Making books into campaigns

Subject: Making books into campaigns Tue Jul 17, 2007 5:15 pm

Am i the only one to do this? I used to read and play Fighting Fantasy novels as a youth. (light rpg/choose your adventure)
I took my favorite FF Book (Scorpion swamp by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone) and made a map out of the different encounters from the book. I then transferred the book monsters (which are non D+D) with suitable D+D substitutes.

All in all it was a very fun campaign that lasted well over 10 sessions.

Oh...if you are ever needing some game time but cant get a group together go out and buy a few Fighting Fantasy novels and give 'em a try. (and please pm me if you happen to find "House of Hell"...been looking for that one for years Very Happy

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Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:10 pm

Lots of times I thought of making some FR novels into adventures but fear all the work. Man I read alot.

Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:20 pm

Yeah it is alot of work. When i used to consistantly DM, i never used Adventure Modules. I always used to write my own adventures. (geared a bit more toward combat than actual role playing)

Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:39 pm

I've ran some stuff based on books before, but usually loosely as an aspect of my laziness so that I didn't have to write a lot of stuff down. I DM a lot off the top of my head anyway, as the guys I play with will quickly flee from the beaten path of anything I write up.

Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:15 am

Dming off the top of your head is a real gift wraith. I have had to improvise a few times, but i like to have it semi-structured. I was very complete when making possible alternate routes. Sometime players would want to go the complete opposite way of the current quest for example and i would have have some stuff mapped out already. It did lead to some wasted time for sure, but at that time i was living for D&D Very Happy

Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:33 am

I was thinking of giving LOTR a try but making it something else instead of a ring.

As well as adding many more encounter scenes

Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Wed Jul 18, 2007 7:28 pm

One pair of boots to find them all and in the darkness shine them?

Twisted Evil

I try not to lift anything whole cloth from any source. Themes and sometimes scenes are another matter.

If the players are already familiar with a source, I wouldn't want them to be able to "jump ahead" in the plot. Most good players wouldn't do that, but I think it would be somewhat less fun if you know where things are going. But really, when you start boiling things down to their elements you find that there isn't much "original" out there, just different ways of structuring it. So I think it pays to mix things up!

Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:07 am

I have a small basic idea for any campaign and improvise from there. I have ONE planned encounter per session and the rest is me flipping through a list of creatures that are suitable. Same with traps.

Subject: Re: Making books into campaigns Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:26 am

I've always had the idea to, but until 3.5, I don't think it would have ran as smoothly (with anything besides dragonlance chronicles). Some novels I've been interested in "Adventuring" would probably be most things by elaine cunningham.

Guest

Not from the book, but I based the start of a high-level campaign years ago on the land-race scene from "Far and Away"...the players loved it...

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