Adventures with Good Stories and other "portable" elements (PLEASE HIDE SPOILERS)

So with various edition shifting and so forth going around (3.5 -> Paizo's 3.75 -> Monte Cook's 3.75-> 4.0 -> oDnD) it seemed like a good time to ask the question:
(Even if you're playing pure 3.5 you might be interested in gems from other editions/or settings you might be able to convert)

Which published adventures had good/fun stories for players to experience?
I'm talking about cool NPCs, interesting scenes, believable but cool plot developments, non-linear adventure structures (choice is good!), memorable battles, etc.

To a certain degree "its a classic!" or "it was my first adventure!" or "I love adventures that include scifi things like rayguns in DnD!" are not what I'm looking for. When striped away of the surface elements and personal history did the adventure tell a good story that the players could (through their characters) really get into an enjoy?

PLEASE NOTE: THIS THREAD IS NOT INTENDED TO DISCUSS MECHANICS/SETTING OF A GIVEN ADVENTURE. So it's open to all editions, publishers and settings.

If you nominate an adventure please explain why.

If you're giving away a spoiler please use spoiler blocks (the sblock tag) or something similar. Let's make sure everyone can enjoy the adventure as much as you did!

For example:
I liked Paizo's Age of Worms adventure path (at least the first half; which was all we got through). Though it was very railroady at points there were great NPCs, some very interesting dungeons and some cool scenes. The dark, gritty feel of the setting and the way it was anchored in Greyhawk really appealed to me; though I guess the constant drumbeat of depressing events could wear on some people. I liked how the PCs were occasionally placed in situations where they would receive really significant rewards if they just gave into temptation and stopped trying to stop the bad guys plans.
One of the scenes I really liked was:
[sblock=Spoiler for Age of Worms]There is a point when a PC can be replaced by an NPC spy without the party noticing. While it was a bit clichéd it was still a great scene to have the player (playing the spy) trying to trick the group into killing their real character.[/sblock]
Like I said, the scene was a bit of a cliché, but it was great break from the usual dungeon crawl.

Burnt Offerings:[SBLOCK]My player loves, loves, loves the Paizo goblins. Good starter town and a great villain backstory of the impact of superstition on those with celestial heritage.[/SBLOCK]

Carnival of Tears: [SBLOCK]Wow. Just... wow. Evil fey get their vengeance on the lumber town. You got your living ice sculptures, your ice maze of murder, your blinding strip tease, your cannibalism eating contest run by a pig-chef, and an animated lumber machinery exhibition. And only the PCs can see this instead of the illusion of the carnival. Avoid the temptation to DMPC and you're good to go with a slightly higher level party. You might want to scale the body count to be a bit more responsive to PC actions, as RAW it's pretty much either dozens die or most of the town does, depending on whether the party fools around or rests.[/SBLOCK]

Hangman's Noose: [SBLOCK] Awesome investigation into long-ago injustice by first level characters. They're trapped in a building with "allies" who they grow to suspect of being the cause of the haunting and undead that are just way beyond their level to deal with. Want to send a message to your players that they can't beat everything with combat? This is the 1st level adventure for you. Warning: You'll be playing about 8 different NPC roles simultaneously, so props and accents will be necessary. [/SBLOCK]

Hollow's Last Hope: [SBLOCK] Save the town from plague by collecting the ingredients. Time is of the essence as people die every night. Simple, dramatic, balanced, excellent. My player loved it.[/SBLOCK]

Siege of the Spider Eaters: [SBLOCK] A mystery to uncover in a town that shouldn't exist. Plus, you get to give your players the choice of essentially aborting spider eater eggs from a host or letting the host die. Moral choices=good adventure[/SBLOCK]

Runelords 2: [SBLOCK] Essentially, this is Hell House with a stalker hook. There's a good serial killer murder investigation preceding the locale too. You'll need to boost the BBEG's survivability though. Skip the coda in the big city, due to a battle that's way lethal if the PCs don't choose the tactic of flight. This works as a sequel to Burnt Offerings, but the stalker hook and the isolated locale means you can port it into virtually any campaign.[/SBLOCK]

Salvage Operation: [SBLOCK] An unusual dungeon crawl on a derelict relic, which, of course, will start to go down after the BBEG fight, but before the mission is completed. Complete with enormous octopus attacking the ship.[/SBLOCK]

Dungeon Crawl Classics 0: [SBLOCK] Save the town from the local ogre, who's mysteriously decided to take hostages rather than food recently. The catch? You're 0th level.[/SBLOCK]

Runelords 3: [SBLOCK] Ogre hill-billie horror! Skip the stone giants and plop the isolated and debauched farmhouse and recapture the lost fort into your game. Absolutely no need to worry about the path.[/SBLOCK]

DCC 38: Escape from the Forest of Lanterns: [SBLOCK] Enter a demi-plane of fairy tales, with wicked witches, poisoned candy lanes, and marching musical instruments.[/SBLOCK]

I think that an adventures appeal has as much to do with the DM running it as it does the material within the adventure.

Consider Red Hand of Doom:

[SBLOCK]This adventure has a few NPC's that could really work out well. The various Wyrmlords can make some pretty compelling villains. In my game, Koth has had a much greater impact than the adventure has called for. This happened simply because he managed to survive the initial combat encounter, as well as a 2nd fight later on. Both times he did alot of damage. But in some games, he could probably just get killed in the first encounter before there is any real chance to interact with the PC's.

In any case, RHoD works out well because it has a good level of detail for its NPC's, as well as reasonably well spelled out escape conditions. It only falls short in situations where the escape condition calls for retreat at X hit points, and that number is often reached in one round of focused attacks.[/SBLOCK]

END COMMUNICATION

roguerouge, your spoilers only show up when you hit reply, and then you see them all. Try using the SBLOCK or SPOILER tags rather than the DEL tag.

Banewarrens by Malhavoc Press had good stuff, Multiple bad guy factions, arcane and divine allies with competing agendas, history that gets explained, good reasons for the dungeon crawls, variety of foes, ancient evils being unleashed, betrayal. I just did not like the [sblock]mecha stuff and sidelining the PCs at the end for a big climax fight[/sblock].

Demon God's Fane starts off with a murder mystery the PCs are expected to solve leading to information about an unleashed dungeon of evils to be crawled. I didn't care for the [sblock]time travel at the end and changed it in my game[/sblock]

Quartz said:

roguerouge, your spoilers only show up when you hit reply, and then you see them all. Try using the SBLOCK or SPOILER tags rather than the DEL tag.

Click to expand...

I have no idea how to do what you're talking about, so made the text color black for those sections as well.

Let me know what button these tags are or how to manually input them and I'd be glad to do it.

roguerouge said:

I have no idea how to do what you're talking about, so made the text color black for those sections as well.

Let me know what button these tags are or how to manually input them and I'd be glad to do it.

Click to expand...

[*SBLOCK]Write spoiler here.[*/SBLOCK]

Just do it without the asterisks.

[SBLOCK]Ta-da![/SBLOCK]

[SBLOCK]No, I didn't read your spoilers. Don't worry.[/SBLOCK]

The Curse of Xanathon (OD&D module X3)
[SBLOCK]This one has a great plot... the Duke that rules the city of Rhoona has been stricken with madness, and issues a series of really insane edicts, including a ban on dwarves that riles the neighboring dwarf nation of Rockhome to war. The PCs poke around Rhoona gathering clues to solve the mystery of the Duke's sudden and unexplained madness before it's too late. This is one of my favorite OD&D modules, and it's a great urban crawl, although it doesn't seem to get as much love as B2, X1, or X2.[/SBLOCK]

The Queen of the Spiders supermodule (i.e. the GDQ series, 1st ed.)
[SBLOCK]I don't think this one needs a spoiler, really. It's a good old romp through a bunch of dungeons with big monsters to kill, and just enough of a plot to justify going through the trouble of dungeon romping in the first place, without overshadowing the impressiveness of the body count. Trivial poop, really, but it's ambrosia for the bloodlust, see?[/SBLOCK]

Lost City of Barakus: great setting, great NPC's, some good hooks for getting into the Dungeon in the first place, then BAM [sblock]the PC's find an ancient evil has been imprisoned in the Lost City and have to find a way to ensure he stays there.[/sblock]

DCC #1: The Lost Vault of Tsathar Rho (sp)
Novice PC's investigate a rampant Ogre [sblock]only to find a warren full of kobolds who have been warped by a returning Old One.[/sblock]

The Grey Citadel
[sblock]Demons walk the streets, a wizard has gone missing, merchants are behaving oddly, and The Crimson Mantle are about to enter the sewers to save the City. A great mix of role-playing, investigation and dungeon-crawling, with some memorable NPC's above and below ground and a good non-linear set of adventure ideas[/sblock]

There's a question I've been wondering about for a while that is basically a more specific version of the core question of this thread. I was thinking about starting a new thread for it but there's already multiple "Rate these adventures!" threads and I this question seems to work well in this thread.

Specifically, I'm wondering if Green Ronin's Bleeding Edge series lives up to its explicit goals of having complex plots and more dynamic NPC interactions (and looking for more general feedback on them as well). Basically, what do people think of this series, especially as it relates to the larger goals of this thread?

I have #4 but didn't realize at the time I bought it that the series was a connected plot, not just a series of unrelated adventures with similar design goals. So I'm reluctant to read through it. And anyway, I'd ideally like to hear from folks who've played in or run them.