What are the worst classic D&D adventure modules?

[Erik Mona]

Frankly, I think another kick at the Rod of Seven Parts in AP format would be well justified.

The Age of Worms Adventure Path outline was originally conceived as a 20-module series that would include a quest to reassemble the Rod of Seven Parts, which would then be used to kill Kyuss at the end. My kick-off adventure, "The Whispering Cairn," includes a lot of foreshadowing of this plot line, which was later reduced considerably when WotC rejected the outline and (probably wisely) made us trim it back down to 12 adventures.

With that said, "The Whispering Cairn" would work, I think, equally well as a kick-off adventure for a campaign based around the Rod of Seven Parts as it does as a kick-off for a huge campaign against Kyuss. The dungeon featured in the adventure is a Wind Dukes of Aqaa tomb, and I drew fairly heavily from Skip's adventure for inspiration on the culture of these ancient beings.

I don't really think that the Rod of Seven Parts super-adventure is otherwise all that great, though, I must admit.

--Erik

 

[Steel_Wind]

The Age of Worms Adventure Path outline was originally conceived as a 20-module series that would include a quest to reassemble the Rod of Seven Parts, which would then be used to kill Kyuss at the end. My kick-off adventure, "The Whispering Cairn," includes a lot of foreshadowing of this plot line, which was later reduced considerably when WotC rejected the outline and (probably wisely) made us trim it back down to 12 adventures.

With that said, "The Whispering Cairn" would work, I think, equally well as a kick-off adventure for a campaign based around the Rod of Seven Parts as it does as a kick-off for a huge campaign against Kyuss. The dungeon featured in the adventure is a Wind Dukes of Aqaa tomb, and I drew fairly heavily from Skip's adventure for inspiration on the culture of these ancient beings.

I don't really think that the Rod of Seven Parts super-adventure is otherwise all that great, though, I must admit.

--Erik

Yes, I recall reading up on Skip's adventure as I was running Age of Worms looking for more hooks and inspiration.

Whispering Cairn definitely makes the cut for 3.5. But in all seriousness - was that because you reached for - and achieved - a "shared experience" adventure in a way that the 2E modules did not?

Was part of the problem with 2E that the sheer mutiplicity of settings fractured the fan base so much that a shared experience module was just not possible? (Greyhawk, FR, Krynn, Birthright, Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, DarkSun, Ravenloft, Planescape, Mask of the Red Death, on and on...).

Pretty hard to have a "shared experience" -- which in my opinion is a prerequisite to get "classic" status -- when so relatively few of us were playing in the same setting to begin with.

 

[Erik Mona]

I think that's part of it, but I also think that TSR bought into the "modules don't sell" (because they _don't_) mindset before WotC was even invented. So they farmed out most of the 2e modules to the RPGA. And what works wonders in a 4-hour pick-up game at a con doesn't necessarily translate well to a real campaign, especially because the late 80s and early 90s were a particularly "hokey" era for the RPGA.

I think a lot of people had burned out on old school dungeon crawling, and so you were more likely to get stuff like Fluffy Quest, the joke Castle Greyhawk module, Puppets, Gargoyles, and the like. Heck, many of the adventures I just listed started out as RPGA scenarios.

Take a close look at the "generic" adventure modules released for 2e, and with a couple of exceptions (most fairly late in the edition cycle), these things were farmed out to the B or even C squad.

The setting fragmentation of second edition definitely struck a blow against the "shared experience" feel that so often generates what we tend to think of as classic modules, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of the modules in second edition were sad crap written by hacks.

The more I think about it, the more some better adventures start to come to mind. Bruce Cordell had a couple of really good ones in the form of Gates of Firestorm Peak and Return to the Tomb of Horrors. Monte Cook did some excellent work in Planescape with the Great Modron March and Dead Gods.

I think there was a bit of a creative renaissance very near the end of TSR, with folks like Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell, and Colin McComb. It's the stuff BEFORE that that's almost uniformly terrible.

--Erik

 

[olshanski]

I pretty much despised all of 2E... I didn't play it, but after I got back into the game with 3E I went and back-purchased most of the adventures to see if I had missed anything.
Some of them had good production values but mediocre adventures (Axe of the Dwarven Lords, Rod of 7 parts).
I think the closest things to classic might be Dead Gods or Return to the Tomb of Horrors.

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) Were there _ANY_ "classic" second edition modules? (snip)

I agree with you on Night Below (although it needs A LOT of DM work), and I think Gates of Firestorm Peak is another classic and one I am itching to run in 4E (I also like Bruce Cordell's other late-2E era adventure The Shattered Circle and suspect that would have been considered a classic if released at any other time).

 

[mhensley]

The best 2e adventures were all in Dungeon.

 

[FireLance]

Were there _ANY_ "classic" second edition modules?

The best ones I can think of are the Planescape modules The Great Modron March and Dead Gods.

I never actually ran or played them, but I thought they had quite an epic feel and fit very well with the flavor of the campaign setting.

EDIT: Ninja'ed by your subsequent post - I really ought to read to the end of the thread before replying!

 

[MerricB]

From DragonLance Volume 1 (Adventures 1-4) Page 5, titled "Dungeonmaster notes".



I could find no similar quote regarding PCs.
Reading the introduction it appears to me that they have made several steps to try to make it a non-railroad... the adventures are pretty bad railroads nevertheless.

You need to go to the original printings of the modules.

PCs had the obscure death rule up until DL8 (Dragons of War) where Sturm is meant to meet his fate on the High Clerists Tower. From that point onwards, it's gone.

NPCs lose it about DL12, I think.

Cheers!

 

[D'karr]

I don't know if I'd call them classic but the three adventures for the Illithiad were pretty cool. I would not run them exactly as written but there are some beautiful ideas in that trio. I know this is a thread about the worst, but somebody asked if there were some classics in 2e, I think these fit that category.

A Darkness Gathering
Masters of Eternal Night
Dawn of the Overmind

 

[xuebao009]

I like the idea, cool!