What precentage to they make up of your Campaign?

[Starfox]

Currently running two Campaign Arcs side by side, weekly session in each. Needless to say, its 90%+ pre-made adventures.

In the campaign before that, the system was homebrew and I think I used one pre-made adventure for 50+ sessions, so that would be less than 10%

 

[roguerouge]

I design my own on occasion, and the RP is set up by me, but I've faced DM burnout from designing adventures once before and never again. Sandbox with modules is my design from now on, and it's one of the reasons I didn't switch to 4e. I don't trust WotC to write good modules consistently. Good crunch, certainly, but their module writing leaves much to be desired.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Never. I don't know how I would either. The creative aspect of writing my own NPCs and stuff is a big part of the game for me and any published material would have to be retrofitted to my houserule set.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

70 to 80 percent of my last campaign was based on published adventures or adventure sites. I simply don't have time anymore -- as I did in high school and even undergrad -- to design my own adventures from start to finish.

What I started doing was running major published adventures (modified for my game, of course), creating linking events and mini-adventures in between, and developing an overarching plot (based on what hooked my characters the hardest) as the campaign developed.

I'm getting ready to start a M&M game, and I'll be modifying this approach a little bit, since (1) there aren't nearly as many published adventures for M&M as there are for D&D, and (2) M&M is more open-ended, without the hassles of high-level play. I'll still be looking to see what I can find, as far as prepared adventures, to save me some time.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I know it is still early in the poll but the results currently a very striking. 39% so far have said 10% or less with the next largest group, 17% saying 90% or more. I wonder if this trend will hold?

I suspect so. So many DMs nowadays use Adventure Paths, and often an AP is an "all or nothing" thing, in practice.

Keep in mind, though, that the results aren't quite as striking as they appear. It's much more fair to compare "10% or less," "90% or more" and "anywhere in the middle" than it is to compare the two former categories with each band in between.

 

[Garmorn]

I suspect so. So many DMs nowadays use Adventure Paths, and often an AP is an "all or nothing" thing, in practice.

Keep in mind, though, that the results aren't quite as striking as they appear. It's much more fair to compare "10% or less," "90% or more" and "anywhere in the middle" than it is to compare the two former categories with each band in between.

So you are saying the significant figure is that the two outer bands have more than 50% of the responses?

That does seem different then what I suspected (I suspected from postings on the board to have a bell curve.)

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Treebore]

Its tough to say. I always use modules, but they are far more of a guideline, most of the time, then something I try to follow with any degree of strictness.

See I use modules as I need to use them. If I like how they are written, then I try to use them the way the author intended, but I do not allow myself to be contained by them. If my group goes outside the lines, or leaves the page entirely, then that is what happens. Then I find a module with maps, and hopefully adventure ideas, that I can use to fill in the areas outside of those lines or off the page and onto the next page. Otherwise I "wing it".

I have never understood this idea that modules must be religiously followed. They are like the rules, to be followed as strictly or as loosely as you need to.

There are modules I did follow closely, but there are more where I just used maps and ideas and ran with it.

So I would say on the whole I have "followed" modules about 50 to 60% of the time. The rest of the time I spent going where I had to go, and got there how I had to get there. No matter what the module said.

So like rules, adventures are not my lord and master. They are just potential guidelines that I follow or ignore as needed to make the game fun.

 

[Garmorn]

I use modules and published adventures almost exclusively. I'll modify them to fit the campaign story lines and subplots that I have running, but they stay about 70% to 80% intact.

However, concerning the post that started the thread, I don't believe modules have anything to do with the success or failure of a system. Just because I use modules exclusively, doesn't mean I have to have modules specifically written for my preferred system. I can adapt anything.

I realize that not everyone has the experience or mechanics savvy to adapt adventures from different systems, but I'd bet the lions share of DM's probably can.

It does not necessarily follow that using a lot of modules ensures the success of a system or not.

It does follow, however, that the quality of the system itself has a very large impact upon the success of a system.

Actually that was just one of several threads that had several post that seemed to imply that modules where important. I wanted to see just how many actually used them so I could figure out how much weight to put on those arguments/statements.

There was one that really confused me because he said that since WotC did not write any good modules he did not like 4e. It just seems to put to much weight on modules. I am personally just trying to see what a good cross section of the board does.

 

[CsonTep]

I've run four campaigns using 3.x. The first used a few published adventures, but mostly featured my own work. The second was only Necromacer Games adventures. The third was all me. And now I'm running a group through Dungeon A Day. It seems I'm all or nothing kinda guy.

KDM27