Premade/Canned adventures. Do you use them? How do you use them?

[mcb]

Premade or canned adventures. Do you narrators use them?

LotR does not have to many offical premade adventures yet but there have been quite a few fan made adventures I have seen posted here and other places. I was wondering how many of you narrators out there actually use them?

Personally I have never used one for a game I am narrating. I do love to read them and like to occasionally take plot devices or ideas from them but in all my RPG'ing with LotR or other games I don't remember ever using a premade adventure verbatum from the source.

I find many of them too ridged and a lot of them seem to break down after some of my over zelous players get there teeth into them. They don't seem to allow enough room for the characters to do other things then a few selected plot forks.

I also find that I would much rather plan my own story. Not that other people don't have good ideas but its much easier to tailor a story to the characters if you write it yourself. It also hard to sometime incorporate a premade adventure into an ongoing story without the hook being too obvious and even the adveture standing out as different then that narrator would have normally done.

I'm rambling again. What do you guys think about and how do you guys use premade adventures as part of you Role Playing.

Later
mcb

[Ineti]

I usually mine premade adventures for ideas and plot hooks. I very rarely run one wholesale, usually because it's not worth the time or effort to try and adjust it to fit my campaign.

[Tharkun]

Sometimes I don't have as much time as I'd like, so pre-made adventures are always welcome in my book. Most of the time though, I use pre-made adventures for ideas or plot fillers. If I can integrate the entire adventure into my campaign, great. But that rarely happens.

I find the MERP adventures to be a great source of information and ideas as well. I have several of them and will draw upon this information when inspiration eludes me for a particular session.

v/r

Tharkun

[macaddicttt]

I've only used them once. My little brother was begging me to play a game with him, so I just played the House of Margil adventure that came with the Narrator's Screen. I was pleasantly surprised by the ideas, although in some places it was poorly executed. I think I will use it's traveling as an inspiration for traveling in my normal campaign.

[Brandir]

I like using premade adventure if I can't find the time to produce one myself. I do not use them 100%, adding my own spin to them.

The lack of official adventures does concern me. So far Decipher have published three - House of Margil and two in Scrye magazine ROTK special.

There are many great LOTR RPG adventures out there but Decipher should at least host the better ones on it's web site

[ben hur]

This is a very nice thread, thanks for starting it, mcb. It's very nice to know how people feel on the subject.

Usually I just mine ideas from them, but I played out Brandir's excellent chronicle in it's entirety. I've actually gotten a nice amount of ideas for adventures (and adventure format) from the Star Wars adventures hosted on the Star wars RPG site.

What I would really really really like is if someone made the Chronicles of Ice and Fire into a ready-to-run adventure (probably Jason Durall and company would do it, since they are the creators of it). I would like that ever so much. I haven't even read all their stuff, but the Chronicles are very, very good from what I've seen.

[Ineti]

Originally posted by Brandir
The lack of official adventures does concern me. So far Decipher have published three - House of Margil and two in Scrye magazine ROTK special.

There are many great LOTR RPG adventures out there but Decipher should at least host the better ones on it's web site

There was also a short adventure that was delivered at the various cons in 2003. It was given to the attendees along with a pair of Tengwar dice. I don't recall the title of the adventure, but it was a decent intro to the game.

Hopefully Decipher will soon post the adventures culled from their adventure solicitation from a ways back.

[ben hur]

Originally posted by Ineti
Hopefully Decipher will soon post the adventures culled from their adventure solicitation from a ways back.

Ditto.

[ReptileJK]

Yeah, I don't use them much, but I like to read them. They're fun and occassionally I'll get an idea for a location that I want to use.

MCB, this is interesting. Your name is Matt Birch. I very good friend of mine has the same first and last name. His, however, is Matt Burch. When I saw it at the end of your thread, I took a double take.
Can't believe I didn't see it before.
have a good one,
Reptile

[mcb]

Originally posted by ReptileJK
Yeah, I don't use them much, but I like to read them. They're fun and occassionally I'll get an idea for a location that I want to use.

MCB, this is interesting. Your name is Matt Birch. I very good friend of mine has the same first and last name. His, however, is Matt Burch. When I saw it at the end of your thread, I took a double take.
Can't believe I didn't see it before.
have a good one,
Reptile

Yah I think the BURCH spelling must be more common becuase everyone I meet tries to spell BIRCH that way first.

mcb

[Aldaron]

Speaking of canned adventures...

Does anyone know if the 3rd part in the "Bree by Twilight" series is out, yet?

I think it was to be called "Shadow on the Throne", and was the third part after:

"Rescue on the Barrow-Downs"

and...

"Gloom at Weathertop"

I really like those adventures, and was planning on using them as the intro to my game.

I've searched around on the 'Net, and haven't been able to find any references, but I thought someone might have tracked it down.

Cheers,

[MightyCthulhu]

Originally posted by Aldaron
Speaking of canned adventures...

Does anyone know if the 3rd part in the "Bree by Twilight" series is out, yet?

I'm interested in those as well. I'm starting a Bree game (not the same timeline as the one presented in the story arc, but close enough for our jazz) and I'd really like more plot ideas centered around the Bree area.