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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
 Posted - 29 Sep 2006 : 23:27:16
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Between my question about City of the Spider Queen and the question about Nightmare Keep, I started wondering about this one. I was planning on using City of the Spider Queen from the start, as a mini campaign, with some add ons from me. I thought back through my gaming past, and now that I think of it, I almost always run commercial adventures as stand alone mini campaigns.
I guess part of this is because I usually have an idea of what I want to do with my campaigns, and I can be pretty precise, and some adventures can force you into accomplishing things within a certain time, or starting on a date that may not work with your current campaign.
So I was wondering if I am the only one that does this? Its not that I don't use them, but I often use them as "breaks" in between campaigns that are designed to me more long term.
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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
Posted - 29 Sep 2006 : 23:41:36
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This is why I don't use them that much. I usually have ideas on what I want to do with the campaign and the adventures either don't fit or sometimes if they have a lot of metaplot, in the cast of the Spider Queen adventure, it doesn't fit in my version of the Realms or I want to know how the metaplot ends before I use it.
I know this was the case with the Spider Queen adventure for a lot of the DM's I ran a PC for in their campaigns. They didn't like that it was tied in with the novels and that the novels would take 2 to 4 years to finish.
Otherwise, I might use a short Dungeon adventure but if it's a long adventure from Dungeon or a module, I don't usually use it. It's also because a lot of the time I let PC's head off and follow different plots and if the plot of the adventure isn't one that they decide to follow, then either it's to late to use it because the PC's have advanced past the levels that it was called for and so it would take me a lot of time to update it or the campaign has changed and so there's no point in bothering to use it.
However, I might take some ideas from it and make a whole different plot around the ideas that has nothing to do with the printed module/Dungeon article.
But mostly, I make up my own adventures that start off as rumors/gossips/tavern tales/etc. Sorta like the old Current Clack and that was why I jumped at co-writing the article for the Compendium. :) |
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet and excite you... Books are full of the things that you don't get in real life - wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 29 Sep 2006 : 23:48:25
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| Good point about the starting point thing. There have been a lot of times when I read about a type of adventure (like a mystery) that I wouldn't normally have tried in Dungeon, but then I completely make up my own with just a few things from the Dungeon adventure. |
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warlockco
Master of Realmslore
USA
1695 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2006 : 01:11:12
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I generally prefer to use small short adventures in my campaign.
So for things other than what I come up with myself, I use the adventures at the WotC site and from Dungeon.
The short adventures can usually be adapted with little to no problems and server as filler, since I throw out tidbits to "distract" the players at times and other than certain goals I ahve for the players, the campaign tends to be pretty open ended. |
News of the Weird
D20 System Reference Document
D20 Modern System Reference Document
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Sanishiver
Senior Scribe
USA
476 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2006 : 04:48:42
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My Realms campaign more or less started by going from one published adventure to another (Crucible of Freya, Sunless Citadel, The Forge of Fury, etc...), where each adventure was modified as needed to suit the particulars of my campaign.
For example, I started my campaign just before the war in Cormyr and ran the players through the war and its aftermath. During this time in-game I incorporated numerous published adventures, some Dungeon Magazine adventures as well as mini-adventures (such as from the FRCS), all modified around the events of the war.
After the war ended (and in RL I had a better grasp of the 3E rules mechanics) I opened things up a bit. I'd still use published adventures, but start mixing them together and also do more free form DMing (where I'd have a few ideas or adventures handy and more or less let the players pick what they wanted to do through roleplaying).
City of the Spider Queen, Bastion of Broken Souls and Demons and Devils (this last by Sword and Sorcery Studios) are a good example of this mixing. Since all of these were stand alone, self-contained adventures (Bastion did not require a DM to run players through the previous, lower level adventures published by WotC that nominally led up to it; nor did CotSQ require me to read or rely on the War of the Spider Queen novels to use it), I was able to weave them all together to fit the over-arching plot I’d created with my players for our game (and just as the group was reaching 16th-17th level).
So in closing I don’t use published adventures as mini campaigns. I take them as a whole or in chunks and build them into my Realms Campaign as suits my needs as a DM.
Good thread, Knight!
J. Grenemyer |
09/20/2008: Tiger Army at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. You wouldn’t believe how many females rode it out in the pit. Santa Cruz women are all of them beautiful. Now I know to add tough to that description.
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9/9/2006: Dave Mathews Band was off the hook at the Shoreline Amphitheater.
Never, ever read the game books too literally, or make such assumptions that what is omitted cannot be. Bad DM form, that.
And no matter how compelling a picture string theory paints, if it does not accurately describe our universe, it will be no more relevant than an elaborate game of Dungeons and Dragons. --paragraph 1, chapter 9, The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene |
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Mace Hammerhand
Great Reader
Germany
2296 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2006 : 08:00:48
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I use premade adventures which I adapt into the setting if they aren't setting specific. Most of the time I have to wing it on a moment's notice because my players are, on occassion, such an ingenious bunch that they do something that reduces an encounter of semi-epic proportions to a one-round-affair.
Since my gaming style has never involved setting a specific tone and giving my players as much freedom as they want in terms of decision-making. I've gamed with some of my players for 13-20 years so I know what they are capable of in terms of wrecking an entire adventure, hell I participated in a wrecking or two myself. Hence I just see where things take us... and it works nicely. |
Mace's not so gentle gamer's journal My rants were harmless compared to this, beware! |
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Reefy
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
892 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2006 : 00:47:42
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| I use premade adventures in my campaigns, sometimes as written, at other times modified to fit my needs. On the whole they don't form the basis of my campaigns, but I take ideas from them and from there spring further ideas. |
Life is either daring adventure or nothing. |
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Purple Dragon Knight
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1796 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2006 : 06:03:27
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I use published adventures heavily now. In fact, almost exclusively.
Let's face it: most working men and women out there do not have the luxury to prepare an adventure from scratch. I knew one friend who did it back in British-Columbia, and he ended up making a career of it and went on to write for a d20 company.
For us mere mortals, the adventure-design exercise (if done in a level that is roughly comparable with published adventures) is overwhelmingly time-consuming, and nigh impossible once employed in a full-time capacity.
If I still had my weekends, perhaps I could do without them, but being married and all now... not happening!  |
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Na-Gang
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
348 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2006 : 10:51:30
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| I use premade adventures when they fit into the overall campaign, with a bit of tinkering and added plotting of course. I also just use maps from adventures and restock the rooms as I see fit. |
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Silvanus79
Seeker
USA
58 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2006 : 14:47:46
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| I'm going to have to agree with Purple Dragon Knight on that one. Except for my most recent, nearly everything I've done in the last few years has been pre-published. I've found a little more time lately to get back into adventure designing, thanks mainly to my sudden and opportune shift from the fast food industry to Corporate America, and I have really enjoyed my weekends of game planning. However, I have also found that converting old 2nd Edition adventures, campaigns, etc to 3.5E is quite rewarding, and I run a lot of those. It's nice to see classics such as "Night Below" and "Dragon Mountain" in 3.5 format, and the look on my players' faces when I pulled out that big old red box was priceless to say the least..... |
Procrastinators unite! Tomorrow. |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2006 : 10:23:09
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I generally only use published adventures as a source of ideas and as reading material. I am not a good GM when it comes to pre-published adventures as I forget details and generally get so hung up in remembering everything that it comes dangerously near to railroading. I have had more luck with adventures for the old Swedish Drakar och Demoner game, but D&D modules ( of all editions) I have never really managed to use.
That being said, I have stolen innumerable details and ideas from published adventures, especially the In Search Of Adventure book for basic D&D and the box of encounters for 2ed. AD&D. For some reason I have had no wish to use anything from the short adventures in 3ed. and have not looked at the larger ones. I can not say exactly what the problem is, but they just don't do anything for me. |
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Dart Ambermoon
Learned Scribe
Germany
253 Posts |
Posted - 07 Oct 2006 : 04:26:35
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| Maps, to be honest. Of course I´ll snag locales, artifacts, NPC´s or general plot ideas ocasionally, but I´ve never yet truly run a pre-fab. But maps...love ´em since I can´t draw...at all*g*. |
~ In Finder I trust, for danger I lust ~ |
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Commercial Adventures, How Do You Use Them?
