…it tasted grassy
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Confessions Of A Dungeon Master
Canned Adventures? NOPE!, Or, I Did It My Way
In all my decades running RPGs, I have only twice used pre-made modules, and even those two were heavily altered for convention games. This does NOT include scenarios I was writing/playtesting for publication, of course.
What I have done is used bits and pieces from published adventures in the creation of my own original adventures. But even then, my adventures are more like a loose collection of ideas in my head, not a hard plotted thing. Especially for convention games, I often skim through a module or three and make some mental notes. Later, I toss things into the game as I see fit. Once in a while, I’ll see a player get that “this seems familiar” look on their face. That always pleases me.
One reason I never ran canned adventures is because back in the early days, gamers would read them and therefore go in as players knowing what would happen. With original adventures, that never happens. Oh, you can toss out something familiar, but if you are creative, they never know what’s coming next. Unless you give them that info
As I’ve gotten older and more adept at DMing, I’ve dipped into canned adventures less and less. I do use NPCs and monsters from various adventures or sourcebooks, once I make a few changes. This is mostly because I kind of hate creating characters and monsters. It’s too time consuming for me.
I’ll also re-use an NPC, sometimes in the same game session. That city guard that the PCs had to fight and leave tied up in an alley? I used him again when they were fleeing the city. In fact, I used him twice at once, giving one a +1 to hit and the other a +2 damage. My players were none the wiser, because city guards are pretty generic.
I’ve done it with important NPCs, too. The King they are working for gets a name change and a new face, then pops up as the evil warlord they have to kill.
I have used names, be they for people, places or things, from all kinds of adventures. Not always, because I’m pretty good at spur of the moment name creation, but if that canned adventure city has a great name, I’ll use it.
Another reason I don’t like canned adventures is that a great number of them are railroads. They may have some side quests or maybe a couple of ways to get from A to B, but far too many of them are very linear and restricted. Several months ago, my DM ran us through the 5th Edition D&D adventure “Waterdeep: Dragon Heist” and by the time we finished, she was saying she’d never run another canned adventure and all of us were thanking her. There are WAY too many instances of forced railroading. As an introduction to the city, it MIGHT be worth 30 bucks. As an adventure? It’s worth about 3 bucks.
When I think up an adventure, it’s more like an overall goal for the characters, with a shitload of vague ideas for encounters and smaller adventures floating around for them to bump into. That has worked for several decades now, and for several genres, so I’m not going to change a winning formula.
Now, at this point, some of you might say “But Doc, have you not written adventures for publication?”. To that I say, yes, I have. One adventure for Over The Edge and a shitload for Toon. But all of them are extremely open ended and have zero railroading. I would write that way for D&D 5th edition, but I suspect my ideas for an adventure might not sell. Or maybe they would.
Perhaps I should give it a try.
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