Brcarl asked a couple of questions (1, 2) in the Suggestion Pot about using modules and personalizing them. I’m currently running a published module (D&D 4e Keep on the Shadowfell), but have at least one player who would like the story to be more personalized toward the PCs. Any suggestions on how to take (often very generalized) published adventures and tweak them to integrate with PC backgrounds? ...

Janna at Dungeonmastering recently wrote up an interesting article about running non-linear games. They're a neat and slightly under-explored concept, so I thought I'd bring in other people's discussions and see what we can figure out. They are commonly discussed using a variety of names... sandbox play is another common example. Core Concept In one sentence: In a sandbox game, you wander around and do what you want instead of ...