Transitioning campaign from homebrew to published setting

[nopantsyet]

I started a new campaign this fall in a homebrew world that I had high hopes for. And it's been a lot of fun. However, seven days after the birth of DMling #2, I am faced with this reality: I do not have the time to write all my game materials. Part of it is facing facts: I haven't had the time for six months, and it has made DMing a lot harder for me. Now I have less time, so I need to adjust my own load to better match reality.

Has anyone ever transitioned from a homebrew to a published setting before? I don't want to get into evangelizing any particular setting, but there is a setting on the horizon that looks like it could maintain continuity of flavor with my current world. So I'm thinking of morphing the current world into that one. Lucky for me the game has so far been limited to a single city and three geographical regions. And I've got a dialog going with my players about the shift, to which they are amenable in the abstract.

I'm still brainstorming and sleep-deprived, and have only half-formed thoughts, so I'm wondering what ideas or experiences you might have on how best to do this?

 

[Nightfall]

It shouldn't be that hard. After all many Dms transfer over from one published world to the next. It's shouldn't be that hard.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Depends on the Published setting. Some are easier than others to transition to and some are downright impossible.

Greyhawk & Forgotten Realms are probably the easiest because they use the plain jane D&D rules as written without any changes.

Midnight is pretty much impossible to convert to. Character creation is very different and only 3 core classes are even transferrable. The magic system has also been completely redone.

 

[Nightfall]

One would assume that he's going for something more the norm in D&D than outside it. At least, one would hope so.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Depending on the group level, I'd forget about setting and get a mega-module. You can generally read up a bit on the game during a 2am feeding (congrats, by the way) and it won't matter as much if your creativity is shot to jello because all you really have to do is have a halfway good idea about the next encounter area. After the group has slogged out through five levels of dungeon your newborn will be sleeping through the night and you can chill out a bit.

 

[nopantsyet]

One would assume that he's going for something more the norm in D&D than outside it. At least, one would hope so.

Yeah, it's traditional D&D in most respects. But it differs from the original Greyhawk/FR style settings in that I've tried to integrate magic into a renaissance society rather than overlay magic onto a medieval society. I'm basically hoping to do a sitcom switcharoo, where a key cast member changes but none of the characters notice, except the cast member is the whole world! I'm just worried that there are pitfalls I'm not seeing that might derail the campaign. Which I don't want to do, mostly out of consideration for the players. The PCs are just starting to reach third level after six months, and I don't want to pull the rug out from under them and start over completely.

 

[Belegbeth]

Given that you already have the outline for your home-brew world in hand, I don't think that moving to a published setting will save you any time. In fact, it might do precisely the opposite -- you will have to spend hours reading some 200+ pages describing FR, or whatever.

Instead, I'd pick up up some good published modules -- or a single mega-module, as suggested by BiggusGeekus -- and make some modifications to them so that they fit into your setting. That strategy would save the most time, IMO. Necromancer Games produces good modules that are sufficiently "generic" in nature to fit into most campaign settings. Some of the Goodman Games modules are decent too.

 

[nopantsyet]

Depending on the group level, I'd forget about setting and get a mega-module. You can generally read up a bit on the game during a 2am feeding (congrats, by the way) and it won't matter as much if your creativity is shot to jello because all you really have to do is have a halfway good idea about the next encounter area. After the group has slogged out through five levels of dungeon your newborn will be sleeping through the night and you can chill out a bit.

Thanks. Hmmm...I hadn't even considered that. I've actually never run a mega module. I guess that might make the most sense for the time being. I haven't run a published module since I first switched to 3E right after it came out, that might be just the change of pace I need.

Any recommendations?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Any recommendations?

I blush. For 3.5? No, not really. There are several "adventure path" modules out there, one being released in issues of Dragon and I think Dire Kobold is doing another one.

If you're playing a 3.0 game I would suggest Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Really, your big job will be renaming the gods and perhaps the towns. I'd look at getting another "regular" module to get your group up to 4th or 5th level before I started it though. RttToEE ends at about 14th level so you're looking at well over a year of solid gaming. This module is a little notorious for being hard and bogging down a bit in the middle, but on the bright side it does have it's own forum for discussion on Monte Cook's site.

Later in the year a d20 company will be releasing The World's Largest Dungeon which is supposed to last from level 1 to level 20. If you play that, by the time it's finished your kid will be old enough to DM.

 

[nopantsyet]

Belegbeth--I don't have the current world completely outlined. Not by a longshot. Most of my work has been on a single city, where the campaign began. I've got other areas developed to varying degrees, but none to completion. The players have just completed the first adventure (in said city) and have landed themselves in some serious trouble with the law; I expect them to leave the city post haste. Hence the dilemma.

A sequence of published adventures might work better than a mega module since it would be easier to tweak them to include existing plots. But I still want to have a setting for this all to take place. I want the resources of a cohesive world to tie it all together.

My big problem is there are preexisting plot threads and I would like to maintain continuity for the PCs. That's why I was initially thinking a world transplant. I'm not certain whether that's even feasible. I suppose could just transplant the characters as they now are, but cut the old plot strings. Ugh, I don't know...