B4: The Lost City is a classic module for D&D. At one point it (in)famously stops giving full description of the rooms but instead lists monsters in each area and tells the DM to figure out why they’re here themselves. Once the reprint will show up in new anthology, I’m sure people who complain online whenever WotC uses “ruling not rules” or “DM decides” or “these parts were left for the DM to fill in” in their design (and then continues buying WotC books to keep bitching and doesn’t touch 3rd party or other games for some reason) is going to be normal about it. /s
I don’t see the problem with making my own story or filling into the blanks, but I’m not spending money on a product to do that. My imagination is free, I don’t need WotC’s permission to use it.
If you want me to pay for your overpriced books, at least make sure that those books are complete and ready to run. Running DnD modules is, for me, more exhausting than coming up with a homebrew setting. With my homebrew setting I’m in full control of my world and I know what’s where and why things are the way they are. With official modules I’m forced to read a (often poorly worded) world, trying to discern what the author’s intent was, and attempting to salvage as much of a broken product as possible while also making shit up to fill in the abysmal plot hooks and narrative progression full of plot holes and whatnot. At that point I’d much rather throw that shit in the garbage where it belongs and play my own setting.
Now, not all of the paid modules are disappointing, but most are. For example, I’d really want to buy and run the anthologies, as I find them a lot more interesting than full modules (I enjoy running my homebrew content, so I’d use anthologies as plot hooks and filler episodes in-between my own adventure), but I’m not paying for a book that has 20-ish adventures, of which only half are actually good. If there’s no quality control, or your bar is so low that fucking Book of Ravens got printed, then you clearly aren’t even trying.