Where are you getting your adventures?

[Desdichado]

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.

Again, to my point. I hope nobody is actually trying to claim that this is a good strategy for gamers who are strapped for time. I don't mind doing this, and I've enjoyed both the Witchfire Trilogy modules and the Freeport modules as books to read and borrow ideas from. I'd still never run one, though.

 

[Desdichado]

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

First Rule of Dungeoncraft, baby! Learn it, love it, live it!

 

[kaiscomet]

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 have to agree with you here Ed. In fact, I no longer subscribe or even pick them up anymore.

And arnwyn, I'll be checking out those from Necromancer.
I usually don't play a lot of adventures that are in the Dungeon, but I have found many excellent ideas and traps that I have used from a dungeon crawl.

BTW, I don't want to give people the impression that I'm just looking for adventures that can be played "straight out of the box." I also want really great ideas and scenarios that you've found. Like everyone else, I tailor my campaign to my own world and players. However, I have found excellent villains and other NPCs out of published adventures.

I also agree with what's been said about direkobold. They do seriously rock!

 

[Emiricol]

Hm. For me, modules save time. Maybe it is just my approach, though.

Even if I ran it "out of the box" though, I think reading a module would take a lot less time than writing one. But again, maybe that's just me.

 

[Desdichado]

BTW, I don't want to give people the impression that I'm just looking for adventures that can be played "straight out of the box." I also want really great ideas and scenarios that you've found. Like everyone else, I tailor my campaign to my own world and players. However, I have found excellent villains and other NPCs out of published adventures.

If your looking for statted NPCs, I'd recommend Jamis Buck's generators. If you're looking for personalities or plot elements, I recommend looking outside of RPG literature altogether. If you're looking to save time, I recommend ditching modules altogether and come up with stuff that is more tailored to your group. If you're looking for maps, I recommend looking at older issues of Dungeon, or whatever you've already got on hand. Or downloading the "map a week" thing from WotC -- I've not followed that for several months, at least, but I've also got a good 60-70 or so maps from right after the release of 3e.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

I also agree with what's been said about direkobold. They do seriously rock!

What -- in your opinion -- is the best DK module? I want to check them out.

 

[Ed Cha]

I have to agree with you here Ed. In fact, I no longer subscribe or even pick them up anymore.

And arnwyn, I'll be checking out those from Necromancer.
I usually don't play a lot of adventures that are in the Dungeon, but I have found many excellent ideas and traps that I have used from a dungeon crawl.

BTW, I don't want to give people the impression that I'm just looking for adventures that can be played "straight out of the box." I also want really great ideas and scenarios that you've found. Like everyone else, I tailor my campaign to my own world and players. However, I have found excellent villains and other NPCs out of published adventures.

I also agree with what's been said about direkobold. They do seriously rock!

Would it kill ya to check out my adventure being released at Gen Con tomorrow?

http://www.openworldpress.com

Anyhow, what I'm saying is that people shouldn't just reject adventures out right and say they won't buy or read any. Even if you're running a 100% homebrew campaign like Joshua (and me), it would still be *better* to read a few adventures once in a while to see how it can be done. There are so many great ideas out there being put to print!

 

[Desdichado]

Even if I ran it "out of the box" though, I think reading a module would take a lot less time than writing one. But again, maybe that's just me.

What exactly do you need to write? To run an RPG session, I need the following:

• some statted NPCs -- I use Jamis Buck's generators to do most of the legwork for me, then I go tweak it, export it to word, fit half a dozen on a single sheet and print it off. This will last for several sessions at worst.
• maybe some maps -- I can pull these from all kinds of sources I already own, or download from WotC, or pull them from from non-RPG sources, even.
• some personalities, plot hooks and some ideas of how things might play out depending on what the PC's choose to do. This amounts to a two or three pages of hand-scrawled notes, which also tend to last for several sessions before I need to update them.
• a list of names for impromptu characters -- I have several name generators, and lists of names already on hand; http://www.kabalarians.com is one of my favorite sources.

I dunno, maybe I have a more "fast and loose" style than most DMs, but to me, more preparation than that is typically wasted anyway. Maybe I'm just bad at predicting what my PCs will do, but I'm so strongly averse to anything that resembles leading them through the adventure that I typically only have a few points mapped out mentally and let the PCs stumble onto them in their own way.

I agree with Ed that being familiar with modules (or whatever we're calling them these days) is important from a standpoint of getting your ideas and how to actually conduct a session. However, a lot of modules actually aren't even very good at this; the Witchfire Trilogy, for instance, which I think was fascinating and very well written, also tends to play in a very scripted and linear fashion. I played the first one in a group once, and whenever we had ideas that didn't work with the "script" of the module, they just wouldn't work due to DM fiat. True, that may have been the DM as much as the module, but even reading them I can see that you have to have players that are willing to take the plot you present to them, rather than players who do things their own way. That's not my style at all, and it takes much more preparation time to boot.

 

[kaiscomet]

Hey Joshua,
What did you like about the witchfire trilogy? I've never heard much about them before.

Also, I don't know what type of preparation is put into creating your own adventures for most people, but for me it is typically 2-3 times the length of time that we are going to be playing. So, if it's a 5 hour session, then I will have 10-15 hours of prep time.

I don't do that all the time however, and have ran some fairly successful adventures with much less time. However, I have a certain notariety amongst my gaming group as a skillful DM, and have been called to be a sort of "celebrity DM" to four other gaming groups in the area where I live. They will call and ask if I'll come in and do a "one-time" shot with their group. This gives the DM a night off, and they really seem to enjoy it.
It is always busier when fall starts, and I have already had people call me to come and DM for them next month. Trouble is, I don't have the time to put in the amount of preparation that would make an awesome experience for them right now. So, I am asking for adventures that people have really enjoyed to get some ideas from. I may even run the majority of it if it is really good.

Your constructive suggestions are greatly appreciated. Tell me which ones you loved to play/DM and why.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, my edited last post kinda answers the question, I think. The Witchfire Trilogy has a great plot, it's a great setting, it's got a lot of unique elements (new monsters and threats, for instance, moral ambiguity -- one of the "main bad guys" in the earlier modules is an ally later on), great artwork you can scan and print off as player hand-outs, great cartography -- but it's very scripted, and is difficult to keep on track if you have groups that tend to not take the conventional bait you lay in front of them, or groups that come up with creative solutions to problems that the author's didn't plan for. Having played one of the modules, I found it frustrating that all our ideas were simply swatted down because the module didn't make any provision for them, and the DM didn't know what to do with our plans.

Freeport is another series that has great tone and theme, some Cthulhu-esque investigation, and even a crawl through the sewers that I think is neat. Both series are strong on plot, have great themes and tone, have lots of roleplaying opportunities (both being essentially urban adventures in many ways, and featuring lots of investigation and mystery solving.)

Reviews should be available here and at RPG.net for both series.