Worlds of Design: Why Buy Adventures?

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

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!

 

[Black Dougal]

I voted 20+ and have a problem...not enough money to buy more. I also run multiple systems and rarely run an adventure as written if ever. I just figure the more resources I have the better I feel. Plus, what else am I going to decorate my house with besides books.

 

[Hussar]

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.

You can. True but generally speaking DnD is on the high prep side of the street. And the system itself is not really going to help you to run low prep like some other systems will.

It’s not an either/or thing. But I hope we can agree that DnD runs on the higher prep side of things.

 

[pemerton]

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.

That might be my mistake - I'd been going off the thread title and OP (which referenced RPGs more generally) rather than the forum.

That said, I think 4e D&D can support low prep play, and likewise (from experience) AD&D (though not as straightforwardly). This is because some of the key prep - writing up antagonists - has already been done by the Monster Manual authors!

generally speaking DnD is on the high prep side of the street. And the system itself is not really going to help you to run low prep like some other systems will.

It’s not an either/or thing. But I hope we can agree that DnD runs on the higher prep side of things.

I agree that that is the more conventional way that D&D is approached, yes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You can. True but generally speaking DnD is on the high prep side of the street. And the system itself is not really going to help you to run low prep like some other systems will.

It’s not an either/or thing. But I hope we can agree that DnD runs on the higher prep side of things.

I don't think we can agree to that, sorry.

I will certainly agree that many people do play it that way, and that it's often hard for anyone (including me) to wrap one's head around how other people play.

But I don't think we have any significant information on how most people play in terms of prep.

 

[jasper]

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.

I had that happen way back in 1e with D1.

 

[kigmatzomat]

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.

Ugh, that blows. Our group tends to announce supplements being used so the compulsive game buyer doesn't buy it or the two or three of us who have a humble-bundle addiction can avoid reading it if it comes in a set.

 

[zakael19]

For a game like, say, Delta Green - the published adventures can be very interesting and have done a ton of work in making tables of details to provide the players for teh central mystery at hand. Where you need to have a decent outline of a bunch of clues the players are expected to access to progress, prep or buy seems to be the only way forward.

For D&D? Naw. The best sessions of my Call of the Netherdeep game were from non-module stuff the players picked out of a city gazetteer as interesting to pull the thread on. The module did nothing to help me there, and we had a blast for an entire "assassin cult" plot line the players helped me design and run through.

I've found steering people on to the appropriate buried rails for most published "campaign" content exhausting, but when I was newer to DMing I found short 3rd party modules were pretty great. Those are mostly what you'd prep anyway - a dungeon or two, some hooks, a handful of NPC outlines; then you just wrap it back to a plot if anything and roll.

Of course, as alluded above, really the best thing is a fantastic campaign setting. I think the 4e Neverwinter CS is the #1 example of how to provide something that's an entire campaign of just pure possibilities and interesting things to say, and you can react to whatever the players choose to do / pursue with no prep and no worry about rails or plot. Especially since for the later, the players pick their character motivations and pursuits via provided theme!

 

[Hussar]

I don't think we can agree to that, sorry.

I will certainly agree that many people do play it that way, and that it's often hard for anyone (including me) to wrap one's head around how other people play.

But I don't think we have any significant information on how most people play in terms of prep.

But, again, the system is going to matter.

In, say, Ironsworn, virtually all of the "adventure" is generated in play, during the session. There is virtually no prep possible since the system is used to generate the content. That's what the Ironsworn rules do. Virtually nothing in D&D is generated during the session. The location, the NPC's, the situation, that's all generated by the DM before the session most of the time. If I declare that my character goes into the local smithy and talks to the blacksmith, by and large, I cannot do that unless the DM has detailed the fact that there is a smithy in the location I'm at. For example, if I'm in Phandalin, then the player 100% cannot declare that they talk to the blacksmith since there's no blacksmith in that town.

In many other systems, the player can declare "I talk to the blacksmith" and there will be a blacksmith in that location, because the player has declared that that is true. In D&D, you need to have your entire town detailed before the players can make any declarations about it. Sure, the DM can add things on the fly, if the DM feels like it, but, the DM can also say, "Well, in this town, there isn't a blacksmith to talk to." The content of the world and the adventures in that world all flow from the DM to the players, who react to the information given to them by the DM, and then back to the DM. That's the play loop.

That is not true in other systems where it is virtually impossible to prepare because the entire table is expected to generate content in play.

So, yes, I can say that system has a very significant impact on the level of preparation needed to play. D&D is very much on the high end here. You will have people who read the above and will vehemently oppose any such system in D&D. You absolutely cannot have player generated world building in D&D during play, is a very common refrain any time anyone suggests even the slightest bit of player authorial power. Which means that D&D is a high prep game. It has to be because nearly all the content needs to be created before play and it needs to be created by one person at the table.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Virtually nothing in D&D is generated during the session.

Now I have some questions about what game I'm running, then.

The location, the NPC's, the situation, that's all generated by the DM before the session most of the time. If I declare that my character goes into the local smithy and talks to the blacksmith, by and large, I cannot do that unless the DM has detailed the fact that there is a smithy in the location I'm at. For example, if I'm in Phandalin, then the player 100% cannot declare that they talk to the blacksmith since there's no blacksmith in that town.

But all of that can be determined when it comes up. You can roll a die, click a button on a randomizer or just make it up. Schroedinger's Campaign Setting.

When I'm running a detailed setting and a player wants something that was added to D&D after it was published, do I say "no, sorry, there's no warlocks but you anywhere in Ptolus, one of the largest cities in the world, sucks for you that you love a post-3E class?" No, I introduce on the fly, if necessary, other warlocks to the game world.

I do have pregenerated random lists of names made up, because I'm bad at making them up spontaneously, but that mostly involves hitting random generators or looking at lists of baby names on some weekend when I'm bored and tossing them into a Google doc.

Or I flip open my spiral-bound Fantasy Gamemaster's Kit from Roll & Play Press (which I think they were nominated or won an Ennie for; it's very good) and randomly generate everything I might need about the setting on the fly -- useful when the village I left on a map that I forgot to ever detail is suddenly where the players are heading to NOW, and cannot be dissuaded from.

In D&D, you need to have your entire town detailed before the players can make any declarations about it.

Why?

You are confusing play style with the game.

I do not doubt that this is how you play D&D, but there is nothing inherent about D&D that requires knowing the details of a town before your players show up.

You absolutely cannot have player generated world building in D&D during play, is a very common refrain any time anyone suggests even the slightest bit of player authorial power.

Those people are goofy and they should not be cited as authorities on D&D.

Player generated content is fine, if that's what the group collectively wants. It's a bad idea if the group collectively doesn't like it. Everything else is just keyboard warriors bloviating.

 

[Uta-napishti]

Yes, there are people who will die on the hill of "unfair to make any adjustments during play" (see Blorb Principles) and there is a certain charm to that defending the "game" part of "Roll"-playing-game. Some even say that it is railroading to make any adjustments to the story to take the characters into account (!?) However, I think most of us think it's a virtue to craft a story that fits our characters and players, and when there is a hole in the prep / world, we are allowed ask ourselves, like our forefathers/foremothers before us, not only "What is the most likely", but also "What is the most interesting / most delightful / most diabolical thing that could happen right now?" And do that.