Hope it went well!! I am about to run my first game as well and am running this. Have played for years, but never DM'd, and now have friends and fam that want to try...this is gonna be interesting to say the least as all but one of my 5 players has never even rolled a polyhedral die.....yay!!!
I play DnD at my school, one of my teachers setup a dnd club, and I think it's reasonable for him to use the modules, since he is a teacher, and has less time.
One of my friends is our normal DM and writes his own adventures. but if he doesn't have time to run something with us I'll take over use his story/stories and just post a sign "in game" with a quest to save a village. Help needed at nearby guild. A for sale sign to buy an inn. And let my players choose their route then go that direction following (loosely) his notes. Works out to be super fun and helps me build on my improv skills.
Lost mines of phandelver was amazing. quite a long adventure too. I actually want to play it again haha. Its fantastic as written but open enough to incorporate character stories easily. lots of maps and adventure, and most importantly it seems to slowly introduce different aspects of 5th ed. to new players. highly recommend the starter set.. You cant beat it for the price too. combined with the free dnd rules via the official site, and maybe a few sets of extra dice you can have a table full of players having a blast for weeks on end for less than 30 bucks.
LMoP is awesome, It has a bunch of NPC's that are only slightly used as a quest givers. I fleshed them out or kept them in the background and developed them further later.
Commenting mid vid, so you may end up touching on this point... I've never understood the mentality of home brewing is hard / takes effort and published adventure modules remove that work and make it easier. Personally I can't run prepublished adventures (I've tried) I find it to be WAY harder and way more work. I don't have time to read a massive textbook, nor is my memory good enough to retain all the details of those massive tomes. Its nearly impossible for me to keep an internal log of all the characters, motives, etc. That makes it difficult for me to improvise, as I'm always worried I do something that goes against the canon of the book and I'll end up screwing myself. For me I do very simple home brews, I think in sessions, and make basic notes that I can take in at a glance during the game. I can prepare a session in a few hours or less. I can improvise whatever I want. Most importantly I understand the world and characters better because they are mine. I have a lot of respect for DM's that are able to successfully run big adventure paths.
My experience has been the same, Published Modules have been more work for me than homebrew adventures, don't get me wrong, I like running both, but I have set aside a bit more time to be ready to run a published campaign.
Well said, and I'm pretty much with you on all of this. I've successfully run parts of long adventures, but I can especially relate to the fear of improvising screwing things up more in the end if you are running a published adventure.
The problem I have with these big modules is that they dont include "campaign at a glance" pages. It would me so beneficial to me if I could look at various flow charts that showed the important characters and motives. They often dont even include a one page text summary of all the major points of the story. Why do I need to read the whole thing in all it's excruciating detail to know who the villain is, where he is, and what he wants?
A lot of them actually do have just this. The most recent 5e adventure, Tomb of Annihilation definitely does. It's about half a page and gives you all the basics. Tales from the Yawning Portal has a point bullet point synopsis of each adventure on the first page of each, and Pathfinder Adventure Paths definitely have nice paragraph or two synopsis at the beginning of each chapter. Out of the Abyss is a couple years old now didn't do a great job with all of this, but did have a chapter summary at the beginning of each. I assume they've learned their lesson about how helpful this and that's why more recent books include a good synopsis of the entire adventure.
Huh....I own both Tomb and Yawning. I've even run Sunless Citadel from Yawning and somehow thought they didn't have these. Maybe that's why I have a hard time with modules, because I sort of just space out and everything becomes a blur when trying to read them.
I've been in homebrew games that were worse than published adventures. I got the feeling that both homebrew DMs I've played with didn't spend any prep time as they didn't want things to be 'on the rails' and so everything felt directionless. The games ended up being less a story and just a series of PC driven shenanigans messing with NPCs. As always, it all depends on the DM!
TOTALLY true. I've played with DMs in their homebrew stuff where I definitely wish they had been running a module. I'm sure it would have been better. :)
That's how I got started, over 20 years ago. An after-school club that dabbled in all forms of gaming being pushed by our physics teacher. Card games, tabletop wargames, RPGs. It was a great entry into the hobby.
If you're a good DM, your players won't know its a published adventure...no matter how "elitist" they are. I have run adventures that are VERY well known and players(with 30+years of experience) didn't recognize them.
I’m a relatively new DM. I tried to start off doing my own adventure and quickly got overwhelmed. That’s when I got a module to run. I kind of feel like a module is little like DM’ing with training wheels for me personally and we have had a lot of fun with them so far. I do Wizards of the Coast modules as well as free hombrew mods I’ve gleaned from the Internet and I’ve been happy with them so far.
I also use dungeons and dragons in my school. I teach English as a second language and find d&d a great way to help students engage in class using English while having fun. 😊 We are doing death house from Curse of Strahd right now
I only run published adventures with homebrew in it. For me I like to get in depth in connecting players to the story but I don't want to work on the story itself. That's why published adventures work out better for me. Also one of the things I enjoy most about dnd is reading the books whether it is the phb or ToA I really enjoy reading dnd books. While trying to figure out how to connect things together in a story can be stressful and draining reading a dnd book for me is always a pleasure.
You can just add a random monster from the monster manual, and even tweak the stats to balance the encounter. The fun of DnD is that you can use your own imagination
I'm going to be running Storm King's Thunder pretty soon for a group of friends at uni, I definitely fall into the category of "dm who lacks inspiration" lmao. First time dming (properly) as well, the tips you gave here will definitely help 😀
i think even after i'm used to dm-ing, i'll still want to run published adventures sometimes just because they....exist....lol..they are there to enjoy! why not?! also there's so much content to draw on for homebrewing that you can get from the published modules
i'm currently running the Hell's Rebels Pathfinder adventure path, and i love it because, as an urban adventure, the whole story takes place in one city with small treks out into the surrounding country-side. this requires the city to be incredibly rich with detail and it is. there's a great amount of freedom in what the players can be and it's very easy for a character to be connected to the city in some way because of the extreme detail. i run my own homebrew, but as i'm a little slow with session prep, i enjoy just sitting down for an hour or so and reading the book to see what's coming up next in the adventure.
Even as a homebrew GM, I like to pillage heavily from the Pathfinder setting, modules, and sometimes APs, because they are really rich sources of worldbuilding and NPCs. That said, many of their Adventure Paths get really formulaic in the broad strokes, and often tend to rely on the party doing specific (dumb) things at critical turning points in order for the story to progress. So I take a "steal what I like, ignore the rest" approach, and don't worry too much about following their plotlines.
That's good news then, can't wait; well actually I will be waiting but so glad at the same time. Good luck with you set though, may it last for future videos/classes.
I’m a brand new DM and am running my players through Sunless Citadel currently. I love your videos, Super helpful! I’ve been using the Sunless Citadel content as a spring board but improvising as well, it was cool to hear that Adding in personal touches or side quests can be a best practice for running published content! It’s more fun that way too, can’t wait to start making my own worlds. Thanks for this series! 🧚♀️🧝♀️
You teach a table top rpg class at high school!? Spoiled kids, In my day we had to be secretive about playing Dungeons and Dragons or the "inquisition" would do bad things to us. Just google "Satanic Panic". I'm a grumpy old man, mueyah!
WASD20 thanks so much. I have some friends who teach professional military wargaming at the Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth, KS. I'll share this with them.
I've been running an adventure for my family out of the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount for the past month or so, an it's been extremely helpful for me as a new DM. I'm provided with a lot of resources already in the module (Tides of Retribution, if it matters), and I've been taking opportunities to build on those resources along the way -- fleshing out NPCs, building loot tables, spicing up combat... It's been such an excellent starting point for throwing us all into the game. But, of course, things went massively off the rails a few sessions ago -- one of our pre-written encounters took a turn for the worse when a large group of enemies got a surprise round on the party and their NPC crew. It took only two rounds for a TPK. I called an extended break, had brief panic attack, then quickly raced to formulate what would happen next. Came back to the table, used some generators to draw up some quick NPCs, and got to work. Now, instead of heading toward the final encounter of the module, the party is bound for Darktow to regroup and prepare. And yet, thanks to the previous parts of the module, I felt ready to take the story into my own hands. I can't recommend pre-written adventures enough for new DMs.
Myself and a group of friends have recently started playing D&D and playing through the lost mines of phandelver. I find it is a very interesting story and gets the players invested on what’s going on, I will definitely be picking up a premade adventure to run afterwards, I feel I could do with a little more experience before taking off on my own imagination. I have tried adding in a little bit here and there for the characters and it seems to be going well, I just need to figure out the bigger picture for each of them 🤔. Great content keep it up, I find it incredibly helpful 😁
My wife is wanting to play, I have played for roughly 20 plus yrs. I'm needing a beginner adventure for 1 player and DM. Any suggestions? Thanks for the vids!!
My DM is about to hit a good break point in the campaign we've been playing since summer 2019. I'm going to run Dragon of Icespire Peak for the group with a new set of characters. I've played on and off since ADnD 2e. but this will be my first time as a DM. I'm looking forward to it, and hoping the pre-made helps with my growing pains as a DM.
Question. My family are trying to get into D&D and we have the Dragon of Icespire Peak beginners kit. It has a bunch of different quests that the town mayor can send the team on which is what I assume is the kind of thing he means when he says modular games - you pick just one quest to do and can come back to the others later as a separate event. I'm going to DM and was only planning on reading the info for the starting quests, just in case at a later time we swap who will be DM so I won't have read ahead. Does anyone know if this is the kind of prewritten adventure that is building towards a big thing at the end (besides finally confronting the dragon when we've levelled up enough) where I do need to have read all the way though so I know what conspiracies are afoot? Maybe I'll try find a proper forum to ask in later. Love the videos!
I would like to mention that the pathfinder beginner box has downloadable free addon adventures known as Beginner Box Bash Demos. You can find them on the paizo website.
Love the video can u do a read of the core books for ppl that can't read that good cus I would really appreciate it I know ppl make home game I know dm will make theyer own monters and or give one that in the book more hp then normal for story line stuff I'm not one of these ppl who's like but the book says I just need help with a full understanding of the books so I can feel like I'm not just playing blind or with one hand behind my back if you can yay if u can't I understand ty for taking the time to read this hope u have a great day
As a DM, I like published adventures as sources for inspiration, maps and encounters for a more sandboxy game. As a player I prefer the more sandboxy published adventures or a DM who is happy to be flexible with more linear modules.
I am glad to hear you "hack it up pretty well" when running published adventures. I am doing the same with some students in our DND club right now. But they are LOVING it! I feel quite fine going off the story to the benefit of keeping the kids engaged and enjoying DND. I feel NO guilt! Great video!
Yep. Using it as a vault of inspiration is the way to go, and from the sounds of it, you may not even need a module. Go nuts! :) And kudos to you for working with the kids!
As a DM who's been running homebrew for 2 years twice a month, I recently picked up a published adventure. It's been such a refreshing and fun experience that I can do nothing but recommend it. In fact, I haven't even finished reading the book. You don't really need to read through everything, as long as you're comfortable improvising with your players. Not caring do much about the material you're running just feels great, since you didn't put hundreds of hours into working it. Just some of the most enjoyable games I've had
I'm a brand new DM running Lost Mine of Phandelver as my first campaign. For me, DMing is like being the director of a play. I don't also have to be the playwright. My skillset is more in managing and running encounters, playing NPCs and monsters, etc. I don't really have a lot of ideas for creating my own stories or worlds. So far the published adventure has provided everything I need to run a fun and interesting campaign for my players.
So I'm trying to prepare to run my first game of DnD. I have never played before and was wondering how you end a session. My instinct is to set a timer and go "ok and time is up see you all next week", but that seems incorrect. Any tips?
Great question. I do try to keep a 3 to 4 hour limit, and find a natural stopping place. My attempts to predict where that would be are not always accurate, but it works out.
I'm running an adventure module because I'm a high school student, doing sport at a national level and running three campaigns. I'm running one as an adventure module because I always talk 2-3 hours planning per regular session.
Great video Nate, I totally love your channel. I have been DMing for 2 months now and I started with a publishes adventure called Princes Of Apocalypse. One of my players wanted to solo role play his backstory and I accidentally killed him so we turned it into "Flashback Sessions." It became it's own campaign with all of my players, RIP Thoog. Now everybody in my group is involved and we haven't played from the book since our second session. I love the freedom of story I now have to give then.
In my opinion 5e needs to release a "Villians" supplement because more often than not the heroic party is just a reactionary to the villian's motives and plans. So if we had an official 'Who's Who' of the forgotten realms which stated every important villian or character's agenda and aspirations, that could be much more useful for DMs in creating new adventures while still having a feeling of 'officialness' than an adventure module. Secondly, when i do run a published adventure, i change remove add mix and match just about any and every feature of the adventure. To some people our campaign would look unrecognizably different from the module
Favorite published adventures? Against the Giant's 1st ed. The entire Descent series, because Drow! (The original drow-when they first appeared!) The Bloodstone series where you end up fighting Orcus in his home. And Threshold of Evil, from issue # 10 of Dungeon magazine. Where someone reasons out just exactly what a 20th level mage can accomplish when he has time and wish spells on his side. You can still find copies on ebay.
I think the railroading issue isn't exclusive at all to published adventures but more tied to DM attitude. They can't anticipate every choice a player group will make so a DM will always have to tailor it. They even say this. As soon as you open the book, the adventure becomes your own. It's a problem in homebrew too; the DM has an idea of how the plot will go, the players make a choice not thought of, now they're in the same boat. What published adventures give you is a well fleshed out world. Villains and npcs that make sense and stay consistent. Well thought out locations. There's typically content that players wont ever see. Need to change things up? Move that content to where they are to get the story going. You at least have the tools to make it coherent, now you just need to figure out which parts your players need and when.
Im using The Sunless Citadel for my first session for tomorrow, i dont plan to do much actual playing, i think it will take some time to get them ready, its there first time as much as mine
The one tip that seemed counterintuitive was that published adventures don’t save time. I definitely found that to be true: I was surprised how much time investment was required to understand the published adventures (Tomb of Annihilation took several weeks of reading) but when I put together my own adventures I found I could recall details so much quicker during game sessions (this makes sense since it was my story and not someone else’s I had to learn).
I like to use Adventure Path as a backbone of my campaign and inspiration and rest I tweak according to my players actions and decisions or if I have some cool idea of my own. Instead of line rails I use just dots in the story arc.
How are you finding it, I’m a new dm and I’m debating on running that or skt and thinking the sandbox style of tomb may be a bit hard for me to deal with
Hmmm if I was gonna see a play i'd rather see something written by Shakespeare or Marlowe than some sweaty neckbeard I went to school with. DnD modules are pretty much the same.
This made me thik of a memory; In 1985 I went to D&D camp at Shippensburg University in PA. It was awesome, every day we had classes/lectures on stuff, were all split into groups and all running a tournament module. Frank Mentzer was there and I got him to sign my Monster Manual and thought I was so cool, lol.
have the site donjon at the ready. It is so damn handy for making quick adventures, especially dungeons. Also their easy to use encounter calculator and monster listing helps when deciding based on CR what monsters to throw in.
After running strictly homebrew for over 15 years, I have been running modules for the last 5 or so. I have found it fun that I am a little more in on the different nuances of the Forgotten Realms, the Underdark, different creatures I had ignored in the past, and participating "in the discussion" as you put it. I'm also very busy as a teacher and dad to two young kids. That said, I chop up the adventure and modify it heavily. For example, I'm currently running a party through Out of the Abyss (though modified for 3.5) and they just reached the Darklake and I threw in a "Jabba's Palace" style tavern on the Darklake run by a beholder. I also wrote up every single encounter leading up to it so far. My party is having a blast. I like taking the bare bones of the module and tweaking it to make it more epic, funny or fun.
Great videos thank you so much. I am running my first game ever as a DM with my wife and a friend and we are all new to tabletop RPG’s. We have a lot of experience with tabletop games like Terraforming Mars, Dune, Apollo and Villanous but wanted to get creative and expand our gaming. We are playing through the Dragon of Icespire and I have started expanding the on-rails adventure to fit their character stories better after an initial run through the Dwarven Excavation. I’m really enjoying your vids and can’t wait to get better at being a DM.
I'm running my first D&D adventure with my sis and her gf this will also be my first time playing D&D ever and I'll run The Essential Edition with Homebrew Elements btw if anyone wants to try D&D and doesnt want to pay there have been all D&D Books Realesed
I use Stat Trackers - its expensive, but really worth their weight in gold, and they come with many blank cards in case you want to use creatures from Tome Of Beasts or say from Dreaded Accursed.
I’m very new to DMing. And I’m still a bit confused on how to “read” a module. Like what parts are for me, and what parts are for the players? Just want to make sure I’m doing it right?
What's a good published adventure to run if I wanted the classic medival fantasy experience? You know something like "our heroes must save a princess from a big mean dragon"?
I love published adventures. I freely admit that my creativity gets tapped out. The big problem I've found with published adventures is trying to get into the head of the writer. There is a science fiction game where a lot of published adventures are about piracy and other criminal activities. Others are rather like reading a theatrical script and then trying to envision it. At times it's almost as difficult as writing my own. But in the long run they're well worth it.
I'm a new DM who has only played a few games 15 years ago and looking to start a new party with some family and friends. I typically work 60 hrs a week and dont have the time or experiance to create my own adventure. I have planned to start with the lost mines of phandelver and move to storm kings thunder if the party sticks together. The published campaigns have helped a ton so far and well see how well the game goes in 2 weeks when our first session starts. Wish me luck.
I'm actually running a game using several different modules with extra prep work and a setting guide for the forgotten realms. the players can change their module at any time and i have done tons of extra prep work and organized a bunch of "Side quests" so that the world feels more full. it is like the base game is the setting and all of the adventures are DLC.
I am very new to this game and I will be the th in my family group. I am using stranger things hunt for the thessylhydra. It is very simple and it im enjoying adding my own descriptions of scenes to paint a visual picture. It also has limited encounters but I have the option to add more and the same with traps and treasure. It's worth a look for the ultimate newbie like me :)
I never understand the elitist attitudes from people, it turns people off so much. Why do some thing that stops other people from enjoying an amazing hobby?
To properly make your own adventure, much less your own module, you need an intimate knowledge of the world that they are adventuring in and the game mechanics so your story elements and monsters make sense. Random encounters are to be rolled before making the adventure if they are even needed at all. I’ve seen published material that was absolute garbage in terms of story coherence and game balance. The best thing to do, I’ve found is take a published module so you don’t have to make everything from scratch but then change things as you see fit, even if you need to rearrange or just take out events or monsters.
Great stuff Nate, thanks! Yeah it's an interesting debate. Agree with all your reasons and scenarios! I think the main reason when I've run published adventures is just simply the excellence of the product. If you see or buy one that really stands out, inspires you, has amazing prose, an incredible plotline, and conjures up an atmosphere you'll never forget (*cough* Ravenloft) why then you want to share that with your players! Also, I'd add that it's worth remembering that D&D players have something like 35 years of adventures and modules to draw from - sure, you might have to update the stat blocks, but you can pick up amazing stuff from older editions or other publishers online for a fraction of the price of the official WotC releases. Finally - you can always go "halfway house" and use things like pre-published dungeon maps, or pre-published lists of plots, or pre-published lists of adversaries, and then do the rest yourself. Bit like the Adventure Kit idea.
I absolutely agree, Michael. I mentioned the excellence of the product under one of my points, but I think it really could have been it's own point. You see it, it's great, you want to use it. They often tell great stories and are well-executed.
I can make something that feels way more free form but ill never be able to come up with stuff like chris Perkins... there are benefits to both but at the very least you should get a few to steal from
Great video man! I was actually surprised to not fall under the categories of GM's who would run these adventures. I like them because I love the world of the Forgotten Realms and get a kick of having my players run around through areas that I read about in the Drizz't and Elminster series. I watched a lot of reviews for adventure paths and actually chose Horde of the Dragon Queen even though it was never rated very high, specifically because of its location. I am starting it next week and am super pumped about it!
I am currently running the lost mines of phandelver as a first time dm... I have photographed and printed the stat blocks... I have also got 3 players using the characters from the set and 4 not.... sometimes it’s hard to remember where and what their characters are able and allowed to do with players that have never played the game before. I myself have played very little but a few steps ahead of them... 😁
for the short on time thing, you can also download a bunch of little one shots and short adventures and scrapbook them into your campaign is super easy and quick. just change names and backstories to match your story and jump into it. most are like 5 or so pages and loads are free or under $5
My entire Pathfinder game as a DM was based on modules, campaign and lore of Golarion... but I modified them so much that it was almost unrecognizable at the end in the hope that my players (who are readers-fan of all that is RPG) can still be surprise. It take me a lot of time to change all the stories, and enconters, and dungeons, but it was still really satisfaying because at the end, it felt like my own product. And because I had that solid base, it was easier to improvise along the will of my players if they went off the rails. For exemple, the group just finished "Hollow's last hope" and "Crown of the Kobold King" when a new mage player joined the table. In his backstories, he was coming from Olfden. I could just have them go to the next module ("Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale" that I adjusted to be their level) but thanks to Pathfinderwiki, I knew in the lore that Olfden was supposed to be attack that year (4707 AR) by werewolf. So I got the new player and goes : "Yeah, so in fact, your city was almost ravaged by these creatures and your mission is to get help from Falcon's Hollow." And that's how I had to created that massive urban guerrilla. In all this, the players instantly became brothers of arms, finally gained a group name (the Company of the Silver Blood) and... got into a few trouble with the group getting exiled of Andoran because of political friction with the mayor of Falcon's Hollow, and the mage getting a traveling trader pregnant... thus starting the next module as I wanted but in such an organic way that it didn't looked at all like getting on rails again. I have maybe another exemple for each member of that six-players-table, but it would probably be too long to write it all and nobody will read it anyway, so...
I recently bought an adventure module for the following reasons: 1.) I'm a fairly new DM. I'm still working on a custom campaign and I want to get a feel for what goes into one. 2.) My little cousins just started and I want to give them a taste of what playing D&D can be like. 3.) Research. Taking elements you like from other stories doesn't diminish your creativity (so long as you're not plageurizing; different debate). Is using a module bad? That really depends on the module and what you want from the adventure.
I personally think when learning a new system, if it is one where the GM prepares an adventure, then you SHOULD run at least one published adventure. This gives you a feel for how the games go, gives you insight into ways to use the mechanics that you might not have realized. You get an idea of tone, and can avoid accidentally bringing in baggage from the previous game you've ran ("you mean I shouldn't prepare a series of balanced combats for Numenera?").
I started playing pretty late with 4e. DM'd and played for about a year then switched to 5e when that came out and played for another 2. It's been a few years since then and I'm starting up a campaign with some friends again. Doing the Lost Mines of Phandelver helps me familiarize myself with simply being a DM again. I wouldn't really have the time to sit and read a larger published works, myself. But they do look like a good time. Especially the Ravnica one since I started also playing MTG about a year or 2 ago funny enough.
I'm reasonably new to DnD, I grew up listening to Spoony's Counter Monkey series and I recently ran a homebrew Call of Cthulhu campaign with 2 players. These videos are a godsend for new DMs like me whose players want to start cracking open the massively dense boulder that is DnD. I got the LMoP module and will be running that to get a grip on the setting and basic rules before writing my own. Thanks for the videos and support!
Thanks for the video, Nate! You are awesome! I think one way to save time using published adventures is to take dungeons from those books and integrate them into your campaign, including necessary changes. For me dungeon and combat design are the most time consuming part of preping. It's a lot of fun, but you know.... with all this important real life crap you just might be short on time. (Kidding, both my fantasy and real lives are great=))
So, I picked up Waterdeep: Dragon Heist intending to DM the campaign, but I also picked up Waterdeep: City Encounters off of the DMs Guild. My table is going to be a combination of Adventurer's League and Homebrew because the general sense of the new AL rules is unfavorable but I don't want to freeze out players who want to take their characters to another table. So, random encounters can help the Homebrew players catch up on experience if they're lagging behind the AL players, who don't get experience from random encounters . . . or gold . . . or magic items . . . Also, if we complete the campaign early (before November 2nd), or I want time to read through Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, I can run a few random encounters or homebrew some material based off the encounters listed. There's one encounter called 'Ensorcelled Child' which could make for a fantastic encounter, requiring the players to figure out the source of the child's possession, destroy the source, and then perform a ritual to drive out the possessing spirit. Or, I can make up a reason for the players to sneak through the lairs of one of the villains not used during our play through. Honestly, the possibilities are endless, you just have to find and cultivate the spark of creativity. For a lot of people that can start with a published campaign.
I'm currently running a mashup of three 1e AD&D adventure modules (Against the cult of the reptile god, Secret of Bone hill, and Secret of Saltmarsh) in a 5e steampunk setting. I love modules for what I can mine from them. I've run some modules straight as well, but I am a dm that does much better with a basic structure and improv than remembering a zillion minor details and where to flip for which details. This sometimes causes issues if I don't take good notes on what I've changed... I wholeheartedly recommend running published adventures if you like. But if you are like me (discovery writer/gardner vs. outliner/architect), be sure to allow yourself to be loose with the source material. I also love the inspiration I get from the adventures. You can yank amazing dungeon rooms. Awesome villains. Interesting towns...there's a lot to mine from the decades of pre-written adventures.
I do think running the modules save me time. When I have to think my own stuff I often get chocie paralysis or writer's block, it takes me waay longer to come up with my own stuff than read and prepare a module
Late to the party: I have always DMed my own stuff, but all my campaigns were doomed to die, because the playerbase changed and I run myself into forms of writer blockades. Now with dnd 5e I've runned Curse of Strahd and Rise of Tiamat. WotC makes awesome products now in my opinion and especially Curse of Strahd was an absolute blast. I will finish RoT this sunday and are planning on returning to Barovia soon. This are my first campaigns I have finished and everyone at the table had so much fun. Always have in mind, that you aren't restricted to the pages of these books. I have transformed the campaigns heavily, so far, that I have moved entire places around, but these book take so much work away from me and give awesome inspiration. Planning on running Waterdeep Dragon Heist next and will probably alter it heavily also, to include more of the heist aspect. Love the current WotC books.
I either use dndbeyond with separate tab pages for stats or an excel with the encounters per room. For additional encounters, I write the important stuff down: Stats, AC, HP, Attack modifier & avg damage.
Well, I'm a bit of a fighter when it comes to d&d. So, when I come to be a dungeon master, I tend to run more combats and make less of exploration and social interaction, 'cause I think that it takes more fun out of it (even knowing that it is wrong for my players, who can like other parts of the rpg experience). SO, I tend to run published adventures in way to keep it more balanced.
I remember one game where I stopped my players off at a small town by the ocean to rest and resupply then they were supposed to continue to the point of their quest either walking or maybe they noticed the passing caravan heading that way. BUT NO! One of my players rolled a Nat 20 to persuade a sea merchant to take them out to sea. WTF. Talk about having to be flexable. They literally spent a full hour playing "sailing simulator" then I had to whip up a huge storm that destroyed the boat washed them ashore, with exhaustion so they had to get on this caravan that just so happen to see them from the road just in order to get them to where I needed them for the end of that session. Had a great time, but dang I need to work on my improv cause this isn't the first time my friends have been like "wow that's a big tree. DM you said it was 80 feet tall right? Ok, I'm going to climb it." (DM remembers oh he has 11 hp left.) *facepalm*
I am a DM who can have good ideas - but I need something to fire up my creativity. This spark, this video I saw, that unrelated comment, some movie-quote anything. On the other hand I can really feel all those people feeling overwhelmed by prepared modules. I rarely ran modules - and then mostly one page dungeons or short adventures I heavily modified. I mostly buy modules for salvage-purposes - neat ideas I sprinkle in my adventures or build another ones from. But I have great respect of people who can run modules - because reading them makes so much fun and imaging to play this also - it just ends up totally butchered when I use one :D
do any of your students find you online? how will or do you handle that if and when they do? do kids play dnd these days? i played when i was in highschool. about summer of junior year, into community college. 2005 - 2008 i graduated highschool 2006. droped out community college 2008. wish now i had stayed. need to find out how to get back in. i would enjoy playing dnd with the old group again also.
As a DM of over 30 years and multiple editions I agree that published adventures can be railroads. But the recent batch of 5e ones have been much more open (jungle trekking through Chult, exploring Waterdeep and Undermountain). Most of my games now are ran in my FLGS as Adventurers League so have to stick to what's written, but I still like to put little bits here and there tied to player characters back stories just to help personalise them.
Going to run my first d&d with friends tonight, we're doing the lost mines of Phandelver because we're all newbies, and this video is just in time!
rankfall15 How did it go A year later I’m in that exact position
Hope it went well!! I am about to run my first game as well and am running this. Have played for years, but never DM'd, and now have friends and fam that want to try...this is gonna be interesting to say the least as all but one of my 5 players has never even rolled a polyhedral die.....yay!!!
I'm two weeks away from running Phandelver too! Hope your game went well!
I’m doing that one with my family and I’m sssstttttrrrruuuugggglllliiiinnnngggg
I'm three weeks away from my game and nobody even knows what DnD is except me.
Wait did he say his "Table Top RPG Class???" Where was this when I was in school 😭
You and me both buddy! 😓
I’m glad I’m not the only one who had this same thought!
I play DnD at my school, one of my teachers setup a dnd club, and I think it's reasonable for him to use the modules, since he is a teacher, and has less time.
you are so lucky, i wish i had a D&D club, i do have an anime club but no D&D
That's really cool❤
@@clankerr6 Well at least you have friends
When i run, i use published adventures and customize side stuff and add my own additional storyline!
One of my friends is our normal DM and writes his own adventures. but if he doesn't have time to run something with us I'll take over use his story/stories and just post a sign "in game" with a quest to save a village. Help needed at nearby guild. A for sale sign to buy an inn. And let my players choose their route then go that direction following (loosely) his notes. Works out to be super fun and helps me build on my improv skills.
Lost mines of phandelver was amazing. quite a long adventure too. I actually want to play it again haha. Its fantastic as written but open enough to incorporate character stories easily. lots of maps and adventure, and most importantly it seems to slowly introduce different aspects of 5th ed. to new players. highly recommend the starter set.. You cant beat it for the price too. combined with the free dnd rules via the official site, and maybe a few sets of extra dice you can have a table full of players having a blast for weeks on end for less than 30 bucks.
LMoP is awesome, It has a bunch of NPC's that are only slightly used as a quest givers. I fleshed them out or kept them in the background and developed them further later.
There's a basic set of free D&D rules that comes with the starter set as well
Tons of space for adding your own content. I start the group in Neverwinter in a tavern waiting for Gundren.
Commenting mid vid, so you may end up touching on this point...
I've never understood the mentality of home brewing is hard / takes effort and published adventure modules remove that work and make it easier. Personally I can't run prepublished adventures (I've tried) I find it to be WAY harder and way more work. I don't have time to read a massive textbook, nor is my memory good enough to retain all the details of those massive tomes. Its nearly impossible for me to keep an internal log of all the characters, motives, etc. That makes it difficult for me to improvise, as I'm always worried I do something that goes against the canon of the book and I'll end up screwing myself.
For me I do very simple home brews, I think in sessions, and make basic notes that I can take in at a glance during the game. I can prepare a session in a few hours or less. I can improvise whatever I want. Most importantly I understand the world and characters better because they are mine.
I have a lot of respect for DM's that are able to successfully run big adventure paths.
My experience has been the same, Published Modules have been more work for me than homebrew adventures, don't get me wrong, I like running both, but I have set aside a bit more time to be ready to run a published campaign.
Well said, and I'm pretty much with you on all of this. I've successfully run parts of long adventures, but I can especially relate to the fear of improvising screwing things up more in the end if you are running a published adventure.
The problem I have with these big modules is that they dont include "campaign at a glance" pages. It would me so beneficial to me if I could look at various flow charts that showed the important characters and motives. They often dont even include a one page text summary of all the major points of the story. Why do I need to read the whole thing in all it's excruciating detail to know who the villain is, where he is, and what he wants?
A lot of them actually do have just this. The most recent 5e adventure, Tomb of Annihilation definitely does. It's about half a page and gives you all the basics. Tales from the Yawning Portal has a point bullet point synopsis of each adventure on the first page of each, and Pathfinder Adventure Paths definitely have nice paragraph or two synopsis at the beginning of each chapter. Out of the Abyss is a couple years old now didn't do a great job with all of this, but did have a chapter summary at the beginning of each. I assume they've learned their lesson about how helpful this and that's why more recent books include a good synopsis of the entire adventure.
Huh....I own both Tomb and Yawning. I've even run Sunless Citadel from Yawning and somehow thought they didn't have these. Maybe that's why I have a hard time with modules, because I sort of just space out and everything becomes a blur when trying to read them.
I've been in homebrew games that were worse than published adventures. I got the feeling that both homebrew DMs I've played with didn't spend any prep time as they didn't want things to be 'on the rails' and so everything felt directionless. The games ended up being less a story and just a series of PC driven shenanigans messing with NPCs. As always, it all depends on the DM!
TOTALLY true. I've played with DMs in their homebrew stuff where I definitely wish they had been running a module. I'm sure it would have been better. :)
I love that you teach a tabletop rpg class at school
That's how I got started, over 20 years ago. An after-school club that dabbled in all forms of gaming being pushed by our physics teacher. Card games, tabletop wargames, RPGs. It was a great entry into the hobby.
If you're a good DM, your players won't know its a published adventure...no matter how "elitist" they are. I have run adventures that are VERY well known and players(with 30+years of experience) didn't recognize them.
I agree.
@Danny BRITZMAN I would condense a module anyway to a short list of key-notes. If the OP does the same, then players probably won't notice :D
I’m a relatively new DM. I tried to start off doing my own adventure and quickly got overwhelmed. That’s when I got a module to run. I kind of feel like a module is little like DM’ing with training wheels for me personally and we have had a lot of fun with them so far. I do Wizards of the Coast modules as well as free hombrew mods I’ve gleaned from the Internet and I’ve been happy with them so far.
Training wheels is a great way to put it for a new DM. That's how I used them.
I have many ideas for campaigns but don't know how to make npcs or build world so i will start with modules
I also use dungeons and dragons in my school. I teach English as a second language and find d&d a great way to help students engage in class using English while having fun. 😊 We are doing death house from Curse of Strahd right now
I wish you were my english teacher!
I only run published adventures with homebrew in it.
For me I like to get in depth in connecting players to the story but I don't want to work on the story itself. That's why published adventures work out better for me.
Also one of the things I enjoy most about dnd is reading the books whether it is the phb or ToA I really enjoy reading dnd books. While trying to figure out how to connect things together in a story can be stressful and draining reading a dnd book for me is always a pleasure.
I had this problem tonight with "The Lost Mine" campaign. I kept having to look back at the monsters and it was annoying
Grant Dallmeier if you have a printer you can print out
You can just add a random monster from the monster manual, and even tweak the stats to balance the encounter. The fun of DnD is that you can use your own imagination
I'm going to be running Storm King's Thunder pretty soon for a group of friends at uni, I definitely fall into the category of "dm who lacks inspiration" lmao. First time dming (properly) as well, the tips you gave here will definitely help 😀
i think even after i'm used to dm-ing, i'll still want to run published adventures sometimes just because they....exist....lol..they are there to enjoy! why not?! also there's so much content to draw on for homebrewing that you can get from the published modules
i'm currently running the Hell's Rebels Pathfinder adventure path, and i love it because, as an urban adventure, the whole story takes place in one city with small treks out into the surrounding country-side. this requires the city to be incredibly rich with detail and it is. there's a great amount of freedom in what the players can be and it's very easy for a character to be connected to the city in some way because of the extreme detail. i run my own homebrew, but as i'm a little slow with session prep, i enjoy just sitting down for an hour or so and reading the book to see what's coming up next in the adventure.
Sounds awesome.
Even as a homebrew GM, I like to pillage heavily from the Pathfinder setting, modules, and sometimes APs, because they are really rich sources of worldbuilding and NPCs. That said, many of their Adventure Paths get really formulaic in the broad strokes, and often tend to rely on the party doing specific (dumb) things at critical turning points in order for the story to progress. So I take a "steal what I like, ignore the rest" approach, and don't worry too much about following their plotlines.
Nate will yo be making more D&D Rules School videos? The first one helped clear some things up.
Yes! Right now the hold up is my green screen and teleprompter set up in my office as it is under construction a bit still.
That's good news then, can't wait; well actually I will be waiting but so glad at the same time. Good luck with you set though, may it last for future videos/classes.
I’m a brand new DM and am running my players through Sunless Citadel currently. I love your videos,
Super helpful! I’ve been using the Sunless Citadel content as a spring board but improvising as well, it was cool to hear that
Adding in personal touches or side quests can be a best practice for running published content! It’s more fun that way too, can’t wait to start making my own worlds. Thanks for this series! 🧚♀️🧝♀️
You teach a table top rpg class at high school!? Spoiled kids, In my day we had to be secretive about playing Dungeons and Dragons or the "inquisition" would do bad things to us. Just google "Satanic Panic". I'm a grumpy old man, mueyah!
Oh I know! I teach my students all about the satanic panic so they know how good they have it!
WASD20 do you have a video or a blog where you go through the curriculum and learning objectives?
I do indeed! www.wasd20.net/rpgclass/
I also have some videos on the course: ruclips.net/video/YO8yAoyqyUo/видео.html
WASD20 thanks so much. I have some friends who teach professional military wargaming at the Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth, KS. I'll share this with them.
I can't get enough of your baldness!
It’s pretty incredible, I know.
Like Moby + D&D. I'm sold.
That is OUTSTANDNG that you teach a table top RPG class for high schoolers! Keep up the Strong Work!
Thanks! It's fun. :)
I've been running an adventure for my family out of the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount for the past month or so, an it's been extremely helpful for me as a new DM. I'm provided with a lot of resources already in the module (Tides of Retribution, if it matters), and I've been taking opportunities to build on those resources along the way -- fleshing out NPCs, building loot tables, spicing up combat... It's been such an excellent starting point for throwing us all into the game.
But, of course, things went massively off the rails a few sessions ago -- one of our pre-written encounters took a turn for the worse when a large group of enemies got a surprise round on the party and their NPC crew. It took only two rounds for a TPK. I called an extended break, had brief panic attack, then quickly raced to formulate what would happen next. Came back to the table, used some generators to draw up some quick NPCs, and got to work. Now, instead of heading toward the final encounter of the module, the party is bound for Darktow to regroup and prepare. And yet, thanks to the previous parts of the module, I felt ready to take the story into my own hands. I can't recommend pre-written adventures enough for new DMs.
Myself and a group of friends have recently started playing D&D and playing through the lost mines of phandelver. I find it is a very interesting story and gets the players invested on what’s going on, I will definitely be picking up a premade adventure to run afterwards, I feel I could do with a little more experience before taking off on my own imagination. I have tried adding in a little bit here and there for the characters and it seems to be going well, I just need to figure out the bigger picture for each of them 🤔. Great content keep it up, I find it incredibly helpful 😁
My wife is wanting to play, I have played for roughly 20 plus yrs. I'm needing a beginner adventure for 1 player and DM. Any suggestions? Thanks for the vids!!
My DM is about to hit a good break point in the campaign we've been playing since summer 2019. I'm going to run Dragon of Icespire Peak for the group with a new set of characters. I've played on and off since ADnD 2e. but this will be my first time as a DM. I'm looking forward to it, and hoping the pre-made helps with my growing pains as a DM.
Question. My family are trying to get into D&D and we have the Dragon of Icespire Peak beginners kit. It has a bunch of different quests that the town mayor can send the team on which is what I assume is the kind of thing he means when he says modular games - you pick just one quest to do and can come back to the others later as a separate event.
I'm going to DM and was only planning on reading the info for the starting quests, just in case at a later time we swap who will be DM so I won't have read ahead.
Does anyone know if this is the kind of prewritten adventure that is building towards a big thing at the end (besides finally confronting the dragon when we've levelled up enough) where I do need to have read all the way though so I know what conspiracies are afoot?
Maybe I'll try find a proper forum to ask in later.
Love the videos!
I would like to mention that the pathfinder beginner box has downloadable free addon adventures known as Beginner Box Bash Demos. You can find them on the paizo website.
The new D&D Essentials box is similar, with multiple planned pdfs to progress further with your group.
Love the video can u do a read of the core books for ppl that can't read that good cus I would really appreciate it I know ppl make home game I know dm will make theyer own monters and or give one that in the book more hp then normal for story line stuff I'm not one of these ppl who's like but the book says I just need help with a full understanding of the books so I can feel like I'm not just playing blind or with one hand behind my back if you can yay if u can't I understand ty for taking the time to read this hope u have a great day
As a DM, I like published adventures as sources for inspiration, maps and encounters for a more sandboxy game. As a player I prefer the more sandboxy published adventures or a DM who is happy to be flexible with more linear modules.
I'm with you.
nice doornob
It’s how my captors feed me.
I find the Android app "D&D Companion App" very helpful for running encounters.
Try Fight Club 5 and Game Master 5. Excellent newer apps for Android.
Its my first time DMing tonight and I'm running The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Wish me luck!
I am glad to hear you "hack it up pretty well" when running published adventures. I am doing the same with some students in our DND club right now. But they are LOVING it! I feel quite fine going off the story to the benefit of keeping the kids engaged and enjoying DND. I feel NO guilt! Great video!
Yep. Using it as a vault of inspiration is the way to go, and from the sounds of it, you may not even need a module. Go nuts! :) And kudos to you for working with the kids!
As a DM who's been running homebrew for 2 years twice a month, I recently picked up a published adventure. It's been such a refreshing and fun experience that I can do nothing but recommend it. In fact, I haven't even finished reading the book. You don't really need to read through everything, as long as you're comfortable improvising with your players. Not caring do much about the material you're running just feels great, since you didn't put hundreds of hours into working it. Just some of the most enjoyable games I've had
I'm a brand new DM running Lost Mine of Phandelver as my first campaign. For me, DMing is like being the director of a play. I don't also have to be the playwright. My skillset is more in managing and running encounters, playing NPCs and monsters, etc. I don't really have a lot of ideas for creating my own stories or worlds. So far the published adventure has provided everything I need to run a fun and interesting campaign for my players.
Well said!
Tips start at 8:40 .
So I'm trying to prepare to run my first game of DnD. I have never played before and was wondering how you end a session. My instinct is to set a timer and go "ok and time is up see you all next week", but that seems incorrect. Any tips?
Great question. I do try to keep a 3 to 4 hour limit, and find a natural stopping place. My attempts to predict where that would be are not always accurate, but it works out.
I'm running an adventure module because I'm a high school student, doing sport at a national level and running three campaigns. I'm running one as an adventure module because I always talk 2-3 hours planning per regular session.
Great video Nate, I totally love your channel. I have been DMing for 2 months now and I started with a publishes adventure called Princes Of Apocalypse. One of my players wanted to solo role play his backstory and I accidentally killed him so we turned it into "Flashback Sessions." It became it's own campaign with all of my players, RIP Thoog. Now everybody in my group is involved and we haven't played from the book since our second session. I love the freedom of story I now have to give then.
Sounds awesome, and sounds like my experience with modules. Sometimes you gotta go where the story leads you, and sometimes that ain't the book! :)
In my opinion 5e needs to release a "Villians" supplement because more often than not the heroic party is just a reactionary to the villian's motives and plans. So if we had an official 'Who's Who' of the forgotten realms which stated every important villian or character's agenda and aspirations, that could be much more useful for DMs in creating new adventures while still having a feeling of 'officialness' than an adventure module.
Secondly, when i do run a published adventure, i change remove add mix and match just about any and every feature of the adventure. To some people our campaign would look unrecognizably different from the module
Favorite published adventures? Against the Giant's 1st ed. The entire Descent series, because Drow! (The original drow-when they first appeared!) The Bloodstone series where you end up fighting Orcus in his home. And Threshold of Evil, from issue # 10 of Dungeon magazine. Where someone reasons out just exactly what a 20th level mage can accomplish when he has time and wish spells on his side. You can still find copies on ebay.
If the module is fun, awesome. If homebrew is fun, awesome.
I am a brand new dm. I am going to be running Tomb of annihilation in a few months. Thanks for the advice
I think the railroading issue isn't exclusive at all to published adventures but more tied to DM attitude. They can't anticipate every choice a player group will make so a DM will always have to tailor it. They even say this. As soon as you open the book, the adventure becomes your own. It's a problem in homebrew too; the DM has an idea of how the plot will go, the players make a choice not thought of, now they're in the same boat.
What published adventures give you is a well fleshed out world. Villains and npcs that make sense and stay consistent. Well thought out locations. There's typically content that players wont ever see. Need to change things up? Move that content to where they are to get the story going. You at least have the tools to make it coherent, now you just need to figure out which parts your players need and when.
Im using The Sunless Citadel for my first session for tomorrow, i dont plan to do much actual playing, i think it will take some time to get them ready, its there first time as much as mine
The one tip that seemed counterintuitive was that published adventures don’t save time. I definitely found that to be true: I was surprised how much time investment was required to understand the published adventures (Tomb of Annihilation took several weeks of reading) but when I put together my own adventures I found I could recall details so much quicker during game sessions (this makes sense since it was my story and not someone else’s I had to learn).
I like to use Adventure Path as a backbone of my campaign and inspiration and rest I tweak according to my players actions and decisions or if I have some cool idea of my own. Instead of line rails I use just dots in the story arc.
Nice! I just started DM'ing the Tomb Of Annihilation, so this is great!
Excellent!
Thanks!
How are you finding it, I’m a new dm and I’m debating on running that or skt and thinking the sandbox style of tomb may be a bit hard for me to deal with
ThenessAwesomeness If the sandbox style is hard for you, focus on chapters 4 and 5, the Dungeons.
Hmmm if I was gonna see a play i'd rather see something written by Shakespeare or Marlowe than some sweaty neckbeard I went to school with.
DnD modules are pretty much the same.
Hi Nate. I'm also a high school teacher. I'd like to hear more about rpg class.... might want to try it in my school
I have some videos on it. Probably will show up if you search for “RPG class high school” on RUclips.
This made me thik of a memory; In 1985 I went to D&D camp at Shippensburg University in PA. It was awesome, every day we had classes/lectures on stuff, were all split into groups and all running a tournament module. Frank Mentzer was there and I got him to sign my Monster Manual and thought I was so cool, lol.
have the site donjon at the ready. It is so damn handy for making quick adventures, especially dungeons. Also their easy to use encounter calculator and monster listing helps when deciding based on CR what monsters to throw in.
I love donjon!
After running strictly homebrew for over 15 years, I have been running modules for the last 5 or so. I have found it fun that I am a little more in on the different nuances of the Forgotten Realms, the Underdark, different creatures I had ignored in the past, and participating "in the discussion" as you put it. I'm also very busy as a teacher and dad to two young kids. That said, I chop up the adventure and modify it heavily. For example, I'm currently running a party through Out of the Abyss (though modified for 3.5) and they just reached the Darklake and I threw in a "Jabba's Palace" style tavern on the Darklake run by a beholder. I also wrote up every single encounter leading up to it so far. My party is having a blast. I like taking the bare bones of the module and tweaking it to make it more epic, funny or fun.
Great videos thank you so much. I am running my first game ever as a DM with my wife and a friend and we are all new to tabletop RPG’s. We have a lot of experience with tabletop games like Terraforming Mars, Dune, Apollo and Villanous but wanted to get creative and expand our gaming. We are playing through the Dragon of Icespire and I have started expanding the on-rails adventure to fit their character stories better after an initial run through the Dwarven Excavation. I’m really enjoying your vids and can’t wait to get better at being a DM.
I'm running my first D&D adventure with my sis and her gf this will also be my first time playing D&D ever and I'll run The Essential Edition with Homebrew Elements
btw if anyone wants to try D&D and doesnt want to pay there have been all D&D Books Realesed
I use Stat Trackers - its expensive, but really worth their weight in gold, and they come with many blank cards in case you want to use creatures from Tome Of Beasts or say from Dreaded Accursed.
I’m very new to DMing. And I’m still a bit confused on how to “read” a module. Like what parts are for me, and what parts are for the players? Just want to make sure I’m doing it right?
I'm currently learning to dm never played before. It's very daunting just learning the rules I need to know, but homebrew scares me the most
What's a good published adventure to run if I wanted the classic medival fantasy experience? You know something like "our heroes must save a princess from a big mean dragon"?
Don't cry Nat. There are a few published adventure books with short adventures that are good for quick preparation time.
I love published adventures. I freely admit that my creativity gets tapped out. The big problem I've found with published adventures is trying to get into the head of the writer. There is a science fiction game where a lot of published adventures are about piracy and other criminal activities. Others are rather like reading a theatrical script and then trying to envision it. At times it's almost as difficult as writing my own. But in the long run they're well worth it.
I'm a new DM who has only played a few games 15 years ago and looking to start a new party with some family and friends. I typically work 60 hrs a week and dont have the time or experiance to create my own adventure. I have planned to start with the lost mines of phandelver and move to storm kings thunder if the party sticks together. The published campaigns have helped a ton so far and well see how well the game goes in 2 weeks when our first session starts.
Wish me luck.
I'm actually running a game using several different modules with extra prep work and a setting guide for the forgotten realms. the players can change their module at any time and i have done tons of extra prep work and organized a bunch of "Side quests" so that the world feels more full. it is like the base game is the setting and all of the adventures are DLC.
I am very new to this game and I will be the th in my family group. I am using stranger things hunt for the thessylhydra. It is very simple and it im enjoying adding my own descriptions of scenes to paint a visual picture. It also has limited encounters but I have the option to add more and the same with traps and treasure. It's worth a look for the ultimate newbie like me :)
I never understand the elitist attitudes from people, it turns people off so much. Why do some thing that stops other people from enjoying an amazing hobby?
To properly make your own adventure, much less your own module, you need an intimate knowledge of the world that they are adventuring in and the game mechanics so your story elements and monsters make sense. Random encounters are to be rolled before making the adventure if they are even needed at all. I’ve seen published material that was absolute garbage in terms of story coherence and game balance. The best thing to do, I’ve found is take a published module so you don’t have to make everything from scratch but then change things as you see fit, even if you need to rearrange or just take out events or monsters.
published adventures sometimes have unique stat blocks that aren't in monster manual...
If the prefabricated roleplay blueprint system is to be assumed invalid it would be safe to assume a second would never have been published.
Umong us 8:09
It's not that I don't like Adventure Modules. It's more that I don't trust the writers at WotC to know their left foot from their right hand.
Great stuff Nate, thanks! Yeah it's an interesting debate. Agree with all your reasons and scenarios! I think the main reason when I've run published adventures is just simply the excellence of the product. If you see or buy one that really stands out, inspires you, has amazing prose, an incredible plotline, and conjures up an atmosphere you'll never forget (*cough* Ravenloft) why then you want to share that with your players! Also, I'd add that it's worth remembering that D&D players have something like 35 years of adventures and modules to draw from - sure, you might have to update the stat blocks, but you can pick up amazing stuff from older editions or other publishers online for a fraction of the price of the official WotC releases. Finally - you can always go "halfway house" and use things like pre-published dungeon maps, or pre-published lists of plots, or pre-published lists of adversaries, and then do the rest yourself. Bit like the Adventure Kit idea.
I absolutely agree, Michael. I mentioned the excellence of the product under one of my points, but I think it really could have been it's own point. You see it, it's great, you want to use it. They often tell great stories and are well-executed.
Another great video! but.. Oath of the Frozen King is not my fav and I own it, sorry.
I can make something that feels way more free form but ill never be able to come up with stuff like chris Perkins... there are benefits to both but at the very least you should get a few to steal from
I think that if you are new it's better to run a published adventure until you get better in creating your own story.
Phandelver took my group 23 sessions. Is that normal?
I plan on running waterdeep dragon heist an I only plan on using it as a basic setting and altering the story a fair amount.
I have to DM Dragon of Icespire Peak in 20 minutes!
Great video man! I was actually surprised to not fall under the categories of GM's who would run these adventures. I like them because I love the world of the Forgotten Realms and get a kick of having my players run around through areas that I read about in the Drizz't and Elminster series. I watched a lot of reviews for adventure paths and actually chose Horde of the Dragon Queen even though it was never rated very high, specifically because of its location. I am starting it next week and am super pumped about it!
Great tips and advice! I bet you’re a fun high school teacher, the kind that students never forget.
Thanks. :)
I am currently running the lost mines of phandelver as a first time dm... I have photographed and printed the stat blocks... I have also got 3 players using the characters from the set and 4 not.... sometimes it’s hard to remember where and what their characters are able and allowed to do with players that have never played the game before. I myself have played very little but a few steps ahead of them... 😁
for the short on time thing, you can also download a bunch of little one shots and short adventures and scrapbook them into your campaign is super easy and quick. just change names and backstories to match your story and jump into it. most are like 5 or so pages and loads are free or under $5
Do you recommend a certain written module for a fairly new DM and player? (After essentials kit and starter set)
Storm King's Thunder or Out of the Abyss would probably be my top recommendations. Really any of them would be okay.
You may start your story on a rail but trains can be derailed
Do you still play pathfinder?
My entire Pathfinder game as a DM was based on modules, campaign and lore of Golarion... but I modified them so much that it was almost unrecognizable at the end in the hope that my players (who are readers-fan of all that is RPG) can still be surprise. It take me a lot of time to change all the stories, and enconters, and dungeons, but it was still really satisfaying because at the end, it felt like my own product. And because I had that solid base, it was easier to improvise along the will of my players if they went off the rails. For exemple, the group just finished "Hollow's last hope" and "Crown of the Kobold King" when a new mage player joined the table. In his backstories, he was coming from Olfden. I could just have them go to the next module ("Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale" that I adjusted to be their level) but thanks to Pathfinderwiki, I knew in the lore that Olfden was supposed to be attack that year (4707 AR) by werewolf. So I got the new player and goes : "Yeah, so in fact, your city was almost ravaged by these creatures and your mission is to get help from Falcon's Hollow." And that's how I had to created that massive urban guerrilla. In all this, the players instantly became brothers of arms, finally gained a group name (the Company of the Silver Blood) and... got into a few trouble with the group getting exiled of Andoran because of political friction with the mayor of Falcon's Hollow, and the mage getting a traveling trader pregnant... thus starting the next module as I wanted but in such an organic way that it didn't looked at all like getting on rails again. I have maybe another exemple for each member of that six-players-table, but it would probably be too long to write it all and nobody will read it anyway, so...
I recently bought an adventure module for the following reasons:
1.) I'm a fairly new DM. I'm still working on a custom campaign and I want to get a feel for what goes into one.
2.) My little cousins just started and I want to give them a taste of what playing D&D can be like.
3.) Research. Taking elements you like from other stories doesn't diminish your creativity (so long as you're not plageurizing; different debate).
Is using a module bad? That really depends on the module and what you want from the adventure.
I personally think when learning a new system, if it is one where the GM prepares an adventure, then you SHOULD run at least one published adventure. This gives you a feel for how the games go, gives you insight into ways to use the mechanics that you might not have realized. You get an idea of tone, and can avoid accidentally bringing in baggage from the previous game you've ran ("you mean I shouldn't prepare a series of balanced combats for Numenera?").
I started playing pretty late with 4e. DM'd and played for about a year then switched to 5e when that came out and played for another 2. It's been a few years since then and I'm starting up a campaign with some friends again. Doing the Lost Mines of Phandelver helps me familiarize myself with simply being a DM again. I wouldn't really have the time to sit and read a larger published works, myself. But they do look like a good time. Especially the Ravnica one since I started also playing MTG about a year or 2 ago funny enough.
I'm reasonably new to DnD, I grew up listening to Spoony's Counter Monkey series and I recently ran a homebrew Call of Cthulhu campaign with 2 players. These videos are a godsend for new DMs like me whose players want to start cracking open the massively dense boulder that is DnD. I got the LMoP module and will be running that to get a grip on the setting and basic rules before writing my own. Thanks for the videos and support!
Thanks for the video, Nate! You are awesome!
I think one way to save time using published adventures is to take dungeons from those books and integrate them into your campaign, including necessary changes. For me dungeon and combat design are the most time consuming part of preping. It's a lot of fun, but you know.... with all this important real life crap you just might be short on time.
(Kidding, both my fantasy and real lives are great=))
Nate is the best DM around town
So, I picked up Waterdeep: Dragon Heist intending to DM the campaign, but I also picked up Waterdeep: City Encounters off of the DMs Guild. My table is going to be a combination of Adventurer's League and Homebrew because the general sense of the new AL rules is unfavorable but I don't want to freeze out players who want to take their characters to another table. So, random encounters can help the Homebrew players catch up on experience if they're lagging behind the AL players, who don't get experience from random encounters . . . or gold . . . or magic items . . .
Also, if we complete the campaign early (before November 2nd), or I want time to read through Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, I can run a few random encounters or homebrew some material based off the encounters listed. There's one encounter called 'Ensorcelled Child' which could make for a fantastic encounter, requiring the players to figure out the source of the child's possession, destroy the source, and then perform a ritual to drive out the possessing spirit. Or, I can make up a reason for the players to sneak through the lairs of one of the villains not used during our play through. Honestly, the possibilities are endless, you just have to find and cultivate the spark of creativity.
For a lot of people that can start with a published campaign.
I'm currently running a mashup of three 1e AD&D adventure modules (Against the cult of the reptile god, Secret of Bone hill, and Secret of Saltmarsh) in a 5e steampunk setting. I love modules for what I can mine from them. I've run some modules straight as well, but I am a dm that does much better with a basic structure and improv than remembering a zillion minor details and where to flip for which details. This sometimes causes issues if I don't take good notes on what I've changed...
I wholeheartedly recommend running published adventures if you like. But if you are like me (discovery writer/gardner vs. outliner/architect), be sure to allow yourself to be loose with the source material. I also love the inspiration I get from the adventures. You can yank amazing dungeon rooms. Awesome villains. Interesting towns...there's a lot to mine from the decades of pre-written adventures.
I do think running the modules save me time. When I have to think my own stuff I often get chocie paralysis or writer's block, it takes me waay longer to come up with my own stuff than read and prepare a module
Late to the party: I have always DMed my own stuff, but all my campaigns were doomed to die, because the playerbase changed and I run myself into forms of writer blockades. Now with dnd 5e I've runned Curse of Strahd and Rise of Tiamat. WotC makes awesome products now in my opinion and especially Curse of Strahd was an absolute blast. I will finish RoT this sunday and are planning on returning to Barovia soon. This are my first campaigns I have finished and everyone at the table had so much fun.
Always have in mind, that you aren't restricted to the pages of these books. I have transformed the campaigns heavily, so far, that I have moved entire places around, but these book take so much work away from me and give awesome inspiration. Planning on running Waterdeep Dragon Heist next and will probably alter it heavily also, to include more of the heist aspect. Love the current WotC books.
I either use dndbeyond with separate tab pages for stats or an excel with the encounters per room. For additional encounters, I write the important stuff down: Stats, AC, HP, Attack modifier & avg damage.
Well, I'm a bit of a fighter when it comes to d&d. So, when I come to be a dungeon master, I tend to run more combats and make less of exploration and social interaction, 'cause I think that it takes more fun out of it (even knowing that it is wrong for my players, who can like other parts of the rpg experience). SO, I tend to run published adventures in way to keep it more balanced.
That makes a lot of sense!
I remember one game where I stopped my players off at a small town by the ocean to rest and resupply then they were supposed to continue to the point of their quest either walking or maybe they noticed the passing caravan heading that way. BUT NO! One of my players rolled a Nat 20 to persuade a sea merchant to take them out to sea. WTF. Talk about having to be flexable. They literally spent a full hour playing "sailing simulator" then I had to whip up a huge storm that destroyed the boat washed them ashore, with exhaustion so they had to get on this caravan that just so happen to see them from the road just in order to get them to where I needed them for the end of that session. Had a great time, but dang I need to work on my improv cause this isn't the first time my friends have been like "wow that's a big tree. DM you said it was 80 feet tall right? Ok, I'm going to climb it." (DM remembers oh he has 11 hp left.) *facepalm*
I am a DM who can have good ideas - but I need something to fire up my creativity. This spark, this video I saw, that unrelated comment, some movie-quote anything.
On the other hand I can really feel all those people feeling overwhelmed by prepared modules.
I rarely ran modules - and then mostly one page dungeons or short adventures I heavily modified.
I mostly buy modules for salvage-purposes - neat ideas I sprinkle in my adventures or build another ones from.
But I have great respect of people who can run modules - because reading them makes so much fun and imaging to play this also - it just ends up totally butchered when I use one :D
do any of your students find you online? how will or do you handle that if and when they do? do kids play dnd these days? i played when i was in highschool.
about summer of junior year, into community college. 2005 - 2008 i graduated highschool 2006. droped out community college 2008. wish now i had stayed. need to find out how to get back in.
i would enjoy playing dnd with the old group again also.
As a DM of over 30 years and multiple editions I agree that published adventures can be railroads. But the recent batch of 5e ones have been much more open (jungle trekking through Chult, exploring Waterdeep and Undermountain). Most of my games now are ran in my FLGS as Adventurers League so have to stick to what's written, but I still like to put little bits here and there tied to player characters back stories just to help personalise them.