Worlds of Design: Why Buy Adventures?

Why do people buy commercial modules when early RPGs assumed the GM would make up the adventures?

How many adventure modules (including adventure paths) do you purchase a year on average?


Why do people buy commercial modules when early RPGs assumed the GM would make up the adventures?

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Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

Why Bother?​

Of course, it’s much easier to use a module than to make up your own adventures. But there’s more to it than that.

Simply put, game mastering takes time and effort. Game masters who use multiple sources requires significant demands on their time, something that is increasingly challenged by the diversification of other forms of easy entertainment. I discussed this in two different articles: Worlds of Design: The Chain of Imagination and World of Design: The Lost Art of Making Things Up

But it’s also certainly because adventures make game companies money. In many ways, making a game world out of whole cloth can be daunting to new gamers. It's just easier (and more lucrative) to buy adventures set in an established game world. This has the added bonus of causing a lot more commonality among the customer base (who can share tips and tricks with each other on how to play an adventure), and also happens to make those same game masters repeat customers as their players advance in level.

It wasn’t always like this.

The Hoi Poloi​

In the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, lack of a single campaign setting (we had both Greyhawk and Blackmoor), ever changing rules and editions, and the general inability to share them (no Internet back then!) meant games were messy affairs. Game masters made things up as they went along, customized rules as they saw fit, and largely played what could only be interpreted as a variant of D&D. And for some time, this wasn’t just the norm, it was encouraged by then parent company TSR, who wasn’t in the business of publishing adventures.

But that all changed over time. D&D became more solidified as the rules went from Original D&D to Basic/Advanced, to just one version. Along with the codification of rules came established adventures, many of them now legendary in gamers’ experience who played through them (e.g., Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Ravenloft).

Of course, not all adventures were fully fleshed out either. Some had large gaps (both in the maps and text) where game masters were meant to customize to their liking, or roll randomly to determine what came next so players wouldn’t be able to metagame the adventure. Over time, this became much less common, to the point now that we get completely mini settings. For an example of how much has changed, see Beth’s review of Quests from the Infinite Staircase, which takes sandbox-style adventures from Basic and Advanced D&D and fleshes them out in detail.

The Art of the Module​

There’s also something to be said for the art of adventure creation. That is, there are definitely some adventures that are better than others, and those who figure out the magical mix are more likely to be bought by game masters who appreciate the effort. Or to put it another way, people who create published modules will, on average, likely be better at adventure writing than a novice, so you might choose to buy a few to learn from the best.

This trend is exemplified by Paizo, how pioneered the art of the Adventure Path. D&D’s level system ensures games take a lot of time and effort for player characters to level, which requires a lot of adventures strung together. A GM in the old days had to buy different modules and justify stitching their plots together, but with an Adventure Path the entire throughline seamlessly integrates from end to end, from the very first to the very last (usually 20th but not always) level. It's a lucrative model, as it requires significant investment from customers not just for one adventure, but for several.

A Question of Experience​

Whether or not you buy published adventures likely pivots on several factors: your prep time, your players’ interest in a campaign setting, and your experience. Game mastering is a significant investment, so if you don’t have the time, published adventures are the way to go. Your players might be deeply committed to a setting (like Greyhawk) and thus be only interested in playing in published adventures in that campaign world; conversely, they may like your homebrew so much they could be turned off playing anywhere else.

And finally, as you get more experienced, adventure writing becomes a lot easier. There’s nothing like playing a terrible adventure to motivate you to write your own. I doubt that there are many veteran GMs who have never used a commercial adventure module – I certainly have used them, for convenience (lack of time) or when one was especially useful or even famous (e.g. Against the Giants). I haven’t bought one for a long time, because I already have so many, and because there are so many free ones available. But it appears from Wizard’s catalog, and from the publications of many other publishers, that lots of people buy them.

Your Turn: Take the poll and let us know!
 

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Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio

R_J_K75

Legend
During 4e, I stopped buying Adventures for some time after a player accused me of cheating because I changed parts of it. He purchased the module and read it after we played. Later, I didn't tell the players if I used a published adventure.
This is just ridiculous on the player's part. Apparently, they aren't familiar with the fine art of being a Dungeon Master.

I'll one up you. I had a player once buy an adventure he knew I wanted to run and picked it up when he saw it in the store. He read it before he gave it to me, and we played it. This was during 2E when adventures weren't always shrink wrapped so I had no way of knowing. I knew something was off as he kept making odd comments when I was making adjustments as we played. Few days later he told me he read it. I was pretty mad and told him he should have just run it himself and, thanks, I wasted my time prepping and playing it.
 

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Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
There's no accounting for inexperienced Reddit GMs. That whole site is insanity. GMs only need to make constant adjustments if they're telling a story. The game itself is consistent.
Ah, dismissing ample evidence by claiming every Reddit GM who posts corrections and additions to published adventures is inexperienced.

That's really A-class avoidance of reality.

Sorry, I don't see any reason to continue to interact with you.
 

Bedrockgames

I post in the voice of Christopher Walken
So you're saying the act of adventure writing has to add a lot of context?
Or are you saying DMs are better off buying campaign settings???

P.S. Please link said adventure so we can have an example work to praise/criticize???

What I meant about campaign context is that the context of your campaign does a lot of the work for you, and when someone is writing a module they don't know the context of your campaign so they have to create enough meat for everyone who might buy the module. I am thinking less about the campaign setting and more about the ongoing events in one's campaign. When you make an adventure for your campaign, you can fit it to exactly what is happening in the moment. But a model is more general purpose usually.

I think adventure writing needs a little more meat and connective tissue. But that does depend on the kind of adventure (a sandbox and an adventure path have very different requirements).

I am not saying that GMs are better off buying or not buying campaign settings. I think both are valuable (and I think published modules and homebrew adventures both have their place at the table)

The Adventure I mention on my blog is HERE
 

R_J_K75

Legend
I think DMs are better off buying campaign settings.
I think the 2E Forgotten Realms campaign setting is a good example of how a campaign setting and pre-published adventures can help DMs learn the ropes to create their own. The Grand Tour of the Realms was a good overview, while the Shadowdale book with the Beneath the Twisted Tower adventure scaled things back for a good starting point. Follow that up with the Randal Morn trilogy of adventures and you have a good foundation for an ongoing campaign. That's what we did.
 

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
There's something to be said for reacting in real time to your players. I too write my adventures out as if they are to be published (and I publish them). The difference is stark. The biggest change is that what I plan for is not how things actually work out, and that has much to do with the crux of a publish adventure: the author doesn't know your players, and therefore tries to cover a broad swath of likely scenarios. When gaming with my players on the other hand, I almost instinctively make changes during the game to match what will work for them. I don't regret being over-prepared, but I often have content I don't use -- intentionally -- because it's not the right place/right time to use it.
I found that for adventures I do publish or run at conventions (or both), writing them out loosely and then writing down the details from playtests -- "if players do X, this is what happens" -- helps generate a more robust adventure at publication time, since I've already had to deal with actual players' chaos, rather than what I was able to imagine beforehand.
 

Stormonu

NeoGrognard
This is just ridiculous on the player's part. Apparently, they aren't familiar with the fine art of being a Dungeon Master.

I'll one up you. I had a player once buy an adventure he knew I wanted to run and picked it up when he saw it in the store. He read it before he gave it to me, and we played it. This was during 2E when adventures weren't always shrink wrapped so I had no way of knowing. I knew something was off as he kept making odd comments when I was making adjustments as we played. Few days later he told me he read it. I was pretty mad and told him he should have just run it himself and, thanks, I wasted my time prepping and playing it.
For the longest time, I couldn't run a 1E/2E adventure out-of-the-box, as I had 1) players who donated me old adventures they're run for other groups 2) A player who would go out and buy the adventure and read it beforehand.

The latter was really annoying, and when I caught on I got him real good when I changed something in an adventure purposely (to his detriment). He knew better to complain about it, but thereafter until 3E (and a new group), I avoided directly running published adventures, and I feel like I missed out on a lot of chances to getting to see those old modules in action.

It was fun writing my own stuff (often inspired by those modules), but I could saved a lot of hours for other activities if I had not had to do so.
 

R_J_K75

Legend
A player who would go out and buy the adventure and read it beforehand.
This just perplexes me, it's like reading and memorizing all the cards and answers in Trivial Pursuit. What's the point?
The latter was really annoying, and when I caught on I got him real good when I changed something in an adventure purposely (to his detriment).
I got the guy who read that adventure too. It wasn't even intentional, but I wasn't going out of my way do him any favors either. The end result was his character becoming a vampire NPC.
I feel like I missed out on a lot of chances to getting to see those old modules in action.
Thats too bad. This is just my opinion, but I don't remember too many of the 1E/2E adventures I played/DM'd being really well written, with great plots or stories. What made them great for me was when everyone had fun, the antics the PC got up to, and everyone was satisfied when the game was over. To my recollection, I dont recall us running all that many modules for as long as I've been playing though.
It was fun writing my own stuff (often inspired by those modules), but I could saved a lot of hours for other activities if I had not had to do so.
The older I get, and we play less, I've decided I'm going to prep a good adventure, just with minimal details.
 

Hussar

Legend
If the claim is that running a low-/no-prep game is easier than preparing to run a highly-plotted adventure, that might be true, assuming the system being used supports low-/no-prep.

But I wouldn't express that point by saying that it's easier to create my own adventure than read a published one.

Well yes. That’s a fair point. But the context here is DnD. Which has very little support for a low prep game like you mean. Something like Ironsworn? Sure that’s a different story.
 

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
Well yes. That’s a fair point. But the context here is DnD. Which has very little support for a low prep game like you mean. Something like Ironsworn? Sure that’s a different story.
You can run D&D low-prep* or as high-prep, which is why I think people are talking past each other on this thread.

* That's the main thesis of @SlyFlourish's Lazy DM books.
 

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