Where are you getting your adventures?

[Emiricol]

I appreciate the responses, but I have some question for those who write their own.

How often do you play? Are you married? With children? Do you have a full time job that requires 55-60 hours a week with travel? Do you own a home and have to do the required up keep on it?

I think everyone would like to write their own adventures for their own campaigns. I usually do. However, look above.
I'm no longer in high school (or college) and the time needed to create a good adventure is in very short supply. I am certain that you have probably read a Dungeon or two, or come across a well-written adventure that you have used for inspiration. Which ones were those? That is why I am asking, "Where do you get your adventures?"

So Open World Press, which ones do you read?

And arnwyn, if I were to buy three Necromancer Games adventures, which ones would they be?

Thanks.

Yes, I don't have time to make modules these days what with all of the above. However, I rarely just run a module straight.

My DM style is to let the PCs pretty much determine the story; I just tie things together. So when I use a dungeon, I usually only use part of it. Like the time my group went through the top two levels of Rappan Athuk to reclaim an artifact dwarven crown that was required to legitimize the new dwarven overking. My party never knew it was Rappan Athuk, and I ditched the entire backstory in the module.

In other words, prepublished adventures are useful to me mainly as timesavers on the dungeoncrawl portions of my campaign.

I am fond of Dire Kobold adventures, Rappan Athuk series, and I have used some of the original WOTC adventures, or parts of them anyway.

 

[Desdichado]

I own a home, that we're currently renovating (doing most of it ourselves), I work full time -- not 55-60 with travel, but 50 a week. I'm married and have (or will in October, at least) four kids. We like to play once a week, but we alternate weeks for different campaigns, because we're all chiefs at heart, not Indians, so everyone wants a turn behind the DM screen.

Making my own adventures saves me tons of time at the end of the day. To run a module right, you need to read it cover to cover a coupla times, and then you need to go over parts of it in gruesome detail to be prepared. If you do more than just running back to back modules, like you want to actually have (gasp!) a campaign or something, then you're staring at several monstrously huge books that you have to be very familiar with to run. I've never understood the claim that homebrewing takes too much time. That's the most counter-intuitive argument I've ever heard.

 

[Arnwyn]

How often do you play? Are you married? With children? Do you have a full time job that requires 55-60 hours a week with travel? Do you own a home and have to do the required up keep on it?

I think everyone would like to write their own adventures for their own campaigns. I usually do. However, look above.
I'm no longer in high school (or college) and the time needed to create a good adventure is in very short supply. I am certain that you have probably read a Dungeon or two, or come across a well-written adventure that you have used for inspiration. Which ones were those? That is why I am asking, "Where do you get your adventures?"

Hear hear, man - you tell 'em. I think this bears repeating.

And arnwyn, if I were to buy three Necromancer Games adventures, which ones would they be?

Oy... that's a tough one. I think my top three are:
1) Vault of Larin Karr. Lots of things to do here, and it's definitely not all dungeoncrawling, either.
2) Necropolis
3) The Grey Citadel - mysteries, city adventuring, and more.
Honorable Mention: Tomb of Abysthor (a dungeon, but a wonderful one to explore)

If you're a huge dungeoncrawling nut, then my secondary suggestion would be: 1)-3) Rappan Athuk 1-3. Big dungeon with lots of stuff to do.

 

[kaiscomet]

Hey Emiricol, which Direkobold adventures have you liked the best?

 

[Ed Cha]

You can just call me Ed. After all, that's my name!

I buy at least a couple of adventures every month. Usually, I just go down to the local gaming store and pick up something that I've heard is good. I check out reviews on EN World, RPG.net, Gaming Report, and other sources before I make a purchase though. Lately, I've liked adventures from Necromancer Games, Goodman Games, and Fantasy Flight Games.

Frankly, I've been disappointed by the adventures included in Dungeon Magazine as of late. They're just not my flavor and I think they're not nearly as good and in-depth as published adventures. It used to be a great value as you'd get several short adventures for $5 or $6, but now with Poly taking up so much space and the last few issues containing only two measly adventures, it's just not much of a value any more to me at $7 each.

I own a lot of back issues though and read some of the adventures in there once in a while, but I've skipped most of the last few issues. Before Dungeon Magazine, Dragon Magazine had interesting articles, monster ecologies, AND adventures all in one package, but I don't know what they're doing now.

I also buy a lot of out-of-print adventures. I'm nearly finished collecting all of the ealy 80's TSR modules and I've got quite a few Judges Guild stuff. I also enjoy Role Aids, MERP, Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, and other systems. Occasionally, I'll download free adventures on-line, but I'm not a big fan of PDFs sorry to say. Maybe that will change later though.

 

[Shemeska]

*shudder* Buy and run a module? *wrings hands and shudders again*

I make all my own plots and adventures, with the players in game actions determining where they go next. I've ditched whole plots because they didn't pick up the hook and went with one of the other dozen hooks I've tossed out.

While there's a couple major, and one MAJOR plot going on in the game, I've tried to build a world rather than a story. There's one main plot or story I'm having happen, but it largely happens in the background with the PC's interacting with it in parts and at different times. They've managed to significantly alter it in parts as well, it's been interesting.

I really enjoy making up my own plots and characters, and especially get into the NPC's heads and have them with a rather richly developed personality and having their own motivations. Even got a good deal of fiction written from the perspective of a couple of the recurring or more important NPC's. You can't get that from a module, no matter how well written.

However in one of my other campaigns that I'm not gushing my heart out on its development, I'll admit to having used a pregen module as a plot seed and then running my own way with it and not picking up the module again after getting it out the first time. When I have the time I greatly prefer to write my own stuff, writings fun. Now if only I had artistic talent to illustrate... for the moment I'm stuck using my personal art slaves to illustrate. *yanks on the leashes of a few with outstanding commissions*

 

[Emiricol]

Hey Emiricol, which Direkobold adventures have you liked the best?

I haven't played tons of them, but I'd say their intro adventure is good, and Crypt of the Beast Lord is good. Actually, they are all pretty good.

The only real problem with DireKobold is the treasure at low levels - the Xenogenic system doesn't handle treasure well for adventures of level 1 or 2 parties. That's easy enough to fix on the fly though. Above that level, it starts working fine for treasure, too.

I like that the Xenogenic system makes the adventure whatever level I want, however tough I want it. Check 'em out if you haven't.

As a disclaimer, keep in mind that I don't just "run modules". I scavenge them for parts, basically, so YMMV by a lot.

 

[DaveMage]

Add me to the list of those who recommend Necromancer Games for adventures.

I really enjoyed Rappan Athuk as a player, although we only got through the first module before the campaign ended.

If you want to create your own and are looking for a good setting, I recommend Oathbound from Bastion Press. They have an adventure in the back of the campaign book, but the world has basically been desinged as an adventurer's paradise.

 

[Ed Cha]

A lot of people run adventures straight out of the box, but a lot of people don't. In my case, I own probably a hundred or so adventures (not including all of the ones in Dragon and Dungeon Magazines) and I've only ran a handful of them. I like to read them to get inspiration and ideas for my own campaign. They're also fun to read! I learned how to write my own adventures by reading a lot of adventures and I think they're great learning tools for running a game.

I'm guessing that people don't like adventures as much today possibly because there aren't as many good ones as there were before, but I think some really excellent adventures are coming out now. I have to admit that I've certainly bought more out-of-print adventures lately than new ones, but that's just me. There's a slew of great adventures listed in the reviews section right here on EN World. Check them out!

 

[apocalypstick]

Making my own adventures saves me tons of time at the end of the day. To run a module right, you need to read it cover to cover a coupla times, and then you need to go over parts of it in gruesome detail to be prepared. If you do more than just running back to back modules, like you want to actually have (gasp!) a campaign or something, then you're staring at several monstrously huge books that you have to be very familiar with to run. I've never understood the claim that homebrewing takes too much time. That's the most counter-intuitive argument I've ever heard.

Hear hear, man - you tell 'em. I think this bears repeating.