D&D General I defend published adventures constantly then I spend two hours tweaking every one I run. At what point am I just homebrewing with extra steps?

[Toe Knee Nose]

Is creating adventure hooks not world building? Is not adding the intelligence undead into the game no world building?

As for managing the group, I guess. But I don't manage the logistics of my game. I leave that to the players. They know I have no tolerance for event planning/management. I don't consider it a DM exclusive.

Like I said, I detest world building. I do the bare minimum required because, obviously, we need somewhere for the game to occur in. Fair enough. But, beyond that? Naw, couldn't care less. I really don't. Adding intelligent undead as world building? Not really. Considering the whole thing was done by my player and, other than me saying, "Oh, that's neat" I had pretty much zero input. He wanted to play an intelligent skeleton that he'd picked up from somewhere or other. Did my setting have intelligent PC undead before he brought it to the table? Nope.

The whole idea of intelligent, non-evil, PC species undead did not exist until the player brought it to the table. I thought it was a funky idea and I just let the player run with it.

What world building did I do? Is, "Sure, this idea that you, the player, just added to the setting sounds cool. Go ahead." world building by the DM?

Adventure hooks are built around the PC's. There is a big spotlight in my gaming that centers on the PC's. Whatever they want to do (be it pro-active or simply reactive, it shifts from time to time) is fine by me. "I want to go to town X" never comes up because my first question would be, "What are you trying to accomplish?" Force the players to constantly make statements of intent makes for a much smoother game for me.

I had a player, some time ago, who constantly wanted to scratch below the surface of the setting. Constantly asking for details and more information. I finally just asked, "What do you want to know? What are you trying to accomplish?" He answered, "I don't know, I'm just looking for stuff."

My response was, "Well, when you can tell me what you want to find, then we can have this conversation. Until that time, the answer will always be the same - you find nothing of interest." I do not world build. Bores me to tears. The idea of playing to "reveal the setting" is my idea of gaming hell. It's why I don't play CRPG's like Baldur's Gate 3. I could not care less about all these pointless side quests.

Hey, I get that other people love this sort of thing. And that's great. Different strokes and all that. Fantastic. But me? As a DM, the world building will always be in service to play. You will never find random books in my game worlds. You will never meet random strangers that aren't somehow tied to the whatever the players are trying to accomplish at the time. My worlds are entirely disposable. Use them once and chuck them out the window.

 

[Johngernaut]

Hey, I get that other people love this sort of thing. And that's great. Different strokes and all that. Fantastic. But me? As a DM, the world building will always be in service to play. You will never find random books in my game worlds. You will never meet random strangers that aren't somehow tied to the whatever the players are trying to accomplish at the time. My worlds are entirely disposable. Use them once and chuck them out the window.

I'm pretty similar as a DM. But I do like certain kinds of immersive settings so I can definitely sympathize with players looking for this. I let the published settings do the heavy lifting there, and I feel complete license to cut or modify whatever I want from those settings if it's ruining the vibe of my games.

But hey, it's your right as a DM to spend time wherever you want and players don't really have a right to tell you to spend more time on something, it's take it or leave it. I tend run games with lots of new-to-me players so I make some small effort to have something for everyone.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

I'm pretty similar as a DM. But I do like certain kinds of immersive settings so I can definitely sympathize with players looking for this. I let the published settings do the heavy lifting there, and I feel complete license to cut or modify whatever I want from those settings if it's ruining the vibe of my games.

But hey, it's your right as a DM to spend time wherever you want and players don't really have a right to tell you to spend more time on something, it's take it or leave it. I tend run games with lots of new-to-me players so I make some small effort to have something for everyone.

Yeah. This I agree with. If I want to go do lots of setting diving, then a published setting is the way to go. I've run enough of the WotC AP's to have a pretty good overview of the Sword Coast by now. Although, I'll be 100% honest, I know virtually nothing about the rest of Forgotten Realms. Again, I learned the stuff for the AP's. It was relevant. Particularly when I ran Candlekeep. Obviously that's a series of adventures where setting is a big deal.

OTOH, I'm just finishing up Out of the Abyss. I'm sure there's TONS of background lore that I am completely missing. Heck, when the latest book talks about the Imaskari, I had to actually go and look it up. They don't appear in the AP and AFAIC, don't exist.

 

[EthanSental]

So where in the middle for over 35 years with any adventure by any publisher.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't run published adventures all that often, but I am actually running an Hexxen campaign like that. We'll see how that works out in the long run. It certainly reduces my mental load.
However, I think using pubilshed adventures and modifying them is probably not homebrewing with extra steps, it's just homebrewing in some particular manner instead of all the other manner.
Ultimately, you will have a source of inspiration for what you are making- and that could be a campaign setting, a novel, a TV Episode, the background story your players made up, probably a combination of all of that. Picking a published adventure and modifying it to your tastes and needs is not extra steps, it's just the steps you need to make.

 

[Coroc]

I don't run published adventures all that often, but I am actually running an Hexxen campaign like that. We'll see how that works out in the long run. It certainly reduces my mental load.
However, I think using pubilshed adventures and modifying them is probably not homebrewing with extra steps, it's just homebrewing in some particular manner instead of all the other manner.
Ultimately, you will have a source of inspiration for what you are making- and that could be a campaign setting, a novel, a TV Episode, the background story your players made up, probably a combination of all of that. Picking a published adventure and modifying it to your tastes and needs is not extra steps, it's just the steps you need to make.

Hexxen? like that doom clone?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hexxen? like that doom clone?

No. Hexxen 1773. During what in our timeline ends being called the 30 year war, swedish mercenaries open a hell gate in the black forest, and Asmodeus enters the world, and with him, other devils, witches and all other kind of fairly tale or fantasy monsters appear in the world.
In the following years, a great storm floods the north coast and most of the Netherlands sinks into water, and connection to the British Islands are disurpoted. Large parts of Scandanivia become unreachable due to ice and snow.
And you're taking on the role of a hunter, rooting out witches and dark sorcerors pacting with devils.

 

[Coroc]

No. Hexxen 1773. During what in our timeline ends being called the 30 year war, swedish mercenaries open a hell gate in the black forest, and Asmodeus enters the world, and with him, other devils, witches and all other kind of fairly tale or fantasy monsters appear in the world.
In the following years, a great storm floods the north coast and most of the Netherlands sinks into water, and connection to the British Islands are disurpoted. Large parts of Scandanivia become unreachable due to ice and snow.
And you're taking on the role of a hunter, rooting out witches and dark sorcerors pacting with devils.

ah i believe i heard about that one once, sounds supercool