There is a certain prejudice among some gamers against using pre-made adventures.  They are so cookie cutter that it begins to feel more like playing Monopoly than dungeons and dragons (not that Monopoly is a bad game).

As a Dungeon Master, however, pre-made campaigns and adventures can be huge time savers.  But to keep my players guessing here area a few tricks that I have use in the past.

·    Change the names of the NPC’s.  You would be surprised how effective this is.  Give the barkeep a name that fits your style and personality and the players will respond accordingly.
·    Use towns from your campaign world.  Scrap the whole starting village and put in one that comes from your world.  Put the useful clues where they would fit organically in your town and run with it.
·    Get rid of the adventure elements that don’t fit.  Just cut them out and move on with your life.  If you don’t need it don’t use it.
·    Use only the encounter information, i.e. stat blocks and get rid of the maps/set up information.  This is particularly useful for the outdoors encounters stuff.  The stuff that happens almost in town or between town and the dungeon.  A lot of times there is a ton of useless background information that has nothing to do with your campaign and your world, but the stats and combat info are good and can be quickly dropped into your personalized setting.
·    Add your own NPC’s.  This is very useful.  If, for example you have been facing the dread druid queen who seeks to enslave the world in a animal/hybrid paradise then introduce some of her minions into the premade.  Swap out an encounter or two.  Change the big bad bosses name.

Keep the elements that make sense – in particular maps, monster statistics, names that you like etc. Any unique magic items or encounters made just for that adventure are often very useful because they tend to add a ton of flavor.

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