"Run as Written" or "Adapt as Desired"

[MerricB]

When you run a published adventure, do you describe yourself as a "Run as Written" or an "Adapt as Desired" sort of person?

Or do you move between the two.

Myself? I'm mostly "Run as Written". This can change.

You see, I was looking at the list of "bad modules" for 3e, and coming up on that list were some of my favourites I've run - "Whispers of the Vampire's Blade", "Necropolis", and "Deep Horizon" being three.

The one that gave me the most problem was "Whispers", and I ran that mostly "as written", which was a mistake. As opposed to that, it has some of the best set-piece encounters in any D&D adventure I've read. (The ballroom scene is glorious).

However, with both "Necropolis" and "Deep Horizon", I adapted them thoroughly, throwing out things that weren't working and putting things in that did.

I wish I'd done more of that with the latter Age of Worms adventures (especially Sinister Spire).

I know there are people who work more in the adapt school than I did; and there are adventures that are written more from the point of view of "make this your own" rather than "follow the plot exactly". Compare "In Search of the Unknown" with "Dragons of Flame"...

What do you think?

Cheers!

 

[Enkhidu]

My method is to read the module (that word right there should give you an idea of what's coming next), take the maps pretty much as is, take the core idea, and then change everything to be nearly unrecognizable.

 

[Beckett]

Mostly as written. I typically don't have a party of four, so that requires some adjustment. And I've been running Age of Worms and Savage Tides as gestalt, so of course that necessitates some changes. Also, since I hand out additional feats to the PCs, I'll give important NPCs access to these additional feats, or swap out core feats for supplements.

I am getting to the point where I'm probably going to start expanding maps- small rooms and 5' hallways are starting to get to me. They might be realistic, but they're failing the playability test.

 

[Piratecat]

I am fundamentally, categorically unable to run a module as written. I have more fun adapting it and removing bits I'd like to do differently.

 

[Festivus]

I am slowly weaning myself from the run as written (mostly). I have recently taken to taking bits from various sources (dungeon, game mastery, pathfinder, DCCs, and WotBS) and melding them into my new favorite setting (Ptolus, which makes it all really easy by the way).

 

[CanadienneBacon]

A mix of the two styles.

 

[el-remmen]

I read it. If I like and it fits the setting without too much work then I ask myself, "Where am I gonna put it?"

And then depending on where that is, I start adapting. I rarely "scale" adventures - so I do not adapt for level, just for setting and flavor.

Other times, the adventure itself remains mostly as written, but it is the premise of it that changes, along with the motivations of the villains. I also change names a lot.

So for example:
In A1, the bug-men in the lower level became rat-men because that works better for my campaign setting. And I made several changes to the map of the place, to make it make more sense as a slaver hideout (as opposed to the scene of a tournament adventure )

In Against the Cult of the Reptile God, the cultists became Setites following the naga high priestess. The temple in the town became a temple of Ra.

In B7 - Rahasia, the elven enclave protected the captured spirits of ancient drow witches, which a human wizard was trying to free to unleash havoc in drow society, who were otherwise planning an attack on the surface. I totally redrew the maps of the location, and I connected it with the Dungeon adventure, Janx's Jinx (#56), which I also changed some - by reintroducing the elven maid and her blink dog companion which the PCs had met and helped earlier in the campaign.

Most recently, I used B2 - Keep on the Borderlands, Rudwilla's Stew (Dungeon #45) and The Moor-Tomb Map (#13) to create a huge "sandbox" area with plothooks for the PCs to explore.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I was going to run the Goodman Games module 'The Dread Crypt of Srihoz' but I had to rewrite it quite a bit.

In the original version the same traps keep getting repeated over and over. There are no less than six identical 40ft deep pits with identical scythe blades at the bottom. There are three fake doors with the exact same sepia snake sigil and ungol dust traps attached. Has Srihoz designed his lair to be so tedious the PCs just leave and look for a more interesting dungeon?

There's a trap which teleports a single PC to a far distant location part way through the adventure, basically taking the PC (and player) out the game. Tediumfest. This is 3e! Everyone doesn't have 3 PCs each plus henchmen!! Ya gotta change that old school stuff a bit.

To be fair there are a lot of good ideas too, like Amber Golems, a greased staircase descending to a 200ft drop, and a vampire aboleth swimming beneath an illusory walkway. But the chaff has to be separated first.

 

[Dog Moon]

I read it. If I like and it fits the setting without too much work then I ask myself, "Where am I gonna put it?"

And then depending on where that is, I start adapting. I rarely "scale" adventures - so I do not adapt for level, just for setting and flavor.

Other times, the adventure itself remains mostly as written, but it is the premise of it that changes, along with the motivations of the villains.

This is what I do. If I have to do a lot more than this, I might as well use my own created adventure.

Sometimes I add in a treasure [while subtracting another] to create an item which well give me a plothook further on, add in a prisoner somewhere to do the same thing, etc, or change the motives of someone for better interaction with the party.

Stats can and frequently do change, though it's only really minor changes for the most part, like adding on a few hit points if I don't want something to die in one hit or in a few case subtracting a few so the mooks can be killed in one hit so we can get through this battle faster. [basically, if the players are going through a dungeon and it planned for there to be 800 rat people, after a couple of decent battles, the unimportant rat people will start dying off so we don't get extremely bored] This tends to be something I do when I notice that a cool creature would be slaughtered by the PCs or it would be too impossible for them to beat [such as an anti-magic creature where the PCs all happen to be mages, for example, but rarely that extreme of a case].

 

[el-remmen]

Oh yeah, I also strip out 75% to 90% of the magic items, and 40% to 60% of the treasure.