Warrax:
DarkLightHitomi:
I actually suggest you avoid any premade modules when starting out, as they really encourage bad habits, like doing railroading in a very wrong way, or worse, getting the gm into thinking in very limited terms in regards to story.
They're a good starting point, and flexibility proceeds from early experience. They're a very valuable tool. Later, as you grow more comfortable, you start using them more as a guideline than a fixed adventure, and that is also a useful tool for improvisation and campaign development before undertaking the task of whole-cloth campaign fabrication.
YMMV, of course. DarkLight doesn't like them, but I found them useful in my early days. The point he's making is a good one, but it's an intermediate GM/polishing skills kind of thing, which isn't necessarily the best place to focus when you're literally just starting out IMHO.
Few gms will move on from fixed adventure to guideline. The reason for this is simple, making habits is far easier than changing habits. A gm's core habits are established in the first couple of games they run.
To me, improve is not a skill to polished, it is a habit to be formed in the first place.
Further,
A lot of gms think loads of prep is required. They think this and find they need it precisely because all their habits were built around using premade material, so when they lavk that material, they must then produce it themselves so they can use it.
But learning to run the game without any premade adventures makes prep a minor issue later on precisely because such a gm developed habits that never relied on premade material in the first place.
Seriously, when you can run improve well, then you can run an entire campaign with literally
no prep what-so-ever. This is really nice when you run an unexpected pick-up game without any materials available. I even ran a campaign during basic training in the army without even dice.
Improve also avoids a great many problems about keeping the players on track, and since you don't need to make the players follow the story, then you can focus on learning the other things such as table adjudication, getting and keeping the player's rapt attention, etc, and fact such things are easier when you don't have to worry about whether the solution you chose will ruin the forthcoming narrative.
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Premade adventures are good for inspiration
if you don't need them, but they basically become a crutch for anyone who starts and learns gming with them.
That isn't an absolute of course, especially if you are aware of the issues I mentioned above, but it is so common that I can't in good conscience encourage it. I'm tired of the mediocre gms flooding the community. Just like music has studies into musical composition, we
need gms who study that which makes
great gming vs merely mediocre backyard barely competant gming.
Music has actual professionals and people with big degrees into what makes music work, which then in turn sets the example for backyard musicians. We don't have that yet for gming, and we really need it, and in the meantime, we need new gms to realize that we lack that and to keep that lack in mind as they study.
Yes, I totally need a spellchecker, but mine never works for some reason.