What makes a published D&D adventure useful?

Random thoughts

My car broke down today. The motor stopped while I was driving. It sucked. I also got whupped twice at Risk. I’ve had better days.

Published D&D adventure modules

Onto our topic of the day. If you’re like me you have bought or downloaded numerous pre-made Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules and you have used only a fraction of that material. Somehow most D&D adventures don’t fit my campaign or my players and I end up using maps, names and getting inspiration from published modules, but I never use a lot of the meat.

I’m convinced I’m not alone in this situation. So what makes published material great – or at least useful?

Do you even use pre-
made adventures?

6 characteristics that make published adventures useful

• They’re generic. At least generic enough to be included in an ongoing campaign. If it’s not a common setting – and the best adventures might be the ones that are different that what we’re used to – then give me ideas about how I include it in an ongoing campaign.
• They’re short. I want to keep my prep time to a minimum. I don’t know about you but I have a job, a girl, a blog, and a bunch of other things that I need to take care of before planning my next D&D game.
• Lots of graphics. I want maps and also pictures of monsters, places, people that I can show to the players.
• Explicit maps. I want to be able to figure out what a room, a cave, or any location is without reading a lot about it. Some of the finer details might have to be noted but the gloomy atmosphere and the useless facts about the place can be made up on the fly.
• Existing monsters. I know what’s in the Monster Manual. I don’t want to be overloaded with information. I won’t read the document twice and I don’t want to be going through the module pages during the whole game.
• Twists & Turns. I can come up with hack & slash myself.

I would like to see these features in RPG publishing

• Subplot modules. These adventures would not be meant to be played as a stand-alone. They would be made-up of characters or organizations that have their own agendas and maybe a few scenes that would arise from these personal goals they have. My players are always confused by subplots because they can’t decide if it is important to their main quest. But why would the DM prepare that scene if it’s not important? I love to screw up with my players’ psychological health. (Random rambling: I once took a riddle-like situation straight from a book without modifying it. It was so uncharacteristic of me that my players spent 1 whole week to try to figure out the enigma – even though they had found a way to circumvent the obstacle)
• Music supplements. Music adds so much to a game when it fits the mood. I find that instrumental music is the best but I don’t know anything about music. I need help. Wouldn’t it be neat to have CDs or MP3s that match certain sections of a adventure?
• Video overview of the module. How hard would it be to film and edit a 5-10 minutes page-by-page overview of the module? The writer would be able to convey his vision of the adventure and the DM would save a lot of time.

I feel like the world of pre-made adventure modules is frozen it time. Let’s inject some fresh air in this industry! Let’s come up with ways to make published adventures easier to use, faster to read, more fun to play.

I need your feedback on this.

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