D&D General Your Top Tip(s) for Prepping a Published Adventure

TheSword

Legend
I print out the monster stat blocks for the part of the adventure I’m running that week (plus a bit extra for any sections they might jump to) onto a page of A4 for easy reference.

I use the artwork in the book to make battlemaps that I print out and laminate for the key combat scenes. This has the advantage of cementing in my head the dungeon layouts.

I print NPC flash cards on A5 with a picture and stats on the back so I can show NPCs. I usually put the PCs name next to the pic well. Every time they’re talking to that NPC I stick the pic to the front of my screen with bluetak.

I pick ahead which random encounters I think I and my players will enjoy and then try and flesh those out at bit. I don’t believe in rolling such things.
 

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Tyler Do'Urden

Soap Maker
As a DM who loves adventure modules, I look at them not as pre-prepared meals, but as recipes (sometimes including an appendix full of ingredients). I'm the chef, and as a chef with over a quarter century of experience, I'm going to inject my own cooking techniques - I can spot when the recipe's baking temperature might inadvertantly burn the bottom of the pan, or that there's only about a third as much garlic as is needed (Americans don't use nearly enough garlic when they cook), or if that extra vanilla icing in the freezer might go well as a topping.

As for my general use of modules:

1. Following Ed Greenwood's advice to keep five plots going at any given time, I keep about five modules of appropriate level ready at any given time, with possible hooks no matter which way the characters go. I might not have them all "prepped", but I know how to potentially lead into them and fill time until the right place for the players to bite on the hook.

2.Modify to suit the party. Create hooks different than the ones given in the book if necessary. Recently, I was trying to figure out how to tie a wizard PC into an ongoing plot - we decided he was trying to get into the library of the keep that the characters were raiding. Bingo. There are plenty of ways like this. (In addition, I usually have at least one ongoing-NPC villain who is hunting at least one of the PCs for one reason or another - a Jabba sending bounty hunters to keep the PCs on their toes - and on the move, if I don't want them getting too comfy anywhere. Thus circumstance can lead to adventure - when you end up wandering into a cursed town and fall victim to the curse yourself, for instance. Or wake up in the middle of the night to find that your roadside inn is run by Werewolves, and the PCs are the midnight snack!)

3. Modify to suit the setting. If the module was designed for the setting in question, disregard. But otherwise... I usually change any names that sound out of place to fit the culture, swap out monsters for more region or setting appropriate ones, and make other similar changes. I run Midgard - one of the nice things about Midgard is the majority of the cultures map pretty clearly on to one or another real-world nation, so there's plenty of sources for appropriate names. Often I might just translate the name into an appropriate language, or change the NPC names to ones of the appropriate ethnicity with a similar derivation, sound, meaning, or even just the same first letter.

4. Rebalance. Often I'm running adventures for a party a bit smaller or larger, or higher or lower level, than the module calls for. Thus I run everything they're likely to encounter in the upcoming session through Kobold Fight Club to balance, and modify from there as necessary.

5. Have maps and stats ready. I'm a laptop DM, so I run all my adventures from PDFs. I use print-to-PDF to copy all maps and statblocks from the adventure and the various monster books into individual one-page files, so I can have them all open as tabs at once. Makes things much more convenient than paging through the module or the Monster Manual (even on PDF) when you're trying to keep the game running.

6. De-vanilla the magic. I like my magic weird and wonderful, and I completely reject the belief that D&D magic items can't be. In fact, it's not hard at all. Go through, and, aside from potions and scrolls, give every magic item a few special touches. Sounds. Materials. Origins. Prophecies. Minor curses. Nightmares. Shapeshifting. Intelligence. Ties to extraplanar creatures. Who knows what? The random tables for modifying items in the DMG are a good place to start... I usually roll a few of those and daydream from there. There's no such thing as a boring +1 longsword in my campaign. Ever.

7. Get to know the key NPCs. I'll usually daydream a few dramatic hooks about how to roleplay them - often simply by copying manners of characters in movies. When I was running a very RP focused module a few months ago, I started to instantly see characters in my mind as I read their descriptions and statblock. A friendly but corrupt and conniving guard lieutenant? For some reason I imagined him as Robert de Niro's "Harry Tuttle" from the movie Brazil... only with a polearm instead of a plumber's wrench. A mysterious and powerful darakhul (true ghoul) fixer who invites the party in for tea and an info dump? Morpheus from the Matrix immediately jumped in. A panicked german venture capitalist calling my office one day inspired an egotistical Dwarf arms merchant of my creation. And so on...

Just remember... the module is a recipe, not a meal. Add your own magic, and heap it on!
 




3catcircus

Adventurer
As a DM who loves adventure modules, I look at them not as pre-prepared meals, but as recipes (sometimes including an appendix full of ingredients). I'm the chef, and as a chef with over a quarter century of experience, I'm going to inject my own cooking techniques - I can spot when the recipe's baking temperature might inadvertantly burn the bottom of the pan, or that there's only about a third as much garlic as is needed (Americans don't use nearly enough garlic when they cook), or if that extra vanilla icing in the freezer might go well as a topping.

As for my general use of modules:

1. Following Ed Greenwood's advice to keep five plots going at any given time, I keep about five modules of appropriate level ready at any given time, with possible hooks no matter which way the characters go. I might not have them all "prepped", but I know how to potentially lead into them and fill time until the right place for the players to bite on the hook.

2.Modify to suit the party. Create hooks different than the ones given in the book if necessary. Recently, I was trying to figure out how to tie a wizard PC into an ongoing plot - we decided he was trying to get into the library of the keep that the characters were raiding. Bingo. There are plenty of ways like this. (In addition, I usually have at least one ongoing-NPC villain who is hunting at least one of the PCs for one reason or another - a Jabba sending bounty hunters to keep the PCs on their toes - and on the move, if I don't want them getting too comfy anywhere. Thus circumstance can lead to adventure - when you end up wandering into a cursed town and fall victim to the curse yourself, for instance. Or wake up in the middle of the night to find that your roadside inn is run by Werewolves, and the PCs are the midnight snack!)

3. Modify to suit the setting. If the module was designed for the setting in question, disregard. But otherwise... I usually change any names that sound out of place to fit the culture, swap out monsters for more region or setting appropriate ones, and make other similar changes. I run Midgard - one of the nice things about Midgard is the majority of the cultures map pretty clearly on to one or another real-world nation, so there's plenty of sources for appropriate names. Often I might just translate the name into an appropriate language, or change the NPC names to ones of the appropriate ethnicity with a similar derivation, sound, meaning, or even just the same first letter.

4. Rebalance. Often I'm running adventures for a party a bit smaller or larger, or higher or lower level, than the module calls for. Thus I run everything they're likely to encounter in the upcoming session through Kobold Fight Club to balance, and modify from there as necessary.

5. Have maps and stats ready. I'm a laptop DM, so I run all my adventures from PDFs. I use print-to-PDF to copy all maps and statblocks from the adventure and the various monster books into individual one-page files, so I can have them all open as tabs at once. Makes things much more convenient than paging through the module or the Monster Manual (even on PDF) when you're trying to keep the game running.

6. De-vanilla the magic. I like my magic weird and wonderful, and I completely reject the belief that D&D magic items can't be. In fact, it's not hard at all. Go through, and, aside from potions and scrolls, give every magic item a few special touches. Sounds. Materials. Origins. Prophecies. Minor curses. Nightmares. Shapeshifting. Intelligence. Ties to extraplanar creatures. Who knows what? The random tables for modifying items in the DMG are a good place to start... I usually roll a few of those and daydream from there. There's no such thing as a boring +1 longsword in my campaign. Ever.

7. Get to know the key NPCs. I'll usually daydream a few dramatic hooks about how to roleplay them - often simply by copying manners of characters in movies. When I was running a very RP focused module a few months ago, I started to instantly see characters in my mind as I read their descriptions and statblock. A friendly but corrupt and conniving guard lieutenant? For some reason I imagined him as Robert de Niro's "Harry Tuttle" from the movie Brazil... only with a polearm instead of a plumber's wrench. A mysterious and powerful darakhul (true ghoul) fixer who invites the party in for tea and an info dump? Morpheus from the Matrix immediately jumped in. A panicked german venture capitalist calling my office one day inspired an egotistical Dwarf arms merchant of my creation. And so on...

Just remember... the module is a recipe, not a meal. Add your own magic, and heap it on!
The only "danger" with this is adding so much of your own spice that it becomes totally unrecognizable - e.g. running the Slavelords modules without any of the Slavelords actually making an appearance...
 

Tyler Do'Urden

Soap Maker
"The only "danger" with this is adding so much of your own spice that it becomes totally unrecognizable - e.g. running the Slavelords modules without any of the Slavelords actually making an appearance... "

Heck, why not?

I'm actually thinking of heavily modifying GDQ for my own campaign... and replacing the Drow with Duergar, the Demonweb for Loki's Maze over Ginnungagap, the spidership with FENRIR, a massive wolf-shaped adamantine siege engine that the Duergar's manufactures have been secretly directed to (as their high priest has been replaced by a Derro follower of Loki)... and of course Lolth with Loki himself.

Any module can be used as a framework and reskinned into something completely new. (Though it's possible to take it too far and unfortunately have the players recognize it - like the time I tried to reskin the Dragonlance modules into a Star Wars campaign and a player noticed what I was doing in the first session, despite that I had thought I'd replaced everything with something unrecognizable...)
 

The only "danger" with this is adding so much of your own spice that it becomes totally unrecognizable - e.g. running the Slavelords modules without any of the Slavelords actually making an appearance...

Knowing the name of the module and the players making assumptions based on that is meta-gaming, misleading them this way I don't see as a issue let alone a danger.
 

Theo R Cwithin

I cast "Baconstorm!"
The only "danger" with this is adding so much of your own spice that it becomes totally unrecognizable - e.g. running the Slavelords modules without any of the Slavelords actually making an appearance...
Unless it's the point of running that adventure, why does it need to be "recognizable"? I reskin/ rename/ repurpose things all the time, because I play for fun, not to retell old material.
 

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
This seems obvious, but you wouldn't believe how many DMs expect modules to run themselves without prep and have barely skimmed the material before jumping in.

Don't be that guy.
In fairness to that guy, it’s a pretty natural assumption to make that something being sold as “an adventure for characters Xth to Yth level” would be able to be run out of the box without a ton of additional work on the DM’s part. New DMs look to these things specifically because they haven’t learned those adventure-building skills and they want something that will tell them how to do it step-by-step before jumping into the deep end of designing their own adventures.
 

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