Worst D&D adventure of all time?

[jcfiala]

This thread makes me soooooo happy that I don't DM published modules, and thankfully have only played in maybe two of the ones mentioned so far.

Go, Homebrew, GO!

That seems a bit nasty to say. Out of the 100-200 modules that get published, we're identifying about 10-20 or so that are bad... that beats out Sturgeon's Law by a mile, I think.

Do you also write your own fiction so you can avoid reading bad novels?

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

That seems a bit nasty to say. Out of the 100-200 modules that get published, we're identifying about 10-20 or so that are bad... that beats out Sturgeon's Law by a mile, I think.

Do you also write your own fiction so you can avoid reading bad novels?

Nope...I just haven't found anything I wanted to read! Same with movies. Not much really grabs me and says "Read me!" or "Watch me!" anymore.

 

[Evilhalfling]

DL 1 - tried it, Rastlin got killed in the first fight (with hobgoblins) and we put it back on the shelf. It wins.

I liked reading greyhawk castle - but would never play it. (runner up)
I liked greyhawk ruins. Sure there were no tie-ins to GH histoy, but the tower of war was a lot of fun, with a orcs of all variations living in two seperate camp, and thier own gold mine.

the other two towers were a little random.

 

[StupidSmurf]

OK, regarding "Castle Greyhawk"...let me just say this...in the words of a lot of defendants at Nuremburg: "We were just following orders."

I'm new on this forum, but not new to RPing. My name's John Terra and I've written a butt-load (official unit of measurement) of TSR/WEG stuff from about the mid-80's to 2000, and I still dabble a bit here and there in the ol' freelance game. One of my war crimes was a level of Castle Greyhawk.

Castle Greyhawk was awful, yes, but...yeah, that's what TSR wanted: a humorous take on the dungeon. As I recall, even the paperwork/proposal that we all got, describing the work to be done, was written tongue-in-cheek.

So, which level am I to blame for? It was called "The Name of The Game". Thank you, thank you, feel free to pick up your torches and pitchforks at the door. I promise not to put up a fight.

As for some of the other "nominees" I've read on this thread:

1. Barrier Peaks: Awww...I liked it. Granted, I wouldn't have wanted our entire campaign to be set up like it, but hey, it was a nice change of pace for what it was.

2. The original Tomb of Horrors. Surely you jest. This was the "Killer Dungeon" that all Killer Dungeons were patterned after. Truly, a perverted masterpiece.

3. Dungeonland. "Hey, let's get cute and turn Alice In Wonderland into a two module series! What can go wrong?" Plenty. Blargh.

4. Modules based on Novels, Computer Games. I've always avoided these like the plague. Too much risk of the featured NPCs overshadowing the PCs, and too much plot-hammering.

5. Module B1. This was "Into the Unknown", wasn't it? The castle called Quasqueton? Came with my boxed set. This one was a sentimental favorite of mine because it was just a very simple, straightforward dungeon, a god-send for a (then)fledgling DM to get his feet wet with. It was good for what it was supposed to be.

6. Return to the Tomb of Horrors. Bought it. Tried to run it. Pass.

Nowadays, I run my group through the Forgotten Realms, but use my own home-grown adventures. Everyone's happier, including me!

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

That I've DMd or played? Castle greyhawk was silly but the parts I ran were fun when I ran them.

I'd have to say Ship of Horrors for Ravenloft. It doesn't make enough use of its cool elements such as the three ghosts or the undead who can pull off their limbs. Ravenloft empowers undead to grossly powerful levels but the necromancer's created undead are not empowered. There is a whole section of the plot where the DM is left on his own with just a family chart and set of personalities, no guidance on using them or even a map of the home where the party will interact with them. I ran a really cool adventure using the module, but it was cool because I fleshed everything out on my own and put the elements they had in there to some relevant use that the PCs could interact with and notice. As a DM tool for out of the box use it was really poor.

Ship of Horrors is a masterpiece compared to Thoughts of Darkness, a "gothic horror" module which features:

a realm that looks like something off the cover of Heavy Metal Magazine

Roving bands of 15th to 18th level drow warriors, wizards, and rogues

Massively overpowered hordes of spellcasting, vampiric Illithid

And a ridiculously stupid "God brain" that reads like something out of 60's era DC comics.


It's absolute garbage from start to finish, a hackfest module that takes the supposed feel of Ravenloft out behind the woodshed and beats it with an axe handle. I don't know how the hell the module ever made it past concept stage, let alone onto store shelves.

Patrick Y.

 

[Sargon the Kassadian]

I'll try not to derail the thread to much.../hijack

What is a good 1st Edition Module (free?) that we could get off of the interweb, as our group wants to run a 1st Ed. game?

 

[Voadam]

Ship of Horrors is a masterpiece compared to Thoughts of Darkness, a "gothic horror" module which features:

a realm that looks like something off the cover of Heavy Metal Magazine

Roving bands of 15th to 18th level drow warriors, wizards, and rogues

Massively overpowered hordes of spellcasting, vampiric Illithid

And a ridiculously stupid "God brain" that reads like something out of 60's era DC comics.


It's absolute garbage from start to finish, a hackfest module that takes the supposed feel of Ravenloft out behind the woodshed and beats it with an axe handle. I don't know how the hell the module ever made it past concept stage, let alone onto store shelves.

Patrick Y.

What, you didn't like the vampire who deliberately taunted a ghost whose touch caused aging so she could instantly get the super powers of the older vampire categories (such as five levels of energy drain on a hit)?

Own it but never ran it after reading it. Nor any of the ravenloft ones that take players out of their bodies and put them into new ones (dolls, golems, behead them then put them in different characters bodies back in time, etc.)

Ship of Horrors and LoIF get my votes for worst I have run. Thoughts of Darkness and From the Shadows, etc. are not in the running because I have not run them.

The Rakshasa one has some bad elements in it too and I ran it after modifying heavily. An indian culture where non natives are killed as the evil theocracy's number one priority, but there is a non-native, white, red haired FR orphan girl who becomes the party's guide who gets around the deadly assassin cult, priestess network, and constant informants by wearing a mask to hide her features.

 

[thompgc]

I agree with the original DL modules
What a railroad
Just read the novels and role a few dice, would be better

Labrynth of Madness was rather insane.
Not just a killer dungeon, but infuriating search for tattoo granting items

Crazy death traps of all sorts
invisible trolls with metal staves that had glass globes that contained black puddings - whack an adventurer and enjoy
Ladders that blast you with lightning so you fall onto the finger of death type trap

But the real fun was trying to track down tons of hidden areas that would grant tattoos.
This tattoos were needed to access certain areas and back tracking was needed as sometimes you needed a tattoo to reveal something that previously wasn't in the room.

Add in the fact that there was an error that made it impossible to collect the tattoos needed and you have quite the winner.

 

[-Warlord-]

Another adventure I recall as being pretty bad was Black Flames for Dark Sun.

One more vote for Black Flames. It's even worse because this is a beginning level adventure. Our DM started our Darksun campaign with it. And *bang* first adventure starts with not one, but TWO of the settings most rare and powerfull creatures.
We only survived because our DM got the rules of Hold Person wrong, and let us go free when we were damaged by the first fireball.
And running away wasn't easy either. I remember Obsidian Golems breaking free out of a row of columns, that attacked us while the whole place was coming down. We had to run the gauntlet, with every hit that these golems could land meaning instant death (2d6 damage to an already battered 3rd level character).
It felt like we only survived by DM-grace, not because of any wise tactics or clever use of own abilities. Although, we did kill one of the dragons when it came after us, already badly wounded. We used a psionic dimensional gate to get it in mid-air and let it drop to it's death.
And even that didn't feel right. THE most powerful creature in the book and we killed it in our first adventure? Yeah, right.

We survived, and got away with lots of goodies....too many goodies. We started at 3rd level, with only leathers and wooden weapons. We ended at 4th level with dragonskin armors and metal swords. We had wealth far above our station. And in a harsh world as Darksun, you'd expect that you won't be allowed to keep what you can't protect. But somehow no templar with halfgiant bodyguards demanded out wealth when we got back to town.

Our campaign didn't last long after that.

 

[Silver Moon]

Indeed, the DM had to hide the adventure cover, but it was often the case back then: the cover gave away many spoilers.

But the difference was since the was the launch of a whole new line TSR heavily advertised it - in Dragon, in comic books, in stores, with the cover of the module prominently featured in all the ads. So even if the DM did try to hide the cover the chances were that one or more players had already seen the big spoiler.