Help me choose an adventure to run.

I'm having a hard time deciding on what I should read & prepare first for some upcoming games. My players aren't being very helpful about what kind of adventure they would like to play next. So once again, it is up to me to decide and hope they enjoy it.

So I've listed several old adventures that I've heard are good and worth running. And I've listed all of the 3e adventures that I have but have never used.

Which of these have you had the most fun playing in or running as a DM? If it is an adventure that you may have only liked because you have fond memories of it when you were younger, then imagine if you played it now with whatever edition you currently use; would it have been as fun? If not, then choose a different one.

Although I wish I had the time to read through all of them and decide for myself, I just don't have the free time to do that. So I'd like to just read a few that are hopefully worth the effort to prepare.

The only things I am interested in is an engaging plot, plenty of opportunities for roleplaying, & some fun fights/encounters of course. Adventure level, doesn't matter since I can scale it, and I can convert non-3e adventures.

Feel free to tell me if there are any that I should stay away from!

Thanks!

One of the best campaigns I've ever played in was Desert of Desolation converted to 3e. Based on my limited knowledge of the module, the DM did some modifying to turn the superadventure into more of a sandbox, mini-campaign with additional subplots and encounter areas that he created himself. However, I think the underlying plot is pretty cool and the dungeons in the modules have some really interesting stuff in them.

I'm having a real great time running Keep on the Borderlands (actually it's the 2E Return to version) as a starting area for my current 4E campaign. This Friday we will have our 17th session and the players are still exploring some of the areas.

I went with Temple of Elemental Evil. Though I believe it will take some DM work to keep it from just being a dungeon crawl which it can easily turn into.

You forget The Slathered Plates of Butterworth.

You've listed a bunch of good'uns.

I voted Red Hand of Doom, but I think part of that is because the time I was running it the campaign broke up before we got too far into it (pretty much everyone moved or had a baby). I'd really like to play it out some day.

Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Lost City, Gates of Firestorm Peak, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan are some other favorites of mine.

I voted for Red Hand of Doom, although I don't know that my players would vote for that one. Our RHoD campaign ended in not one but two near-TPKs. That being said, it was still a lot of fun.

As a lead-up to RHoD, I ran Scourge of the Howling Horde and Barrow of the Forgotten King, both of which I set in Elsir Vale (the setting for RHoD). SotHH was OK. Uninspired and very basic (my players wanted to try reasoning with the goblins, but the module doesn't anticipate that option) but nonetheless OK. BotFK was awful. It breaks just about every single one of WotC's "how not to build a successful adventure" rules (it's a "timed" adventure involving a chase through a linear dungeon that includes a number of chokepoints with horribly overpowered monsters that can easily kill the momentum if not the entire party). So I don't think I would recommend either of those.

I bought but never got to play Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. It was great fun to read and looked like it would be a lot of fun to play.

To be honest, I'm not sure I would recommend any adventure put out by WotC. They never seem to follow their own encounter design advice, and so their official adventures generally tend to be rather difficult and full of "this is how we told you not to do it in the DMG" situations.

I voted for the Lost City, but I figure if I were you I'd combine a few on your list for a series of Desert adventures, starting with Lost City and taking in the Desert of Desolation series and aiming for Return to the Tomb of Horrors.

Start gathering the clues/keys to Return to the Tomb of Horrors as early as possible.

Cheers PDR

Just one vote? Yikes!

I cast mine for The Lost City.

One not listed, The Caverns of Thracia, is at least as good, and Necromancer Games did an expanded 3e conversion that looks pretty faithful to my admittedly inexpert eye.

Anyhow, the "lost civilization" adventure genre figured prominently in the works of such authors cited as influences on early D&D as Abe Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E, Howard. It has also yielded a lot of B movies and TV-show episodes. So, pretty quickly, most players get into the spirit of the thing.

Module B4 has a rather heavy-handed setup, as I recall, leaving the players -- lost in a desert -- no really viable option but to press on into the structure they discover. (Some might recall the circumstances of Conan at the start of "The Slithering Shadow", or even what develops early in "Red Nails".)

However, once they make contact with the strange society within, encountering one faction after another, unpredictable but always interesting developments naturally ensue. With, and against, whom will they ally? What will they learn of the history of the Lost City? Will they confront the ancient evil in its depths? What will they take with them when they leave? Will they, indeed, return to the outer world, or will they succumb to the perils -- or the pleasures -- of the city hiding from, as much as hidden by, the sweeping sands of time?

The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is excellent, but requires significant effort of familiarization on the DM's part to do it justice. As well, the allure of its mysteries is as dangerous as the poison that -- in the tournament-style approach that I find most exciting -- makes it urgent to get out of the place. Then again, much of the treasure is cursed, so the typical looting scenario is not very rewarding.

Tamoachan features some very entertaining NPCs, but in essence is a deadly trap-fest like The Tomb of Horrors. The puzzle-solvers will find more to their liking than the hack-and-slayers.

Although one might well allow longer, the tournament scenario is supposed to have a limit of 2 hours in real time (with a shorter variant suggested for just 1 to 1.5 hours). Thus, there might be time enough in a single session for the survivors (and replacements for the fallen) to make a more leisurely investigation afterward.

With a well-prepared DM, and players ready for truly nerve-wracking suspense, Tamoachan is tops. The packet of illustrations to show the players at appropriate times adds the final touch to an adventure that more than rivals the archaeological exploits of Indiana Jones.