Last Man Standing: Best D&D Modules

Urriak · Jun 11, 2019

Maxperson said:
Desert of Desolation - 20
Aisle of Dread - 0 - Dread is dead.

"Whose Dread?"

"Dread's dead baby, Dread's dead."

Desert of Desolation wins, I guess the people saying it was the likeliest next remake for 5e (in the vein of TotYP and Ghosts of Saltmarsh) weren't joking.

gyor · Jun 11, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
with a better third part?

Maybe a fourth
part and a Map of the Old Empires region too.

Sacrosanct · Jun 11, 2019

As long as they have the teleporting pit trap, I'll be happy

gyor · Jun 12, 2019

The reasons I think that they will do Desert of Desolation are:

1: They want to explore beyond Midevil Eurocentric areas of the realms, this qualies.

2: If for FR

3. It's a chance explore desert and wildness rules for 5e.

4. Its extremely popular.

5. It's something they haven't done yet.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 12, 2019

gyor said:
Maybe a fourth
part and a Map of the Old Empires region too.

Given that the main problem with the third part is the difficulty in designing adventures for very high level characters, I don't think it would be improved by a Part Four. However, since the adventure starts at around level 5, a Part Zero could be added. I would be all in favour of broadening out the region to make the plot feel less railroaded.

The entire area would be easy to set in any campaign setting (it was originally setting agnostic), including real world ancient Egypt.

gyor · Jun 13, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
Given that the main problem with the third part is the difficulty in designing adventures for very high level characters, I don't think it would be improved by a Part Four. However, since the adventure starts at around level 5, a Part Zero could be added. I would be all in favour of broadening out the region to make the plot feel less railroaded.

The entire area would be easy to set in any campaign setting (it was originally setting agnostic), including real world ancient Egypt.

I'm not really interested in the setting agnostic version, I prefer the FR version, but make it current and give a Old Empires Gazette type chapter. I mean suggestions for other settings is fine of course.

JonnyP71 · Jun 13, 2019

This shows how perception of what makes a good adventure changes over time. I recently ran a poll in the 1E AD&D facebook group to find the 1E community's favourite module, and none of the Desert of Desolation series even made it into the top 20 (in total 95 modules were included, it was a HUGE undertaking). All the modules went into qualification pools to whittle them down to 42, then to 16 - and when we had the last 16 it was a head to head knockout. In all, more than 200 people in the group cast votes in various phases.

The results for the top 10 were:
1- Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
2 - White Plume Mountain
3 - Steading of the Hill Giant Chief
4 - Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
5 - Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
6 - Hall of the Fire Giant King
7 - Ravenloft
8 - Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
9 - Village of Hommlet
10 - Tomb of Horrors

Paul Farquhar · Jun 13, 2019

Yeah, well I was a 1st edition player, and I would say that several of those are not just not good, they are actually terrible: Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Hall of the Fire Giant King, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and Village of Hommlet. And it's not a matter of time. I thought they where just as bad in the 1980s.

Legatus Legionis · Jun 14, 2019

Paul Farquhar · Jun 14, 2019

Legatus_Legionis said:
But when those 1E came out, with nothing else to compare them to, they were considered "Good".

Eh, no, I first encountered them in the early 80s, and I did not consider them good in the 80s. There was stuff to compare them too, Castle Amber, White Plume Mountain, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh managed not to suck, there was stuff in Dragon and White Dwarf (before it was a Warhammer mag), and failing that, you can compare to what you can create yourself (on the back of an envelope in 5 minutes).