazine. In fact, even when "from a book" there are changes - some planned, some in response to actual play.

1. Rites of Passage (OO)
2. Janx's Jinx (#56)
3. Auld Lang Syne (OO)
4. The Door to Darkness (#81)
5. B7 - Rahasia
6. Into the Honeycombe (OO)
7. The Circle of Thorns (OO)
8. Masqueraider (#14)
9. The Necropolis of Doom! (OO)
10. Flesh to Stone (#85)
11. The Pit of Bones (OO)
12. Hermes' Bridge (#32)
13. The Journey to Nikar (OO)
14. Things that Go Bump in the Night (#38)
15. Beyond the Glittering Veil (#31)
16. Hurgun's Maze (OO)

My current campaign looks like this, however:

1. A Wizard's Fate (#37)
2. U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
3. And a Dozen Eggs. . .(#30) - highly adapted
4. U2 - Danger at Dunwater
5. The Whale (#35)
6. Salvage Operation (#123)
7. Song of the Fens (#40)
8. N1 - Against the Cult of the Reptile God

 

[carmachu]

So I own alot of modules. But I use them more as tool boxes rather then run them. Pull a map here, plot there, adventure idea from another and so on.

There's much to steal from. He'll the entire print run of dungeon magazine will keep you with plenty to use if you had nothing else. To say nothing of all the stuff in old white dwarf magazines(pre issue 90) and role aids modules