#RPGaDay - Day Nineteen: Favorite Published Adventure

For its time, this was a seriously kick-ass game.

Before I get to the long-winded part of this post, where I pontificate like a long-winded grognard after too many margaritas, let's get down to the nitty gritty.

While I own plenty of adventures, I haven't run very many of them. If I have to pick just one to be my favorite, though, I'm going to go for nostalgia and choose Rebel Breakout. For those of you not in the know, Rebel Breakout was the adventure included in the 1st edition of West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, and was written by Curtis Smith.

Given Rebel Breakout was made to teach new GMs how to run Star Wars games, it's not terribly complicated. Still, it served as my introduction to published adventures, and I know I ran it at least once or twice when I first got my feet wet role-playing in a galaxy far, far away.

I've even given some thought of creating an adaptation of the adventure for use in Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion, but, as I've said, time is precious. If I did forge ahead, it'd probably be little more than a document of stat blocks for the various encounters presented in the adventure.

Other honorable mentions for Favorite Published Adventure include Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, one of the great classic D&D adventures from way back in the day. And I'll never forget the first full-length Star Wars adventure I bought, Tatooine Manhunt, which is another one I'd love to adapt to modern Star Wars RPG mechanics.

As for the pontification I promised, I never used to run published adventures. I had the free time available to plot my own stories for my various groups, for better or worse. I always felt that published adventures were the lazy GM's last resort.

Then I grew up.

Growing up meant less free time. It meant a steady job. It meant I had to pay taxes and bills and buy toilet paper without embarrassment like everyone else. All of this added up to me having less time to invent my own stories and plots for the games I was running.That's not to say I went quietly into that dark stage of my life. I still try do most of the work myself, and I usually succeed. Usually.

With that in mind, I have (over the years) learned that published adventures are wonderful sources of inspiration, maps, and lore. I don't often run such adventures, but I've written a few--"The Fell Star" in Scum and Villainy, "The Perfect Storm" in Galaxy of Intrigue, and (most recently) "The Perlemian Haul" in the Age of Rebellion core rulebook. I've come to enjoy writing adventures very much, because it allows me to do what I loved doing in my early days of GMing: To create a stories for players to experience.