Pre-made AP modules... How much improvising is too much?


3.5/d20/OGL


I am running a Drow Wars campaign setting, in which it is a straight forward adventure path, akin to Age of Worms or Savage Tide. Honestly, it's really getting on my nerves. I am finding myself having to rewrite and improvise constantly. Does this happen to anyone else who runs pre-made Adventure Paths?

This particular instance, which is irking me the most, is that the PCs are riding across the land, warning the country of a coming Drow invasion, ala Paul Revere style. Most of the towns described in the book only give statistical info and a few important NPCs. Some of the town sections describe side-quests to get audience with the important NPCs, but this town in particular has the important NPC as a shady group of merchants, and spends 2 pages detailing how impenetrable their hideout is and how impossible they are to track down, and apparently the PCs (3rd lvl btw) are supposed to convince this shady guild of the Drow invasion somehow in order to continue. It gives no instances in which the party may encounter a guild member. Nothing.

And that's it. I paid money for this adventure path and I'm left to make up my own adventures to get the PCs through the story. I'm really regretting running this game, as I've read ahead and it does this even more later on. It gives points A and E, but I have to come up with B, C, and D. Why did I bother buying an AP if I have to constantly make things up and improv?

Anyone else have this kind of experience with an AP?


With an AP? Yes. With good APs? No. That's one of the reasons I either (1) only buy APs sight-unseen from sources I trust--Paizo is currently the only such source; or (2) wait until an entire AP is out, read multiple reviews, then buy it after it goes on sale. Now, I like some open space in an AP as I enjoy customizing things to my group. But if there are glaring holes, well, I can just make things up myself and save the money.


Agreed. I wound up buying the complete AP (3 books) for dirt cheap at the Origins game convention a year ago, because a vendor was getting rid of all their 3e material. So, I got the whole campaign for under $10. Being at a con and surrounded by people and anxious vendors, I didn't really get a chance to research it. It does have some really neat stuff in it, buy these plot potholes and speed bumps are going to be a pain to work around. But, considering how cheap I bought them, I guess I shouldn't really complain.

I'm an experienced enough DM that yes, I can patch it over and work around them, but I don't feel I should have to, especially this often. If I knew there'd be this much going on I would've just homebrewed something.


It's good that you got it on the cheap at least! I've done the same with a few (I got the Burning Sky PDFs for $1 each or some such during a sale). Even with APs I trust, I prefer waiting until the entire thing is out and reading through it to get a good handle on the adventure flow. It also helps me figure out if I would really enjoy running the game and if my players would enjoy the experience. Age of Worms, for instance, was too dungeon-crawlesque for our tastes, whereas Savage Tide was a perfect fit.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You will certainly find something for your tastes with Paizo APs. And the amount of support material available cuts down improvising greatly. I am running RotRL for a year and had to do very little extra work.


I played in an Age of Worms game and we got 3/4 the way through the campaign, but personal schedules shifted around so much that we had to drop it, unfortunately. I was a 15th level Duskblade too... My only problem with that path is that yeah, it was heavy on the dungeon crawls, and we had a hard time remembering why we were in half the dungeons to begin with. It felt like some of them were thrown in just for something to do, and had little impact on the actual story. The Spire of Long Shadows threw us for a loop and we just slogged through it for the sake of gaming.

At this point, I think I'm going to transplant the Drow Wars game I am running into another existing setting, maybe Forgotten Realms or Eberron and pick apart the books as single adventures, rather than try and follow it's plothole ridden path. Maybe just use the actual Drow War as a smaller story arc, then homebrew afterwards.

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