D&D 5E I can’t seem to DM written adventures.

[dave2008]

There's a bunch, but check out Hot Springs Island, Neverland, or even smaller adventures like Winter's Daughter. If you watch the Questing Beast YouTube channel, he does reviews of a ton of adventures and you can see which ones you prefer.

I've put Winter's Daughter into my chart, but I couldn't find the other two. Is "Hot Springs Island" the same as "The Dark of Hot Spings Island?" I ask not just because of the name difference, but because the latter is specifically system neutral not OSR.

 

[iserith]

Neverland is actually a 5e product, written in the OSR style and there is a 5e version of Winter's Daughter, converted by Gavin himself.

I don't recommend buying D&D 5e versions of OSR products as I mention above.

 

[Arilyn]

I don't recommend buying D&D 5e versions of OSR products as I mention above.

Yes, this can be a problem but I found Winter's Daughter a good conversion. But certainly, convert yourself if there is concern. Neverland is 5e.

 

[overgeeked]

I've put Winter's Daughter into my chart, but I couldn't find the other two. Is "Hot Springs Island" the same as "The Dark of Hot Spings Island?" I ask not just because of the name difference, but because the latter is specifically system neutral not OSR.

It’s “Dark of Hot Springs Island”. It’s a system neutral adventure that’s written in the OSR style.

 

[robus]

I’m in the same boat. I’ve come to learn it’s harder to run a published adventure than run one of my own devising. Improvisation is a lot easier when you’re holding the adventure in your head rather than from a page (though notes certainly help!) The last published adventure I ran (Stormwreck) I completely redid the plot to make it my own and then had fun with it, because I no longer cared what WotC thought the NPCs were doing.

The sad part to me is how dull most of the published adventures are when you strip away the clunky plot. Rarely do we get to visit a fantastic location. The most memorable, for my group at least, was the Storm King‘s Thunder undersea lair. They loved that. But otherwise it was quite humdrum.

But anyway, that’s my advice. If you get a published adventure, try to see if it inspires a situation that you feel excited about running and then work from there, rather than bother trying to make sense of WotCs nonsensical efforts.

 

[overgeeked]

Another good system neutral OSR-style module to check out is Tomb of the Serpent Kings. It’s free as a PDF on DriveThru.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

The draw of the style is the succinct descriptions, use of bullet points, maps on the same page or spread as the descriptions of the rooms, and other minor quality of life improvements in layout and design. This makes them wildly easier to use than modules with walls of text for everything. Much faster to read, prep, and run.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

You're not alone. I did AL for quite a while, I've tried a couple of published adventures and it just doesn't work for me. I just want to go off script way too often for one thing. Unless you have everything memorized you don't know what you're going to screw up.

I'd rather do my own sandbox campaign. It works better and, frankly, it's a ton less work for me.

The issue with prep is real for me.

Unless you read and remember several things ahead, you will simply mess it up.

When I DM my own, I know what makes sense already and if I miss a note I know what I intended or what makes sense.

For me, running my own stuff means less memorization

 

[rgoodbb]

I will certainly check these out thanks very much!

I have very recently retired so you all may have just given me a new lease of life!

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I can’t DM written adventures.

Not sure why but when I get my hands on an adventure that someone else has written, it turns me off DM’ing. It’s not that I can’t understand the writing (although some could do with an editor’s clean-up), and it’s not that I haven’t bought a lot of material/adventures, but when it’s someone else’s words and style and creative imagination, I just can’t seem to do it. Something doesn’t work for me. So I’m just doing homebrew little one-shots or three-shots before another DM takes the next big adventure on. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy to play and I just chip in sometimes when a DM needs a break.

Not complaining. It's not a problem. Just curious if I am alone here or does this chime with anyone else?

I kind of bounce off them a bit too, partially it's the way they're designed, and I think the amount of referencing the text I do turns off some of my personal strengths as a GM.

 

[Arilyn]

I will certainly check these out thanks very much!

I have very recently retired so you all may have just given me a new lease of life!

Enjoy your retirement. I'm semi-retired and loving it!