its only bad if you make it bad (or maybe it's just bad)

Responding to this over at Hack and Slash, but also the things HE links to as responding to...

I run a lot of 'rail-roady' adventures (stacks of old Dungeon Mags, bits a and pieces I find online, etc). It's pretty trivial to break the railroad before you bring it to the table. I use them more as an aid, but if I can't find something in the wall of text, I make it up. It helps that I have a pretty good memory, but it also helps that I've read and re-read a lot of the material, in bits and pieces, over many years. So when it comes time to mash up three or four different half-baked adventures on the fly, it all kinda clicks into place. Or falls apart stupendously.

Example: I ran the first installment to the Age of Worms adventure path, an adventure called 'the Silver Skeleton,' AND another adventure called 'the Devil Box' all at the same time. Individually they're kinda weak in places, but taken all together it's a kind of sandbox. And then I added some stuff with unique traps, and showdowns at high noon, and long cons gone awry, and it was pretty great.

So I don't think it's an either/or thing, in every case. People do use those things for reading, yes, but it's not just idle daydreaming. It's a kinda ADD way of prepping things to run at the table, it's something that's accessible as training wheels for novice DM's to IMAGINE what DMing would be like before they sit down with the players, it's good for experienced DMs who can retain and filter and ad-lib around that information. Is it my favourite format? Definitely not, as I've learned more about what I like and what's most effective for me, I've gravitated to the kinda stuff Bryce Lynch likes in his reviews... but I still sprinkle in old ideas I gleaned from those poorly-designed monstrosities.

 I just don't think it's as clear-cut a design space as we would like to think. Maybe there's room for some kind of 'inspiration module' type of thing to evolve? Or maybe it just has to stay muddy and we muddy through as we find out what we like. Sounds familiar.