One of my buds, I've been trying to get him to join Hubski for forever, would probably have some good insight for this whole thread. I'm gonna poke him with it again and say "Bro! This conversation was made for you!"

Campaign modules have their place, as they can make it easier for the DM to do their job. That said, I don't have any personal experience with them. In my near 20 years of gaming, both as a player and as a DM, I have yet to be in a campaign that uses any modules. Everybody seems to just really enjoy world building, whether we're playing D&D, D20 Modern (you wanna talk about a game that scales poorly, whoo-boy), Shadowrun, or some weird homebrew rule set. We all love to different amounts comics, television and movies, novels, history, what have you and we all love to create stories. It takes a little more work, sure, but it's also so fun to both build the world and play with it.

I really like the idea of Epic6 for D&D's rule set for a few reasons. By the time you hit that level, your character is on par with a lot of heroes, whether we're talking about historical classic heroes like Beowulf and Hercules or more modern heroes like Captain America and The Punisher. We're not talking about Superman levels of power though and I think that's actually a good thing. Part of the fun of games like D&D is being creative and creative problem solving is a huge appeal. Some of the coolest scenes in comics and movies are when heroes solve problems with ingenuity. If you can punch your way out of any dilemma, that's no fun. Trying to figure out how you and three of your friends can take on two hydras at level 6 though? That's exciting. Next time I DM? I'm totally using the Epic6 philosophy, even if I'm not using a D&D rule set (I really, really wanna do a western setting).

And my world building skills boil down to "I'm an Ancient Rome geek and it shows" even when I'm attempting sci-fi ;).

Your world building skills sound awesome. If there is something you know well and are passionate about, that's a huge strength for you as a DM. Personally, I'd say forget about modules for a bit, no matter what rule set you're working with, and spend a couple of nights a week for a month or so building your own really developed world. Even if you never use it, the exercise of world building can be a kick ass experience. Hell, take it one step further, share your ideas on Hubski. I'd love to hear them.