"Run as Written" or "Adapt as Desired"

[DragonLancer]

I usually run as written with some small changes, usually to the backstory to fit my campaign and setting.

 

[Voadam]

One shots are usually run as written. Modules used in my campaigns are adapted, sometimes substantially changed or expanded.

 

[cougent]

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

This is probably the biggest alteration I make as well.

My group never seems to be just the right level for the adventure either, so I am constantly doing level adjustments to monsters to keep the party challenged or alive.

Lastly, and yes this is a 4E snipe, I always place my monsters in positions... I was taught that by my first DM way back in AD&D. My party will never get "and you open the door and see 3 trolls standing in the middle of the room."

 

[francisca]

I generally hack them to bits.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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!

I did both, for the most part.

I ran a Psionic Adventure (If thoughts could kill) which I heavily adopted for my Dragonstar based game.
And I am currently running Dark Harbor for Iron Heroes. I changed a few of the encounters (since some of them turned out to easy for my players and/or their characters), and later even exchanged creature stats by replacing classed NPCs with villain Class representations, and even used a informal and personal house rule to improve a few of the "cannon fodder"/mooks so that they could at least have a chance to hit the PCs (but without a chance to actually survive more than one hit).

I am generally greatly in favor of using an adventure as written, because my main point in using an adventure is to minimize my workload.

 

[takasi]

I am running 5 campaigns right now, some are as written some aren't.

In one campaign I'm running the Mere of Dead Men series from Dungeon, and I decided to add another area between the 4th and 5th adventure. There are some unresolved plot lines, and I read on an old mailing list from Eric Boyd where he suggested adding in more yuan-ti adventures. So I decided to add Fortress of the Yuan-Ti to the campaign. Since one of the portals goes to Skullport, I added Nhyris D'Hothek as a BBEG from Serpent Kingdoms. Same basic dungeon, but with the plot is very different and some of the bad guys were swapped out, but in general it's the same.

For my Mysteries of the Moonsea campaign I have the areas available, but I also threw in Sons of Gruumsh in along with some plot hooks from Elminster's Ecologies.

For adventure paths like Rise of the Runelords and War of the Burning Sky, I'm pretty much running them as is. Players can go off the rails all they want, but I only award xp if they "find the plot" so to speak.

And finally I'm running the Dungeon Crawl Classic series "Saga of the Dragon Cult". I'm running it pretty much as is.

 

[Stormtower]

I use both styles and tend towards hybridization. When running published modules, I'm more inclined to run things as written just to see how the designer's intent meshes with my own DMing style and my players' playstyles. However, I'm a great fan of adapting as desired too and I've a notorious map fetish... I love to snag maps and re-use them for my own purposes.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I had cut my module teeth on B1: In Search of the Unknown, wherein you place an assortment of monsters and treasures to various rooms. I had a lot of fun with that one, adding extra effects and motivations for the monsters to be there (often in the middle of doing things, such as the kobolds ransacking the kitchen), writing flavor text for the rooms, etc. Of course at the time I had a LOT of time for that kind of thing. Then for B2, I added names and motivations to the NPCs, hid clues to other adventures in items (IIRC, one of the treasures you could buy at the jewelry shop had clues to Quasqueton in B1...another was a clue to a PC's background motiviation).

Nowadays I do tend to cut more closely to the module, but now am getting back into the practice of being more of a customizing type, adding in more hooks changing motivations to make sense to me, and in some cases streamlining dungeon maps if they're too extraneous.