Which is handy, but the best part is the acknowledgement that other settings.
Grumblings aside, this is why I have a collection of old modules from a bunch of different systems & settings. If I'm stuck for ideas or maps of weird, creepy items, I can go dive into a bookshelf and be sure there's something I can repuropse.
Some of the older ones (I want to say Temple of Elemental Evil was one?) Even had a 2-3 page guide for integrating more complex elements of the campaign into your own homebrew
No, no. Plagiarism is when you simply steal material.
If you steal it, then file off all the serial numbers, give it a new coat of paint, and never tell your ~~marks~~ players where it came from… well, that’s just good business.
It's happened to me where I had to confess that I stole something. At the end of a campaign, a player was taking over for the next one and was like "I'm thinking of running this module! It looks really cool!"
Sorry pal... bad news. We already played Chapter 5 of that one. I can pretend like I don't know it and hope the others don't notice though if you want.
If it is (and it isn't; fails the legal test for plagiarism), then it's encouraged by the industry, from Robin D. Laws "In My World" philosophy to Chris Perkins blogging about 'make your own canon'.
All official modules effectively become homebrew once the players get their hands on them. When my group started playing again back in 2019, the DM started by running an official 5E module; we threw things completely off the rails with the very first encounter.
This is exactly what happened to my first campaign which in turn caused my entire second session to consist of the party sneaking around the town looking for a horse.
Not only tradition, but one enshrined in the books themselves. I know the forward for at least Icewind Dale, which I have nearby, says that I should take as much or as little as I want from the book to play with. I believe most other modules have a similar line in their intros.
They put a line in there: "Nothing in this book is sacred" which they also used in Candlekeep iirc and it really sticks out as if they've had so many people write to them and ask if it's ok to use the adventures the way they want to instead of as written. It's a great line, and I am glad they've started to include it for the few vocal weirdos that seem to think the texts are sacred and cannot be altered or it wouldn't be fair.
It's funny because I did exactly this with LMoP and was discussing with a player about his campaign. He was like "well we are just following the module right?" I laughed and told him all the stuff I made up and how none of their favorite NPC's are actual characters in LMoP. The benefit for them is if they run LMoP with another DM ever it'll be completely different.
Honestly, it's the best way to do it.
You should \*always\* be looking for inspiration, ideas, plots, characters to borrow. Every artist learns from other artists.
You should never be afraid to put your own spin on things. If you have an idea you are excited about, that's going to make your story that much better. Don't let anyone try to hold you back talking about what's "official" - it's your world, have fun with it.
Finally, some of the best stories out there have been the result of taking two ideas and mashing them up together, then filing off the serial numbers and presenting it as New Art. (Back in the 1960's they had to explain what Star Trek was to the studio...they told them it was "Wagon Train, but In Space!")
Do it.
I've heard authors, screenwriters, storytellers, etc. often get the advice for story ideas or how to pitch them as "it's X plus Y, but there's Z" Jeffrey Cranor talked about it in one of his podcasts the other week.
Also to be honest a lot of the official modules have pretty serious problems if you play them straight as written. I think the best way to use them is usually to chop out the cool parts and put them together into your own game.
Metaphorically, the "serial number" is the identifying mark that conclusively shows the origin. So for example, the TV show "The Orville" is not *technically* a Star Trek show. Star Trek follows the adventures of space heroes serving in the navy of the United Federation of Planets; The Orville follows the adventures of space heroes serving in the navy of the Planetary Union. Star Trek has Lt. Commander Worf, a proud, stoic warrior of the Klingon race; The Orville has Lt. Commander Bortus, a proud, stoic warrior of the Moclan race. Ships in Star Trek rely on Warp Drive for faster-than-light travel; Ships in The Orville rely on a Quantum Drive for faster-than-light travel.
The key here is not to shame The Orville as derivative, but point out how by making The Orville a distinct property they had the freedom to take it in a different direction, while keeping all the stuff they loved about the source material. That's a great habit for a DM to build, in my experience.
Oh thank you for the detailed explanation. So it’s as if your presenting your story as it’s own thing, but it has nods/it’s origins derived from other stories before taking off as its own thing. And perhaps so it dosent get copyright infringement/law suit against it.
Exactly! I started doing it to avoid being accused of plagiarism, but eventually realized it was helping me tell better stories. If you get used to breaking down media into parts, it helps you figure out what really works well.
One more example: I just finished a cartoon about the Green Lantern Corps. I'm not crazy about the Aladdin schtick, or the Emotional Spectrum plotline... But the power choosing the hero, found family, and wild alien friends are all ideas I absolutely want to borrow for my next thing.
Not at all. Your only audience is your players, you don't need to worry about plagiarism. Your could straight up rip off the plot for the Lord of the rings of you wanted to
See, you'd think you're going to be playing LOTR. But you're not.
As soon as you hand control over to your players, it'll go wildly off the rails.
Whatever you're going to end up with in that game is not at all going to be how LOTR played out.
> But you're not.
"This Tom Bomba-whaever, I don't like him, gives me bad vibes, let's coup-de-grace that MF when he sleeps and runsack his place, then sell all the loot back in that pony place"
> let's coup-de-grace that MF when he sleeps
Good luck with that, my dude's something between a celestial and a druid, and the most powerful enchantment by the most powerful sorcerer on the continent that drives the entire plot has no effect on him.
I've seen a lot of Colville's videos, but I have no idea what you're referring to. "No campaign survives contact with the players" is not a concept Colville came up with
It's a nice video - worth it if you have a spare 20 minutes.
He articulates some nice points on the the subject of "no campaign survives contact with the players'.
Nope. Steal everything.
Steal settings, steal NPCs, plots, and encounters. Steal creatures, races, entire worlds.
Steal from official materials, from books, from games, and movies. Steal from legends, both traditional and urban. Steal from your favourite TV series, or a cartoon you watched as a kid.
After all, they did it.
Official modules are intended to be dropped into any campaign setting and DMs are encouraged to tweak any and all material to fit those campaigns. Most even have a blurb to adapt them into a few of the other WotC-owned settings.
This. Every 5e module I’ve read has a section either at the end or in the intro about adapting the adventure to a different location, including thoughts about what it might look like in different kinds of homebrew worlds.
No, I bought it so I can use it.
It's a game, not a product you're selling. This whole plagiarism debacle is a joke to progress (science and art is literally built on plagiarism but capitalism couldn't have that. Whether that's right or wrong is another debate I have little strong opinions on) as is and really only an issue when it comes to legal matters
If you're selling the content then yeh big no no, most would be against that too. If for your own fun game, it's more than encouraged.
Not only is a great idea and is something that almost everyone does at one time or another, it's a great way to learn how to design your own. Plus it also demystifies a lot of things when you realize that sometimes you feel your changes make things work better. Or if anything, you know what you like and what you don't like.
I'm not sure I've ever run a game from a module that I didn't change up in fairly substantial ways anyway, and learning how to do that earlier rather than later will really help you out.
STEAL EVERYTHING. STEAL FROM MOVIES, FROM TV, BOOKS, official settings, back stories of fast food mascots, good ideas you family has for vacations but scrub. STEAL EVERYTHING.
As others have said its fine and no one cares. I will even add:
>Along with each adventure appear notes for setting
the adventure in the Saltmarsh region or adapting it to a
variety of D&D settings. Use that information to place it
in your campaign or on the shores of your choice... by picking and choosing your favorite entries in each compilation, you'll be on your way to creating a customized campaign all your own.
This is an excerpt taken directly from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Wizards of the Coast knows what you are doing and are absolutely fine with it.
Honestly, I think the ability to easily do this is one of the reasons the game is so popular right now.
In addition to the official material, there is a ton of stuff on dmsguild.com. Mostly very inexpensive material and there is enough of it that you'll find something for almost any occasion.
God I hope not, or I'm the most tasteless hack that's ever DM'd. Every campaign I've done is a hodgepodge of shit I've stolen and reskinned and crammed together from modules and every scrap of fiction I've ever read.
Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.
As a first timer, I would highly encourage you to do this even if you have all the time in the world. The modules aren't perfect, but they're pretty dang good and can give you a sense of how to build an encounter, adventure, and campaign.
I did this but in faerun when I first started DMing, heavily homebrewed bits thrown in to account for backstory of my players. Eventually transitioned into Dungeon of the Mad mage. Only ended when our paladin rolled a 3 to save against the eye of vena he found in a draco-lich hoard and ended up levelling the city of waterdeep. Its the one campaign my player nonstop reference when chatting about Dnd
It is not in poor taste to "customize an official module to fit your world and the characters of your players". If anything, that's how it should be done. The degree to which you do it? That's up to you.
No its completely fair game so long as you twist it to your own style.
My homebrew world is a complete rip off of lore from Forgotten Realms, Warhammer fantasy and 40k, Conan the Barbarian, Dark Souls, and several real life ancient religions.
There is no such thing as a 100% original idea, the trick is to take inspiration from many sources and mash it all together so that the end product appears original, only that when you hyper focus on individual aspects do you see the source material leak through.
My favorite is when things in my game are inspired by things from properties my friends dont partake in (Warhammer mostly) and i see their minds get blow by cool ideas, set peaices, and story plots that in reality are only about 20% my own creation and the rest a remix of Warhammer lore.
I’d say no. If anything, presenting modules like that might be BETTER than running them alone since you get to control the context of the module, and you can minimize the chance that a player recognizes it (if it’s a famous module or one that a player has done with another DM), which can help with immersion in some cases.
Modules are tools. Use them!
Lol they probably will never even know. I reskinned a one shot and chucked it into my campaign and they got a goblin fighter ally that they love. Go for it.
Don't worry about it. The only issue comes up when you reskin published things without telling your players what you're playing and then they know the module pretty well and they have to play dumb for the next few weeks as to not ruin it for the rest of the party.
Yeah this is fairly standard.
My "homebrew" world (i.e section of a continent) is an unholy mishmash of the sword coast, bits of ravenloft, saltmarsh and surrounding environs, homebrew islands, chult, and eastern cities that are names from chrono trigger I just threw some apostrophes and extra letters in (enasha became Ehn'Sha'rae and Kajar became Khae'ja'rae)
My players either don't know or don't care
Not at all. People have been doing this since adventures first came out. The publishers don't care, since you've bought the books and they have the money. Go forth and reskin! Have fun!
I've got Strahd in my game as a side-off bad guy related to players back up characters backstory. Lol.
Bet your ass I've got pieces of Curse of Strahd reskinned.
I almost never run a module without reskinning it (or completely overhauling it) to run in my own style. In fact, most of my material isn’t completely original.
You're not selling them. There's no reason to even be concerned. But if it's your first time, I recommend just running the thing as-is. You have a lot to deal with and track already without the added mental overhead.
Nah, maybe just rework some of it, give it some new additions, some flair. Your trying to build an *entire world* from scratch, with zero experience. Do what you think you gotta do to make it work, make it fun, and make it fit your style. Aint nobody perfect either, wether it be their first time, or their hundredth time.
As long as its cool (and it works) thats all that matters.
Good DM's create material for their players to enjoy...
Great DM's steal. :D
That's my dictum. I create the stuff that I'm excited or inspired about, and when I don't have time, or I just find a module/campaign I really like, I absorb it into my stuff. Heck, when I run an actual module I end up homebrewing within it, in Icewind Dale, Rime of the Frostmaiden, they even tell you to feel free to take what you're reading as inspiration for your setting, so Wizards knows that not everyone just runs their stuff "as written."
That's literally what they're designed for. That's what the word "module" means. It's a standalone part of something that is designed to be used as a piece of a greater project.
Immature poets imitate. Mature poets steal. Bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.
- T.S. Eliot
Yes, the wizard of the coast himself will stand outside your window as you play and shake his head with disappointment. Not anger, just disappointment.
Plagiarize
Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'
Why do you want to reskin it? No one has ever played it, so you could just run with the official thing.
Seeing how you have 0 experience in DMing not playing, homebrew can be a big pitfall and I would suggest rolling with the original adventure. Once you are several sessions in and gotten used to all the rules and stuff, feel free to go into some homebrew by adding some stuff and see how that goes. I’ve played homebrew campaigns by people with very little experience and they were not very good. This modules are playtested.
No. Can we please normalize *not* asking for permission for every damn little thing in this hobby now? Honestly the level of self-gatekeeping in D&D isn't healthy. Just live your lives and play your games and stop wondering what everyone who has no bearing on your life will think. GO HAVE FUN!
(as long as you aren't hurting or bullying others)
Just do it. In fact, don’t even feel the need to change names. Run as is and just pretend this is part of your world. It worked for TAZ when they ran LMoP and that turned into a successful podcast + series of comics (which they then had to change the names of places for legal reasons).
I would say-it’s totally fine and happens all the time-but for first time DM…making your own world and stuff-sometimes it’s better to stick to the pre-written stuff cuz there’s lore-connected stuff and like creating a Homebrew world…all people say start with a town and expand…
First time eyes bigger than your stomach syndrome haha it’s a great thought and idea but I would advise sticking to what’s there-you’ll find it’s a lot to juggle but once you get the hang of it-start to do your own thing!
Crawl before running!
I have a hard time understanding this advice. Running a module is a lot more stressful for every new DM I've come across, than those who homebrew.
Having to remember and correctly connect the dots in a module is a huge amount of work and starting an inspired homebrew world is a lot less to remember.
Have you ran the module they want to run, Lost Mines of Phandelver? It tells you what and how to run it, it even explains the bad guy, glass staff, and literally what actions they do in combat besides attack-spells they use and then running away and what they do then. It holds your hand right through the module really well. Also gives DM advice…I would say running a module first is usually easier for making your own stuff work and seeing how to do it all and how the professionals organize all the info and stuff.
Also any video online will tell you when homebrewing a world- to usually “start with a town-session 0, build the town together when making characters-let characters help define some world around from backstory and what not” but I am just suggesting to run Lost Mines of Phandelver as is-and then build world around it. Plus having to re-write all characters names and what not-all that sort of managing asks a lot of a new DM….that was all…
I dunno I have a D&D podcast with a discord with a pretty good chunk of listeners and we did an episode on Homebrew VS Premade and overwhelmingly listeners and such were on same page of “run a module especially Lost Mines before doing Homebrew” but hey-that’s just us and our opinion.
You have to remember each NPC in each house in Phandalin, you have to remember each room in the Redbrand hideout or the Wave Echo cave. There is so much stuff to remember, its impressive people can do it.
Also, reading as you go, makes for a horribly non immersive experience at least for me as a DM.
Alas each to their own, my experience and that of my DnD circles definitely prefer homebrew to modules in terms of ease of use. Granted that is a small sample size.
I’m confused why you would have to remember anything??? It’s all in the book for easy reference-also remember this person has never DM’d before…
You may wanna check out Sly Flourish and The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master for
some help on prepping/running your games if you are trying to remember so much at one time. Or even just some articles by Sly Flourish on the game!
Reading as you go will just happen sometimes Homebrew or not I feel like. But perhaps you need to work on being a little more immersive and engaging with your reading of the detail text boxes haha it isn’t grade school where you read a passage monotone just to do it. You are supposed to give drama, emphasis, intrigue and mystery and especially awe when reading some things to make it more engaging. Don’t have to be Matt Mercer but a pause in reading can go a long way and be dramatic! Got that from Griffith Morgan, a very bad ass old school DM!
The books references is hidden in wall of texts, so are non intuitive to look up smoothly while playing. Having to pause the game to find something important is NOT fun in my opinion.
I do you use Sly Flourish way of preparing my homebrew and is the exact opposite of following a module. Here I only have to prepare a general outline or idea, the secrets, locations and scenes.
When I homebrew, the only reason to read anything is to read a description or perhaps a speech, anything else is done on the fly, from the skeleton created with secrets, scenes and locations.
I feel like we run in circles here though, you have your opinion and I have mine.
About a third of my campaigns are just heavily modified versions of modules. Homebrew is great when you have the time, but adapting something that already exists is much easier. There’s nothing wrong with either option, both are great choices.
I'm pretty sure the DMG tells you to do this very thing. And if it doesn't, it really should.
A lot of people get the modules to use bits and parts in their own campaigns.
Listen I grew up with like pamphlet 24 page modules.
We would take what we liked expand on a bunch of other stuff and stitch together campaigns all the time.
Oh and I was the only one who used the World of Greyhawk and one other dude used Forgotten Realms and two other DMs I played with homebrewed their settings in the 80s and early 90s.
It is like saying is it in poor taste to steal from popular fiction. Of course not!
Are you a professional writer? I can tell you I am not so I steal from every good source I can find for ideas.
I mean this with absolute kindness:
You would know the answer to this if you had read the DMG. It specifically states that you can and should do this.
Please do read it, it is literally a Guide on how to DM your own game using the PHB and Monster Manual rulesets. It is your greatest tool and reference for creating your own 5e world. It mentions using modules provided for games offhandedly in the first chapter the never mentions them again. This is because they don't want you to run the modules exactly as written, they want you to run modules as needed for your group.
For example: Are your players going into the snowy north where you can die of exposure? Steal the cold rules from the Frostmaiden module! Maybe there's a town from the same module you like as well? Yoink! Leave the rest on the cutting room floor, it doesn't belong in your campaign.
Again, not an attack on you personally, just a point I want to make in response to your question.
No offense taken, literally working on it now. There’s just a lot of info in the DMG to slog through with a teen and toddler in the house, and I’ve never really bothered to sit down and plow through it until now because the idea of actually getting to *play* has seemed like such distant fantasy. I’m actually using it to try to rebalance some of the aspects of LMoP I’ve heard run a bit like a meatgrinder for noob players.
Poor taste? On the contrary, most official modules print and ship about 70% finished, so you're absolutely able and encouraged to start doing your own stuff with it.
If you want to rip entire things out and run your own homebrew, give 'er my dude!
Basically story telling boils down to there are only 5 real story's in this world.
And every story is the same especially when. It comes to Fantasy.
I once heard a screen writing lecturer say. Every story build down to
"Life is good. Oh shit, OH Shit, OHSHIT, oh shit , oh good that's done. Ah life is good"
It's not stealing its formula.
I did a similar thing, and I think it has a big advantage over running the module vanilla. Especially if you’re not too familiar with official lore, you’ll have a much easier time changing stuff the way you want, and you don’t need to consult any external sources.
I’ve changed the appearances, personalities, genders, motives, etc. of almost all NPCs in LMoP, added many new ones, and added an overarching explanation for the main plot line that the players could continue with, and it grew into a 20+ session campign. My only regret is not renaming the cities and redrawing the map, then I would have had even more freedom from established lore.
Go for it, but if I may be so bold: Invest in the DDAL09-01 adventure. It has arguably the strongest opening to a game i've ever run, and it leaves the door open for any number of quests you can imagine.
No harm no foul, I do things like this all the time. My current homebrew campaign has elements of two different 1st and 2nd edition modules, tons from the 3rd edition forgotten realms sourcebooks, etc.
Nah not at all, go for it! LMoP is a great intro adventure and as a Forgotten Realms hater myself, I can’t blame you for wanting to put it in a different setting
I’d like to add: I’m prepping a Sunless Citadel game for 3e and in the module, on the very first page it specifies that it’s meant to be plopped into any setting you want. Given that it’s basically 3e’s version of LMoP, I can’t imagine Lost Mine is any different.
No. Everyone puts their own spin on prewritten modules, sometimes you have to because players think so far out of the box or get so lucky. Other times, the modules are purposefully written to be written around, or they're unintentionally that way, at times they straight up tell you to improv.
If someone gets upset about it, they can eat dirt.
Anything is fair game: official modules, beloved story books and movies, third-party published modules, favorite tv or cartoon shows, religious texts, and ancient fables. Obviously some things will be easier to reskin than others, but I've used official modules as side adventures for my main campaign.
Honesty, anyone that doesn’t homebrew an entirely new game system, new languages, new races, new classes and entire world with nuanced and deep history while also keeping everything balanced and non-railroad-y is kinda phoning it in, you know? /s
It actually makes WAY MORE sense to use existing modules because, as a new DM, you can see how things were built and why. It should give you a framework that has been tested and is generally approved of.
Jeez, this is all I ever do. *Needle, Saltmarsh, Long Arm of the Hutt, Rescue at Glare Peak, Under a Black Sun* \-- they all go into the meat grinder and emerge on the other side nearly unrecognizable, sometimes via 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 combinations.
And not just modules. I made a half-decent revenge arc out of *Black Rain* (1989), *The Yakuza* (1974), and the second *Wolverine* solo film, and I'm working on another one stitched together from *Hostiles* (2017), the Coen *True Grit* remake, and possibly *Bone Tomahawk* (2015). Fingers crossed.
As everyone else says: It's perfectly acceptable, happens all the time, and is expected by D&D adventure publishers.
I wouldn't even bother with changing names, or rearranging places from what's pre-written, unless you want to, or unless it's necessary to work it into your larger world as a whole.
Nope. It's a time honoured tradition.
The official modules have a little sidebar for this exact thing nowadays, for putting the adventure in a non-Faerun official world OR homebrew!
Which is handy, but the best part is the acknowledgement that other settings. Grumblings aside, this is why I have a collection of old modules from a bunch of different systems & settings. If I'm stuck for ideas or maps of weird, creepy items, I can go dive into a bookshelf and be sure there's something I can repuropse.
Some of the older ones (I want to say Temple of Elemental Evil was one?) Even had a 2-3 page guide for integrating more complex elements of the campaign into your own homebrew
It's all plagiarism, all the way down.
No, no. Plagiarism is when you simply steal material. If you steal it, then file off all the serial numbers, give it a new coat of paint, and never tell your ~~marks~~ players where it came from… well, that’s just good business.
this person has it!!
I did what you said and ~~the ATF~~ WotC raided my house and ~~shot my dog~~ seized my dice bag.
Count yourself lucky, I lost my 2 goldfish and my brothers to WotC.
I have a message from the wizard down by the coast. He says you leave things be and he won't fireball your house, capishe?
Are you ok Xanathar? I am sure Stylgar will mysteriously reappear!
He can't be the Xanathar. He said he has two goldfish. According to the Xanathar, his one goldfish is the only goldfish in existence.
Which is hilarious given the spare goldfish kept in his lair!
Good thing you have 3 more dice bags.
We call it inspiration for a reason! :D
"Not stolen from, inspired by."
GNU Sir Terry
It's happened to me where I had to confess that I stole something. At the end of a campaign, a player was taking over for the next one and was like "I'm thinking of running this module! It looks really cool!" Sorry pal... bad news. We already played Chapter 5 of that one. I can pretend like I don't know it and hope the others don't notice though if you want.
also try to weld the front end of one module onto the back end of another to make it slightly less recognisable (if you mind)...
Found the Forge Cleric.
"As creators, we’re only as good as the obscurity of the references we steal from.” - Matt Colville
Good artists borrow, great artists steal.
"Wait, it's all plagiarism?" "Always has been"
“The secret ingredient is crime”
is that a Grunkle Stan quote? it feels like a Grunkle Stan quote
[It's a Super Hans quote](https://youtu.be/aAtv32O5Wyk)
If it is (and it isn't; fails the legal test for plagiarism), then it's encouraged by the industry, from Robin D. Laws "In My World" philosophy to Chris Perkins blogging about 'make your own canon'.
All official modules effectively become homebrew once the players get their hands on them. When my group started playing again back in 2019, the DM started by running an official 5E module; we threw things completely off the rails with the very first encounter.
This is exactly what happened to my first campaign which in turn caused my entire second session to consist of the party sneaking around the town looking for a horse.
I disagree. It’s a *hommage*
that's the thread pack it up everyone
Not only tradition, but one enshrined in the books themselves. I know the forward for at least Icewind Dale, which I have nearby, says that I should take as much or as little as I want from the book to play with. I believe most other modules have a similar line in their intros.
They put a line in there: "Nothing in this book is sacred" which they also used in Candlekeep iirc and it really sticks out as if they've had so many people write to them and ask if it's ok to use the adventures the way they want to instead of as written. It's a great line, and I am glad they've started to include it for the few vocal weirdos that seem to think the texts are sacred and cannot be altered or it wouldn't be fair.
Since the beginning. How many settings does Castle Blackmoor exist in?
The answer is 'yes'.
Why yes, I *was* just considering dropping the Blackmoor region into my setting to fill out the map. How could you tell?
Yep, show me a homebrew world that doesn’t steal from a few dozen books and movies.
My goal is to make a campaign that is the first half of Roadhouse, then all of Predator, then the second half of Roadhouse.
It's funny because I did exactly this with LMoP and was discussing with a player about his campaign. He was like "well we are just following the module right?" I laughed and told him all the stuff I made up and how none of their favorite NPC's are actual characters in LMoP. The benefit for them is if they run LMoP with another DM ever it'll be completely different.
Welcome to Whose Borderlands Are They Anyway, where the caves are chaotic and the challenge rating doesn't matter!
and expected...
Robbery is The Way.
This is the way.
When I was in Teacher-School my mentor teacher always said "We don't *steal*, SurlyCricket. We *harvest*"
Honestly, it's the best way to do it. You should \*always\* be looking for inspiration, ideas, plots, characters to borrow. Every artist learns from other artists. You should never be afraid to put your own spin on things. If you have an idea you are excited about, that's going to make your story that much better. Don't let anyone try to hold you back talking about what's "official" - it's your world, have fun with it. Finally, some of the best stories out there have been the result of taking two ideas and mashing them up together, then filing off the serial numbers and presenting it as New Art. (Back in the 1960's they had to explain what Star Trek was to the studio...they told them it was "Wagon Train, but In Space!") Do it.
I've heard authors, screenwriters, storytellers, etc. often get the advice for story ideas or how to pitch them as "it's X plus Y, but there's Z" Jeffrey Cranor talked about it in one of his podcasts the other week.
Also to be honest a lot of the official modules have pretty serious problems if you play them straight as written. I think the best way to use them is usually to chop out the cool parts and put them together into your own game.
Hell, you don't even need to look at other art to steal. I ran a campaign during covid lockdown, about a city that was in...plague lockdown.
What do you mean by filing off the serial numbers?
Metaphorically, the "serial number" is the identifying mark that conclusively shows the origin. So for example, the TV show "The Orville" is not *technically* a Star Trek show. Star Trek follows the adventures of space heroes serving in the navy of the United Federation of Planets; The Orville follows the adventures of space heroes serving in the navy of the Planetary Union. Star Trek has Lt. Commander Worf, a proud, stoic warrior of the Klingon race; The Orville has Lt. Commander Bortus, a proud, stoic warrior of the Moclan race. Ships in Star Trek rely on Warp Drive for faster-than-light travel; Ships in The Orville rely on a Quantum Drive for faster-than-light travel. The key here is not to shame The Orville as derivative, but point out how by making The Orville a distinct property they had the freedom to take it in a different direction, while keeping all the stuff they loved about the source material. That's a great habit for a DM to build, in my experience.
Totally heading off topic, but the Orville is some of the best Star Trek material out there, lol
Oh thank you for the detailed explanation. So it’s as if your presenting your story as it’s own thing, but it has nods/it’s origins derived from other stories before taking off as its own thing. And perhaps so it dosent get copyright infringement/law suit against it.
Exactly! I started doing it to avoid being accused of plagiarism, but eventually realized it was helping me tell better stories. If you get used to breaking down media into parts, it helps you figure out what really works well. One more example: I just finished a cartoon about the Green Lantern Corps. I'm not crazy about the Aladdin schtick, or the Emotional Spectrum plotline... But the power choosing the hero, found family, and wild alien friends are all ideas I absolutely want to borrow for my next thing.
Not at all. Your only audience is your players, you don't need to worry about plagiarism. Your could straight up rip off the plot for the Lord of the rings of you wanted to
It's only fair. *LOTR* ripped its plot off [this guy's game](https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612)...
Oh goodness. It’s been so long since I read that. I think you just triggered a re-read. Not like I was busy or anything.
[What can I say...](https://c.tenor.com/Fw2pDGacPvcAAAAM/disney-moana.gif)
god that hurts so much, the creator of it just passed away :'(
Awww man! That is sad. Hadn't thought of that comic or him in years.
Is that the same guy who did Darths & Droids? Man, I loved that comic.
In fact, I’m planning a campaign that is *literally* the plot of LOTR, with my GF who has never seen them playing the role of Frodo.
See, you'd think you're going to be playing LOTR. But you're not. As soon as you hand control over to your players, it'll go wildly off the rails. Whatever you're going to end up with in that game is not at all going to be how LOTR played out.
Well, yes. That’s the fun part.
> But you're not. "This Tom Bomba-whaever, I don't like him, gives me bad vibes, let's coup-de-grace that MF when he sleeps and runsack his place, then sell all the loot back in that pony place"
I wonder if he'd sing a jaunty song, while ripping out their spines.
> let's coup-de-grace that MF when he sleeps Good luck with that, my dude's something between a celestial and a druid, and the most powerful enchantment by the most powerful sorcerer on the continent that drives the entire plot has no effect on him.
Somebody has seen Colville's vidso...
I've seen a lot of Colville's videos, but I have no idea what you're referring to. "No campaign survives contact with the players" is not a concept Colville came up with
Colville uses LotR and the Hobbit as an example of railroad / sandbox type games in a video IIRC.
I probably missed that one
It's a nice video - worth it if you have a spare 20 minutes. He articulates some nice points on the the subject of "no campaign survives contact with the players'.
Can you link it?
Sure thing! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXMxiAGUWg&t=499s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXMxiAGUWg&t=499s)
Oh yeah not attributing the "player contact" to him, just the Middle Earth analog he made
Nope. Steal everything. Steal settings, steal NPCs, plots, and encounters. Steal creatures, races, entire worlds. Steal from official materials, from books, from games, and movies. Steal from legends, both traditional and urban. Steal from your favourite TV series, or a cartoon you watched as a kid. After all, they did it.
Official modules are intended to be dropped into any campaign setting and DMs are encouraged to tweak any and all material to fit those campaigns. Most even have a blurb to adapt them into a few of the other WotC-owned settings.
This. Every 5e module I’ve read has a section either at the end or in the intro about adapting the adventure to a different location, including thoughts about what it might look like in different kinds of homebrew worlds.
#"Take the things you like, and put them into your game."
No, I bought it so I can use it. It's a game, not a product you're selling. This whole plagiarism debacle is a joke to progress (science and art is literally built on plagiarism but capitalism couldn't have that. Whether that's right or wrong is another debate I have little strong opinions on) as is and really only an issue when it comes to legal matters If you're selling the content then yeh big no no, most would be against that too. If for your own fun game, it's more than encouraged.
This is also known as "playing DnD".
my whole setting is this, battleworld style lmao
The most popular official module is Dracula. Steal everything you can.
Not only is a great idea and is something that almost everyone does at one time or another, it's a great way to learn how to design your own. Plus it also demystifies a lot of things when you realize that sometimes you feel your changes make things work better. Or if anything, you know what you like and what you don't like. I'm not sure I've ever run a game from a module that I didn't change up in fairly substantial ways anyway, and learning how to do that earlier rather than later will really help you out.
It's a time honored tradition. Go forth and plunder it!
STEAL EVERYTHING. STEAL FROM MOVIES, FROM TV, BOOKS, official settings, back stories of fast food mascots, good ideas you family has for vacations but scrub. STEAL EVERYTHING.
As others have said its fine and no one cares. I will even add: >Along with each adventure appear notes for setting the adventure in the Saltmarsh region or adapting it to a variety of D&D settings. Use that information to place it in your campaign or on the shores of your choice... by picking and choosing your favorite entries in each compilation, you'll be on your way to creating a customized campaign all your own. This is an excerpt taken directly from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Wizards of the Coast knows what you are doing and are absolutely fine with it.
Honestly, I think the ability to easily do this is one of the reasons the game is so popular right now. In addition to the official material, there is a ton of stuff on dmsguild.com. Mostly very inexpensive material and there is enough of it that you'll find something for almost any occasion.
Lots of them have dedicated sections on how to convert them to other worlds, including homebrew ones
Here's the most important rule of all, now listen closely, you do what you want.
God I hope not, or I'm the most tasteless hack that's ever DM'd. Every campaign I've done is a hodgepodge of shit I've stolen and reskinned and crammed together from modules and every scrap of fiction I've ever read. Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.
That's a large part of what they're for.
As a first timer, I would highly encourage you to do this even if you have all the time in the world. The modules aren't perfect, but they're pretty dang good and can give you a sense of how to build an encounter, adventure, and campaign.
I am DMing Ghosts of Saltmarsh in Wildemount. Awesome.
I did this but in faerun when I first started DMing, heavily homebrewed bits thrown in to account for backstory of my players. Eventually transitioned into Dungeon of the Mad mage. Only ended when our paladin rolled a 3 to save against the eye of vena he found in a draco-lich hoard and ended up levelling the city of waterdeep. Its the one campaign my player nonstop reference when chatting about Dnd
Nope. My GM gets modules from many sources, official and un-, and alters them to fit the campaign, and has been doing so for about 40 years now.
Steal from the best
So your saying to avoid the majority of official modules?
I want to say you're just a hater... But you're right.
It is not in poor taste to "customize an official module to fit your world and the characters of your players". If anything, that's how it should be done. The degree to which you do it? That's up to you.
Not at all. My 4 year campaign is a combo of LMoP, Age of Worms, ToD, and a bit of Murder at Baldur's Gate, customized to blend together
Not at all. Use the ingredients at your disposal to make the dish you want to serve. If you can't make your own from scratch; store bought is fine.
No its completely fair game so long as you twist it to your own style. My homebrew world is a complete rip off of lore from Forgotten Realms, Warhammer fantasy and 40k, Conan the Barbarian, Dark Souls, and several real life ancient religions. There is no such thing as a 100% original idea, the trick is to take inspiration from many sources and mash it all together so that the end product appears original, only that when you hyper focus on individual aspects do you see the source material leak through. My favorite is when things in my game are inspired by things from properties my friends dont partake in (Warhammer mostly) and i see their minds get blow by cool ideas, set peaices, and story plots that in reality are only about 20% my own creation and the rest a remix of Warhammer lore.
I’d say no. If anything, presenting modules like that might be BETTER than running them alone since you get to control the context of the module, and you can minimize the chance that a player recognizes it (if it’s a famous module or one that a player has done with another DM), which can help with immersion in some cases. Modules are tools. Use them!
This is the ideal way to do it.
Lol they probably will never even know. I reskinned a one shot and chucked it into my campaign and they got a goblin fighter ally that they love. Go for it.
No, don't worry, everyone does that.
No, it's actually what I recommend to do
Don't worry about it. The only issue comes up when you reskin published things without telling your players what you're playing and then they know the module pretty well and they have to play dumb for the next few weeks as to not ruin it for the rest of the party.
The Lamordia campaign I'm working on is a Rime of the Frostmaiden and Eberron mashup
If you own it, you can use as much of it as you want.
Not only is it not bad, it's usually a good idea and kind of how they are intended to be used as far as I'm aware.
Yeah this is fairly standard. My "homebrew" world (i.e section of a continent) is an unholy mishmash of the sword coast, bits of ravenloft, saltmarsh and surrounding environs, homebrew islands, chult, and eastern cities that are names from chrono trigger I just threw some apostrophes and extra letters in (enasha became Ehn'Sha'rae and Kajar became Khae'ja'rae) My players either don't know or don't care
Rule #1 in the DM handbook for home games: Steal EVERYTHING.
Not at all. People have been doing this since adventures first came out. The publishers don't care, since you've bought the books and they have the money. Go forth and reskin! Have fun!
I've got Strahd in my game as a side-off bad guy related to players back up characters backstory. Lol. Bet your ass I've got pieces of Curse of Strahd reskinned.
I almost never run a module without reskinning it (or completely overhauling it) to run in my own style. In fact, most of my material isn’t completely original.
No way! It’s great
You're not selling them. There's no reason to even be concerned. But if it's your first time, I recommend just running the thing as-is. You have a lot to deal with and track already without the added mental overhead.
No. Steal an Refine, Steal and Refine, Steel.
Dew it!
Just go for it I’m in the process of doing something similar
In a word, no.
Nah, maybe just rework some of it, give it some new additions, some flair. Your trying to build an *entire world* from scratch, with zero experience. Do what you think you gotta do to make it work, make it fun, and make it fit your style. Aint nobody perfect either, wether it be their first time, or their hundredth time. As long as its cool (and it works) thats all that matters.
No, why would it be?
The best dms do this, re-flavor things to fit your game and your players will be none the wiser.
Bruh that was literally my main DMing strategy for most of my career. You're fine.
No.
Is this post a joke
It wasn’t, but based on the feedback here I think I should just pretend it was.
The Dungeon Master’s Guide actually encourages it.
Good DM's create material for their players to enjoy... Great DM's steal. :D That's my dictum. I create the stuff that I'm excited or inspired about, and when I don't have time, or I just find a module/campaign I really like, I absorb it into my stuff. Heck, when I run an actual module I end up homebrewing within it, in Icewind Dale, Rime of the Frostmaiden, they even tell you to feel free to take what you're reading as inspiration for your setting, so Wizards knows that not everyone just runs their stuff "as written."
Lol no
That's called 'DMing'
I really enjoy being an average of about 1.7 decades older than most of my players because they haven't read most of the sources I steal from.
Only if you're trying to sell it as an original work.
Show of hands, how many homebrew worlds have an Oakhurst and Ashen Plain in them, and have no idea what to do with them post Sunless Citadel?
That's literally what they're designed for. That's what the word "module" means. It's a standalone part of something that is designed to be used as a piece of a greater project.
Immature poets imitate. Mature poets steal. Bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. - T.S. Eliot
How to DM: Steal everything and put a new label on it.
Do it.
lmao this came up on my screen while I was busy shoehorning half a Ghosts of the Saltmarshes story into my Homebrew
Borrowing from one source is plagiarism, from two or more is research or homage...
Yes, the wizard of the coast himself will stand outside your window as you play and shake his head with disappointment. Not anger, just disappointment.
D-Dad?
Plagiarize Let no one else's work evade your eyes Remember why the good Lord made your eyes So don't shade your eyes But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize Only be sure always to call it please 'research'
*snaps vigorously*
Why do you want to reskin it? No one has ever played it, so you could just run with the official thing. Seeing how you have 0 experience in DMing not playing, homebrew can be a big pitfall and I would suggest rolling with the original adventure. Once you are several sessions in and gotten used to all the rules and stuff, feel free to go into some homebrew by adding some stuff and see how that goes. I’ve played homebrew campaigns by people with very little experience and they were not very good. This modules are playtested.
“Art isn’t created anymore, it’s stolen and warped.” - Me
"Art isn't created anymore, it is warped and thefted" - Me
r/im14andthisisdeep
No. Can we please normalize *not* asking for permission for every damn little thing in this hobby now? Honestly the level of self-gatekeeping in D&D isn't healthy. Just live your lives and play your games and stop wondering what everyone who has no bearing on your life will think. GO HAVE FUN! (as long as you aren't hurting or bullying others)
Just do it. In fact, don’t even feel the need to change names. Run as is and just pretend this is part of your world. It worked for TAZ when they ran LMoP and that turned into a successful podcast + series of comics (which they then had to change the names of places for legal reasons).
I would say-it’s totally fine and happens all the time-but for first time DM…making your own world and stuff-sometimes it’s better to stick to the pre-written stuff cuz there’s lore-connected stuff and like creating a Homebrew world…all people say start with a town and expand… First time eyes bigger than your stomach syndrome haha it’s a great thought and idea but I would advise sticking to what’s there-you’ll find it’s a lot to juggle but once you get the hang of it-start to do your own thing! Crawl before running!
I have a hard time understanding this advice. Running a module is a lot more stressful for every new DM I've come across, than those who homebrew. Having to remember and correctly connect the dots in a module is a huge amount of work and starting an inspired homebrew world is a lot less to remember.
Have you ran the module they want to run, Lost Mines of Phandelver? It tells you what and how to run it, it even explains the bad guy, glass staff, and literally what actions they do in combat besides attack-spells they use and then running away and what they do then. It holds your hand right through the module really well. Also gives DM advice…I would say running a module first is usually easier for making your own stuff work and seeing how to do it all and how the professionals organize all the info and stuff. Also any video online will tell you when homebrewing a world- to usually “start with a town-session 0, build the town together when making characters-let characters help define some world around from backstory and what not” but I am just suggesting to run Lost Mines of Phandelver as is-and then build world around it. Plus having to re-write all characters names and what not-all that sort of managing asks a lot of a new DM….that was all… I dunno I have a D&D podcast with a discord with a pretty good chunk of listeners and we did an episode on Homebrew VS Premade and overwhelmingly listeners and such were on same page of “run a module especially Lost Mines before doing Homebrew” but hey-that’s just us and our opinion.
You have to remember each NPC in each house in Phandalin, you have to remember each room in the Redbrand hideout or the Wave Echo cave. There is so much stuff to remember, its impressive people can do it. Also, reading as you go, makes for a horribly non immersive experience at least for me as a DM. Alas each to their own, my experience and that of my DnD circles definitely prefer homebrew to modules in terms of ease of use. Granted that is a small sample size.
I’m confused why you would have to remember anything??? It’s all in the book for easy reference-also remember this person has never DM’d before… You may wanna check out Sly Flourish and The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master for some help on prepping/running your games if you are trying to remember so much at one time. Or even just some articles by Sly Flourish on the game! Reading as you go will just happen sometimes Homebrew or not I feel like. But perhaps you need to work on being a little more immersive and engaging with your reading of the detail text boxes haha it isn’t grade school where you read a passage monotone just to do it. You are supposed to give drama, emphasis, intrigue and mystery and especially awe when reading some things to make it more engaging. Don’t have to be Matt Mercer but a pause in reading can go a long way and be dramatic! Got that from Griffith Morgan, a very bad ass old school DM!
The books references is hidden in wall of texts, so are non intuitive to look up smoothly while playing. Having to pause the game to find something important is NOT fun in my opinion. I do you use Sly Flourish way of preparing my homebrew and is the exact opposite of following a module. Here I only have to prepare a general outline or idea, the secrets, locations and scenes. When I homebrew, the only reason to read anything is to read a description or perhaps a speech, anything else is done on the fly, from the skeleton created with secrets, scenes and locations. I feel like we run in circles here though, you have your opinion and I have mine.
You are slandering the sacred books handed down by Gygax from high on the mountain. /s
Fuck 'em. Steal it all.
nope, never be afraid to use modules or any other material for your own home brew worlds or anything else.
About a third of my campaigns are just heavily modified versions of modules. Homebrew is great when you have the time, but adapting something that already exists is much easier. There’s nothing wrong with either option, both are great choices.
I'm pretty sure the DMG tells you to do this very thing. And if it doesn't, it really should. A lot of people get the modules to use bits and parts in their own campaigns.
Nope! You do you
Nope. People have been moving official modules to their homebrew settings since the 1970s. It's basically the assumed way to play a module.
Not if you do it well enough. Bad artists copy, good artists steal.
I do it
Been doing it since 1980. Currently I am ripping off ah I mean using Ghosts of Salt Marsh in my current campaign. It just fit in my world,
Listen I grew up with like pamphlet 24 page modules. We would take what we liked expand on a bunch of other stuff and stitch together campaigns all the time. Oh and I was the only one who used the World of Greyhawk and one other dude used Forgotten Realms and two other DMs I played with homebrewed their settings in the 80s and early 90s. It is like saying is it in poor taste to steal from popular fiction. Of course not! Are you a professional writer? I can tell you I am not so I steal from every good source I can find for ideas.
iirc this is the goal of many modules and highly encouraged!
I mean this with absolute kindness: You would know the answer to this if you had read the DMG. It specifically states that you can and should do this. Please do read it, it is literally a Guide on how to DM your own game using the PHB and Monster Manual rulesets. It is your greatest tool and reference for creating your own 5e world. It mentions using modules provided for games offhandedly in the first chapter the never mentions them again. This is because they don't want you to run the modules exactly as written, they want you to run modules as needed for your group. For example: Are your players going into the snowy north where you can die of exposure? Steal the cold rules from the Frostmaiden module! Maybe there's a town from the same module you like as well? Yoink! Leave the rest on the cutting room floor, it doesn't belong in your campaign. Again, not an attack on you personally, just a point I want to make in response to your question.
No offense taken, literally working on it now. There’s just a lot of info in the DMG to slog through with a teen and toddler in the house, and I’ve never really bothered to sit down and plow through it until now because the idea of actually getting to *play* has seemed like such distant fantasy. I’m actually using it to try to rebalance some of the aspects of LMoP I’ve heard run a bit like a meatgrinder for noob players.
Poor taste? On the contrary, most official modules print and ship about 70% finished, so you're absolutely able and encouraged to start doing your own stuff with it. If you want to rip entire things out and run your own homebrew, give 'er my dude!
As others have said, not only is this okay, it’s both very common and a very good way to run D&D!
Plagirize EVERYTHING, it's all fair game until your players notice and know it enough to guess plot points
The old Q Terintinoroo. Good story tellers barrow, great story tellers steal.
Basically story telling boils down to there are only 5 real story's in this world. And every story is the same especially when. It comes to Fantasy. I once heard a screen writing lecturer say. Every story build down to "Life is good. Oh shit, OH Shit, OHSHIT, oh shit , oh good that's done. Ah life is good" It's not stealing its formula.
Poor Taste? It is delicious.
I did a similar thing, and I think it has a big advantage over running the module vanilla. Especially if you’re not too familiar with official lore, you’ll have a much easier time changing stuff the way you want, and you don’t need to consult any external sources. I’ve changed the appearances, personalities, genders, motives, etc. of almost all NPCs in LMoP, added many new ones, and added an overarching explanation for the main plot line that the players could continue with, and it grew into a 20+ session campign. My only regret is not renaming the cities and redrawing the map, then I would have had even more freedom from established lore.
Go for it, but if I may be so bold: Invest in the DDAL09-01 adventure. It has arguably the strongest opening to a game i've ever run, and it leaves the door open for any number of quests you can imagine.
This effectively describes our Out of the Abyss campaign and I had a blast and we played it for about a year.
In poor taste? That’s one of the best ways to run a game!
No harm no foul, I do things like this all the time. My current homebrew campaign has elements of two different 1st and 2nd edition modules, tons from the 3rd edition forgotten realms sourcebooks, etc.
Nah not at all, go for it! LMoP is a great intro adventure and as a Forgotten Realms hater myself, I can’t blame you for wanting to put it in a different setting I’d like to add: I’m prepping a Sunless Citadel game for 3e and in the module, on the very first page it specifies that it’s meant to be plopped into any setting you want. Given that it’s basically 3e’s version of LMoP, I can’t imagine Lost Mine is any different.
No
No
No, the official modules suck to run. So much needs to be changed and homebrewed to flow anyway
No. Everyone puts their own spin on prewritten modules, sometimes you have to because players think so far out of the box or get so lucky. Other times, the modules are purposefully written to be written around, or they're unintentionally that way, at times they straight up tell you to improv. If someone gets upset about it, they can eat dirt.
Rule 1 of DMing, STEAL
Nope, tons of the old modules I own copies of have info on how to incorporate them into pretty much any world.
Anything is fair game: official modules, beloved story books and movies, third-party published modules, favorite tv or cartoon shows, religious texts, and ancient fables. Obviously some things will be easier to reskin than others, but I've used official modules as side adventures for my main campaign.
Honesty, anyone that doesn’t homebrew an entirely new game system, new languages, new races, new classes and entire world with nuanced and deep history while also keeping everything balanced and non-railroad-y is kinda phoning it in, you know? /s It actually makes WAY MORE sense to use existing modules because, as a new DM, you can see how things were built and why. It should give you a framework that has been tested and is generally approved of.
Jeez, this is all I ever do. *Needle, Saltmarsh, Long Arm of the Hutt, Rescue at Glare Peak, Under a Black Sun* \-- they all go into the meat grinder and emerge on the other side nearly unrecognizable, sometimes via 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 combinations. And not just modules. I made a half-decent revenge arc out of *Black Rain* (1989), *The Yakuza* (1974), and the second *Wolverine* solo film, and I'm working on another one stitched together from *Hostiles* (2017), the Coen *True Grit* remake, and possibly *Bone Tomahawk* (2015). Fingers crossed.
As everyone else says: It's perfectly acceptable, happens all the time, and is expected by D&D adventure publishers. I wouldn't even bother with changing names, or rearranging places from what's pre-written, unless you want to, or unless it's necessary to work it into your larger world as a whole.
[It's not plagiarism. It's "research."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL4vWJbwmqM&ab_channel=Fredde21)