Published Campaigns vs. Original

[LrdoftheRngs]

Alright everyone, I need your advice. I am currently running a D&D campaign that is pretty much drawing to a close. However, I have run into a problem regarding our next campaign: My lack of planning time. It is pretty painful to get the group together for a session because of our busy (and unpredictable) schedules, and I have a very small amount of planning time. This is not currently a problem, as I pretty much have the plot and dungeons mostly worked out until the end of the campaign, but it does pose a bigger difficulty when the next one starts. I have a published campaign that is just kind of sitting on my shelf gathering dust at the moment, and I started thinking that I should use it for our next one. However, my players disagree. They think that a premade adventure wouldn't be unique enough to be fun. So, this is where you guys come in. Here is a rough list of pros and cons for a published campaign that I have put together. If you have any insight on the matter or more pros or cons, please add to the list!

PROS:
No prep time required
Much more detailed than what I come up with
Allows for more time to actually run an adventure instead of plan one

CONS:
Not as unique or tailored to players' playstyles
Less flexibility

TL;DR: My players and I have different opinions on published campaigns, please give me yours.

[Grinner]

I don't see how you couldn't have it both ways. Just rip ideas from the published campaign and add your own spin on it, as suits your players.

Or, you could start with the published campaign and see how your players like it. If not, see option A.

[Engine]

Well, I prefer original campaigns, maybe in an original setting.
But you know, a DM has her life, so maybe she couldn't prepare a setting or a campaign worth playing. Yes, a published campaign lacks in flexibility but an uninspired and half-written campaign lacks in fun.

You have the time and will, I suggest you to do as Scotchland said: use a published campaign, but fill it with your ideas so you have an hybrid.

[RandomNPC]

Like above, if you read something in a published story steal it. Like my 20 ft wide hallway with a 20X20 pit thirty feet deep, with a false ceiling and a reverse gravity spell, the real pit is 70 feet up through the paper ceiling into spikes. Stole it from Dragon Mountain, the only pre-made I ever ran, also the sloppiest game I ever ran.

Pre-made adventures have a place in my house, I read them and take the juicy bits, oddly enough it's usually fluff. Anyway, I've heard great praise for some pre-made games, I just can't run them, but if you can and it saves time, I'm not telling you to not run them.

[NikitaDarkstar]

A) Does your player need to know it's premade? If they enjoy it then what does it matter?

B) What says you can't take a premade and change it up to suit your needs? Use it as a guide but change what doesn't work for you/your group.

C) If they don't like it and you absolutely don't have the time/energy for anything else ask them if someone else would be willing to DM for the group.

[LrdoftheRngs]

Thanks for all the responses, and I think I will create a kind of hybridized campaign. Thinking back on it, the current campaign probably won't end until summer break starts, and then I will have plenty of time.

[TheThan]

actually premade campaigns still need preparation time. It's just that they need less preparation time. The Dm still needs to read over the encounters, study up on unfamiliar monsters, adjust CR if necessary etc.

Its much less work since you don't have to make up stat blocks and write out the adventure/story.

As for whether it'll be fun or not. It will be if nobody has played/read the campaign before, i mean if someone has, then they'll already know what the end is like, and what to do. It's hard not to meta-game in that situation. but if nobody has done it. then well it'll be new to everyone.

[Mystify]

Personally, I strongly prefer custom campaigns, because I feel like I have more freedom as a player. Even when they write in alternatives, you are still on rails. There are just junctions on the rails. If you do something unexpected, the pre-made campaign falls apart. The custom campaign is easier for the DM to adapt, because it is their creation and they intimately know all the moving parts and how things will react to what you do. A decision in the game can have huge, long term effects that a pre-written campaaign won't put in because it radically alters how everything works. For instance, a player unexpectedly managing to f forge a deep freindship with a powerful faction, and gain their support. Something like that can take the campaign in a completely unexpected direction. A prewritten campaign will try to resolve your decisions as fast as possible so as not to bifurcate the possible storyline. Since they have to write every possible branch, this is undesirable. In a custom campaign, you only have to worry about what choices actually happen, so that issue is nonexistant. If you do let those changes happen in a prewritten campaign, then you end up on a custom campaign based on the prewritten one.

[valadil]

As a GM I prefer writing a campaign. Coming up with my own plots is my favorite part of GMing and using a published adventure eliminates it. However, when time is a concern published adventures make a lot of sense.

PROS:
No prep time required

IMO, this is a myth. While you can run a published campaign with no prep, doing so will lead to a poor game and give your players a poor opinion of what published campaigns can offer. At the very least you should read through the campaign before running it.

If you do have some free time to prep, you're absolutely encouraged to make changes to the adventure. A lot of the time this just means swapping out set pieces to make the adventure fit your PCs better (which addresses some of the cons you listed). For instance, if the dungeon includes an altar to generic evil deity #4, but your party includes a good cleric, swap out that evil deity for the cleric's god's nemesis. This is a very simple change that will make the game that much more personal for your cleric.

If you have a lot of free time to prep, but not enough for a full campaign, try using the adventures for individual plots but writing the glue between them yourself. If you go with the typical route of starting the players in a tavern, the bulletin board on the wall might offer three or four leads for dungeons they can explore. Each of those leads would point to a different published campaign. Between the adventures it would be up to you to write individual sessions to chain the published adventures together. IMO, this would be a fun way to work with published campaigns, but I've never actually tried it.

[Orsen]

I highly suggest looking at any Paizo adventure path should you choose to look at any published materials. They have long, in-depth campaigns with wonderful stories. Perfect for the DM short on time (like myself).

[Knaight]

A way to sidestep published campaigns entirely while not having to deal with lots of prep time is to switch systems. D&D is a very prep-heavy system, though not to the Hero-Rolemaster-Shadowrun level. If you switch to WR&M, a free and lightweight system that can easily cover all of the same material, the vast majority of prep work simply ceases to exist, as you don't have to prep mechanics anymore.

[Tyndmyr]

I tend to start with prepub campaigns frequently...they save a LOT of time. However, the first session, I always ask the players what sort of game they're interested in. Which prepub I use is selected based on this, and I'll do some customization as I see fit to better match what sort of game they want to play.

I don't think I've ever run a prepub entirely without modification, but for some, Ive used a great deal of the encounters as is. I also have certain encounters I enjoy from specific modules that I crib from gleefully when the opportunity arises.

[Narren]

One thing that I enjoy about a pre-published campaign is that my players would read books about the world and come up with their own ideas of how to move the game forward. In my experience, it's much more enjoyable for everyone when the players move the plot, and I create it from their lead.

[Kerrin]

Due to time constraints over the years I tend to use pre-published campaigns but with modifications. It does cut down on the preparation time, but the DM still has to understand the game world. Othewise it won't make much sense.

Published adventures - I use them for the same reason, often with some modifications. I just don't have the time to create adventures from scratch anymore.