Recylcing (settings, plots, adventures)?

[nakia]

I'm about to relocate, so I'll have to find another gaming group. I want to get back into DMing. I was thinking about updating/revising many elements from a homebrew campaign I ran a couple of years ago. It was fairly successful, so I was thinking I could revise some of the elements that didn't work and keep the elements that did, even going so far as to keep some of the same adventure possibilities around.

Has anyone tried this approach? Did it work?

On a related note, if you've tried it, how much of the previous campaign's presence filtered into the new game? Did the old PC's get a mention?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

It's like doing a rewrite of a paper. You can only improve it. The time you've spent away from the homebrew will allow you to be more objective and since you've run through it once you know what works and what doesn't (like you said). So I think this is a grand idea.

I would suggest not making any mention of the previous PCs. Your new players are the heroes now.

 

[Warehouse23]

There's nothing wrong with recycling material if you are in a new place and offering to DM. I have a couple of Shadowrun adventures that I ran my new group through in the early days of our adventures and they seemed to enjoy them. Now the campaign has moved beyond my prepared material and is being inhabited by players who make the world truly theirs. The trick is to let the players take the setting in new directions, even if they surprise you. Recycling gives you time to learn the players' styles, strengths, and weaknesses, letting you better tailor future adventures for them.

 

[IronWolf]

I have not tried it, but I would think it can only get better. You now have the advantage of knowing what worked well and what didn't. I think it would be a great opportunity and see no concerns with such recycling.

 

[nakia]

I would suggest not making any mention of the previous PCs. Your new players are the heroes now.

I wasn't thinking of making former PC's "great heroes of the land" or anything (a la Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance), but more along the lines of using former PC expolits as dressing. Like having the "Tomb of Boaz" as a shrine or noted place, where Boaz was a former PC who was killed.

Just an idea. I'm also thinking of recruiting my former players to help with ideas and such. They'll be able to tell me what worked better than anyone.

 

[diaglo]

currently running an OD&D campaign.

the same one i ran 26+ years ago.

 

[The_Gneech]

My main suggestion is to use your previous campaign as backstory, rather than a complete do-over. Having already run "Sunless Citadel" (or your homebrew equivalent), you have certain expectations about what will happen and how it should go, and you may end up inadvertently railroading your new players into doing a rerun, rather than having their own adventure. It also may set up comparisons which may be unwelcome ("man, your party's wizard is a wuss compared to the original group").

By all means, keep the setting, and heck, you can have the previous game's PCs around as mentors and authority figures if you like ... and there's no reason you can't do "Return to the Sunless Citadel"...

EDIT: I see from your later comment that you're already thinking along those lines, so I say "Go to it, and good luck!"

-The Gneech

 

[Rel]

I think this is perfectly legitimate and I wouldn't worry about using the exact same background events and set pieces.

I have run several of my one-shot games multiple times for friends and at Game Days and I'm endlessly fascinated at how different groups tackle problems differently. The recycling of the material means you don't spend your time coming up with the bones of the adventure and instead can spend the time polishing the whole thing into something nearing perfection.

Even when I'm running something new, I recapture as much of my earlier work as I can. I use Initiative Cards with the stats of critters written on them. I've built up a BIG stack of these things by now and whenever I'm going to include a certain critter in an adventure I can usually go back and grab out a pre-written card from the stack and save myself some work (and a notecard).

One other way of saving work that I've recently adopted is buying a big 2'x3' pad of 1" graph paper at the Office Depot and drawing maps on that. If there is any chance at all that the PC's will return to a location to do battle again, I draw it on the paper. Then when they enter the Evil Temple again, I just whip out that map saving time and effort instead of having to draw it on the battlemat again.

 

[der_kluge]

I've never revised a whole campaign, but I've certainly ran specific scenarios multiple times. In those cases, they just got better and better with each run.

 

[nakia]

I have run several of my one-shot games multiple times for friends and at Game Days and I'm endlessly fascinated at how different groups tackle problems differently. The recycling of the material means you don't spend your time coming up with the bones of the adventure and instead can spend the time polishing the whole thing into something nearing perfection.

Even when I'm running something new, I recapture as much of my earlier work as I can. I use Initiative Cards with the stats of critters written on them. I've built up a BIG stack of these things by now and whenever I'm going to include a certain critter in an adventure I can usually go back and grab out a pre-written card from the stack and save myself some work (and a notecard).

One other way of saving work that I've recently adopted is buying a big 2'x3' pad of 1" graph paper at the Office Depot and drawing maps on that. If there is any chance at all that the PC's will return to a location to do battle again, I draw it on the paper. Then when they enter the Evil Temple again, I just whip out that map saving time and effort instead of having to draw it on the battlemat again.

You mean not every group gets nailed with the Rock Cannon in Round 2 of a Sky Galeons game?

The graph poster paper idea is a good one. Consider it stolen.