1. Less prep. Obviously, it takes less time to buy somebody else's work and use it than do your own.
2. Pilfering it for ideas and inspiration to use in your game.
3. In the case of a campaign setting, you just really like it.
What I have to confess is that I don't really understand the value in playing somebody else's module straight from the page; it seems fundamentally inauthentic in the same way that cover versions or remakes of old films usually seem fundamentally inauthentic. Assuming a DM has a few scraps of sense and creativity about him, he can likely come up with material that will be as good as the stuff you find in a published module, with added spice coming from the fact that it is his own creation which he knows and loves and feels invested in.
People in the aforementioned Dwimmermount thread seem to be of the view that modules are useful because they can act as some sort of instructive tool: you run the published module and that teaches you how to create your own. I find myself wondering whether the effect might rather be to entrench standard practices, restrain innovation, and above all waste time: is trial and error creating your own material that much less effective than running through modules when it comes to learning how to DM?
I think extremely creative people (like you and , e.g., Zak S) routinely underestimate how unusual your creativity is. I might be particularly uncreative, but it takes a remarkable amount of time for me to come up with a fraction of the sort of stuff that you two seem to burble with constantly.
ReplyDeleteFor me, judicious pilfering from published modules is the only way I can DM without quitting my job.
And on a completely unrelated note --
4. People get excited about buying stuff for their favorite hobby. Most fishermen I know, for example, love buying vast quantities of paraphernalia and gear that is not strictly necessary to their fishing experience. I think modules fall into that category for many gamers.
It's impossible for us to know what goes on in each other's brains, so we can't know how hard or easy it is to think up ideas. So there's no way to really respond to that. Stealing stuff for ideas and inspiration is in point 3 though. I do also agree on point 4: you're right.
DeleteSo what was your statement about a "few scraps of sense and creativity" based on? It suggests pretty strongly that making modules is easy. I'm telling you that for me it isn't, and I suspect for many other non-mega-creative types it isn't.
DeleteWriting adventures is a lot like hard work, compared to say dreaming up house rules or mechanics. This is part of the reason why D&D is in such a pickle - the perfect mechanic will not lead to the perfect campaign, but designers and gamers want to do the easy and ego-rewarding stuff like overhauling magic systems, not the "where the rubber meets the road" stuff like adventures. This is why I have no interest in D&D "next" - their emphasis is on trivia.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting comment. You may well be right. I do think DMGs need to contain more robust and useful instructions on running a game than the "make everything fun" shite that gets bandied around.
DeleteYou said a mouthfull. They keep revising the mass of rules, but those are pretty inconsequential when it comes to making the game truly work. Even broken or awkward rules will work if the DM knows how to really run a game. Adventures used to help with that, but I feel it's never been explained really well... except in some online discussions, that is. Funny.
DeleteBetween my day job (professor) and my family, I tend to be pretty pooped by the time the kids are asleep. So a sizable module or hexcrawl is pretty much the only way I'm going to have any material to GM.
ReplyDeleteI think that comes under point 1. I get it, but I'm sure you'd agree you'd *rather* be coming up with your own stuff if possible.
DeleteTrue, although I do feel that I suck at that aspect of GMing.
DeleteA lot of DMs feel that way. I don't think their players tend to agree, though. It's so much easier to see your shortcomings as a DM than it is for players to do so. They don't know what you were hoping for and failed to achieve, they only know what parts they personally experienced, and for those parts that may not have been so hot, their own imaginations filled in all the gaps anyhow!
DeleteAlso, I am a bit saddened to see how many people think studying and running someone else's module is the "easy" or less time consuming route. Just spend minimal time setting up the simple basis for a sandbox (town and dungeon or whatever) and then turn the players loose... it's no exaggeration to say they write it all for you. Easiest way to play D&D, bar none. I do suggest having random monster tables and random everything you can get your hands on tables, though. Your own imagination will do the rest, on the fly. And the games will be SO very much more fun and spontaneous for everyone.
I find that using an adventure 'as written' is far MORE work than either writing my own, or reworking the barebones of the adventure (maps, traps, puzzles etc.) into something that I'm happy with. Whenever I've tried to run an adventure 'as written' I've struggled to retain in my head the motivations of, and interactions between, the NPCs and monsters, for example. When those NPCs and monsters live in my head, I know everything... and if I don't, I just shut my eyes and there is the answer!
DeleteSure, there are some adventures where these kind of interactions don't matter - where not being several steps ahead of the players according to someone else's plan doesn't matter, but those sorts of adventures are rarely very interesting.
That's not to say that I don't own a ton of published adventures and setting material, and steal from them very liberally, dropping whole parts into my games. But I'd always rather be able to draw things from my head than find myself saying, 'wait.. [mumble, mumble, mumble] It says here that NPC X doesn't know anything about that'. Not that that is an accurate transcription of table talk, but trying to run a published adventure sometimes feels like that.
But modules/adventures do give you an idea about what these games were intended to do / were for. For a long time the only adventure we owned was X1, The Isle of Dread. And that shaped our understanding of what an D&D adventure was. Without that, I'm not sure what we'd have done with our Basic and Expert boxes...
@ DrBargle: I feel the same way. Although some of that, maybe even most of that, is because they keep writing modules like books, and are not using a format that is really conducive to in-game use. Some of the amateur press in the OSR has been trying to find better ways with some success, though.
DeleteCombination of saving time, and integrity. Running a module semi-as-written lets me get around my own biases in designing given the party I know, and assures me that what I'm handing them was created by someone objective. That said, I do come up with a lot of improvised and joining material (right now we're on an extended fugue in fairyland, going through a setting of my own design but in a landscape populated with about 3-4 other modules).
ReplyDeleteThey are good for a fresh take on things. And a number of modules have some *great* sections, rooms, etc. I just personally can't run them, as they feel so bloated overall. Also because of what DrBargle said, above.
DeleteI started this thread, 'Would Module Lovers Be Better Off Without Them?' on DF nearly two years ago.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=46318&start=0
Nothings changed. I don't think creative DMs and module-dependant DMs understand each other or play the same game.
Very astute. It goes beyond mere play style, and really is a case of different games. Try talking to the opposite camp and you might as well be speaking another language.
DeleteI buy and use published modules, even though I also create my own, for the same reason that I buy and listen to other people's music, even though I also create my own: because I do not encompass all the different kinds of creativity in the universe and i enjoy styles I may not have created by myself. Also they're inspirational, and often finding your own voice is just a matter of meshing all the voices you like together in a crazy imagination vat in yourhead and seeing what pops out.
ReplyDeletePretty much the same here, except that I cannot create music.
Deletegood point. i rarely use an entire module (i often steal ideas though), but if i do, it's usually for this reason as well.
Deletein time you realise that your own adventures/settings start to follow similar patterns and it's a good idea to shake things up a bit now and then.
I'm a pretty creative person and enjoy outlets for my creativity - music, other languages, writing, etc. No doubt that led me to create Barrowmaze.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post.
ReplyDeleteMy response is sincere, if mildly snarky. If you are prone to no sense of humor or hair trigger reactions, please print it out and read it later. Do not read it while operating heavy machinery. Use only as directed.
I think Kent may be right in saying the 'creative' GM and the 'module-dependant' GM play different games. I don't know if I would have used those particulars terms, since I think we're all creative to some degree or other.
I don't play D&D or any of it's relatives (though I have occasionally run a severely houseruled/homebrew variant of my own creation, though more and more I don't want to even do that...you'll read why in a moment).
Why?
Because creating adventures is easier than easy for me. I am the opposite of many here and many of my friends. I yawn out awesome adventures on a weekly basis (unless we're talking Star Trek RPG campaigning...than it's daily). This is not mere ego. This is one of the few things in life I am good at. I have trouble with higher than 5th grade math but this, this I can do.
I am not the best at creating alternative rules, at least not quickly. I can do it but my tinkering with rules takes months, sometimes years, to get them just how I want them.
I realized at some point that for D&D to work for me I needed to do what so many others do...completely rewrite half or more of it's subsystems. Everyone I know who plays some version of the damn thing has changed the way initiative works, altered the magic system, added this bit, removed that piece, etc. I love to modify things don't get me wrong but if the houserules needed to play a professionally made game are more than the length of two chapters of the offical book, well, I want to play a different game. Perhaps one that makes sense. One that does the boring, annoying number silliness for me so I can sneeze out another few epics on my lunch break.
Just kidding. I do it in the bathroom. I don't get a lunch break.
So I will agree with the idea that, if you find generating a random table to determine the type of weeds found in the local garden fun or you really enjoy the excitement of calculating weapons speeds for all of Uncle Gary's pole arms so they're 'more accurate', you may want someone else to do the unfun and time consuming job of creating an adventure.
On the other hand, you might be like me and...wait...just created another one...two...five...OK, I'll stop here at seven for now. What was I saying? Oh, if you create adventure scenarios easily, published modules are, at best, some cool maps to mess with and a couple of neat ideas to add to your personal gaming gumbo.
Interesting. I'd have to say creating adventures (pre-packaged railroad stories in a can) is easy for me too. But they suck for use at the gaming table. But making a world mostly on-the-fly for which D&D characters can have awesome and personalized adventures in is easy, too.
DeleteI never *use* any published game materials. Maybe the first few sessions of running a new system I might refer to the GM's book. I do occasionally use monster books, even if mostly for the pictures.
ReplyDeleteI buy and collect all manner of cool looking RPG books, and this seems to have very little to do with utility. I never even get the vast majority of them down from the shelf. I honestly have no idea why I buy them beyond that (okay, its because they are "cool" and appeal to my inner kid)
I am also one of those creative types. Making up crazy ass things and places happens with no effort or time required. It's sort of like those things were already there and I just have to take the time it takes to scribble them hastily down. There is no time spent wondering what comes next or second guessing or revising or editing or anything like that, but I can at least imagine that many people have to seriously work at the creative processes behind DMing.
I've never been a module user... tried a few times, with dubious success. Nowadays I don't think I possibly could, considering the play style we use. Our games are naturally dynamic and organic, starting with some simple dungeon or whatever and turning into a whole campaign just based on the crazy ideas of the players and my response to them. A module seems like such a step down, I can't imagine going through with one. So stale... almost by it's very nature. Why would anyone who has seen sandboxing in action ever play a canned module?
ReplyDeleteI've always written my own campaign materials, and have been of the opinion that surely it takes just as long to write your own stuff as it does to properly read through and get a decent overview of someone else's.
ReplyDeleteI've tested this out recently by running a few bought modules (the Grinding Gear by James Raggi, Spire of Iron & Crystal by Matt Finch). I found my theory slightly inaccurate -- it probably is a bit quicker to read a module than to write one (and by "writing a module" I don't mean in a form suitable for publication). For me personally though, there's not a huge difference in prep time, and I much prefer running adventures I've written (and find it much easier), so I'm going to stick to that mostly. It was interesting to see "how the other half live" though, so to speak.
I don't really care if the DM uses a published module or not. My problem is more how they frame it. If the DM says "We will now play module X" so that's lame. If they instead create an open world and place certain modules in it, then I have less of a problem with that, since the players can take or leave any particular module.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that I'm more lazy than creative. Really, I work as artist, I draw, paint and write stuff but when comes game-time I simply can't to spend a few hours to design a dungeon. It's fortunate that there are so many published adventures out there for me to mess.
ReplyDeleteThe game is a thing that brings different interests together - we all get some different things out of it. For me it is a vehicle to be creative by drawing maps, inventing rules and weird encounters. For others the creativity is in just the performance of being a DM or player. Im a horrible player if im not entertained. My favorite DMs spin off intrigue and paranoia and connect us to the world with personal drama. Other GMs who make everything a matter of gritty survival, tedious encounters and always being betrayed by our employers kind of upsets me. Canned modules were fun when i was younger - and a good ruin or dungeon or village can be inserted in my world, but i often replace the entire dungeon. I have liked plots and villages in Dungeoncrawl classic adventures. I did enjoy old TSR classics as example of basic dungeons like B1, B2, B4, Desert of Desolation, UK series,I1 and I2, N1, S4, U Series - but the best have stuff i can reuse or have interesting maps. History as good a resource really. Playing with good improvising DMs was the really the best training i had.
ReplyDeleteIts funny, but we often forget that RPGs were originally written for pre and early teens. I had no idea how to structure a game or a story and I learned by playing these prepackaged scenarios. I still see zillions of kids of this age playing and learning from RPGs.
ReplyDeleteRonbo, shiominus and bevisiscariot said what I was going to, nearly to the phrase. I'll simply add that I'm mystified that such an amount of debate can be generated by this question, even more so than the "too much world design?" argument a couple of posts ago. The Dwimmermount point of view is valid, of course, but the 3 reasons listed in the OP pretty much sum it up for me. I generally use published modules as a source of fresh ideas, whereas I cannot think of everything, and I worry that after a while the tunes can start to sound similar. Most of my adventures are home-grown, and a full customization of published pieces takes a lot of work (especially considering the highly modified version of D&D I use), but at times they can be only modestly altered to work well, and that can be a relief in my overpacked schedule.
ReplyDeleteYou said:
ReplyDelete. . . it seems fundamentally inauthentic in the same way that cover versions or remakes of old films usually seem fundamentally inauthentic. . .
I don't have anything to interesting to contribute on modules, but this statement interests me quite a lot. What exactly do you mean by 'fundamentally inauthentic' when it comes to a cover version of a song? And what does 'authenticity' mean in this context? Yeah, a crappy cover, or a crappy remake of a decent film is, well, crappy , but by the same token a really good cover version of a song, or a really good remake of a film is, ermm, really good.
Where does authenticity even enter the discussion? Unless you assign some particular value in being the 'first' to do something, which somehow trumps any other consideration. Which is kind of odd logic if you think about it, because by that token any performance of, say, Romeo and Juliet is, by definition, fundamentally inauthentic and hence a pale imitation of the first production in the Elizabethan Globe. So what's the point of anyone either performing or viewing the play now?
I hope this post doesn't sound aggressive - it's not intended as such, and apologies if so. I'm just very interested in what your idea of 'authenticity' means, and what it's value is (as, like it or not, the term 'fundamentally inauthentic' is culturally a pretty value laden term.)
There are some really good covers of songs and good remakes of films, yes, but there is still something different about them, wouldn't you say? Even if they are improvements over the original (which is rare, but happens) there is something 'pure' about the artist's own creation. It's not possible to describe what that feeling is, because it's just a feeling, but I'm sure it's apparent to everybody. There are rare cover versions which seem to add something new, by putting a new twist on the original - one example is Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" for instance - but even then, there is still something about the original that feels undiluted.
DeleteShakespeare isn't really a fair comparison; performances of his plays nowadays are fundamentally inauthentic in a sense, yes, but that's immaterial since we do not have access to the artist's original vision (lacking a time machine). We literally have no access to Shakespeare except through inauthentic performances. But it's not the case that we literally have no access to D&D except through inauthentic copying of other people's modules.
Thanks for the reply. I'd agree there is something different about any cover version compared to the original (by definition). But what isn't apparent to me is the feeling of indefinable purity you describe with the original - I just don't 'feel' that at all. Especially as, in many cases, I wont' be aware of whether a particular song or film is 'original' in the first place (and with songs, what does that even mean - many 'originals' are performed by people other than song-writer, so is there a sliding scale of purity? Not to my ear.) Which is why the Shakespeare example, I think, is instructive - you're saying because the original (presumably, to your mind, 'purer') performance is unknown and unknowable, then it doesn't matter that all subsequent performances are inauthentic.
DeleteI don't disagree with that, but I'd build that point further. If, as you imply, there is quite a lot of value to be had from an inauthentic performance of Shakespeare, then why shouldn't there be potential value in an inauthentic performance of anything? And if there's value in it, then where does the question of authenticity come into it at all? Surely any performance of anything should stand and fall on its own merits?
Again, I'm assuming from what you've said, but you seem to suggest that if an original is available, then a cover is redundant. Which, extended out might mean that if the original performance of Romeo and Juliet was available (say you went back in time, video'd it, and put it on youtube) and we thus had access to the purity of the original, then any subsequent performance of the play would become redundant and pointless - which is a position I can't agree with.
So, in an attempt to offering some insight to your original question - what's the point in published modules - it seems from what you're saying that you place a much higher value on the act/process of creation, and indeed the novelty of revealing that creation for the first time, compared to the act/process of subsequent performance/interpretation.
Obviously I have no problem with that - I'm certainly not going to tell you what you should value - but it's worth saying this isn't necessarily a value 'hierarchy' shared by everyone else. And for those of us who don't share the same concern with originality/authenticity then published modules both provide a useful short-cut, but also, on a slightly 'higher' level, offer a chance to take something good and interpret it as you see fit - which for some 'performers' is a satisfying endeavour in and of itself (as witnessed by any number of actors taking on Hamlet's soliloquy, or a teenage guitarist knocking out stairway to heaven, or so on).
As a corollary to what I'm talking about, go on you tube and check out a video of Peggy Seeger performing 'the first time I ever saw your face' - a song written, I think for her, by her lover Ewan MacColl. Pretty damn authentic I'd say, and yet check out the comments - there is a lot of abuse from people who are more used to the Roberta Flack version (which they've just assumed is the original). Are the two performances different? Sure. Is one 'purer', more 'authentic' or 'better' than the other? Personally I really love both versions (as I do the 'real' original sang by Ewan MacColl himself, and the reggae version by Marcia Griffiths) - but then it's a great song.
I think perhaps my position is being misconstrued here. It's not that there is NO value in running a published module as written. Of course there is, when compared to no game at all. My claim is that there a published module as written is no comparison to materials created by the DM.
DeleteIn the same way, a cover version is not redundant per se, and some are actually better than the original, but those are rare and, in general, the cover is no comparison to a performance of a song by the person who wrote it - especially in terms of authenticity.
I'm not pooh-poohing published adventures so much as I am wondering why you would choose to run one over your own materials except if there are extenuating circumstances such as a lack of time.
Fair enough - sorry if you're feeling misconstrued!
DeleteI'm just thinking out loud, and groping an answer to your question. I didn't think you were saying there was NO value in a cover version, just that there is MORE value in an original. But I just don't think that proposition is shared by everyone else in the world.
So with regards to songs, personally, I see the creation of a song as one skill, and the performance of a given song as a different one. Both can be appreciated on their own terms, but being good at one doesn't make you - necessarily - good at the other.
And what's more, if you don't value the act of creation above that of performance, and - say - you're not very good at writing songs, but you're a great singer, then you might very well get more pleasure from singing other people's great songs, then writing your own turgid dirges. Or even from listening to a great singer sing someone else's great song, than it be performed by the original author if the writer is a more limited singer.
Apply that same logic to adventure writing and dm'ing - if you're not very good at structuring an adventure, or you technically don't know how to, or you lack imagination in your writing/improvisation, or you lack confidence in sharing your own stuff, or you're very good at creating adventures but you just don't enjoy the process of creation, BUT, you enjoy DM'ing. Then, in that case, you might well get real pleasure out of putting your own twist on someone else's adventure, the same way that it's fun to sing along to a great song on the radio.
Does that make sense? Don't know, anyway thanks for taking the time to answer, it's an interesting discussion for me regardless of whether I'm making sense or not!
As usual, I have to be different. I enjoy running location based modules. My favorite part of RPGs is the actual GMing of the game. I've been having a blast running the classic TSR modules and the new DCC ones on G+. Unfortunately, good location based modules are few and far between. The vast majority are plot based railroads. I'm also a perfectionist when I write, and tend to get stuck over thinking irrelevant details (also the reason I don't blog).
ReplyDeleteI wrote a post about why I like modules a few months ago:
ReplyDeletehttp://untimately.blogspot.com/2012/08/in-praise-of-modules.html
Also, I'm fundamentally an historian, and modules are a snapshot in time for this hobby. That's pretty valuable.
ReplyDelete