Using Purchased Adventures: How much work do you do?

[Arnwyn]

When you purchase an adventure for a game, how much customization do you do...and how much of that customization is because you have to as opposed to want to?

A little bit, just to fit it into my campaign world (FR) a little bit better. I might also change a bit of the background to fit with the current campaign.

Based on the adventures I've seen/used over the years, only about 10% of whatever customization I bother with is because I have to. Most of it is because I want to.

For example, do you prefer something that offers suggestions for customization in a module, or do you prefer the module to be more straightforward and leave that work to the individual DM?

I don't mind suggestions. Dungeon, for example, has done an adequate job about giving customization suggestions (except for their Eberron adventures, in which they've really dropped the ball).

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I do as little as possible. I only run modules and such if I want a more relaxing time running a game. Of course, I love doing all the work myself, but with most of the work done on modules I can just lounge through them unless something crazy happens.

 

[JustKim]

Some things I change for the sake of campaign continuity. Some things I change just to exercise some creativity. Underneath those changes I still expect to have a complete, usable adventure to work with. I don't like to change an adventure to make up for plot holes and glaring mistakes (Whispers of the Vampire's Blade) or just total lack of imagination (Queen with Burning Eyes).

 

[Treebore]

I used to heavily modify, but for the last two years I have been selecting which of my many, many, many modules to make into my campaign. Plus which city supplements I want to use (Ptolus, Waterdeeep, Lahkmar, Greyhawk, Hillsfar, CSIO, etc...). Then I rename everything to fit whichever setting I decide to use and then come up with plot lines/hooks that can draw my players to those locals.

For example my current campaign started off with Ed Cha's two Whitehorn Modules. To get the party to go to the next set of modules (converted Sentinel and Gauntlet, plus a fair amount of re-write just to accomodate the higher level) they accepted a job from a group of merchants who they had previously saved a caravan for (that was a random encounter that I decided to add to). Their job is to check out who/why the Alderweg Pass has been closed to trade, and restore the flow of trade if they can. All this after they take care of a certain problem for the Local Baron in a certain village. Which they have, so now that they have reported back to the Baron they are now heading to the Alderweg Pass.

It wasn't all that hard to link them, certainly a lot less work than if I had done all the maps and NPC's from scratch. Plus Ed Cha did some excellent NPC back grounds for his modules. Plus I have taken such a liking to the old witch she has been following the party around as a Raven. They haven't realized this for weeks now. I still haven't decided what she is going to do, but I have decided it will be based on how the party treats her, because she will stick her nose into what is going on in Alderweg Pass.

So even though I am using the modules, as the events unfold, NPC's are met, etc... the more I weave the modules into my own story for my players. So ultimately they are my adventures, not modules.

 

[GlassJaw]

I tend to tweak major NPC's a lot. I usually add prestige classes or change around their spells and stuff like that. Rarely do I use a BBEG "as-is" from a module.

 

[caudor]

The amount of tweaking I do depends on whether the adventure was designed for the campaign I'm running (currently Greyhawk). If so, about all I do is place the adventure locale in the world and flesh out NPCs that I know the players will interact with (traits, accents, unusal quirks, etc.) I also read up/take notes any rules/spells/skills I have not already mastered that may come into play so I can keep the action going.

Everything else, I handle on the fly.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Extensive modifications-- I tend towards campaign settings that are far-from-standard, and then I have a lot of house rules, so I have to adjust things considerably. At the very least, I adjust plot hooks so that my PCs actually have a reason to go through the adventure, and I restat the most important NPCs to make use of my house rules. (And to make use of non-core material, like the Complete series.)

I've never bought a module on its own, but I did subscribe to Dungeon for a couple years. I'm hoping to resubscribe soon.

 

[Li Shenron]

When you purchase an adventure for a game, how much customization do you do...and how much of that customization is because you have to as opposed to want to?

For example, do you prefer something that offers suggestions for customization in a module, or do you prefer the module to be more straightforward and leave that work to the individual DM?

I have used some advs pretty much by the book, except adding hooks for the characters, but often I replace monsters which I don't like with others of appropriate CRs. That's more or less the only modification I really do...

I would like to see plot suggestions, such as "what happens if...", but mechanical changes I can do myself with ease.

 

[reanjr]

When you purchase an adventure for a game, how much customization do you do...and how much of that customization is because you have to as opposed to want to?

For example, do you prefer something that offers suggestions for customization in a module, or do you prefer the module to be more straightforward and leave that work to the individual DM?

The only place I appreciate customization suggestions is during the story hook. Give me at least half a dozen ways to get the party involved.

Other than that, I prefer the adventure to be focused on the plot elements and unique specifics so that little is wasted when I invariably have to customize it myself. For instance, statting every creature out is useless. If an encounter is designed with battle in mind, that's one thing. But to stat out the captain of the guard beyond (♂ Human Ftr 3) just because the party has discourse with him is pointless. Leaving him so thinly fleshed out allows me to do customization on the fly on my own.

As for boxed text. It's important to clearly mark any assumptions that are being made before any boxed text. This will allow the DM to catch any inconsistencies. For example, if the boxed text describes the town as being "cloaked in shadow, the rooftops barely illuminated by the moon descending below the peaks" then right before it, it should say "PCs arrive in town at night." Keep track of people, too. In my experience, PCs have a bad habit of killing/redirectig NPCs.

Customizations are also nice to have if the adventure hinges on some extraordinarily minor detail. Playing through the second Eberron adventure, we came to a dead stop when a player grabbed the sword guiding the BBEG. After being a bit harrassed, the BBEG left the scene of the battle. Well, after 24 hours, the sword no longer had any hold on him. Bam. Adventure over. 25% through. Following what came next in the adventure was highly nonsensical. I probably would have been able to recover on the spot if I had read the adventure ahead of time, but if I'm going to spend that much time prepping, I'm not going to buy an adventure. I can outline my own adventure in half the time it takes to read a published one. Since it's my adventure, all the detail is in my head, saving loads of time. Anyway, if the adventure authors had forseen this problem (which they should have) they should have written a small snippet on getting the adventure back on track if the sword is lost.

Anyway, I do lots of customization, but it's all on the fly. If an adventure isn't done in a way that lets me know the basics of what's going on and what's going to be going on, then that really messes up my DMing style. I'd prefer an inspiring 2 paragraph adventure outline to a 32 page adventure that is difficult to run due to assumptions.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Honestly, I end up dong a lot of work because I like to customize it to the backgrounds of my characters if I can. I may change the villains around to make them associated with whatever bad guys the characters really hate, or change magic items to better suit the party or ven alter the dungeon (or whatever) enough to make it more interesting to the campaign world or the group.