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!

 

[TheSword]

D&D General - To Prep or Not to Prep - A Players Perspective

A poll here spun off from the Who buys Modules thread. I’m interested to know what expectations players have of their DMs. Rather than what DMs think they should have to do (or not have to do) For reference the four grading are Extensive detail - the level described in a very detailed...

www.enworld.org

Food for thought.

 

[Bedrockgames]

D&D General - To Prep or Not to Prep - A Players Perspective

A poll here spun off from the Who buys Modules thread. I’m interested to know what expectations players have of their DMs. Rather than what DMs think they should have to do (or not have to do) For reference the four grading are Extensive detail - the level described in a very detailed...

www.enworld.org

Food for thought.

That poll doesn't really get at the issue of low prep improv though. I think by framing it as extensive, salient and skeletal, the latter just comes across as the GM doing the bare minimum out of laziness, not doing low prep because the group wants to have a more freeform approach to adventure structure.

My answer on this is the amount of prep should be determined by the campaign, the group and the GMs comfort level. Prep is a big ask for people. They spending a lot of their spare time preparing for a game they are going to run. My approach as a player is to be open to the kind of game the GM wants to run, and that they are good at running. Some GMs do well with a much more structured approach, some do much better finding the adventure in reaction to the party.

There are also lots other types of approaches. Many sandboxes for example may have a lot of prep on the front end but be low prep once the game gets started. And there are games that are designed to be low prep and bake that into the mechanics.

I can say as a player I am less of a fan of there being a planned adventure of the evening. If that is how the GM wants to do things, I will do so happily. I am not going to tell a GM or players how they ought to do things. But if given a choice, I tend to be happier when the GM is low prep in terms of adventure structure (I don't mind them prepping setting details that might come up) and is responsive to what the players decide to do (an adventure path for example is just not my cup of tea, and an adventure that is built around everything feeling like a neat story in the end, is not my cup of tea either). I like being surprised as a player. I also like being surprised as a GM

 

[TheSword]

That poll doesn't really get at the issue of low prep improv though. I think by framing it as extensive, salient and skeletal, the latter just comes across as the GM doing the bare minimum out of laziness, not doing low prep because the group wants to have a more freeform approach to adventure structure.

My answer on this is the amount of prep should be determined by the campaign, the group and the GMs comfort level. Prep is a big ask for people. They spending a lot of their spare time preparing for a game they are going to run. My approach as a player is to be open to the kind of game the GM wants to run, and that they are good at running. Some GMs do well with a much more structured approach, some do much better finding the adventure in reaction to the party.

There are also lots other types of approaches. Many sandboxes for example may have a lot of prep on the front end but be low prep once the game gets started. And there are games that are designed to be low prep and bake that into the mechanics.

I can say as a player I am less of a fan of there being a planned adventure of the evening. If that is how the GM wants to do things, I will do so happily. I am not going to tell a GM or players how they ought to do things. But if given a choice, I tend to be happier when the GM is low prep in terms of adventure structure (I don't mind them prepping setting details that might come up) and is responsive to what the players decide to do (an adventure path for example is just not my cup of tea, and an adventure that is built around everything feeling like a neat story in the end, is not my cup of tea either). I like being surprised as a player. I also like being surprised as a GM

I made it really clear that the minimal prep style makes it possible for players to go wherever they want without warning. That is recognizing it’s advantages.

Writing the details of a sandbox campaign is definitely prep. You’re pre-determining a huge number of things in the world. To create the sandbox.

 

[Hussar]

If players know you are not married to a particular direction, I find they are more prone to do this sort of thing.

I think a lot of this discussions is getting semantic about prep. If I invent an NPC on the fly, I am not going to fully stat out that NPC unless I have a generator or something fast handy, but whether it is D&D or the game I am currently playing, I am going to note down key stats for the moment so I have something functional, then flesh the stats out more completely after the session (or I may rely on a premade stat block or a quick chart of NPCs by class and level). To your point in the other post, yes that is prep, but the key is you aren't the one doing that prep, and you can still run stuff on the fly, I would say even in crunchy systems, without prep. Obviously the more you know the system, the easier that is though.

The point which I am making though, and I think that gets missed, isn't that you can't play D&D on the fly. My point always was that D&D is a higher prep system than other systems out there. That's not a good or bad thing. That's not a value judgement. It's just that on the spectrum of games, from something like Fiasco on one end to anything made by Palladium on the other, D&D falls on the heavier side of needing prep.

 

[kigmatzomat]

You still needed to prep those enemies though.

Nah, I didn't. They had found a magic item (wand of wonder, I think) and had created a hige ruckus in a forest. Noises and a huge smoke cloud I think. I decided yep, somethings gonna show up, flipped through MM, picked out troglodytes and had a war band show up.

Figured it would be a nice "don't be stupid fight" and the players decided to apologize and buy them off. Then later they went back and paid the troglodytes (in pigs) to light off a signal pyre if they saw the BBEG.

It's not like the player can declare they go and see the sage in Town X and you are obliged to add a sage in Town X for them to talk to. The only way they went to see that NPC is if you prepped that NPC and added it to the game at some point.

Or.....they ask "where's the nearest sage?" I either use the 2 sentence descriptions of the cities in the area to pick one or I decide based on the travel time that fits the story pacing I want.

And this whole "place they went without warning" stuff? Who does that? You're in the middle of an adventure, doing this and that, whether it's following up on something the player's are pursuing, or something the DM has hooked, and the players suddenly abandon everything to go off somewhere completely new without any warning?

It can be part of the quest, just done sideways. The one I always use was a monster in a swamp. They decided to get a net, which for a huge creature requires a large port city to have suitable cargo nets. Nearest one was 200 miles away. The monster had just eaten a herd of sheep, so they figured they had a week or two.

There was a time they were unpopular in a region and decided to ship out. I gave them 4 destinations they could get ship berths and they picked the least appealing one because "no one would expect us to go there".

You actually have players like this? You actually have 5 (or however big your group is) players who will not only agree with each other to abandon whatever it is they are doing right now, but will also agree to go off somewhere completely new without warning?
I can't even begin to fathom how you DM for a group like that.

Yeah. Usually 8 players, but sometimes just 6. Though I have run for as many as 12 for a couple years in college.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The point which I am making though, and I think that gets missed, isn't that you can't play D&D on the fly.

We get it. We just disagree.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I made it really clear that the minimal prep style makes it possible for players to go wherever they want without warning. That is recognizing it’s advantages.

I just think calling it low prep might be a less biased way to frame it in the poll

Writing the details of a sandbox campaign is definitely prep. You’re pre-determining a huge number of things in the world. To create the sandbox.

Sure, sandboxes require prep. But that it at the campaign level. Once the game is begun, a lot of sandboxes are not structured around planning the kinds of adventures people were mentioning earlier in the thread. When I run a sandbox I do about thirty minutes of prep between sessions, sometimes I do zero. And a sandbox can be purchased as well. There are sandbox campaigns and settings available to buy. But the point is, you aren't prepping anything about what is going to happen, you are letting the players lose in the sandbox and a lot of what makes that work is the GM reacting to and ad libbing based on what the PCs do (because however much prep was done before hand, the concept of a sandbox is essentially no limits provided they fit the setting context, so you inevitably have to invent stuff in the moment)

 

[Bedrockgames]

The point which I am making though, and I think that gets missed, isn't that you can't play D&D on the fly. My point always was that D&D is a higher prep system than other systems out there. That's not a good or bad thing. That's not a value judgement. It's just that on the spectrum of games, from something like Fiasco on one end to anything made by Palladium on the other, D&D falls on the heavier side of needing prep.

Well, D&D takes more effort for sure to do low prep than say Essoterrorist. But lots of people run it low to no prep using shortcuts, stat block charts, the monster manual, etc. D&D is robust which actually makes it kind of easy to do low prep. The players say they want to explore the northern hills which you have never mapped before so you quickly sketch it out, throw in a lich terrorizing a town and you can be good to go in a heart beat

 

[Voadam]

D&D is all over the place in what it provides as examples of prep. In the 1e Temple of Elemental Evil, set in Greyhawk, I remember it having Hommelette with every farmhouse's inhabitants and even down to notes on where hidden cash was buried for some and lots of stuff going on. The Moathouse is fully done out. Then there is the seedy neighboring town of Nulb which had some notes on some possible pirates and loose cultist connections and that is mostly it.

My 1e evil group spent about as much time in Nulb as they did in Hommellete making allies and enemies of NPCs and got into trouble in the woods nearby as well. I improvved a lot and did out a minor dungeon and some groups and NPCs and rolled some random encounters at times. When they finally killed the New Master after multiple assaults and then joining him then betraying him and it all coming together in a fantastic final fight they blew off the known rising evil of the Temple to go explore the wider world of Greyhawk and lit out for the Wild Coast. I was mostly running modules in the sandbox of Greyhawk so I switched to the Slavers modules I had once they got there and it worked well.

Part of D&D is the World of Greyhawk folio and boxed set which had about forty nations with maybe three paragraphs on each, including one on military forces. A big open lightly sketched setting where a lot has to be either improvved by a DM or prepped individually more if the party wants to go to the city of Safeton in the Wild Coast.

A lot of modules are fairly railroady. A lot of DM advice is to run the world sandboxy and have tables to generate encounters or reactions or such or leave it up to the DM. The players control their characters and the DM runs the world and there is a lot of variety in how to run a world.

A wide latitude of styles to approach DMing and prep by the book from the start.

 

[Emerikol]

Often it is a way of managing limited time.

I want my sandbox to have a lot of adventures and I may not be the ideal person to make every single one. I do "fit" them into my campaign world. The Baron Almeda is a notorious vampire in one of my campaigns though under the hood he resembles Ravenloft plucked from that domain and just put in my world as a standalone villain.

I do prefer old school modules where players can take different paths. I like the idea that the deeper or higher you go the more dangerous it gets. And I do make a good number of modules. I just don't make them all.