Published Modules.. I've ran 3 my entire life

[DarkMaster]

When I was younger and playing 1st edition and 2nd edition I didn't had too much money so all the adventure where homemade. After a long break I started playing 3.5 a year ago and decided that with the family and the job I didn't had time to prepare everything. So I still created my own story arc but inserted some pre-made modules that I adapted.

Last week after I short circuited my adaptation of RtoEE and went with an Outer ring of my creation, my wife told me: Tonight it was your adventure, you didn't reuse. I asked her how she knew. She simply replied I had much more fun. The truth is I had much more fun too.

I feel that when I prepare my own adventures things flow much smoother, I literally know my NPC and the environement of adventure. My problem with pre-made modules is that I don't have time to learn the adventure and I always have to go back to read the notes.

I usually doesn't take me too much time to prepare, often when I prepare supper or broom the house, I have a good idea, then I prepare the NPC and a rough map. The week before the game while I am stuck in traffic I think about main scene of the game and how each of the involved NPC would react to such and such event. Then with all that, I wing the rest which is fairly easy since like I said before I "know" my NPC and their environement.

 

[dead]

My PCs are still tunneling out of Castle Greyhawk . . . it's been 20+ years now.

 

[RFisher]

I've not used a lot of modules. When I have, I have almost never been satisfied with the results. So these days I read them for inspiration instead.

Conversely, I haven't been through a lot of modules as a player either. For some reason, my high school group almost never used them. The AD&D modules I have played through were mostly run under other systems during my college years.