D&D 5E Rejecting the Premise in a Module

[Crumbling Keep]

So I don't run a lot of modules. I worry about them pinning characters to a particular story line. When I do run them, I'm pretty ready to just use them as a backdrop when the PCs go off script.

That said, I do write a good deal of adventures. Our Tinderbox series are meant to be one shots, or little things to plug in to your campaign. They're generally one page. The question I came up against is how to give PCs motivation to do the quest I'm that limited amount of space. We came up with a thing we call "Tinderbox Questions."

The four questions (along with the premise above them) serve to tie the PCs to the adventure. It gives them a reason to do what needs to be done. I'm a sense, when it comes to figuring out why the players should go the adventure, just ask them.

 

[Raaron]

See when I am running in an AP or when I’m running a homemade campaign I am having people create characters that fit in that campaign. That buy into the premise of a campaign or AP. Whether it’s published or homebrew, I’m still doing that. So having no engagement with the basic plot generally just doesn’t happen. People aren’t just creating random characters and plugging them in.

 

[Crumbling Keep]

See when I am running in an AP or when I’m running a homemade campaign I am having people create characters that fit in that campaign. That buy into the premise of a campaign or AP. Whether it’s published or homebrew, I’m still doing that. So having no engagement with the basic plot generally just doesn’t happen. People aren’t just creating random characters and plugging them in.

Do you do this with shorter modules as well? Or do you only use level spanning campaigns?

 

[Raaron]

Do you do this with shorter modules as well? Or do you only use level spanning campaigns?

If I picked a short module it’s usually because it has some thematic connection to what I was trying to do in the larger theme of things, and I’m replacing some bits of it to tie it into the overall picture..

 

[Crumbling Keep]

If I picked a short module it’s usually because it has some thematic connection to what I was trying to do in the larger theme of things, and I’m replacing some bits of it to tie it into the overall picture..

That sounds perfect. I've been doing that lately with some dungeon crawls from "The book of Lairs." I'm running a hex crawl game and didn't want to design every dungeon.

 

[Raaron]

That sounds perfect. I've been doing that lately with some dungeon crawls from "The book of Lairs." I'm running a hex crawl game and didn't want to design every dungeon.

Swap out antagonist A for my own antagonist b, etcetera

 

[Ruin Explorer]

See when I am running in an AP or when I’m running a homemade campaign I am having people create characters that fit in that campaign. That buy into the premise of a campaign or AP. Whether it’s published or homebrew, I’m still doing that. So having no engagement with the basic plot generally just doesn’t happen. People aren’t just creating random characters and plugging them in.

I think this is how most people do it, but some APs are sufficiently bad that they either lose player buy-in, or makes more sense, with the party created (which was designed to fit the AP!) to not go the way that the AP really thinks that they will.

Some groups will never see those, because the DM will just weed them out. But others will, especially with less experienced DMs.

I'm trying to think of the specific module, but a while back, in 3E I think, we had some AP which was written with a 100% belief that the PCs would engage with some specific thing, but if you created PCs for the initial premise it had, it made little-to-no sense that they'd do that - the premise didn't match well with the actual thrust of the campaign. Strahd for 5E even has this issue a bit, due to it's "gotcha" design. Sure a DM can say "I'm running Ravenloft!" and ensure a bit more appropriate characters, but that's going against the design to some extent (my own Strahd PC had a short backstory which was pretty cool but 900% irrelevant as a result of being Ravenlofted). And this sort of thing just isn't uncommon. For some d20 game as well we had a campaign which really strongly encouraged you to create sort of roguish troublemaker PCs in the bit you gave to the players, but actually didn't work unless you were all extremely well-behaved.

If someone isn't a good DM, suck it up and talk to them about it. If they aren't the DM for you , maybe you should DM or find a different game. Personally I find mods more work than home campaign.

If you find modules more work, not less, they're literally failing to do their job, but I do sympathize, because with a bad enough mod, I find the same thing. Good ones though lighten a DM's workload massively (or ones that are bad but the DM just doesn't fix). You're still not engaging with what I see as the central issue here though - sometimes it's not the DM or the players who are at fault - sometimes it's just a crap module. That's the problem I'm pointing out here. You seem to want to blame players and make out that they're disrespectful or whatever, or that the DM has a hard life, both of which can be true, but in my experience these problems very often come down a badly-written module often accompanied by an inexperienced but not otherwise-bad DM. You can't really "talk to someone" about being inexperienced (especially if you are as well). They know it, you know it. The problem is the module.

 

[Raaron]

I think this is how most people do it, but some APs are sufficiently bad that they either lose player buy-in, or makes more sense, with the party created (which was designed to fit the AP!) to not go the way that the AP really thinks that they will.

Some groups will never see those, because the DM will just weed them out. But others will, especially with less experienced DMs.

I'm trying to think of the specific module, but a while back, in 3E I think, we had some AP which was written with a 100% belief that the PCs would engage with some specific thing, but if you created PCs for the initial premise it had, it made little-to-no sense that they'd do that - the premise didn't match well with the actual thrust of the campaign. Strahd for 5E even has this issue a bit, due to it's "gotcha" design. Sure a DM can say "I'm running Ravenloft!" and ensure a bit more appropriate characters, but that's going against the design to some extent (my own Strahd PC had a short backstory which was pretty cool but 900% irrelevant as a result of being Ravenlofted). And this sort of thing just isn't uncommon. For some d20 game as well we had a campaign which really strongly encouraged you to create sort of roguish troublemaker PCs in the bit you gave to the players, but actually didn't work unless you were all extremely well-behaved.



If you find modules more work, not less, they're literally failing to do their job, but I do sympathize, because with a bad enough mod, I find the same thing. Good ones though lighten a DM's workload massively (or ones that are bad but the DM just doesn't fix). You're still not engaging with what I see as the central issue here though - sometimes it's not the DM or the players who are at fault - sometimes it's just a crap module. That's the problem I'm pointing out here. You seem to want to blame players and make out that they're disrespectful or whatever, or that the DM has a hard life, both of which can be true, but in my experience these problems very often come down a badly-written module often accompanied by an inexperienced but not otherwise-bad DM. You can't really "talk to someone" about being inexperienced (especially if you are as well). They know it, you know it. The problem is the module.

So it’s never anything to do with players?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So it’s never anything to do with players?

In what sense?

If you, as the DM, lose ALL of the players, yeah it's not likely to be the players being bad. It's almost certainly you or the module. It's the old rule - if everyone you meet seems like a jerk, maybe you're the jerk. If all your players abandon the path the module has laid out, either your or the module is likely the problem. I mean, this is barring your players being a bunch of anti-social jerks generally, but I'm talking about playing with people you know, and I wouldn't play with jerks, I assume most people wouldn't.

If it's one or two players making a problem, well, yeah, realistically it could well just be them. But that's not the subject of this thread.

 

[Raaron]

Seem to go out of the way to absolve players of any responsibility whatsoever.