So, what makes 1e adventures so great?

[Ranes]

One of the problems I see with 3rd Edition is that creativity is getting stifled by rules.

Like the templates, monster advancement and monster creation rules that enable you to create something no veteran has seen before, because it's unique.

When you know all the options and their probable outcomes, the game devolves into a sort of IQ test.

I guess it would. I'll never know.

 

[ptolemy18]

Two reasons why many 1st ed. adventures are good (aside from nostalgia, Erol Otus artwork, and other subjective stuff):

(1) They're generally unbalanced and too deadly by 3rd edition standards. Which is refreshing, at least to me.
(2) More importantly... they have a lot of sheer RAW MATERIAL in them. By which I mean, the best 1st edition adventures have a LOT of dungeon (and sometimes wilderness) maps, a LOT of locations, a LOT of statistics & monsters & treasures. Pure and simple. They *don't* waste a lot of time on role-playing suggestions of flavor text or anything like that.

Now, before people accuse me of being a hack-and-slasher... I love the role-playing aspect of RPGs. I love non-combat stuff. Nothing pisses me off more than shoddily constructed campaign worlds or bad ROLE-playing.

But if you have to adapt an old adventure to a different version of D&D, or to a new campaign world, the stuff which is easiest to adapt is the raw data. The raw maps and monsters. The nice thing about many of the 1st edition adventures is the very fact that they're so generic... they have a lot of quirky little details, but they're easy to plug-and-play into my campaign world, which is nothing like Greyhawk at all.

For a comparison of a "good and simple" first edition module with a "bad and overwritten" second edition module... compare the original KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS to RETURN TO THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS. RETURN has a few interesting nice touches, sure, but basically, it converts a really simple, short-and-sweet adventure into an unwieldy module with tiny print and WAY more descriptive text than is necessary for the slim amount of actual locations, monsters, threats, etc.

In short -- the best 1st ed. modules are good precisely because they're so "generic" that they can easily be reused and adapted into many different forms. There's no extraneous information. I've been converting 1st edition modules to 3.5 for awhile now, adding my own character-motivation and campaign-setting, and it works very well.

Jason

P.S. On the other hand, for an example of old modules that are "generic" but totally sucky and un-useable even by these standards, I'd say that the old ARDUIN modules (like "Death Heart") are illogical and capricious to the point of absurdity.

 

[Telas]

Like the templates, monster advancement and monster creation rules that enable you to create something no veteran has seen before, because it's unique.

How many times have you run into a "new" critter where the players already know the templates? While unique, it's not exactly new...

Not to sound like a old fart, but we were mixing monsters and adding class levels in 1981. Now you kids get off my lawn!

I guess it would. I'll never know.

Then you've got a good gaming group. Congratulations. ( <-- no sarcasm intended)

I play 3.5, and the issue isn't "which version is better", and I apologize if I made it sound that way. The question on the table is why the earlier modules still hold an attraction. Some answer that their novelty won us over. Others note that to truly master the game (as in DM), you had to "make it yours" by adding in your own elements to the 1E adventures.

I submit that the changes to the rules since 1E make DMing easier. But in making it easier, D&D is not necessarily producing the DMs that it once did. In one sense, this is good; there are more DMs and more gamers than ever. In another sense, some DM creativity is lost.

Telas

 

[The Shaman]

Not to sound like a old fart, but we were mixing monsters and adding class levels in 1981. Now you kids get off my lawn!

Save your voice - use the hose on 'em instead!

 

[John Morrow]

As background, I've been mining old 1st Edition modules for my 3.5 campaign. In particular, the first part was loosely based on B2 (actually, an amalgamation of B2, Return to the Keep, and Hackmaster's Little Keep) and the current part is loosely based on the A series (we're heading into my adaptation of A2 now). Basically, I mine those modules for locations, encounters, NPCs, treasure, and ideas and create my own maps and specifics to fit my campaign. In some cases, I'm close to the original (my A2 adaption is probably the closest) and in others, the resemblance isn't so obvious.

(1) They're generally unbalanced and too deadly by 3rd edition standards. Which is refreshing, at least to me.

The number of "save or die" situations in some of those modules just amazes me sometimes.

(2) More importantly... they have a lot of sheer RAW MATERIAL in them. By which I mean, the best 1st edition adventures have a LOT of dungeon (and sometimes wilderness) maps, a LOT of locations, a LOT of statistics & monsters & treasures. Pure and simple. They *don't* waste a lot of time on role-playing suggestions of flavor text or anything like that.

Absolutely. And that's why they've been such a great resource for me to mine.

For a comparison of a "good and simple" first edition module with a "bad and overwritten" second edition module... compare the original KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS to RETURN TO THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS. RETURN has a few interesting nice touches, sure, but basically, it converts a really simple, short-and-sweet adventure into an unwieldy module with tiny print and WAY more descriptive text than is necessary for the slim amount of actual locations, monsters, threats, etc.

Both Return to the Keep on the Borderlands and Hackmaster's Little Keep on the Borderlands suffer from the second system effect (as did the entire 2nd Edition of D&D in some ways). Basically, in trying to compensate for the problems of a first verion, people often overcompensate in the other direction for the second version. That said, I think both also add useful and helpful details that would have improved the original and I'm happy that I used all three as source materia. Yes, the original was "generic" but it was so generic that nobody in the Keep even had a name. And I think the bigger problem with Return was that it was trying to capture an "long after it was looted clean by adventurers" feel that left it too sparse on monsters and threats.

 

[Ranes]

Perhaps old school DMing has been lost, in a sense. A really old school DM had a lot to do. After thirty years, the core rules now incorporate a lot of what old timers had to do for themselves. The early modules drove that process as much as other accessories, enriching the pool of resources available to a DM. Now they don't quite as much. New modules don't have the impact because a module is so greatly outweighed by all the other material in existence. And all this material might inhibit a DM's creative development, I agree. I'm beginning to feel the urge to start a different thread in which I'll retract all the bad things I've said about basic sets.

 

[Yeoman99]

Why classic? To me the adventures were action oriented, with the evening's suspense starting almost immediately and being maintained solidly throughout the session. They held a tight format which held the attention and did not feel rambling. Some later adventures, particularly later 1ed / 2ed did not contain this sharp focus IMO. That said, I was impressed with the Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury mods for 3e which felt much more akin to the older 'classics'

 

[teitan]

I think a HUGE factor in what made those old 1e adventures so great was that they were not very plot oriented. Sure they had some cool back stories and monsters reacted to the presence of the party but the story was in what the characters DID not in what the writer said it was going to be. This put a huge emphasis on the characters as opposed to the tale that the module was trying to get across. Compare Against the Giants to Shadowdale. Against the Giants has very little story at all, it is all backstory and it gives the players some hooks into the adventure but it is up to the DM and players to make the story. Now Shadowdale (and almost all post Dragonlance adventures from EVERYBODY) is chockful of story and events and is reliant on the players EXPERIENCING those events, not a natural flow of story ala Against the GIants or even Vault of the Drow. What is amazing is that the OLD modules packed more STORY potential than the newer modules in fewer pages.

Now some of the newer modules have tried this approach like Sunless CItdadel and RttTOEE and have been called Hackfest. Well, sure, when run that way but I see more potential for a cool story in TOEE than in the newer Dragonlance modules. It is a skeleton on which to hang the adventure the characters take part in while the Dragonlance modules are stories that the characters are taken on a ride for. One is like playing a video game like FInal Fantasy, interactive novels (Dragonlance) where events are pre-ordained to occur while the other is like nothing we have really seen before and that is what makes Roleplaying Unique.

Jason

 

[The Shaman]

...the story was in what the characters DID not in what the writer said it was going to be. This put a huge emphasis on the characters as opposed to the tale that the module was trying to get across.

Quoted for emphasis.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Pretty much what everybody else said, but to condense it down to what I take from the above replies is that the modules were *very* easily modular, for the most part. You didn't need to just take the map and chuck the rest. You oftentimes got a wilderness map, a town, NPCs, and motivations, sometimes timelines for events (if you chose). You can take them whole or part and parcel. "I need a town." Bam, you took Hommlet or Orlane. "I need a low level wilderness map." Keep On the Borderlands, Bone Hill and others could take up the slack for you. After that, it was any kind of politics, storyline, your PCs' motivations, anything. A lot of these modules I call "Hub Modules," because like in some games you don't have levels, you have maps that you move through that change, can be cleared, re-populated, maybe uncover some new adventure site, anything. Many modules (though not all) these days are more like storylines in capsule form. They're good (some are damn good), but it feels like in "Hub Module" plotlines develop very organically.