3rd party / community written adventures?

[EnnPeeCee]

Simple question, how many of you have actually played in or ran an adventure or campaign written by a 3rd party publisher, or by a community member unrelated to anyone in the group?

This is mostly just curiosity on my part. I recently had the thought to take some of the adventures that I have written for my group, clean them up, and make them available online somewhere. But it occurred to me that as a DM, I've never even considered running an adventure written by anyone else. I've ran a few official D&D modules, but other than those I've only used my own content. Same case with all of the groups that I've been a player in. I'm really just curious whether that is the norm with most groups, or if I'm an outlier in that regard.

[Psyren]

Speaking personally, I've considered it, especially for those huge blowout sales like Humble Bundle, DTRPG and the PFSRD where you get a huge discount or can bid whatever you want on a large swath of material. Moreover, the nice thing about "kitchen sink" settings like Golarion, Eberron and FR is that even if I pick up a AP from a third-party, it's not too hard to find a spot in one of the more established worlds my players are already familiar with and stick that plot in there with the serial numbers filed off.

The bigger issue imo is that 3.5 and PF have such massive, decades-long libraries to draw on that the average playgroup could never find enough hours in a lifetime to run through all of it, much less find the time to use anything new. I would wager it's part of why the big publishers trend towards new editions and rules changes every so often - if the new rules take off, you get a fertile and hungry new market to which you can sell your modules and APs.

So to answer your question - yes, I think there's a market for 3rd-party modules and APs - but I also think you'll find more demand for that sort of thing in newer systems like 5e, Starfinder, and (later on) PF2, than you will in 3.5 and PF1.

[Mehangel]

I have played in 3rd Party written adventures (mostly by Frog God Games).

[Troacctid]

The only third-party adventure I've done for 3.5e is this one (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/28495/Where-Madness-Dwells) from Inner Circle. I ended up being very happy with it and I've run it three times now.

In 5e, I run community-written adventures all the time. Both the Convention Created Content program and the Guild Adept program have highlighted some really great mods, and they're even legal for organized play, which is awesome. I've written reviews for a bunch of 'em; you can read them over at the DMs Guild (http://www.dmsguild.com/product_reviews.php?products_id=221415&customers_id=633267) if you're curious.

[Von Krieger]

I've run several third party modules, with the Way of the Wicked (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8tmp?Way-of-the-Wicked-Book-1-Knot-of-Thorns)series and Up From Darkness (http://paizo.com/products/btpy9795?Up-From-Darkness) being my favorites.

WotW was the first full-length evil campaign for Pathfinder as best I'm aware, and the premise of Up From Darkness is quite unique.

[Florian]

I´ve made extensive use of nearly everything published by Necromancer Games / Frog God Games.