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<blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 8124740" data-attributes="member: 45197">Hiya!First, WHY do you want to &quot;finish the adventure&quot;? I am making the assumption that you want to finish it &quot;as expected&quot;...or, what is written down in it (encounters, bad guys, locations, plot hooks, etc).Second, now that you answered that in your own head...does that sound reasonable to you?Third, ignore both one and two. Now stop referring to the book. Next, make some sh'tuff up! The drag/slog I think you are feeling is because &quot;you already know the ending...and you, and your players, are just trying to make sure all the pieces fall into place as expected&quot;, believing that concluding the &quot;adventure&quot; will somehow magically feel fulfilling even though you already know everything in advance.One of the...scratch that... THE biggest problem I have with modern day &quot;adventures&quot; is that they aren't &quot;adventures&quot; so much as they are an expanded form of &quot;choose your own adventures...but with the drawback that the DM will never be surprised. They may be great stories...but they won't be YOUR stories, they won't be the stories that YOUR Players told; just a story that was thought up, written down, and detailed out for you to 'go through'.My suggestion is thus: Don't use it as a story as-is. Use it as a backdrop. Use the maps, the monsters, the NPC's, etc, as &quot;pieces&quot; that you have access to. Now just start WINGING IT! You already know the&nbsp; expected storyline...now give it the middle finger and do your own thing! ROLL SOME DICE! RANDOM DICE! I'm not even kidding. If the PC's say &quot;Ok, we'll head out then I guess...&quot;, just think&nbsp; to yourself &quot;1-3, nothing; 4-5, city officials bug them; 6, someone picks a fight&quot;...then roll a d6. Go with that. That is all you need. Your players will automatically start &quot;writing their own stories&quot; about what just happened; USE THEM!!!Player: &quot;What the heck man! That noble sure had a stick up his bum! It wasn't even US who stole his prized peacock! I don't even know what a peacock IS! Hey...wait...are we being set up?&quot;DM: [...thinking to yourself... BINGO! Yeah! Cool! Lets do that!] &quot;You notice a couple of those guys in the red belts a street down snickering at you...&quot;Player: &quot;I knew it!&quot;...and then, as Gary so fondly said, &quot;Let the chips fall where they may&quot;.So that's it. Stop trying to &quot;play the adventure&quot; and start using the stuff in it to make your own story up. Just go with it. Roll with it and Role with it. Make notes. Don't sweat it if you introduce an NPC that isn't supposed to show up for another several sessions...so what? Work with it! Come up with WHY he/she might have shown up NOW...work with your mistakes and weave them into a NEW story. The bonus is...both your players and you will be pleasantly surprised about how much more exciting it is! Remember, back in the day, this was the norm. A page of notes, a handful of dice, some random tables, and a bucket load of imagination and &quot;winging it&quot;. How else do you think D&amp;D got so popular? It sure as heck wasn't &quot;lets follow this other guys story to the letter for the next 8 months&quot;. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />^_^Paul L. Ming</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pming, post: 8124740, member: 45197"] Hiya! First, [I]WHY [/I]do you want to "finish the adventure"? I am making the assumption that you want to finish it "as expected"...or, what is written down in it (encounters, bad guys, locations, plot hooks, etc). Second, now that you answered that in your own head...does that sound reasonable to you? Third, ignore both one and two. Now stop referring to the book. Next, make some sh'tuff up! The drag/slog I think you are feeling is because "you already know the ending...and you, and your players, are just trying to make sure all the pieces fall into place as expected", believing that concluding the "adventure" will somehow magically feel fulfilling even though you already know everything in advance. One of the...scratch that... THE biggest problem I have with modern day "adventures" is that they aren't "adventures" so much as they are an expanded form of "choose your own adventures...but with the drawback that the DM will never be surprised. They may be great stories...but they won't be YOUR stories, they won't be the stories that YOUR Players told; just a story that was thought up, written down, and detailed out for you to 'go through'. My suggestion is thus: Don't use it as a story as-is. Use it as a backdrop. Use the maps, the monsters, the NPC's, etc, as "pieces" that you have access to. Now just start WINGING IT! You already know the [I]expected [/I]storyline...now give it the middle finger and do your own thing! ROLL SOME DICE! RANDOM DICE! I'm not even kidding. If the PC's say "Ok, we'll head out then I guess...", just think to yourself "1-3, nothing; 4-5, city officials bug them; 6, someone picks a fight"...then roll a d6. Go with that. That is all you need. Your players will automatically start "writing their own stories" about what just happened; USE THEM!!! Player: "What the heck man! That noble sure had a stick up his bum! It wasn't even US who stole his prized peacock! I don't even know what a peacock IS! Hey...wait...are we being set up?" DM: [...thinking to yourself... BINGO! Yeah! Cool! Lets do that!] "You notice a couple of those guys in the red belts a street down snickering at you..." Player: "I knew it!" ...and then, as Gary so fondly said, "Let the chips fall where they may". So that's it. Stop trying to "play the adventure" and start using the stuff in it to make your own story up. Just go with it. Roll with it and Role with it. Make notes. Don't sweat it if you introduce an NPC that isn't supposed to show up for another several sessions...so what? Work with it! Come up with WHY he/she might have shown up NOW...work with your mistakes and weave them into a NEW story. The bonus is...both your players and you will be pleasantly surprised about how much more exciting it is! Remember, back in the day, this was the norm. A page of notes, a handful of dice, some random tables, and a bucket load of imagination and "winging it". How else do you think D&D got so popular? It sure as heck wasn't "lets follow this other guys story to the letter for the next 8 months". ;) ^_^ Paul L. Ming [/QUOTE]

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