How often does your GG "break" modules?

[Lanefan]

Whenever I design a module, I try to anticipate what the players might do; not so I can prevent them doing it, but so I can think out (and maybe even write out) what might happen as a result. And they still surprise me...

Modules are, to an extent, there to be broken. A good example is Lost Temple of Tharizdun; the entire module as written assumes you'll go in through the front door, but if you read through it there's a very vague reference to a passage from the back of the lower level leading outdoors. Which means there's a "back door". Which means there's a chance the party might find said back door if they look for it, thus avoiding one of the best set-piece battles - the storming of the main entrance - ever written into a module.

Lanefan

 

[Remathilis]

Every chance they get.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

<various snips>
I've heard some GMs have a mental decision tree... kind of if this... then this or this... option 2... then this.... has any one ever seen a module that has this laid out visually as a short hand view of the adventure? I'm a very visual person.

Hmmm I've never consciously made one....but maybe the notes I make in my head or on paper constitute one.
I think one of the B modules....one with various factions competing in Specularum....had a tree type structure with regard to the reactions of NPCs/organizations to PC actions.

Does having to "remake" a module bug you then?

Hmmm...I don't think I ever truly remake it....otherwise I wouldn't buy the module. But I do treat it as a skeleton to which I can add fleshy bits...story, additional monsters, ties to the ongoing campaign, etc. I guess I "make it my own" so to speak.

Good thought! I think fitting the context of the campaign iis a key to gaining that player buy-in and helps minimize wholesale storyline changes... kind of like damage control in advance.

Indeed it is. For me personally, I find that everytime I pick up a module and try to use it with little or no preparation, I run a poor game.
I don't know if it's bad DMing skills or inexperience on my part, maybe it is.
I know I feel more comfortable having prepped the module beforehand.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I write unbreakable modules.

 

[T. Foster]

Any module I ever ran that had a scripted intro (especially a railroady one along the lines of "you've been arrested on trumped up charges and told you can go free if you accomplish mission X") the players would refuse to go along -- they'd never go to the place they were supposed to go, or talk to the person who was supposed to give them info, they frequently got into fights with the good guys who were supposed to be their patrons, etc. Sometimes I'd be able to get the module back on course later, other times the module was a complete loss. In later years, therefore, I avoided these types of intros and if the module I wanted to run had one, I'd write something new.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I run moduels all the time and I've never seen it happen. Running modules is an art and takes more work then some people realize or want to put it.

I think i can agree on that. my dm however.... well lets not go thier.

 

[Thurbane]

I tend not to use prepublished adventures that much when I DM, but when I do the players always, ALWAYS, come up with some action that the module writer never foresaw, and you have to wing it. But winging it is a large part of being a good DM anyway.

 

[Zweihänder]

My group always breaks them.. either through beligerant questioning of things which have nothing to do with the story, or through 'creative' thinking

Oh man, I know exactly what you mean by the belligerant questioning of irrelevant details. I was using an encounter from Weapons of Legacy (the one that yields Crimson Ruination), and I happen to describe the well. The players jump on it. "How big is it?" "How deep is it?" "What color is the water?" I don't want to tell them they're being stupid, because that kind of creativity is important. But, for reference, they WERE being stupid. They end up spending an hour or two exploring the thing, and drain most of it by puncturing the side of the spire; for this creativity, I give them a fancy-looking Trident. Nothing special about it (at the time; I decided later that it had been a temporarily-charged Artifact that had lost its charge...), just a trident. They spent another half-hour and a few hundred GP trying to determine its magical qualities. Eventually, I let them find a kind wizard who casts Identify on it for free, just to prove to them that there was nothing magical about it. That little adventure wasted most of a session. Everyone involved was pissed, though it was funny in retrospect.

 

[Klaus]

The thing is, no module will EVER cover all the possible courses of action of a group. But that's OK, since that´s where the DM comes in.

I think a lot of the problems with published modules is that some DMs that use them expect no to be required to adapt or wing it, relying entirely on what's written. But a module won't do 100% of the DM's work. It'll do about 50% of the work, but you also have to pitch in.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

The thing is, no module will EVER cover all the possible courses of action of a group. But that's OK, since that´s where the DM comes in.

I think a lot of the problems with published modules is that some DMs that use them expect no to be required to adapt or wing it, relying entirely on what's written. But a module won't do 100% of the DM's work. It'll do about 50% of the work, but you also have to pitch in.

QFT

Published modules won't run themselves. A good GM will still adapt them for his group. And if you have a group of at least semi-creative players they will go off the path of the module at least somewhere along the line. A good GM will roll with this. A bad one will beat them back onto the "correct" path. Personally, I'm still learning how to be a good GM. It's not as easy as it first looks!

Olaf the Stout