D&D 4E Which 4E adventures did you play?

[Evilhalfling]

I ran thunderspire labyrinth (H2) but with lots of changes, and added links between the adventures.
It was a pretty good time. I don't remember many of them but I do remember the ex-wife of one NPC showing up in the pit of demons.

Ran Caern of the Winter King too, it was supposed to be a distant rumor, or at most a 2 session sidequest, but it ended up shaping half the campaign. One of the PCs declared himself the king of Winter, and 100 years later there is still a "Winter in July" street parade, even if most of the details have gotten jumbled.
- One of the villians was left to die of thirst in the vault, he was already described as a Deva on his last incarnation before going Rakasta. I still have the intention of bringing him back. (diff campign, mostly same players, same world)

 

[Echohawk]

Also it is free for download since *insert correct date in here*

The revised downloadable version of Keep on the Shadowfell was made available on the WotC web site on 2009-04-29. Bizarrely, there is also a version of Keep for sale at the DND Classics site, but that's the original version, which hasn't been updated. So you can pay for a PDF the original, or get the revised and updated version for free.

 

[jacktannery]

The most recently-published adventures are so far superior to the early ones there is little or no comparison - Madness at Gardmore Abbey was a superb adventure and my players loved it. Reavers of Harkenwald was not as brilliant, but still better than most. The rest of them... The H-P-E modules require so much work to make them enjoyable to play through that it requires a very experienced set of players. The same is true of published monsters - MV: Threats was the last and by far the best monster supplement, and each supplement gets gradually worse going back to the completely unusable MM1. The monster stats were not the only reason the early modules are not good, however: for some reason the writers of the early modules (oh God P3 Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress I mean you!) complete forgot what a roleplaying game was supposed to be and just wrote out a very long list of dubiously-related combat encounters.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Other: Ennie-nominated, free adventure Raiders of Oakhurst - Reloaded

 

[D'karr]

The most recently-published adventures are so far superior to the early ones there is little or no comparison

This IMO is quite true, and very telling. I think the Delve format for the presentation of encounters had quite a lot to do with that. However it was almost as if the writers forgot that there is more to D&D than combat, and you can't blame the edition, or the long format for that. The latter adventures bear this out, and if you look at adventures in Dungeon Magazine you also find some gems that don't forget it.

The monster stats were not the only reason the early modules are not good, however: for some reason the writers of the early modules (oh God P3 Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress I mean you!) complete forgot what a roleplaying game was supposed to be and just wrote out a very long list of dubiously-related combat encounters.

Very true, and I really think that the Delve format is also the significant cause of this. When your format for every encounter is two pages long you are basically designing set-piece combats for everything, and that eats up a lot of space that could be used for expanding NPCs, background events, etc. (the things that make roleplaying games more than just combat simulators). The game does not have to play like that. It doesn't play like that at my table, and I've seen a lot of DMs here demonstrate how it does not work like that with them either. It is also obvious when you see later adventures like Gardmore Abbey which definitely did it better.

In another thread Cordell and Schwalb both mention that 4e does set-piece combats well, but that encounters with insignificant creatures (4 kobolds) don't play as well. I call shenanigans on that. I have seen plenty of DMs run "insignificant" encounters as they are meant to be run, as "insignificant". What the hell did these designers think minions, and lower level creatures are supposed to be used for?

You use the tools that the game provides to get the results you desire. You tweak the encounter to fit your desired needs within the adventure. Not every encounter needs to be a set-piece, level appropriate, or EL+(2 to 4) encounter. So why do you design an adventure where every encounter is just like that? If they are blaming the rules for inflexibility I really have no sympathy for them. The rules present a very robust framework that is very tweakable to achieve desired results. Now, if WotC editors and their policies forced that unworkable situation then we are talking about something different. You can't blame the game engine for not performing the way you want it, if you make policies that prevent it from doing so.

Cordell was the one who, along with Mearls, wrote Keep on the Shadowfell. He also wrote Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress. Both of those adventures left a lot to be desired. However, this decline in making adventures interesting did not start with 4e. Cordell also wrote Bastion of Broken Souls and Heart of Nightfang Spire - IMO, two of the worse adventures I saw during the 3e era. He also wrote Sunless Citadel, a good adventure by most reviewers estimation, and I agree.

So was it the game engine, the adventure writer, or the publishing rules from WotC that created the problem?

 

[NewJeffCT]

I ran a 2 year long 4E campaign using Paizo Adventure Paths. I was looking for something that would be longer than your standard module where you gained 3-4 levels. I wanted something that could last for an entire campaign and didn't really see much that was appealing with the published 4E adventures out there. For me, converting the encounters was pretty easy with the monster builder.

So, I'm really hoping that Wizards does give us some sort of adventure path/epic campaign deal with D&D Next. Paizo puts out 2 full APs per year - one adventure per month with six adventures making the AP. I don't see why WotC can't do similar if they have the resources for it.

 

[Manbearcat]

@D'karr Great post and when I read that interview I thought, word for word, what you thought above. As time has worn on, and they've showed their hand more and more, the more I'm convinced that Mearls and Cordell utterly, completely, and in all other ways absolutely had zero idea of (a) what the 4e ruleset was capable of, (b) how to properly run an evocative, thematic 4e game, (c) how to write a proper 4e adventure. To blame the ruleset itself for the terrible format of "adventure as ridiculously detailed, dubiously-connected, uber-page-eater delve format" is an extraordinary bit of logic. How about correlation does not equal causation...in fact, how about the inverse; a great portion of the misunderstanding of the capabilities (both genre and non-combat depth) of the ruleset by sections of the community is directly correlated to the abysmally formatted adventures written exactly by the people blaming the ruleset...and such misunderstanding gained momentum and proliferated from there.

I would have loved to have seen a 4e that embarked on its intrepid journey backed by current adventure design and the current content in Dungeon magazine. Why in the world do you need 2 page spreads for a single ridiculously detailed encounter, leaving nothing to the GM? How about:

- Encounter budget: L + 2
- Monster types and numbers here: Referenced either in the monster glossary in the back, DDI account enabled, or quick guidelines to create your own - eg 1 Gnoll Shaman Leader/Controller, 2 Skirmishers, 4 Minion Lurkers.
- General encounter layout: Dense forest with trail, snares mobile encampment with a burning pyre at center. Gnolls are dancing and howling around while their demonic sacrifice/meal burns, lightly obscuring the immediate area with smoke.
- Relevant info for potential non-combat resolution options: eg Complexity 2 Skill Challenge where the PCs are challenged to find the cave of this tribe's ancient enemy (a Dire Bear) and bring them its hide and then they are gifted with totems that always allow them peaceful travel through this wood.
- Any adventure McGuffin info or treasure info.

Done. Lots of space for other, relevant material and hook ideas, etc. How hard is that? Apparently very hard. And apparently its the fault of the ruleset.

 

[Remathilis]

I did the 4e Realms adventure (a long, boring slog through room-after-room of uninspired grindy combat), a 4e intro module (whose name I forgot, it was run on launch day), the kobold keep module in the DMG, and a Goodman game's module (the mountain king?) which was a 3e conversion and really poorly done.

I'm sure they got better, but the offerings I saw from WotC and Goodman did not impress me.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I think the difference between 3e and 4e adventures was that 3e had a boatload or three 3rd party adventures. 4e seemed much more limited, so bad to average adventures stood out a lot more. It's a lot easier to ignore poor work from a 3rd party.

 

[Obryn]

I ran through ... H123, then P12 and most of 3.

H1: Salvageable, but doesn't show off the strengths of 4e
H2: Great with a few adjustments
H3: Terrible.
P1: Needed serious work; early 4e math troubles were starting to show
P2: Very good.
P3: Even worse than H3. Monster math no longer functions. Quit for Dark Sun.

Marauders of the Dune Sea: Abysmal even by WotC 4e standards. However, the poster map was worth the price.

Been writing my own ever since, apart from running a few Dark Sun adventures from Dungeon and taking a Dungeon Delve adventure and tweaking it to fit.

-O