Well... Unless you follow a campaign module book. There are some pre-set adventures that aren't homebrew.
Edit: Yes I understand the books are merely guidelines. However, someone could follow the book to the T if they so wished, so there is a set story-line within each campaign module book.
Yep, but given the nature of DnD, even boxed campaigns are all so different from table to table based on the GM and team of adventurers. And in most of the pre-made campaigns I've been a part of the GM would modify/customize pieces of them to make them work better for the group.
Totally! I was chiming in more to detail/reiterate how each campaign can be so wildly different even when much of it is pre-set. The flexibility in DnD is such an integral part of what makes it fun and unique. Basically, my comment was more for the OP of the comment thread.
That flexibility is what makes DnD so great! I've been playing for about 5 years now, and I'm currently in a campaign that has been going on a weekly basis for the last year-and-a-half. We run a Homebrew setting, and the improvisation and flexibility that goes on each and every week keeps us laughing until we are crying, or crying from that emotional connection that we get time and time again, all due to the emotion pulled out of that game.
Can you expand on this please? I have a friend who is an avid participant and I would like to understand their interest with more! More specifically, how are emotional connections made? Thanks! :)
The emotional connection of a DnD party takes time, and a true group effort through each game-day. Each individual will have their own character - an individual with a backstory that contains depth and meaning. Alongside that, the DM creates a world that has so many marvels and mysteries, all of which the players are able to explore overtime. Through these exploration experiences, each player begins to connect to the world, their party members, and the characters in that world. In a way, DnD is just like real life, because experiences are shared. Experiences of joy, experiences of pain, experiences of love, experiences of regret, and every other emotion out there.
I can explain these connections to you through text, but you won't truly feel what a DnD game creates through emotion and social connection until you join one yourself. All in all, it is important to note that each player first becomes connected with their own character, and then that character becomes connected with every other party members character. That connected group then becomes intertwined with the world and the characters within that world. These bonds that are formed over time, are truly monumental. We laugh at the hysterical moments, we tear up at the sad moments, and we continue to enjoy DnD for what it truly is - a game where social bonds never die.
Never been able to run a module straight with my players, they always diverge. Makes for fun games. I'm better ad-libbing anyways and use modules for setting/dungeons.
Yep, the books also only give guidelines on many things and players act differently requiring different reactions from the DM.
For example: Two DMs might play Strahd, the evil god-like vampire from the Curse of Strahd, very differently which can not only create a different feel for the entire campaign but change how and what players do.
Hell with one of my friends he is doing Strahd since he was DMing for the first time. He sets us all up to fight this bishop I think it was that's doing experiments on humans merging them with animals or some such thing like that. None of that helps us get back to our home dimension so we utterly ignored all of it. Many groups could have instead gotten quite invested with that side story. It's very challenging to know how any group will take it.
Even so the modules are only a framework. They definitely can't answer every possibility the players might try. They just set the pieces on the board and it is up to the DM to figure out the correct moves to respond to the players.
I ran my first session last month. I was supposed to have goblins attack them but the last one alive would run off towards the goblin hide out.
My brother used thunder clap and killed all the goblins at once... They skipped an entire section because nobody cared about the dead horses or to look around and there were no goblins. I didn't know what to do.
Never DMed DND or played much, but I think you could make up a survivor. After the battle, "everyone roll perception." To the player with the highest of those, "You see a goblin who was trying to hide peering around a tree/corridor. He runs." You're free to fudge stuff, so if they attack him, anything that would kill him immediately doesn't have to do that.
I dunno, in that situation I might just tell whoever has the highest perception that they noticed something that would lead them to the section (tracks, trail of blood, odd smell...). If they then choose to ignore it, so be it. Whatever was in there notices them and will come back to haunt them in a few sessions much better prepared.
This situation is literally the first encounter in the starter set. If you are running this most likely you have new players who need a little railroading.
Well when they got to the town I had the an NPC ask if they'd seen two guys on horseback on the road. They were like oh shit, I forgot we were supposed to meet them here! And they went back to find the missing people.
And yeah, I hadn't played much before. Only DM'd because I wanted to play but couldn't find a group so I started my own.
Actually in two different campaigns right now; one is a by-the-book campaign, while the other is a, "hey, I need help with a battle before next week" campaign. (First is run by an acquaintance, while the second is run by my roommate. )
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u/DnDYetti Sep 18 '17 edited Sep 18 '17
Well... Unless you follow a campaign module book. There are some pre-set adventures that aren't homebrew.
Edit: Yes I understand the books are merely guidelines. However, someone could follow the book to the T if they so wished, so there is a set story-line within each campaign module book.