Unrelated: can I just mention how cool it is that this thread is still going as a neat Daily Discussion thing even after The Thing stopped being a thing? It's just fun to see.
Related: I'll likely end up switching to One, unless something awful happens. 5e has enough warts that I'm down with fixing it, and unlike p&p players I kinda need to stay within the bounds of the digital toolset. Will be nice to have updated tools, presuming we get them.
Unrelated: can I just mention how cool it is that this thread is still going as a neat Daily Discussion thing even after The Thing stopped being a thing? It's just fun to see.
Well hell, that wasn't in the rules! Here I thought I had to keep adding on every time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Today’s question: Do you plan to update to the next edition in ‘24, or stick with 5e?
Well supposedly it will "work" with 5e. So if that's the case, as long as it doesn't "break" anything in my view (like "Monsters Can't Crit" - stuff like that is out the window), but as long as it follows things and doesn't force things down our throat... for example, the monsters can't crit ordeal, I'd home brew that right out of the game. However, if D&D Beyond makes it so when a Natural 20 is rolled by a monster and I have to manually roll the Crit Dice, that's going to be a pain in the arse. But that's not the question, and I am rambling.
Over all, sticking with the core of what makes up 5e. So if this new thingamob still sticks with 5e, I am, over all, good.
If it doesn't work with 5e, I'd stick with 5e for all my campaigns and finish them up whenever, and then at that point probably change.
Homebrew! Nothing against the published adventures, but I like to tell my own stories in my own world. I'm not against cribbing certain aspects of the canned adventures that I like though, at least for encounter ideas, etc.
Reason 1) I don't want to do the extra work to scrub the adventure to fit the existing lore and locations of the campaign world that we have been using for decades.
Reason 2) I find it much easier to plan for what the players will do session to session based on what they have already done, than to try to follow a script.
Today’s question: Prewritten published “canned” adventures, homebrewed adventures, or semi-ho and why?
As a DM: Homebrew. Half the fun of DMing is building a world and watching your characters interact with it; the other half is figuring out how to adjust the world to the players. I might throw a Candlekeep Mystery or Radiant Citadel adventure in every now and then when I am too busy to build a session from scratch (though I modify and expand them to work for the campaign).
That said, I tend to use D&D gods and other recognisable figures in the campaign (so, it might be a homebrew campaign, but you’ll still have Vecna and Bahamut, etc.) Presently running a campaign with a whole new pantheon and that part has been a miss—no one remembers the names of any of the gods. Will not be doing that again.
As a Player: My only experiences with canned campaigns are Icewind Dale (which is a bad campaign to begin with, made worse by a terrible DM) and Avernus (which is a bit linear and made worse by a novice DM and some real bad other players who threw a hissy fit and demanded the horror be turned down. In their hell campaign). Those experiences have really soured be on premade campaigns, and I’ll probably never join another.
Today’s question: Prewritten published “canned” adventures, homebrewed adventures, or semi-ho and why?
Mostly homebrew. I have incorporated one of the Candlekeep Mysteries in the current campaign (with some modifications of course) though
As for the why... a large part of the fun for me as a DM is coming up with an idea and then seeing how the party destroys interacts with it. Homebrew gives me a lot more opportunities for those interactions
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I've only ever run one campaign as DM, and it was me trying to get a ghosts and pirates story out of GHosts of Saltmarsh. Turns out GoS is a very bad book that has nothing to do with ghosts and/or pirates and everything to do with lizard politics. Bleh. Before the campaign died I was working towards building out my own conclusion to it, involving some god damned ghosts in my Ghosts of Saltmarsh game.
I will say it's nice having a kernel to build off of, the map/town of Saltmarsh itself was a helpful tool even if all the lore surrounding it sucked donkey rocks. I could see myself doing something similar in the future, finding a prebuilt town to use as a base camp and spinning off from there.
I've only ever run one campaign as DM, and it was me trying to get a ghosts and pirates story out of GHosts of Saltmarsh. Turns out GoS is a very bad book that has nothing to do with ghosts and/or pirates and everything to do with lizard politics. Bleh. Before the campaign died I was working towards building out my own conclusion to it, involving some god damned ghosts in my Ghosts of Saltmarsh game.
I will say it's nice having a kernel to build off of, the map/town of Saltmarsh itself was a helpful tool even if all the lore surrounding it sucked donkey rocks. I could see myself doing something similar in the future, finding a prebuilt town to use as a base camp and spinning off from there.
At least Saltmarsh is not in the Forgotten Realms. 😉
Today’s question: Prewritten published “canned” adventures, homebrewed adventures, or semi-ho and why?
I generally like running either Prewritten adventures or at the very least using prewritten settings. Although I love homebrewing, its almost entirely on the PC side of things. I dont really have a strong desire to write my own setting from the ground up. Also, prewritten adventures are nice as if I get bursts of inspiration for encounters or stories, I can put that energy towards modifying the existing adventure rather than risk running out of steam trying to write up every aspect on my own.
I tried a homebrew setting starting out as a DM, but that was just sorta ok. Since then I have run Curse of Strahd, a homebrew campaign in the Grim Hollow campaign setting, and am currently running Out of the Abyss
Curse of Strahd and Grim Hollow are made for each other. I'm looking forward to trying that myself one day, even as someone who doesn't care overmuch for DMing.
Curse of Strahd and Grim Hollow are made for each other. I'm looking forward to trying that myself one day, even as someone who doesn't care overmuch for DMing.
I actually transitioned my Curse of Strahd campaign into Grim Hollow, because I wanted to use the setting as something for the party to do after they beat Strahd. So once they freed Barovia, I had it pop out of the Shadowfell next to Etharis rather than in Toril due to weird, planar mumbo jumbo
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Curse of Strahd and Grim Hollow are made for each other. I'm looking forward to trying that myself one day, even as someone who doesn't care overmuch for DMing.
Ooh sign me up!
=)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Never having DM'd D&D, I can only speak as a player. I don't think I've ever played a stock campaign as is. All of it has either been heavily adapted from a campaign book or 100% homebrew. Personally, I like the idea of a personal touch being applied to the game, with the DM getting the chance to craft something beyond the generic trappings.
Today’s question: Prewritten published “canned” adventures, homebrewed adventures, or semi-ho and why?
Well....
Both.
I don't really use the lore, and I am told they are unrecognizable when being played, but I use published stuff as the foundation for the given thing. I build onto it all the lore and the larger story stuff (I do campaigns, and each campaign tells a really big story, blah blah) so that it works in the particular setting, but underneath it all is still the module.
Sometimes i have built a campaign around one or a few, other times I have completely avoided all of them.
I have never run a published dungeon, though.
As to why, well, I am a control freak about things "making sense" and plopping down an as written thing in my often complex things is exceptionally jarring and can give me fits.
Edit: I get to look at the new heist stuff today, and I hope to use more than one as part of a string of robberies that have to blend mission:impossible type stuff in.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Homebrew. While I have to make up more stuff on my own, I find that I am able to connect more with the story. When I play a prewritten module, I always feel a little disjointed because the story isn’t something that I just know. Because of that, I think I dm worse when I’m running a published module. Besides, I’m better at creating a central story and purpose in my own work then I am at reasonably stringing together modules.
Edit: I get to look at the new heist stuff today, and I hope to use more than one as part of a string of robberies that have to blend mission:impossible type stuff in.
I've already got ideas for how to use one of the KftGV heists in my homebrew world. It looks like a good collection from my first peeks
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Unrelated: can I just mention how cool it is that this thread is still going as a neat Daily Discussion thing even after The Thing stopped being a thing? It's just fun to see.
Related: I'll likely end up switching to One, unless something awful happens. 5e has enough warts that I'm down with fixing it, and unlike p&p players I kinda need to stay within the bounds of the digital toolset. Will be nice to have updated tools, presuming we get them.
Please do not contact or message me.
Me too.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Wait, wait wait...
I can stop?
Well hell, that wasn't in the rules! Here I thought I had to keep adding on every time.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Well supposedly it will "work" with 5e. So if that's the case, as long as it doesn't "break" anything in my view (like "Monsters Can't Crit" - stuff like that is out the window), but as long as it follows things and doesn't force things down our throat... for example, the monsters can't crit ordeal, I'd home brew that right out of the game. However, if D&D Beyond makes it so when a Natural 20 is rolled by a monster and I have to manually roll the Crit Dice, that's going to be a pain in the arse. But that's not the question, and I am rambling.
Over all, sticking with the core of what makes up 5e. So if this new thingamob still sticks with 5e, I am, over all, good.
If it doesn't work with 5e, I'd stick with 5e for all my campaigns and finish them up whenever, and then at that point probably change.
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
Today’s question: Prewritten published “canned” adventures, homebrewed adventures, or semi-ho and why?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Homebrew! Nothing against the published adventures, but I like to tell my own stories in my own world. I'm not against cribbing certain aspects of the canned adventures that I like though, at least for encounter ideas, etc.
I create every adventure/campaign I run.
Reason 1) I don't want to do the extra work to scrub the adventure to fit the existing lore and locations of the campaign world that we have been using for decades.
Reason 2) I find it much easier to plan for what the players will do session to session based on what they have already done, than to try to follow a script.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
As a DM: Homebrew. Half the fun of DMing is building a world and watching your characters interact with it; the other half is figuring out how to adjust the world to the players. I might throw a Candlekeep Mystery or Radiant Citadel adventure in every now and then when I am too busy to build a session from scratch (though I modify and expand them to work for the campaign).
That said, I tend to use D&D gods and other recognisable figures in the campaign (so, it might be a homebrew campaign, but you’ll still have Vecna and Bahamut, etc.) Presently running a campaign with a whole new pantheon and that part has been a miss—no one remembers the names of any of the gods. Will not be doing that again.
As a Player: My only experiences with canned campaigns are Icewind Dale (which is a bad campaign to begin with, made worse by a terrible DM) and Avernus (which is a bit linear and made worse by a novice DM and some real bad other players who threw a hissy fit and demanded the horror be turned down. In their hell campaign). Those experiences have really soured be on premade campaigns, and I’ll probably never join another.
As a DM - 100% homebrew. I have a homebrew world so I love, as an aspiring writer, coming up with my own adventures to run my parties through.
As a player, I don't mind either way - as long as the company is good.
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
Mostly homebrew. I have incorporated one of the Candlekeep Mysteries in the current campaign (with some modifications of course) though
As for the why... a large part of the fun for me as a DM is coming up with an idea and then seeing how the party
destroysinteracts with it. Homebrew gives me a lot more opportunities for those interactionsActive characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I've only ever run one campaign as DM, and it was me trying to get a ghosts and pirates story out of GHosts of Saltmarsh. Turns out GoS is a very bad book that has nothing to do with ghosts and/or pirates and everything to do with lizard politics. Bleh. Before the campaign died I was working towards building out my own conclusion to it, involving some god damned ghosts in my Ghosts of Saltmarsh game.
I will say it's nice having a kernel to build off of, the map/town of Saltmarsh itself was a helpful tool even if all the lore surrounding it sucked donkey rocks. I could see myself doing something similar in the future, finding a prebuilt town to use as a base camp and spinning off from there.
Please do not contact or message me.
At least Saltmarsh is not in the Forgotten Realms. 😉
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I generally like running either Prewritten adventures or at the very least using prewritten settings. Although I love homebrewing, its almost entirely on the PC side of things. I dont really have a strong desire to write my own setting from the ground up. Also, prewritten adventures are nice as if I get bursts of inspiration for encounters or stories, I can put that energy towards modifying the existing adventure rather than risk running out of steam trying to write up every aspect on my own.
I tried a homebrew setting starting out as a DM, but that was just sorta ok. Since then I have run Curse of Strahd, a homebrew campaign in the Grim Hollow campaign setting, and am currently running Out of the Abyss
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Curse of Strahd and Grim Hollow are made for each other. I'm looking forward to trying that myself one day, even as someone who doesn't care overmuch for DMing.
Please do not contact or message me.
I actually transitioned my Curse of Strahd campaign into Grim Hollow, because I wanted to use the setting as something for the party to do after they beat Strahd. So once they freed Barovia, I had it pop out of the Shadowfell next to Etharis rather than in Toril due to weird, planar mumbo jumbo
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Ooh sign me up!
=)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Never having DM'd D&D, I can only speak as a player. I don't think I've ever played a stock campaign as is. All of it has either been heavily adapted from a campaign book or 100% homebrew. Personally, I like the idea of a personal touch being applied to the game, with the DM getting the chance to craft something beyond the generic trappings.
Well....
Both.
I don't really use the lore, and I am told they are unrecognizable when being played, but I use published stuff as the foundation for the given thing. I build onto it all the lore and the larger story stuff (I do campaigns, and each campaign tells a really big story, blah blah) so that it works in the particular setting, but underneath it all is still the module.
Sometimes i have built a campaign around one or a few, other times I have completely avoided all of them.
I have never run a published dungeon, though.
As to why, well, I am a control freak about things "making sense" and plopping down an as written thing in my often complex things is exceptionally jarring and can give me fits.
Edit: I get to look at the new heist stuff today, and I hope to use more than one as part of a string of robberies that have to blend mission:impossible type stuff in.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Homebrew. While I have to make up more stuff on my own, I find that I am able to connect more with the story. When I play a prewritten module, I always feel a little disjointed because the story isn’t something that I just know. Because of that, I think I dm worse when I’m running a published module. Besides, I’m better at creating a central story and purpose in my own work then I am at reasonably stringing together modules.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
I've already got ideas for how to use one of the KftGV heists in my homebrew world. It looks like a good collection from my first peeks
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)