Comments on: Why you should never use pre-made adventures as your main storyline

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:33:53 +0000

I think that pre-made quests are a very good way of learning the game. When I first started out as a DM I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. But then I started to look at pre-made quests and I got to learn hor everything works for a DM. It is kind of a cop out when you use them but I think that they are an absolute amazing learning supplement.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:50:58 +0000

I find my biggest problem with pre-written campaigns is that they have nothing to do with the PCs. It’s a series of events that sort of happens at the PCs. When I start a campaign, I give my players a basic outline of events so far and then I work with them to produce a backstory for their characters. I then take elements from that back story to construct the main plot. That way the adventure is all about them. So far it’s worked quite well.
Pre-written adventures, on the other hand can be a nice way of dropping in a side quest if you haven’t had time to prepare that week :)

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:43:19 +0000

I agree w/ focusing on a single section in big worlds (like FR), and having the few other cool sections in the back of your mind.

I often do this even in my own worlds: I focus on a specific section (ex: the Bloodstone Lands from FR), but I might have some thoughts about another area in the back of my head (ex: the Waterdhavian merchant).

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:18:52 +0000

Long ago, when I first started DMing, I pretty much ran only published adventures. To be honest I think its the best way to go for a new DM because when everything is new to you, you can use all the help you can get.

Over time I ran fewer and fewer published adventures till I reached a point where everything I did was completely my own. Just like you describe, it was faster, simpler and just plain better to do it myself. I think without a doubt the best adventures I ever ran were the ones I made up myself during those years, but then something changed…

I fell out of touch with the players I had know, and while I had some chances to be a player, I was never in a position to be a DM for a period of about five years. When the chance arrived to DM again, I found that spark had gone; I literally have no ideas for adventures, and ideas that are handed to me on a platter I have no ideas as to how to expand them. Now everything is a struggle, and so published adventures have become my crutch. While you are quite correct that I spend much longer now preparing an adventure with much poorer results, with my brain not co-operating my only real options are use published material or not DM at all.

Part of me completely agrees with you, because I truely believe that the way you describe for creating adventure is second to none, but another part of me can’t help but think your article and its tone are akin to kicking people when they’re down. No one wants to spend money buying published adventure and time learning other people’s material. Every DM who buys adventures does so because making his own adventures is not a viable alternative for him.

And to answer your questions, I have bought Shadowfell and the only way I won’t be using it is if one of my players has already played through it.

By: D&D 4e book review - Keep On The Shadowfell - Dungeon Mastering - Dungeons and Dragons blog - DM tips, D&D books, RPG fun

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:35:47 +0000

[...] creativity if you run this adventure as your main campaign quest – but I’m on record saying you should never use pre-made adventures as your main storyline. So no surprise here – I’m [...]

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:10:18 +0000

I’ve consistently been blown away by what Paizo is doing with the Pathfinder adventure series they’re putting out each month. Its some of the best-quality and most-interesting pre-published stuff I’ve ever seen, and I haven’t wanted to use pre-published stuff since I was about 13.

For Free RPG Day at the FLGS I’ll be running an adventure from Paizo/Pathfinder called Revenge of the Kobold King. It is excellent, and written in such a way as to be adaptible.

I can’t vouch for how these things turn out as your main plotline, but we do have two customers who are both running the Pathfinder series with their group and they are loving. I tell everyone that its worth at least looking at, particularly as a person whose raw free time which can be allocated to creating my own adventures is dwindling as time goes on.

By: Lee

Lee — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:58:38 +0000

I used to write my own, but as a grown-up with little spare time, I find myself leaning on pre-made a lot. My last game was developed by reading a big stack of Dungeon mags, picking out some mods I liked that seemed to have common elements, and stringing them together. Once play began, the party’s directions deviated from my “plan,” of course, but I could deal with that. I ended up with 8 or 10 that I used, 2-3 I almost used, and 20+ that I liked, but didn’t fit. I have 3 half-formed ideas to use those remaining ones, someday down the road.
For campaign settings, I like these, as a) (again) I no longer have time to make a whole world, and b) I can show players pictures and maps.
Yes, I do modify the modules and settings to my taste, but I find I’m more comfortable (and thus more effective) at mashing someone else’s creative work than coming up with my own. I guess I don’t have a Spark, but I do have the mental kindling to make a spark into a flame.

By: Sara no H.

Sara no H. — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:47:21 +0000

the greatest advantage of making your own plots is that they will catter to your players and be character-driven. You can satisfy your players and you can feed off of their characters’ aspirations and background.

True, but that only works if they stay alive long enough to make it worthwhile to design an entire campaign around their character arcs. My players tend toward altaholism, and on top of that, none of them particularly takes the game seriously enough to have clearly-defined motivations for their characters, much less far-reaching goals or experiences that could eventually develop into campaign material. The one fella who had all that is now absolutely disgusted with his character and cannot wait to reroll when we get together this weekend. *shrug*

By: Consonant Dude

Consonant Dude — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:19:44 +0000

I never, ever run pre-made adventures. I did do so when I first started DMing as a pre-teen but after a few adventures, I figured I was already straying away from the plots so much that it was more work than starting from scratch.

I also never run campaign settings. I used to run a hacked Forgotten Realms campaign because two players begged for it but I’ve since decided to hold my ground.

I used to shake my head in disbelief at people who use pre-made adventures and setting material but I realize now that it’s snobbish behavior. I guess not everyone has the time or inclination to make this stuff and that’s fine.

But I would personally feel robbed of a good part of my fun as a DM if I did not create worlds, characters, conflicts and plots myself. I find it to be great fun and further, I think it’s less work than actually reading pre-made stuff. Like Tommi above, I may also improvise and make up stuff once in a while. I find that because I know my setting and what I am actually trying to accomplish with the various plots, it gives me a comfort zone to drop things or go in new directions.

But to me, the greatest advantage of making your own plots is that they will catter to your players and be character-driven. You can satisfy your players and you can feed off of their characters’ aspirations and background. And that is a very powerful tool for a coherent and exciting campaign with great story arcs.

By: Darth Krzysztof

Darth Krzysztof — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:43:57 +0000

I use prefab whenever I can – I’ve never used published modules as the -basis- for a campaign, but I’ve always used them to support whatever storyline I’ve come up with.

My current campaign began with a couple of Planescape modules; although I had to convert all the 2nd Edition stuff to v.3.5, I didn’t have to waste time making maps or coming up with anything else. The material was easy to incorporate into my campaign plot, and I got a nice base of recurring NPCs and locations to add to the stuff I’d come up with on my own.

The storyline has moved on into original territory, but I still pull pregen NPCs from modules & sourcebooks to save myself the strain of “heavy lifting.”