When I write about 'Prepared Adventures' I'm referring to adventures written and ready to go with maps and other accouterments. Because I am old, I still call them modules, and think of monochrome/color covers of TSR adventures. S1 Tomb of Horrors was the first gaming product I ever bought back in 1979. I had no fricking idea what I was doing or what to do with it. We had a blast taking turns GMing and diving in head first...and memorizing where the pits traps lay.
I did a podcast about this topic earlier today. I've been running one game, two sometimes, and I've been relying on published material more than I ever have. I created my previous campaigns with original content. Say I started a new game, I wouldn't use any of the material from the previous game in the current one. I have no explanation.
To make it worse, I'm an adventure writer and I rarely used my own adventures after I finished them. Yeah, I know how daft that sounds, but the way my mind works is "that's done, move onto the next thing". As a GM, I am very good at creating things on the fly. I preferred to be as surprised as the player. But things have changed.
Part of the reason it is not a great way to do it any longer is my memory is not as sharp as it once was. I'm sure part of it is age, but I work a job the requires me to be one edge most of the day, making calculated choices, dealing with resistant people, and some days getting called every name in the book except my own. heh, sounds like a being a parent. When I am done at the end of the day, my mind is often mushy and in no shape to function in a creative capacity.
The biggest part it hurts is the consistency. I forget details. My notes are a mess. I used to be an excellent note-taker. My mind has a hard time recapturing threads I've crafted. So I started using material where NPCs and areas are ready to go and I put notes right in the books. Including my own. *gasp* And I've discovered it helped my creativity. Having that foundation ready for me and then creating from that.
One of the adventures I got a lot of use out of was Sister of the Dark Moon in The Manor #6. It provided me three sessions of use and an on-going relationship. What was great about it the party didn't explore the entire area at once. One of the party came in, freed the kids. A few sessions later they went back, discovered grizzly totems. Left. Then returned to deal with the real problem, the Handmaiden Aria, a werespider and the faithful of Nocta, Goddess of the Night. But instead of killing her, one of the party members went down due to poison. To save her own life she promised to save his if they swore to leave. And now have an ally/adversarial relationship. Way more interesting that a simple kill.
I was able to use my adventure and bring more depth to the experience and atmosphere. When I connected it to my campaign world it was easy and created an entire mini setting.
For a con game I used my Weeping Witch adventure. A mystery about a missing boy with the Weeping Witch at the center of things. I provided more depth and details not found in the original because I knew the adventure and the NPCs. I was a hell of a game. Players and GM alike had a great time.
So my lesson. Don't be a dumbass. Use prepared adventures. Mine or someone else's to lighten the workload. This provides me a more time to create based off the foundations of these works.
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