I’ve been DMing the Hoard of the Dragon Queen for my local group, and it has me thinking about about Modules and other pre-made dungeons and adventures.

Starting with 2nd edition D&D Dark Sun (so loved that setting) Star Wars (everything but d6 – too late to the party) and now 5e with Hoard of the Dragon Queen, I’ve used a lot of modules. The reasons vary, time, interest, novelty, convenience. And of course the quality varies – especially across the Dark Sun products.

So what keeps me coming back? Right now, the number one reason is time. 5e is new, and the best way I know to learn it is to GM. With only the PHB out, I turned to a module to get monsters and Bad Guys – especially when Wizards provided a free supplement with information from products that haven’t been released yet (bring on the Dungeon Masters Guide – please). I can save a lot of time and frustration by stealing (buying really I guess) time from the module creator. Not sure how characters should be constructed, check out the NPCs. Not sure how many of what type of monster makes a good challenge, check out the encounters. What do I hate about saving time like this? You can get locked into the authors style of creating and using NPCs. In some cases it’s understandable, Steading of the Hill Giants, better include a large amount of hill giants (duh), but it should also include a wide variety of giants. After running or even just reading the module, I expect a better understanding of varieties of giants and different ways to use them in a home game. If all I get is hill Giant guards and a boss fight that is time wasted (disclaimer – haven’t DMd that module, just played and I believe the creator(s) did put a wide variety in the module – so hooray).

With Dark Sun and the wide variety of supplements and modules it was variety and novelty. As soon as I saw the scarcity of metal, use of magic/defiling, and feral halflings I was hooked (OK – not true – as soon as I saw the Brom art I was hooked the rest came later). I must have used the introductory flip book module for Dark Sun at least five different times. It was such a great idea. One flip book with info for the players and another for the DM. This was such a different environment that a module really helped set the tone of the adventure. However, in fine TSR tradition bloat happened. A splat book or boxed set for every city state, cmon let me put some of my own spin on something. And then a “reboot”, now you lost me. Some of the modules were great, but there was so much that it was hard to fit everything in and the quality was variable. Eventually I created my own adventures finding some spaces on the map that weren’t already covered by gaming books or novels.

Asking about modules on Twitter, I got some great comments from @Alphastream. His first comment was the best – One of my friends said, “a great adventure teaches you something about your character.” Awesome comment, and so hard to do in a module. His second comment leads to a possible option to the first – “I love hard choices with no clear answer. Adventures with opportunity for players to tell part of the story.” I don’t know about you, but these are things I rarely see in a module. It is easy to provide a gimmick – White Plume Mountain and the laser guns, or turn things around on the players, make them evil, or shrink them to miniature size (Nascrag?), or make them play monsters. Making them really think and make tough choices – that’s the brass ring and golden ticket wrapped up in one shiny package.

Some “newer” game systems help with this, Dungeon World (sorry – here it is again), Fate, and Burning Wheel are great examples. As a player you are encouraged to take the narrative and run. These also make excellent convention games – well suited to bring a more diverse group together for an “Adventure Module” than the “standard” meet in a tavern and go explore the map scenario of my youth.

So modules, love them, steal from them, use them when you don’t have time. Find the best ones that make your players think, and do things at least a little differently.

Send me your thoughts on twitter @wookieedaddiee