Why don't you buy modules?

[Desdichado]

II also am leery of DMs who exclusively write their own adventures. Frankly, I think I'm pretty decent at writing my own adventures, and yet I know I don't have time to adequately prepare all the time. The DM's that I have played with who categorically refuse to use prepared adventures were some of the most frustrating and boring DM's I've had. In some cases they've thought they were telling a "better" story than what you would get from "just" a pre-packaged module, but in fact they weren't telling any story at all. I can recall specifically thinking, "Please just run the adventure, please just run the adventure" as the DM trailed off onto yet another fruitless tangent. Just my two cents' worth, and as always your mileage may vary.

I'm leery of DMs that exclusively run adventures. I find them more likely to use them as a crutch, fall apart as DMs as soon as the PCs suggest stepping outside the bounds of the module, and otherwise tedious. I can recall specifically thinking, "please, just put down the adventure, please just put down the adventure" as a DM refused to allow some very sensible preparations and plans we were making, because it clearly wasn't "written that way in the module." Just my two cents' worth, and as always, your mileage may vary.

 

[Felon]

Too few modules have a proper sense of action. Monsters just standing around in nondescript 30x40 rooms waiting to be gacked gets dull after a while. Fight scenes should occur in some interesting locales, and should offer up some choice opportunities to perform daredevil stunts. I want fast-paced action, not just static violence.

Too few modules serve up a sense of wonder. Since playing the Tomb of Martek, sailing across a glass sea in a boat with a diamond-tipped rutter, I've noticed how rarely players are given anything to write home about. Too many modules focusing on dark, spooky, goth-heavy ambience and mood with zero desire to evoke the fantastic.

Too few modules show any brains. Most villains don't have any ideas, they just want to open some stupid portal to let some ancient, all-consuming, prosaic evil into the world. And the heroes? They're not expected to have ideas or plans either. They're just supposed to be a bunch of stupid reactors who only know how to kick in doors (not that kicking doors can't be fulfilling in its own right). Nobody even bothers to think up clever traps or fiendishly clever puzzles anymore.

So, I voted that I buy modules based on certain criteria, said criteria being that they rise above the pack.

 

[Agback]

G'day

There are several reasons why I don't buy modules:

1) I enjoy designing my own areas and institutions, and have in general plenty of time for it.

2) My favourite homebrew setting Gehennum is deliberately different from generic fantasy, so other people's work tends not to fit in in a modular sort of way.

3) My style of GMing is highly improvisational. I start out with a few characters and a dramatic situation based on a certain conflict, and enjoy the ride while it takes me and the character-players in unexpected by retrospectively inevitable directions. There isn't a lot of preparation you can do for that sort of adventure (though setting material is valuable).

4) I like to make adventures that depend in great detail of the natures, connections, and motivations of the player characters. Generic adventure hooks are generally disconsonant with the motivations developing in my arc-plots.

Regards,


Agback

 

[VorpalBunny]

I buy modules - always have, always will. The time and effort I'd have to put into a weekly adventure to match the quality of a good professionally designed module just isn't worth it to me.

 

[Agback]

It's not that RttToEE isn't well written and full of cool ideas, it's just that there was nothing for me to do... Instead having my creativity challenged, I felt my role was reduced to "the guy who looks up stuff in the book".

I've never even looked at a module since that. It showed me that for me, the fun of DMing is in the creative process. Plus, a lot of the modules I've seen (before giving them up) seem to require some pretty heavy railroading of the PCs, so even the players are robbed of their creativity...

Well put!

I do not GM as a service to the character-players. I do it as play, because it is challenging, creative, and fun. Modules make GMing a routine, mechanical chore. It ought to be play.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I'm leery of DMs that exclusively run adventures. I find them more likely to use them as a crutch, fall apart as DMs as soon as the PCs suggest stepping outside the bounds of the module, and otherwise tedious. I can recall specifically thinking, "please, just put down the adventure, please just put down the adventure" as a DM refused to allow some very sensible preparations and plans we were making, because it clearly wasn't "written that way in the module." Just my two cents' worth, and as always, your mileage may vary.

We ran into this problem with RttToEE. The GM who ran the module is great at improvisation, but the module is so big, he too often tried to run it "by the book". In almost every case, my best memories of this dungeon crawl were when he said "heck with it" and came up with something of his own.

 

[pogre]

I buy lots of modules and the bigger modules annoy me. If it is too big I get bored with it 90% of the time. I have found a recent exception The Lost City of Barakus, which is really a series of shorter adventures anyway.

I also do not need a lot of bells and whistles in my module. A new monster or two - fine. New feats, classes, spells, gods, countries? NO thanks! Keep it set in a generic enough place to fit easily in a multitude of campaigns.

 

[reiella]

I don't like most prefab adventures...

There are too many written in the style of older edition railroading.

The few adventures I like are basically "Locale + Adventure" as opposed to "Adventure with a Locale". Locations need to be easily portable however.

Large hardbound campaign modules (ala, Necropolis) I don't like, since they have a huge geographic area attached that isn't too easily adaptable ("Oh! There's this new continent now!" is a harder sell than "Oh, there's this little city you never knew about."). I somewhat like City of the Spider Queen since the location is easy to translocate anywhere in my campaign (the Underdark isn't a Central Theme of my Developed World, and you can always go deeper).

 

[Steve Jung]

I haven't bought a module in over 6 years and those were 1ed modules from the 1980s. This is mainly because I hadn't gamed too much for a long while. The modules were to get parts of a series I was missing.

 

[BButler]

The reason I buy modules is that I'm insanely busy. If I want to have much of anything to run, I need the legwork done for me. I'm pretty confident in my ability to ad-lib, so if they players stray from the beaten track, which they invariably do, I can deal with it. Its helpful for me, though, to have plot points and pre-made npcs and the like.

The reason I don't buy many modules is that I'm running d20 Call of Cthulhu. There just aren't that many available. I suppose if there were more available or if I was running D&D, I'd buy more modules.

As far as what I think would make modules more appealing to me, I concur with the thought that portability is the key issue. If I can easily drop a module (or at least the basic plotline) into my 1930's noir/pulpathulhu campaign, it will definitely be more useful to me. If it has too many elements that cannot be fudged into my campaign, the module is much less useful.