Various ways to play and run a game

[AzureKnight]

Ok, I want to get the perspective on a subject from DMs and players alike.

There are basicly 3 types of campaigns.
1. Published: whether by the licensed or 3rd party sources.

2. Homebrew: Adventure and content written by the DM using various sources.

3. Off the hip: You decide out of the blue you want to play but have nothing prepared, so you make it up as you go.

As the DM and or player which do you prefer running or playing and why?

[Crake]

Ok, I want to get the perspective on a subject from DMs and players alike.

There are basicly 3 types of campaigns.
1. Published: whether by the licensed or 3rd party sources.

2. Homebrew: Adventure and content written by the DM using various sources.

3. Off the hip: You decide out of the blue you want to play but have nothing prepared, so you make it up as you go.

As the DM and or player which do you prefer running or playing and why?

I prefer a combination of 2 and 3. I like running my own setting and my own meta plot, but I also like to let the players have the freedom to do what they want, so I run 99% of my game off the hip through role play as they investigate/diplomacy etc. If I know the players are gonna do something before the session rocks up, I'll whip up something for them though, for example if they have decided to investigate the ruins of an abandoned city, I'll lay out the city, plan random encounters, and probably put a dungeon in there somewhere with catacombs or the like, but even then, I usually run the encounters in there off the hip too. Instead of deciding whats in each room, I decide on a theme and a purpose of the place, and populate it as I go with various fluff related things (so mortuary catacombs will have things like embalming rooms and the like, demon cults will have torture rooms etc etc)

[Devronq]

I will say I like 2 with a splash of 3 the best and I'd bet most people agree. I hate 100% made up on the spot games. I find you have to be a very experienced DM to do it at all and if you aren't its usually a pretty bad game. It was easier to do in second edition games I have played some that were almost compleltly made up on the spot that weren't bad. I find silly things happen in made up on the spot games like weird rooms in dungeons and monsters that make no sense I have no rules base, just no flow. Like I remember one game I played in early 3.5 that was made up on the spot and just every room in dungeon had something stupid with no rules base. Like one room had a pool of water that we fell.in and it made it so you couldn't use weapons and we had to fist fight these sharks that only dealt 1 dam. At one point we found a gun that auto hit but everytime you shot it you would roll a day and on a 1 in would backfire and deal 1 damage to you. And at the end we had to fight a lich that had 600hp and its only attack was a melee attack that dealt like 1d6+0. Stuff like that.

[Yahzi]

Sandbox. The DM makes up a whole world. This is what I like to play and run. Of course I usually wind up using a computer to generate content when I am running a game. I once wrote a program to generate every single noble and magic-user in 5 kingdoms for a GURPS program.

[AMFV]

Ok, I want to get the perspective on a subject from DMs and players alike.

There are basicly 3 types of campaigns.
1. Published: whether by the licensed or 3rd party sources.

2. Homebrew: Adventure and content written by the DM using various sources.

3. Off the hip: You decide out of the blue you want to play but have nothing prepared, so you make it up as you go.

As the DM and or player which do you prefer running or playing and why?

Usually I jump between one and three depending on my party. I tend to do almost complete improvisation a large part of the time though. That's where I've found people tend to enjoy my DMing most so that's what I do.

It's ironic because when I'm playing I'm obsessive and plan-oriented but when DMing I'm the opposite, that probably says something about me but I'm not sure what.

[Raezeman]

I just recently started DMing, meaning i am A HUGE EXPERT IN EVERYTHING D&D, so the big things, main story line, possible side quests, encounters and stuff like that is completely made up by myself beforehand, but the small things, like how NPCs act is off the hip. Also, if i think something like: "actually, this would be a nice moment to introduce this character" or "this is a good location for a small encounter" or something similar, i just go with it.

[Feytalist]

The vast majority of the campaigns and adventures I've played have been published material; we used to be deep into Living Greyhawk back in the day. It's nice for player and DM alike to have a sort of structure to fall back on. I remember once my character came into possession of some sort of doomsday artifact, and the DM actually gave me the official paper with its description, and checkboxes to check every time something specific happened that would power it help. Feels nicely legitimate. (I never did get to find out what happened when it was fully charged.)

But, well, as any DM can tell you, sometimes you just have to make stuff up on the spot. Players are inconsiderate like that.

I think that the level of improvisation depends greatly on the experience of the DM, not just as game master but as storyteller. An inexperienced or uncreative DM can easily make an unscripted story fall apart, and that's not nice for anyone. However, someone who can run their mouth and come up with something awesome on the spot can make for some really memorable gaming.

Anyway; I like published.

[Allanimal]

I like the idea of #2, but my outside of D&D life doesn't leave me time to do it justice, so I go with #1 usually. I still have to tailor the adventure to the party's optimization level and somehow make it fit in to the world... There is also a bit of 3 too, because the players can do unexpected things...

[Dr. Cliché]

I generally do #2, mixed with a bit of #3.

I like doing homebrew stuff - especially since I enjoy messing around with templates, classes, spells etc. And, I try to have thing reasonably planned out in advance in my notes.

#3 Is often necessary when the party does something unexpected.

[Red Fel]

Believe it or not, I've played #1 maybe once in my entire gaming career, and we managed to veer into #3 on that fairly quickly.

The DMs with whom I've worked valued adaptability. They wanted to give their players freedom, or at least the illusion of freedom. The problem with published modules is that they assume that the players are willing to cooperate from the beginning, that the players are willing to board the train in the first place.

The Temple of Elemental Evil isn't much of a challenge at all if the players never go in, for example.

My DMs have historically instead designed the campaign around the PCs. Not that it should be made easy for them, but rather that it should be available and engaging. Sometimes, that has lead to some very entertaining things, such as our gnome discovering a lost gnomish steam-powered submarine. Other times, that has lead to railroading, such as when the DM decided we should all undertake a quest to help his girlfriend's PC recover her family's heraldric armor. But in any event, it has involved more personal investment, by both the DM and the players, than most modules. The DM took pride in his work and was able to adapt it more easily to player actions; the players felt more invested because their backstories and characters were part of the events.

Consider a generic dungeon-diving module. Does it matter that your Lesser Aasimar Paladin came from a small town on the coast, suffers from abandonment issues because his extraplanar father left his mother to return to the heavens, and has fond memories of his pet cat? Not really; you're going into a dungeon and killing undead/goblins/aberrations.

But consider a #2 or #3 option: Your party discovers that the lich they've been hunting is working on raising larger undead, and the inscriptions you've found in his latest lair reveal an interest in sea monster corpses. And the nearest coastal village is... "But... That's where I grew up!" Suddenly, your character's backstory becomes painfully relevant - and time becomes of the essence.

Tl;dr: As a player, I prefer #2 and #3, as these let the DM make the plot more personal to the PCs. As a DM, I prefer #2 and #3, as they give me the freedom to do what I like to keep the players engaged.

[Person_Man]

I generally mix all three. Ask the players what type of game they want. Agree upon a published setting or throw them into my homebrew Roman/Greek mythological setting or just into a random sandbox (starting town is defined, everything else needs to be explored, make it up as you go). Create a few important NPCs with global plots that progress from time to time. Plan 1 game session. At the end of the session ask players what they intend to do next. Plan another game session or steal liberally from modules, making stuff up as you go if player's move beyond what you planned. Repeat.

[Katana1515]

Personally a good mix of 2 and 3 for me! What works best varies across game groups but with my regular players I find that a open world style sandbox experience works best. sometimes people want dungeon crawls or fairly linear plots but i mostly use those for 1 shots or very short campaigns. Anything more than that I will try and create a whole new setting and then populate with relevent plot hooks and choices for the PC's. Anything more linear than that tends to get railroaded pretty quick (but maybe thats just my players :D )

[Spore]

Just 3, with an emphasis or spontaneous! You probably all know how boring a yellow brick road with rail roading can be. Do not leave the yellow brick road, Dorothy!

Oh, you did, but nooothing can harm you because I have planned the adventure out to your victorious end already. I decided where you will stand, and how you will celebrate, and all.