Pre-written Adventures/Modules/Campaigns

Yay or Nay?
Do you use them? How?
What are your favourites?

Yay, absolutely. We are all adults with jobs and families, I don't have the free time to plan everything from scratch like ten years ago. that said, the module is just a skeleton for the actual game, onto which I graft original stuff and/or pieces from other things. It's just good to have something to fall back on when the need arises.

Yay
Yes, and as part of my campaigns.
Curse of Strahd for 5e, GDQ for 2e.

I'm actually in need of good one-shot modules for D&D 3.5. Could a kindly user please recommend some for me? I've ran games before,but never a module. It doesn't need to be for any particular level, but on the lower end is preferable.

Red hand of Doom. Maybe skip the last chapter, but the rest is solid.

yes

they're pretty good for learning how to DM, and how to party, since it gives you a feel of how a campaign should go. even advanced players can have a lot of fun with these

Tomb of horrors because it's fun to watch people throw things into the devil mouth, and because no one i've met has been able to figure it out the first time although i have to work double to make sure no one treats all other dungeons like this one

Yes.
I use them for inspiration in my main game or to run small campaigns/one shots.
Tomb of Horrors. There is nothing quite as fun as putting a party through that glorious nightmare. Would not recommend using it in a continuous campaign though, for a one shot it's perfect.

>Do you use them?

No. The base game is usually an expensive investment as in, especially considering D&D forces you to juggle three different rule books for the sake of bolstering sales.

>We are all adults with jobs and families

What free time I have is more than sufficient to draw up a campaign. I have no idea where you're getting this, unless you work particularly grueling hours and have a huge family.

Yay.
Yes. I read through them and tailor them to my group, mixing my own ideas in.
Maria Mercurial, Das Große Donnersturmrennen, The Dying Of St. Margaret's, Dark Heresy's Damned Cities, Dark Conspiracy's Hellsgate.

I don't use them personally. I'm usually fine if the GM uses them when I'm a player, but there was one game where the GM said he was going to be running an open world where we would be free to do what we wanted, and then he ran a module that was anything but. That ground my gears a bit.

>Yay or Nay?
Yay
>Do you use them? How?
they're good for beginners, DMs that can't or don't want to make up their own shit, and you can steal choice bits from them, I do that with module maps all the time
>What are your favourites?

OP's pic and Isle of Dread. Tomb of Horrors and Death Frost Doom

They're a good source of inspiration, if nothing else. Even if you don't want to straight-out run a module, you can grab the bits and pieces you want.

This guy gets it
This guy is a child or has no life outside of making games for himself and his friends. I prefer to spend my spare time on my other hobbies/family

I honestly prefer them as a player. Far too many people who've tried running games for me were absolutely terrible, so if we're going by the book I can put my anxiety behind me a little easier and just enjoy the ride.

I've had games where the ref shafted me from the word go because I had a similar skill set to his dmpc, where encounters were so horribly unbalanced that they were mind numbing, boring and took forever, where characters were raped and impregnated on their way to the adventure, magical realm and autism everywhere.

One guy in particular REQUIRED a three page back story for every game. Then, guaranteed, every fucking time, within three sessions the party would be dropped into a new dimension full of robots and body horror.

If we're playing by the book, there's a lot better chance the game will just run in a mediocre fashion. Mediocre is better than garbage.

>What free time I have is more than sufficient to draw up a campaign. I have no idea where you're getting this, unless you work particularly grueling hours and have a huge family.

Sorry if I'm not a NEET piece of shit with no life outside of games. In my college years there were times I played three times a week, but that is not feasible anymore.
Also,
>Modules cost too much
As if I've ever paid for a RPG book ever
>wheredoyouthinkyouare.jpg

>having a paying job
>not giving deliberately back to the hobby by supporting companies that push good products
i get using troves to look into games. i dont get spending money on games you like, rewarding good content and giving incentive to produce more.

>hating on people for wanting to exercise a slightly higher degree of creative freedom

With all the time you're spending being angry on Veeky Forums you could have designed an encounter from scratch, or taught your kid a life lesson. Why don't you move along if you're so busy?

I've used a couple. They're okay but I prefer to do things myself. I've been DMing so long that it doesn't really take that much more time.

Then again, I spend a great deal of time in hotel rooms and driving and have lots of time to just sit and think. Much of that time is devoted to creative pursuits including D&D.

If I was stuck in an office chair I might want to rely on the more.

That post probably took about 3 minutes at most

If I spend too much time writing campaigns, I won't have time to shitpost on Veeky Forums.

about as much effort as the other anons here put into writing interesting scenarios

I never used to but I started using them for 5th edition and I'm really enjoying it. Now that we're all adults abd have jobs it saves me a ton of time. And if i have an abundance of time for some reason I can use it to make detailed.maps or round out the experience in other ways. Plus my players never have to worry about hitting my feelings or whatever else if there's something they don't like. They can say something is lame or gay or poorly balanced and we all just laugh about it. Like watching a movie together.

Plus, even though we all know forgotten realms is a mediocre setting. Its our mediocre setting. That guilty pleasure. Just some good old name brand generic. And it's fun to feel like you are playing events in the history of the setting.

If you have all the time in the world to make a campaign from scratch either you make it up for months before hand or you aren't making enough prep and are one of those "I'll just wing it" DMs.

I make maps, battle maps,(all hand drawn and inked then digitally painted) do encounter math and trap math. Make hex maps and rules for travel. Do write ups of important descriptions and dialogue. find muaic that fits each important scene you think will happen. have huge word documents abd sub folders made up of charts and tables so you have what you need when you need it, nothing worse than rifling through books for stats and slowing the game to a crawl. I used to print up que cards with all my players abilities and their rukes on them so things went smooth. Design all of this for enough areas that it gives the players enough sandbox to have some freedom.

Normally this takes me about six months of prep before I can even start playing(working in the free time I have after working full time, going to the gym and spending time with my GF/family).

Pre made campaigns save me a lot of fucking time. I still need to make some maps, as the ones included are never enough. But most the math for encounters and balancing is done with is great. I dont have to design a story and adventure.

DMing to me is a performance art. Its not just about the setting and story but about the whole experience. If you do it right you can make even the most generic adventure a fucking blast to play and your friends will have funny stories to tell after.

I agree as a player when I know it's a module I don't have to worry about a "that guy" GM. The amount of GMs ive had who are obviously just making shit up as they go makes me want to die. There's a difference between a sandbox and literary placing things down right in front of the players as they walk. I want the idea that maybe I missed something back there. Maybe I overlooked some treasure or a side quest. Some.secret. that the world exists outside what I am experiencing. Too many DMs just give you an item when they feel like it, or drop a quest right under your nose. Its all done in the name of ooen world and no railroading. But ultimately ill take a well designed and thought out railroad over knowing nothing I do really matters because it's just the DM on whim decidedinf wether I get a reward or find a "secret" or if there's an ambush behind the door or not.

The website One Page Dungeon Contest has dozens, and they're pretty good generally, with some brilliant ones scattered in there.

Are you on crack? He said one-shot. Red Hand is a full multi-month campaign.

Yay
I don't use them, I feel much more comfortable improvising and making up my own material

Yay camp here. I prefer them to making my own stuff from scratch, but I no longer confine myself to doing everything by the book as I used to when I was a teen. The module is a springboard for my imagination, but I mix it up in ways I find interesting.

I like 'em. My favorite is Dead Gods for the Planescape setting. Yes, written by you-know-who. He actually has great ideas when he's doing fluff and not crunch.

>This guy is a child or has no life outside of making games for himself and his friends. I prefer to spend my spare time on my other hobbies/family
Or you're just kind of shit, senpai. It's not hard.

>I'll have you know that my dick is bigger than yours

NEET detected

My bad, I took one-shot as in self-contained, not "playable in one night".

It's really not. You can get the fluff and general structure thought up while you're doing other shit, then take maybe a few hours to sit down and flesh out the skeleton with mechanics and stats.
I honestly don't understand why you'd not be able to do that, nor why you're getting offended, especially considering that the guy I responded to started off by saying that if you have the time to plan out a campaign then you're either a child or have no life, which is both pattently false and insulting.

Because some of us don't fucking have time, and are fucking tired of being condescended by kids because they use something that has been in the hobby since the beginning, maybe.

I refuse to beleive that someone who has the time to bitch and moan on Veeky Forums doesn't have the time to do at least some planning. And you're one to talk about condescension when you can't help but talk about how anyone who has that time is clearly a kid or an idiot. I do have to commend someone of your age for being able to opperate a computer so well, but isn't it time to take your pills?

I have no problem with people who have time to write games from scratch. I used to do that too. Now I can't. But I also can't stand people coming here to tell me how to enjoy my hobbies.

I don't like them personally. While there are a few really cool ones, 5E's for example are too railroady and make too many assumptions. Others like some of the Through The Breach adventures are far worse. Half of the fun of being a GM is building your own world and making your own adventure. I certainly don't find that hard, and lots of RPGs don't really require much prepping. I played with a guy who did no prep at all and he was good at it, though it depends on what you are playing and who you are.

I can't stand people making baseless accusations about my personal life based on my willingness to put aside some time to prep for the hobby that I love. I appologize for comming off a bit hostile, but I honestly don't think making at least the generalities of a campaign is that difficult that it's out the realm of possibility for someone with a full life. I suppose it depends on how creative and flexible you are, but in my experience games don't require too much prep, and certainly not enough to be a hinderance. I'd say it's only about as difficult as learning and fiddling wih a module, whch really defeats the point of the whole thing.

You are still doing it. You don't like modules, fine. Every game ever has modules, and some of them are even decently written (take a look at the Unknown Armies ones for example). I'd rather set up a short campaign based on a module and then move on to a different game than commit to doing all on my own, not because I'm not able to, but because I have other things to do.

Whatever, man. I don't think either of us have enough time to waste on more internet fighting. You do shit your way, I'll do it mine, and hopefully both of us enjoy it

I use them for about 1/3 of my gaming sessions. I use them as a red line for my players to follow but they branch of a lot and than I have to make shit up. I don't really mind, I like it this way. It keeps the pressure on the players. I make sure the rewards for tasks for the modules are bigger than for the made up stuff (or I make them lose recources in the made up stuff) so they feel a great need to go back to the module stuff. This has been working for a couple of months now and makes for some pretty interesting stories.

I DM Runequest 3, and my favourite in that ones are the adventures in Borderlands & Beyond, but my favourite module overall is Eye of the Serpent for D&D 2.
(Players get picked up by Rocs, dropped on a huge mountain and have to fight there way back down)

Yay side, but rarely as written. Many are good for stealing ideas from, a few are good enough to only rework parts of or have lots of blank space for you to manoeuvre. Some are just interesting to look at as examples of what not to do or historical documents, some plug in easily on a hex map or as one-shots if some of your crew can't make it to game night.

Also, some people work 40 hours a week, some work 10, some 60. Some jobs are mentally taxing and you don't have a lot of energy to devote to writing when you're done, some are super easy to do while thinking about game shit. Calm down.

My only experience with them is Living Greyhawk and it was so fucking boring. Every mission felt so similar to all the others and there were always exactly 3 scripted combat encounters so you always knew what to expect.