Running modules

[Dancingdeath]

Why does no one seem to want to run modules? Most DMs I've seen do not possess the necessary skill to balance an encounter appropriately. Most of them are pretty good at least.

[hobbitkniver]

I've wondered the same thing but I don't DM so maybe I'm just missing something. Personally, I think some modules are very well written and many adventures made by DMs are imbalanced and bad stories. I'd never run a module if I had a good DM. The only time I've played through them with people is when our DM left and no one wanted to replace him.

[Starbuck_II]

Why does no one seem to want to run modules? Most DMs I've seen do not possess the necessary skill to balance an encounter appropriately. Most of them are pretty good at least.

People do. Red Hand of Doom for example is popular here on the boards.

[KillianHawkeye]

When I started out as a DM, I used pre-published adventures. I ran Red Hand of Doom (which was great), and the online adventure series for Star Wars Saga Edition (which I forget the name of).

The reason I don't run modules any more is because I found that they didn't give me enough information for when my players went off the rails. An experienced DM could probably have an easier time improvising something, but I felt uncomfortable doing so in the fear that my improvisations would mess something up later in the adventure (I admit, this was only a problem because I didn't or couldn't read the entire adventures ahead of time). As an example, my Star Wars players were participating in a sabaac tournament in order to find out which player was an Imperial informant and intercept the information exchange that was scheduled to take place during the final round of the tournament. My players decided to kidnap this person and hold him captive on their ship, and at that point I could not think of any way to salvage the adventure.

My solution was to start writing the adventures myself (and to never run a Star Wars game again), which has the advantage of being tailor made for the types of shenanigans my players are likely to try, and allows me to add in branching story options for when I give the players the choice of how to proceed. In other words, I give myself the tools to make it much easier for me to improvise when things go sideways (as they always do). Writing the story myself also gives me the confidence to be able to re-write it.

[Hiro Protagonest]

People do. Red Hand of Doom for example is popular here on the boards.

Understatement of the week.

[Kol Korran]

first of all DMs do run modules, as have been mentioned here. there are 2 major instances of running modules:

1) a new DM who is learning the ropes.

2) running an especially good module. most modules are... unfortunately... quite lacking (in my humble experience) there are a few good ones out there, the well acclaimed Red hand of doom, the sunless citadel, and nearly all of Path Finder's adventure paths) (they did some EXCELLENT work there)

why do people choose not to run modules though? there are a few explanations:

1) Modules often make quite a few assumptions as to the mix of the group or their optimization level, or the resources available. which does not fit with the party. this often means the DM needs to work over the module and "fix" things in the module, which surprisingly is quite a lot of work, sometimes more than writing your own material.

2) most modules are quite railroady, some stupidingly so, with no info for the DM about what to do when the party circumvent about 1/4-1/2 of the module in a single move. (for example, Whispers of the Vampire's blade, or some point of "Eyes of the lich queen") since this setting, adventure and so on are not what the DM has planned, it's harder for him/ her adjust on the spot.

3)on the same note, It's much easier for a DM to run and flow with an adventure s/he has written, since they know the material, it's ingrained in their mind. while in a module most DMs keep saying "wait a moment, let me check this" and view their notes, or be unsure how to react with small surprises or adjust. simply because it's not the DMs own material.

4) not all DMs have all resources. and some adventures (especially the later ones) often use material from book X, or from book Y and so on. this is problematic due to two factors: a) It's often material the players didn't have access to either, and may feel "unfair" (though this is admitedly a poor excuse) and b) the Dm might feel uncomfortable dealing with material s/he doesn't know well. in most cases explanations are given in the text, but it't not the same. the DM can "fix" this but this leads us back to 1.

5) many DM's like to tailor adventures to their player's personalities, backgrounds, party dynamics, goals and such. most module are fairly generic and don't offer that much room for roleplay customization for the party without it feeling forced.

6) last, but definitely not least- a major part of the desire to DM for many people is the desire to create. you became the DM because you wanted to show people your world, your NPCs, your plots, hooks and so on. this is a major part of your fun. to bring out your creativity and share it with people. (i'm not talking about becoming an all powereful railroading story teller for the group. a snadbox DM still shares the desire to share his/ her works). so why use what someone else wrote?

i hope this answered your question,
Kol.

[TypoNinja]

I'm great at narrative/story, but lousy at populating a dungeon crawl, so I actually prefer to take modules and throw them into my custom campaign world.

Change some proper names, swap the McGuffin, and its mostly good to go.

By a stroke of luck for me the level of optimization modules assume is pretty much dead on for my players.

[Feytalist]

I love modules. We used to play Living Greyhawk from the RPGA and those were all official content.

And then the greats like City of the Spider Queen, or my personal favourite, the Planescape Faction War.

We also adapted many of the Forgotten Realms adventures (or "adventurettes", I suppose) that was published in the old FR splatbooks. Most of our campaigns play off in FR, so that's fine.

[TypoNinja]

I love modules. We used to play Living Greyhawk from the RPGA and those were all official content.

And then the greats like City of the Spider Queen, or my personal favourite, the Planescape Faction War.

We also adapted many of the Forgotten Realms adventures (or "adventurettes", I suppose) that was published in the old FR splatbooks. Most of our campaigns play off in FR, so that's fine.


City of the Spider Queen is designed to kill parties. We keep trying, but it never goes well.

[Feytalist]

City of the Spider Queen is designed to kill parties. We keep trying, but it never goes well.

We finished it once, with a party specifically made for the module. We still had to scale one or two of the encounters down. It was very satisfying even so :smallsmile:

[Malachei]

When you start play-by-post recruitment for a well-known published adventure (such as Red Hand of Doom or Pathfinder Adventure Paths), you'll likely get more applications than for an adventure of your own design. There are exceptions, of course, but overall, I'd say players prefer official adventure as long as they don't know the DM in question. This turns to the opposite once they are convinced the DM will do a better job running a self-designed adventure.

DMs don't run official adventures because they are convinced that they do so, and for a variety of other reasons, such as developing their own ideas, setting etc.

Some instead prefer to run official adventures to reduce preparation time (often, IMO, not true) or because they liked the adventure when reading.

Personally, with a few notable exceptions, most published adventures don't meet my personal standards in various ways (consistency and credibility being two).

[Andorax]

Hasn't been mentioned yet, but in a post-3.5 world, there are no "new" modules. There's a number of DMs, especially DMs who aren't in long-established gaming groups, that are reluctant to run modules because one or more of the players might have already read it, run it sometime, etc.

[Suddo]

I've been running Sunless Citadel for a couple of newer D&D people. 2nd meet they decide to head back to town and want to go raid the goblins who have the fruit. NO WHERE IS THIS COVERED IN THE MODULE; and personally I think it something within reason, sense they are goblins and not particularly organized. This is why I don't like modules though I do still have several sense they are good inspiration but they are in the end incomplete.

Needless to say I'm going to turn this group's world sandbox and just run with anything they throw at me, encounter maybe unbalanced but if you say I want to find the biggest dragon in the kingdom guess what is going to happen.

[TheTick]

I'm learning to DM by running a mix of newbies (with a vet or two to mentor them) through a few of the freely available modules for 3.5e, leading up to Red Hand of Doom. By that time, I should be done with my own personal creation and can run them through that.