Repurposing Old RPG Materials

Tabletop Role-Playing Games were one of my primary hobbies growing up. Once a week or so, my friends and I would get together in someone’s basement to roll dice, talk in funny voices, and commit imaginary mayhem on imaginary antagonists. I was the only one consistently good to go with an adventure every week, so it usually fell to me to run the game and present a compelling story to my players.



I didn’t mind, though. I loved it. I wrote a little, but it wasn’t anything serious, and coming up with adventures and campaigns was my primary creative output. I also accumulated a number of canned “ready made” rpg adventures, but that was more of a collecting thing… by far I preferred to come up with original scenarios for my friends.

I still play from time to time these days, though I’ll freely admit it’s almost entirely play-by-post games online. It’s hard to get dedicated face-time with people who have careers, families, and other interests competing with their time. My own creative energies these days are poured into my writing, so I no longer have the luxury of spending five days preparing a game for the weekend.

Finding use for those old adventures

These days what I’ll do is take one of the old adventures that I have — either some of the old material I used to run, or one of those ancient published adventure scenarios. Some of these old games are fairly well known, though, and the last thing I want is a player recognizing some aspect of the game, digging out their own copy, and using that to cheat.

So what do I do?

I re-purpose adventure modules for use in new genre

The easy way would just be to rename everything and change background and setting details, but I wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Oh no, not me. And it’s not just that most old games weren’t written for a style of play that I particularly enjoy.

I’ll take a game and render it down to its bare components of plot and character, then rewrite it in a new genre, usually for a new system. That hack n’ slash dungeon crawl becomes a postmodern assault on a drug czar’s compound. It’s a bit more involved than just filing off the serial numbers, but I wouldn’t consider it very intensive as far as creativity goes; it’s just extrapolation and interpretation.

My good stuff, the majority of my effort goes right into my writing, for the benefit of my readers.

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