Pre made or homebrew?

[Mytherus]

Morning fellow DMs/GMs..

Perusing the many books I’ve bought for the hobby over the years and seeing interesting 3rd party adventures to buy from various sites..I’ve come to wonder -“how many just buy pre made adventures, be it from wotc or another party, versus how many always just go homebrew?”

Bonus question- if you homebrew , how deep / how invested do you get? Meaning do you write your own lore from the ground up create all maps all NPCs — or would you take a pre published adventure and just modify it to your needs?


I always like the thought of fully homebrew but time always is my issue I run into.

Thanks. Have a good weekend.

[Morenu]

I personally use Forgotten Realms for inspiration. But consider nothing as absolute cannon, like Forgotten Realms in an alternate dimension. I use a lot of the supplements for larger spots (underdark, waterdeep, Baldurs gate, dalelands...) keeping maps and general ideas in place. but we do not delve deep into the various histories, we may have some 2nd ed stuff mixed with 3rd and 5th (Screw 4th ed). no Gods are truly dead. adventure locations may be moved to be closer to where we are campaigning... and I also make whole new homebrew based in FR.

[Trenloe]

I tend to run purchased adventures, sometimes with a little bit of tweaking here and there (maybe adding in other sidequest adventures that fit with the theme). This is partly due to time constraints, but also because of the amazing adventures out there!

In recent years, I've ran purchased adventures for Pathfinder 1 and 2, Starfinder 1 and 2, Acthung! Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds and Twilight 2000.

I've ran homebrew for Conan 2d20 (quite a long campaign) and Savage Worlds Day After Ragnarök (one shots loosely linked into a campaign).

I tend to use existing lore - for Conan that was easy, just read the Robert E. Howard stories; for Day after Ragnarök I used British and Scandanavian folklore as a basis.

[LordEntrails]

Yes to all of the above

I've done it all over the years. Including creating a whole world with a world map, regions, cities (not everything has maps!), a pantheon, world history, etc.

My last major campaign I ran was a mashup of purchased adventures (Dragon Heist (with the Alexandrian remix), Beyond trilogy, Mad Mage, City of Brass) and extended and filled it in with a bunch of homemade stuff.

In general I use pre-purchased now a days, but almost always modify them. Even if not at the start, I allow the players to "go off the rails" and that often means I have to supplement or re-use. But, I really don't do a whole lot of prep. With some strategic prep from some of the popular blogs, I prep things that are flexible. Mainly maps and encounters that can be used in dozens of different ways depending upon how the players and the various factions react to prior events.

[Lazybones1969]

I have been running campaigns in my own homebrew setting since I started playing 5e about 5 years ago. Each time I start building something new in FGU I flesh out a different part of the campaign world. I bought the D&D 5e Adventures Bundle a few years back when it was on sale, and I mostly use that to mine for components that I can add to my campaigns. For example, I took three of the adventures from Ghosts of Saltmarsh and dropped them into my nautical-themed archipelago campaign with minimal edits. In another campaign I needed a challenge for my high level party so I dropped in the stone giant canyon from Storm King's Thunder, ramping up the difficulty by doubling the number of giants present in most of the encounters.