I was wondering how different people prepare for pre-written Adventures like curse of strahd or hoard of the Dragon Queen. I have never tried to run a full adventure that I did not write but would like to know how.( if you saw my question a few days ago then it might make more sense that this is not for the same group). A lot of people I know also want to learn, so I hope that answers for this will benefit a lot of people.
Well, I have not run any of the giant mega-hardback adventures (more like, campaigns) that WOTC publishes these days.
But back in the day, even with the short modules like B2 or X1 or G-1-2-3, the first thing I did was read the entire module all the way through to the end, once. Then I would go back through and I would take a blank sheet of paper and start making notes to myself about the key things. I would underline stuff in the booklet. And I would make lists of the NPCs and monsters in particular (along with things like AC and HP) so that I could refer to it during play.
Another thing I started doing later, but this is extremely time consuming and it would be even worse with today's mega-adventures, was I would take mock-ups of the character sheets, and play through the adventure solo myself. Note, I did not RP or anything like that (I mean, alone, it'd be pointless). But I would follow what I thought was the most likely trajectory through the dungeon map or forest or what have you and fight all the monsters there with the mocked-up character sheets and make sure it wasn't either too easy, or too hard. For a long time I rolled dice to do this. But eventually I started using "average rolls" for most things, since I didn't want extreme luck (like me rolling all 8s on a 5d8 damage spell) to make me think a battle would be the right difficulty when it was only that way due to high or low luck.
Anyway, I found that after reading it once, taking notes on it once, and running through it once as a "dress rehearsal," I was ready to go for actual play, and almost never even had to look things up.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The 5e pre-written modules are a bit wordy and meandering so can take a decent amount of work (some are better than others).
Here's what I generally do:
Identify the main story concepts or ideas in the module, then begin thinking about how I might change it.
Does the module have a theme and if so, is that something that my players and I will be interested in.
Identify the major "baddies" and their motivations.
Make a guesstimate as to how many sessions it may take, and ways to lengthen/shorten it as needed.
Make a note of towns and major npcs.
I don't make an outline as to me that makes things more rigid in my mind, instead I make a bit of a mind map with areas of interest and some ideas for those areas. Then the players basically create the filling of the adventure as they determine what things sound interesting or not as they play, all I then have to do is keep up with the baddies goals/motivations throughout.
Determine some basic plot hooks to help characters with backstory as appropriate.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
1. read the full material. focus only on the big themes and atmosphere and the overall goals to proceed. This should be enough to quickly get to start the adventure. but if you want to do it properly you do more then just this.
2. read the material again. this time looking at the motivations of why things are happening and who are involved. allows for you to make adjustments and add foreshadowing elements.
3. read the material again. find out the errors and flaws and fix them. while also adding hooks with next adventures/chapters to make all the stand alone stuff a cohesive whole.
4. Go over the encounters. Make them actually interesting. Especially the key situations need some damn lair actions in most cases for starters. Or more environmental hazards. Flesh that boring stuff out more. And dress up the environmental descriptors as well to fit with the overall theme/atmosphere.. Remember that its best to remember those and ti doesn't matter to remember each individual room. Skip / narrate the tedious stuff and adjust it to make it your own.
5. In some cases research other material that is adjacent to what you're running. You planning to run the Dragonqueen horde? Then you might want to read Avernus and older books of Nine Hells etc. In case of Sunless Citadel look up the other 2 original modules that came after it. Giving more insight in the context of the Citadel. Arming yourself with more material to improvise. More cool stuff to throw at your players and flesh out the content and adventure with even more options. Instead of a straight forward lineair experience.
6. Deepen into the goals of the baddies. Go into details of what they want to achieve. How they would go about it. What resources they have available. Maybe create a time table for when the baddies achieve their micro goals towards their big goal. That way you know where and when the baddies are and what they're doing. Regardless of what your players are doing.
By this point you can pretty much remember most important aspects of the modules. Got a good grasp of all you need to keep the players going. And improvise, add homebrew stuff, whenever your players go do different stuff before they get big to the big threads. Running modules properly takes a hell of a lot more work and time investment than doing hombrew stuff.
Read them very carefully. Make sure you understand the strategies and motivations of all the NPCs. Prepare in advance for any contingencies your players might throw at you.
I never run a module that has just been released. I always give it some time to let the guys on Reddit and Farcebook rip it apart and then start releasing their guides on DMs Guild... if Power Score gets a hold of it, even better!
I'll grab one or two of those guys, go through it to get "their" idea of the module. From this I get a real good idea of what the module is about, what the important and key story parts are, and what might/should be changed. If it seems like something I would dig running, I'll grab the book. Already knowing the key ideas from those guides it makes it easy to skim the book and just gloss over some of the more "long in the tooth" stuff that makes it into them. I can get that done over a few 24 oz of Mike's Harder Lemonades (I'm old, I've paid my dues, and I like fruity drinks that'll get me fragged quick... piss of!). Anyhow, now that I got all that down I'll skim back through it, make note of important plot points and NPCs, and just draw a really quick flowchart in my notebook - and that's pretty much it. I wing the rest. No need to stick to their story letter-by-letter.
Day of the game I'll skim back over the section they are in or maybe jot down a really cool encounter I thought of (or stole from someone else). I've tried running a game "by the book", that was a damned cat-ass-trophy! It felt like a full time job. I didn't retire to a tropical island to work dammit!
I read each chapter and then decide good stopping points per session. (the book does a good job at that usually) I think of a few things I'd like to change to give it that unique flavor and then usually have to adjust on the fly because my players are pretty crazy sometimes.
I've started preloading fights in the encounter builder and that has helped save time like crazy. It is also pretty easy to make one up on the fly if you have a few moments of advance notice.
Just make sure you look ahead and so you don't let your party kill an essential NPC. I may have made that mistake before.
I'm currently running Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Like Urandom mentioned, I've heavily used reddit and other sources to see what people have done to "fix" anything or to offer any sort of DM quick-guides and whatnot. I found the Alexandrian Remix this way, that heavily modifies WDH's original content in a much nicer way and have been running that. I did a lot of prep work at first, accumulating the many maps that can be found online (I run our campaign online through screen-sharing). Once the game got started, I got a bit more relaxed as the players would send things off in ways not expected, but since I spent a good amount of time preparing, it worked out well. We've been running it since January 2020 and are nearing the end, playing once a week.
I'm currently running Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Like Urandom mentioned, I've heavily used reddit and other sources to see what people have done to "fix" anything or to offer any sort of DM quick-guides and whatnot. I found the Alexandrian Remix this way, that heavily modifies WDH's original content in a much nicer way and have been running that. I did a lot of prep work at first, accumulating the many maps that can be found online (I run our campaign online through screen-sharing). Once the game got started, I got a bit more relaxed as the players would send things off in ways not expected, but since I spent a good amount of time preparing, it worked out well. We've been running it since January 2020 and are nearing the end, playing once a week.
Oh, one other thing I'm doing is I'm listening to a podcast I found where they are running the same campaign. It's very different, but it's also a nice source of ideas.
For any pre-written module with large regions such as Curse of Strahd or Storm Kings Thunder I always go into the large sections such as Castle Ravenloft in chapter 4 of Curse of Strahd. In the module the entire "Map 2: Walls of Ravenloft" is contained in one handout. I like to make a new folder titled, "Walls of Ravenloft (K1-K6)" Then make an individual handout for K1, K2, K3, K4, K5 and K6 and put them under this folder. I do the same thing for the locations in Berovia. This takes some time but is much easier when running the game as you don't have to scroll through huge handouts to find the one thing you are looking for.
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I was wondering how different people prepare for pre-written Adventures like curse of strahd or hoard of the Dragon Queen. I have never tried to run a full adventure that I did not write but would like to know how.( if you saw my question a few days ago then it might make more sense that this is not for the same group). A lot of people I know also want to learn, so I hope that answers for this will benefit a lot of people.
Well, I have not run any of the giant mega-hardback adventures (more like, campaigns) that WOTC publishes these days.
But back in the day, even with the short modules like B2 or X1 or G-1-2-3, the first thing I did was read the entire module all the way through to the end, once. Then I would go back through and I would take a blank sheet of paper and start making notes to myself about the key things. I would underline stuff in the booklet. And I would make lists of the NPCs and monsters in particular (along with things like AC and HP) so that I could refer to it during play.
Another thing I started doing later, but this is extremely time consuming and it would be even worse with today's mega-adventures, was I would take mock-ups of the character sheets, and play through the adventure solo myself. Note, I did not RP or anything like that (I mean, alone, it'd be pointless). But I would follow what I thought was the most likely trajectory through the dungeon map or forest or what have you and fight all the monsters there with the mocked-up character sheets and make sure it wasn't either too easy, or too hard. For a long time I rolled dice to do this. But eventually I started using "average rolls" for most things, since I didn't want extreme luck (like me rolling all 8s on a 5d8 damage spell) to make me think a battle would be the right difficulty when it was only that way due to high or low luck.
Anyway, I found that after reading it once, taking notes on it once, and running through it once as a "dress rehearsal," I was ready to go for actual play, and almost never even had to look things up.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The 5e pre-written modules are a bit wordy and meandering so can take a decent amount of work (some are better than others).
Here's what I generally do:
You may also find this Matt Colville link helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXYORWtiLF0
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
1. read the full material. focus only on the big themes and atmosphere and the overall goals to proceed. This should be enough to quickly get to start the adventure. but if you want to do it properly you do more then just this.
2. read the material again. this time looking at the motivations of why things are happening and who are involved. allows for you to make adjustments and add foreshadowing elements.
3. read the material again. find out the errors and flaws and fix them. while also adding hooks with next adventures/chapters to make all the stand alone stuff a cohesive whole.
4. Go over the encounters. Make them actually interesting. Especially the key situations need some damn lair actions in most cases for starters. Or more environmental hazards. Flesh that boring stuff out more. And dress up the environmental descriptors as well to fit with the overall theme/atmosphere.. Remember that its best to remember those and ti doesn't matter to remember each individual room. Skip / narrate the tedious stuff and adjust it to make it your own.
5. In some cases research other material that is adjacent to what you're running. You planning to run the Dragonqueen horde? Then you might want to read Avernus and older books of Nine Hells etc. In case of Sunless Citadel look up the other 2 original modules that came after it. Giving more insight in the context of the Citadel. Arming yourself with more material to improvise. More cool stuff to throw at your players and flesh out the content and adventure with even more options. Instead of a straight forward lineair experience.
6. Deepen into the goals of the baddies. Go into details of what they want to achieve. How they would go about it. What resources they have available. Maybe create a time table for when the baddies achieve their micro goals towards their big goal. That way you know where and when the baddies are and what they're doing. Regardless of what your players are doing.
By this point you can pretty much remember most important aspects of the modules. Got a good grasp of all you need to keep the players going. And improvise, add homebrew stuff, whenever your players go do different stuff before they get big to the big threads. Running modules properly takes a hell of a lot more work and time investment than doing hombrew stuff.
Read them very carefully. Make sure you understand the strategies and motivations of all the NPCs. Prepare in advance for any contingencies your players might throw at you.
I never run a module that has just been released. I always give it some time to let the guys on Reddit and Farcebook rip it apart and then start releasing their guides on DMs Guild... if Power Score gets a hold of it, even better!
I'll grab one or two of those guys, go through it to get "their" idea of the module. From this I get a real good idea of what the module is about, what the important and key story parts are, and what might/should be changed. If it seems like something I would dig running, I'll grab the book.
Already knowing the key ideas from those guides it makes it easy to skim the book and just gloss over some of the more "long in the tooth" stuff that makes it into them. I can get that done over a few 24 oz of Mike's Harder Lemonades (I'm old, I've paid my dues, and I like fruity drinks that'll get me fragged quick... piss of!). Anyhow, now that I got all that down I'll skim back through it, make note of important plot points and NPCs, and just draw a really quick flowchart in my notebook - and that's pretty much it. I wing the rest. No need to stick to their story letter-by-letter.
Day of the game I'll skim back over the section they are in or maybe jot down a really cool encounter I thought of (or stole from someone else).
I've tried running a game "by the book", that was a damned cat-ass-trophy! It felt like a full time job. I didn't retire to a tropical island to work dammit!
...cryptographic randomness!
I read each chapter and then decide good stopping points per session. (the book does a good job at that usually) I think of a few things I'd like to change to give it that unique flavor and then usually have to adjust on the fly because my players are pretty crazy sometimes.
I've started preloading fights in the encounter builder and that has helped save time like crazy. It is also pretty easy to make one up on the fly if you have a few moments of advance notice.
Just make sure you look ahead and so you don't let your party kill an essential NPC. I may have made that mistake before.
I'm currently running Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Like Urandom mentioned, I've heavily used reddit and other sources to see what people have done to "fix" anything or to offer any sort of DM quick-guides and whatnot. I found the Alexandrian Remix this way, that heavily modifies WDH's original content in a much nicer way and have been running that. I did a lot of prep work at first, accumulating the many maps that can be found online (I run our campaign online through screen-sharing). Once the game got started, I got a bit more relaxed as the players would send things off in ways not expected, but since I spent a good amount of time preparing, it worked out well. We've been running it since January 2020 and are nearing the end, playing once a week.
Have you tried running Tomb of Annihilation?
One of my players hopes to take a turn at DMing next and he's thinking of doing that one actually!
Oh, one other thing I'm doing is I'm listening to a podcast I found where they are running the same campaign. It's very different, but it's also a nice source of ideas.
Awesome! Can you let me know what you think? I’m thinking of getting it after I finish Curse of Strahd.
For any pre-written module with large regions such as Curse of Strahd or Storm Kings Thunder I always go into the large sections such as Castle Ravenloft in chapter 4 of Curse of Strahd. In the module the entire "Map 2: Walls of Ravenloft" is contained in one handout. I like to make a new folder titled, "Walls of Ravenloft (K1-K6)" Then make an individual handout for K1, K2, K3, K4, K5 and K6 and put them under this folder. I do the same thing for the locations in Berovia. This takes some time but is much easier when running the game as you don't have to scroll through huge handouts to find the one thing you are looking for.