Cerubus Dark
First Post
WizarDru said:
Hong bless his little kitty heart, would have no idea what that means
Is it cheating for a GM to use a published adventure?
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Hong bless his little kitty heart, would have no idea what that means
jhilahd
Explorer
I use a great deal of published adventures in my gaming. I don't have time to prepare like I did when I was in high school and college. I barely have time to play.
And I wouldn't worry about that person, as long as the game is fun, right? You're the DM. You have more work than the players, and if using a published piece helps you game and lets you game - more power to you.
All your players have to do is show up and play.
Don't let one person's opinion, including mine, determine what you do. How do you feel about the games you run? Do you enjoy them? Do your players enjoy them? That's what matters, not if it is 100% original or not.
Good luck,
Jhilahd
And I wouldn't worry about that person, as long as the game is fun, right? You're the DM. You have more work than the players, and if using a published piece helps you game and lets you game - more power to you.
All your players have to do is show up and play.
Don't let one person's opinion, including mine, determine what you do. How do you feel about the games you run? Do you enjoy them? Do your players enjoy them? That's what matters, not if it is 100% original or not.
Good luck,
Jhilahd
Woas
First Post
You should tell the person that if using published adventures is cheating for a DM, then I guess so is the PHB and your character sheet too, and snatch it all up from infront of him and let them play without it... if they can't remember something, tell them they should write it all down on their own time.
fanboy2000
Adventurer
For me, the joy of DMing is more than 50% of the fun, it's around 80%. I love watching the players try and figure stuff out. A recent favorite moment for me was when the rogue fell into one to many pit traps and swore two things: 1. To get better at searching for traps & 2. To start looking at the celing. His reasoning was that, with so many pit traps, the builders had to design a few celing traps to balance things out. There were no celing traps, but I wasn't about to tell him that. :-D
Another one was a kid I have in my group. He dosen't role play very well, so I had a druid hire him (just him, not the party) to find out who was poisoning the ground water. The kid found the guy, killed him, and found 2 flasks, one with green liquid, and one with brown liquid. At first, he thought they were postions, treasure for the encounter. But, while I was working with another player (this was just after a big adventure and the players were roleplaying some downtime away from eachother) the kid realized what the flasks were for and "got it."
My point, and I do have one, is that these moments come from how the DM runs the game at the tabe, not how well he prepairs for session. Preperation helps, a lot, but it dosen't take the place of running the game. It is, first and formost, the DMs job to run the game. You can homebrew a world to rivial Middle Earth in scope, elegance, woder, and beauty, but it is all for naught if you railroad the PCs, don't breath any life into the NPCs, leave out imortant details the PCs should know, or any or the other sins a DM can commit.
As someone mentioned earlier, running a published adventure is more work at the tabe. It is an exchange, more work at the table for less work away.
Another one was a kid I have in my group. He dosen't role play very well, so I had a druid hire him (just him, not the party) to find out who was poisoning the ground water. The kid found the guy, killed him, and found 2 flasks, one with green liquid, and one with brown liquid. At first, he thought they were postions, treasure for the encounter. But, while I was working with another player (this was just after a big adventure and the players were roleplaying some downtime away from eachother) the kid realized what the flasks were for and "got it."
My point, and I do have one, is that these moments come from how the DM runs the game at the tabe, not how well he prepairs for session. Preperation helps, a lot, but it dosen't take the place of running the game. It is, first and formost, the DMs job to run the game. You can homebrew a world to rivial Middle Earth in scope, elegance, woder, and beauty, but it is all for naught if you railroad the PCs, don't breath any life into the NPCs, leave out imortant details the PCs should know, or any or the other sins a DM can commit.
As someone mentioned earlier, running a published adventure is more work at the tabe. It is an exchange, more work at the table for less work away.
Last edited:
Kaodi
Legend
People Like That
I haven't read through all four pages of the thread yet, but I really felt compelled to post this.
What you encountered here bears a distinct resemblence to what a fellow student (who was three years younger than me) said to me last year when he found me perusing www.roleplayingtips.com, something to the effect of, " Real DMs don't need advice, " and while I liked the guy enough in general, all I could think was, " You idiot, where'd you come up with a stupid idea like that? "
I haven't read through all four pages of the thread yet, but I really felt compelled to post this.
What you encountered here bears a distinct resemblence to what a fellow student (who was three years younger than me) said to me last year when he found me perusing www.roleplayingtips.com, something to the effect of, " Real DMs don't need advice, " and while I liked the guy enough in general, all I could think was, " You idiot, where'd you come up with a stupid idea like that? "
There is nothing at all wrong with using published adventures. Our primary DM on Sunday nights uses them constantly. The difference is, he modifies them to fit into his campaign, often changing them so completely, that even if you read and memorized the module in question, you wouldn't recognise it.
For my part, I have very little time to sit down and design an adventure, or plot out a campaign past the next session. For me, published adventures are a godsend, as most of the ones I like, noone else in the group has used or read yet. It helps that I'm the only FR DM in our group, so any adventures for that setting are exclusively mine.
The person who told you that you weren't a "true" GM is just ignorant. If what you're doing is fun for both you and your group, then you're already a great GM. That's the only thing that matters.
For my part, I have very little time to sit down and design an adventure, or plot out a campaign past the next session. For me, published adventures are a godsend, as most of the ones I like, noone else in the group has used or read yet. It helps that I'm the only FR DM in our group, so any adventures for that setting are exclusively mine.
The person who told you that you weren't a "true" GM is just ignorant. If what you're doing is fun for both you and your group, then you're already a great GM. That's the only thing that matters.
