How do you read published aventures?

[Michael_R_Proteau]

I usually read the set up/intro to get a feel for what the adventure is about. Then I skim through the encounters/meat of the adventure to see what catches my eye, what's there that would make me want to use it, and ge ta sense of how it would fit into a current campaign or perhaps inspire a hook for a future one. They I jot down the impressions I have for future reference and it goes onto the shelf. If/when I think I may use said advenure, I pull it out, reread my notes and then give it a careful read to see what I want/need to modify to make it fit my current game if used as part of an ongoing campaign. If I am going to use it to run a one off, I read it through to prepare to run it as is. Some stuff doesn't get to the full read status as it never quite fits what I am doing, but I still enjoyed reading the set up and skimming the encounters for ideas/inspirations.


-M

 

[Nightfall]

Did I mention I read Shades of Grey as a bedtime story a couple time of times Mike?

 

[-SIN-]

I usually read through the entire adventure cover to cover, using the maps when required. I then set about 'deepening' the adventure, usually by writing a hell of a lot of my own 'boxed text' to read out to the players.

Take the Sunless Citadel for example. There is not an awful lot of story to tell, leaving most of the details to the DM. Some DM's I've rolled with in the past simply ad-hoc it, making it up on-the-fly, but not very descriptive. I prefer the longer route, which although means a lot of prep time, hopefully makes things easier to picture and adds to a better gaming experience.

 

[Nightfall]

*nods* more details are helpful to newbie DMs. Which is why I wish they had done Sunless a little differently.

 

[Michael_R_Proteau]

Did I mention I read Shades of Grey as a bedtime story a couple time of times Mike?

LOL, no you hadn't but I love it.

-M

 

[Nightfall]

Mike,

Well I did. That and Rappan Athuk Reloaded are highlights when I can't sleep.

 

[Nepenthe]

With WotC's new adventure organization I need to flip back-and-forth to the encounter descriptions and the primary flow of the adventure text. This is because WotC's new organization is ridiculously inefficient and not useful in the slightest. (The format of the actual material is better, IMO, but splitting up information that should be found in the same place is just never going to be a good idea.)

I just have expedition to Ravenloft in that format and I found it a bit hard to get an image of how it would run due to the reasons you mentioned. I assume they were worsened by the randomness built into the module, but I'm not a big fan of the splitting, either.

/N

 

[Nightfall]

Nepthene,

Eh it's easier some times if you just accept the fact they wrote it in a semi-stream of consciousness sort of style.

That's how I handled that.