Adventures: Purchased vs. Original

[Thriondel Half-Elven]

Just curious as to what everyone prefers. . . Purchased or there own original adventures?

I, personally, prefer original. i can never get into the purchased ones. I have only bought one and i barely ever read it.

**If any one is interested in purchasing it, The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergaurde, send me a PM. it is near mint condition. with maybe a corner bent, maybe.**

[gdmcbride]

As someone who owns many hundreds of purchased adventures, I think I can fairly say that I much prefer the original works that we (GMs and players) have created together. But I am so glad that I have read truly brilliant adventures. I know that my own games would be poorer if I had never read "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" or "The Enemy Within" or "Vault of the Drow" or "Savage Tide".

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." -- Sir Isaac Newton

Gary

[Vicor]

I really like original adventures to the purchased ones. Not by much. I used to really enjoy putting together an adventure with the party in mind. just my 1/2 cent :)

[Talmek]

I'm middle of the road, here. Usually I take a published adventure and adapt it to my campaign. I just modify what I have to in order to make it fit. I'm not much for researching monsters' statistics but I'm all about plot.

[Thoth-Amon]

I always collect the good ones.

Thoth-Amon

[Tamerath]

I like to mix it up. I like my own original adventures but sometimes I like picking up a good module and going through it and converting it to my gaming groups campaign world, tying it to their characters, taking out the stuff that doesn't fit, and replacing it with my creative touch. There really are some great pre-writtens out there in the world and I like it when someone asks my players, "Hey, ever played <insert module name here>" and them smiling and telling their experiences and how the different groups did different things.

[DMMike]

I'm an original planner. It's probably not true, but it seems like every module I check out amounts to "go here, kill this." Which, as DM, I could change, but that would probably render the rest of the module moot.

Plus, the good adventuring concepts - time/place matrix adventures, politics, and other more complicated events - really can't be written in a module.

[ahollowplace]

I've never used a module. I think it's so much for fun to make original adventures. Also, if the players find out you are using one, it wouldn't have the "Wow, how in the world did he create this?" factor.

[ignimbrite]

I love taking a pre-written adventure and then slotting it into my own campaigns. Usually I have to gut out all the monsters and traps or rewrite the hook.

[Thriondel Half-Elven]

ya the hook is almost the most important part. with out that you got nothing really. and plus, the hook has to be character oriented i think

[Stormhound]

I'll happily pirate anything I think will fit, maps especially. And even when I use published stuff, I'll make tweaks major and minor to help ensure a few surprises.

[Chi]

Personal oppinion, but I would much rather hear something a little more original and adapted to the charectors levels than something that everyone (ok not everyone) else is doing.

[Dragon2605]

I prefer playing original. The DM had thrown in modified modules when he needed to but that was seldom. It's a shame the group disolved due to schedule conflicts.

[Engar]

As a DM I prefer original, as a player anything well done is great.

[nijineko]

i collect them all. and then i rip them apart (figuratively) and take out interesting pieces from several different modules that combine in unusual ways and start throwing in my own stuff on top of that. so i use them for inspiration.

i'd be interested in your module, but no $$ right now.

[HolyDiver]

I've mostly run original adventures in the past. But I have been DMing The Savage Tides ap. I have been running it pretty much as published and it's worked out pretty well for me. I've had a few complaints about how the plot is pretty linear, because the past two modules were 'get from point a to b alive.' But I know that during some of the adventures it give more freedom of choice of where to go for the players.

I like running a pre-made adventure because it means I don't have to do much of my own planning, other than reading and rereading the next leg of the path before I run it. I still get to use my creative rping skills, because there are a large cast of npcs with unique personalities in this adventure. I like how my players have come up with nicknames for them, like 'The Emo Ranger' and 'The Tomboy Warrior.' I think their favorite though is the not so noble noble, Avner Meranvanchi.

[tesral]

I'll happily buy and read adventures. I almost never run them and if I do never as is. They have to be bent around my world. I'll end up doing as much work on fitting a bought module into my world as I would creating one from whole cloth.

So I consume them read them and even use the ideas. But I'll customize beyond recognition, or I write more own.

[Valdar]

I'll mine the modules for encounters and ideas, but playing a storebought module seems to me to be begging for at least one player to thumb through it in the store.

You can also mine modules for other games to really throw the players off.

[Ramzei]

I have had fun playing in either. However, the most fun has been the ones the GM has tailor made to the group. Each group is unique as is each campaign. The module is made for a level range and number of players that can be wholly inaccurate. So this is why I feel the GM designed adventures are the best.

Coming in a close second is the "store bought" being tweaked to fit the party. Lastly, the purchased adventure. Frequently, newer GMs will use them without much thought on how it will go with the party.

[wbrandel]

I have always perferred building my own adventures. there is immense satifaction in doing so, expecially when the players sit back after the adventureand go "Wow that was great!" nothing better in the world IMO. Ihave run purchased adventures but I normally have to do so much tweaking that it would have been easier to build my own.