Like BryanB, I will happily borrow from modules. I primarily like interesting maps especially for towns, keeps, buildings and above ground locations. (I am not a dungeon fan and rarely have traditional “D&D” style clumps of rooms underground.)

I will ponder the plots and see whether they can be glued into my game in some fashion. I did such, with success, with old SPI Dragonquest modules (Palace of Ontocle, Enchanted Woods – great maps/settings and adventure content). Similar success with Harn towns and cities (most excellent maps).

Lastly I will grab the NPCs if they are of interest. They do take work to revisit backgrounds as needed and sometimes revise races/classes/etc. Some (for example Aestus from Blade of Allectus) have remained in game for years.

These days though I find my %own to %bought ratio to be more myself than modules. Perhaps it is an age (of me or campaign) thing. The more complex and developed a game world, the harder a drop-in becomes.

Regards,
Old Man

I’m stealing some stuff to add to the game this week as I type and NO, I can’t say what that stuff is.

@Rafe – That’s a fun way to use modules– as a toolbox of interesting parts. It takes a little more time to strip it down and rebuild it, but it does result in a custom scenario after your efforts.

@Nojo – The DMG has a lot of good advice. The Arbitrator example is great– a nice example of adding a scene with serious punch. I hope your Psyker has a good time– that sounds like an interesting reveal.

@brcarl – PbP is an interesting fish; I’ve enjoyed playing in a couple, but have only flopped when trying to run one.

Tripping the contrivance meter is the main drawback to shoving everyone’s NPCs into each adventure, but drawing in one character or element from each character’s background can work, if they’re not all characters. Try having people comment on their items, recognize makers marks, etc., and only include a bigger twist for the one player who is really seeking out this experience.

Good luck. If anyone has personalization snippets brcarl can steal, please share!

I’ve gone back and reviewed the players’ backgrounds, and already have a few ideas for minor tweaks to NPCs and encounters to integrate them a bit. My “contrivance meter” is pretty sensitive, so I want the hooks to make sense which makes things a bit more difficult for me.

Also, I am using a published module because I lack the time and energy to roll my own. I know most folks here at the Stew are pretty heavy into the customized campaign thing, but when I tried a complete home-brew last year I burned out after a dozen sessions.

Also, the game in question is play-by-post, so it’s a bit challenging for me to read player stereotypes and adjust to that. So far the combats have gotten lots of good involvement, but the role-play interludes seem to drag. I don’t know if that’s because they’re less interesting to the players, or it’s just bad timing, or something else. Sometimes I wish I had web-cam snaps of them reading my posts. :-\

You can get a lot of ideas for characters without backgrounds from the class/profession/archetype of the character. Thieves know criminals and lawmen. Mages have schools and rivalries. Fighters have old army buddies. Barbarians have encounters with the civilized scum that are encroaching on their lands. And so on.

And everyone has family, or lack theirof.

Tailor the personalization to the kind of adventure the player in the spot light likes. Ass kickers want combat, but if you make it personal, all the better. Tacticians want to dominate the battlefield, but when the opponent is schooled by an old rival who knows just how the tactician thinks. Story tellers want plot. If you are in a dungeon, introduce an NPC with personality and a connection to the story teller, like a discarded mistress of the bad guy. She doesn’t know his tactics, but she knows his personality.

Last week I did this for my Dark Heresy game and a kick ass type of player. The character was an Arbitrator, (Imperial Police) without a background. Using cop show thinking, I added a run in with a gang leader (and his gang) who had killed the character’s partner. In fact, I inserted that into another combat encounter, making it a three way fight.

When the Arbitrator crushed the skull of the scum who had killed his partner, it was a high point for the campaign for him. The player had never known about this partner until this encounter, but it made sense with the character archetype.

Next game is my Psyker’s turn. His character sheet says he is afraid of bald women in robes. He is about to find out why…

And, in general, for anyone who wants a plot hook, just ask yourself, “Why is this player going into this part of the module?” If you don’t have an answer, don’t be afraid to remove it from the module, replace it with something else, or possibly even skip it.

I find that story driven and dungeon crawls don’t mix well — usually the dungeon crawls are too long and you can usually chop them down to the exciting main rooms.