D&D 5E Survivor Classic Modules: THE SINISTER SECRET OF SALTMARSH WINS!

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[steeldragons]

A1-A4 Scourge of the Slave Lords 17
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands 22
B4 The Lost City 3
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan 22
C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness 17
D1-D3 Drow 13
EX1-EX2 Dungeonland/Magic Mirror 21
G1-G3 Against the Giants 15
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City 24
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King 17
I3-I5 Desert of Desolation 25
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill 10
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits 12
S2 White Plume Mountain 21
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 7
S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 27
T1 Village of Hommlet 26
U1-U3 Saltmarsh Series 22
UK2 Sentinel 15
WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 22
X1 Isle of Dread 20
X2 Castle Amber 20'

Likely a futile effort, but The Lost City is one of the severely underrated classics. A great story. Creative adventure/encounters. Tons of RP opportunity. A "Nothing like this in the MM" Big Bad. Seriously underrated.

And, while it may put my Grognard membership card in jeopardy, I have NEVER been a fan of crossing the streams. Especially when those streams are fantasy and modern-to-high-tech of any kind. So Expedition was NEVER a favorite of mine. Your fighter is running around with ray gun?! No thank you. Cool monsters! Great introduction for a bunch of them. Beautifully illustrated. But, just, no.

 

[Kobold Stew]

S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 7

And, while it may put my Grognard membership card in jeopardy, I have NEVER been a fan of crossing the streams. Especially when those streams are fantasy and modern-to-high-tech of any kind. So Expedition was NEVER a favorite of mine. Your fighter is running around with ray gun?! No thank you. Cool monsters! Great introduction for a bunch of them. Beautifully illustrated. But, just, no.

I remember being 13 or 14 years old, and being led through Barrier Peaks. I was a rogue, and I had the colour cards. We were playing D&D, and this was before the internet, before fan boards and online reviews; it was even before "crossing the streams" was a phrase. This was D&D when the DM still described rooms and someone tried to draw them on graph paper.

It was mind blowing, when we worked out that this was a sf adventure, and our fantasy characters were experiencing it. It was awesome.

I get that the legacy of ray guns with a fighter would impact subsequent adventures; we were kids, and it didn't matter (and, to be fair to the designers, since Barrier Peaks was designed as a tournament module, it didn't matter to them either).

Best module of all time? No. But it certainly gave me the funnest D&D realignment twist I ever experienced in my first ten years of RPGs.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Kobold Stew]

A1-A4 Scourge of the Slave Lords 17
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands 22
B4 The Lost City 3
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan 22
C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness 14
D1-D3 Drow 13
EX1-EX2 Dungeonland/Magic Mirror 21
G1-G3 Against the Giants 15
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City 24
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King 17
I3-I5 Desert of Desolation 25
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill 10
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits 12
S2 White Plume Mountain 22
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 7
S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 27
T1 Village of Hommlet 26
U1-U3 Saltmarsh Series 22
UK2 Sentinel 15
WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 22
X1 Isle of Dread 20
X2 Castle Amber 20'

White Plume Mountain was the module I owned and ran for the guys. The weirdness of the Zoo in an inverted pyramid blew my mind, and the instantly iconic superweapons of Wave and Whelm (Blackrazor less so, since it felt like too much like Stormbringer) make it a treasured favourite.

 

[gyor]

A1-A4 Scourge of the Slave Lords 17
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands 22
B4 The Lost City 3
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan 22
C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness 14
D1-D3 Drow 13
EX1-EX2 Dungeonland/Magic Mirror 21
G1-G3 Against the Giants 15
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City 24
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King 17
I3-I5 Desert of Desolation 26 +1
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill 10
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits 12
S2 White Plume Mountain 22
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 7
S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 27
T1 Village of Hommlet 23 -3
U1-U3 Saltmarsh Series 22
UK2 Sentinel 15
WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 22
X1 Isle of Dread 20
X2 Castle Amber 20'

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

A1-A4 Scourge of the Slave Lords 17
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands 22
B4 The Lost City 3
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan 22
C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness 14
D1-D3 Drow 13
EX1-EX2 Dungeonland/Magic Mirror 21
G1-G3 Against the Giants 15
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City 24
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King 17
I3-I5 Desert of Desolation 26
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill 10
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits 12
S2 White Plume Mountain 19
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 8
S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 27
T1 Village of Hommlet 23
U1-U3 Saltmarsh Series 22
UK2 Sentinel 15
WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 22
X1 Isle of Dread 20
X2 Castle Amber 20

 

[Ed Laprade]

A1-A4 Scourge of the Slave Lords 17
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands 22
B4 The Lost City 3 -3 = 0. Now it is really lost.
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan 22
C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness 14
D1-D3 Drow 13
EX1-EX2 Dungeonland/Magic Mirror 21
G1-G3 Against the Giants 15
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City 24
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King 17
I3-I5 Desert of Desolation 26
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill 10
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits 12
S2 White Plume Mountain 19
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 8
S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 27
T1 Village of Hommlet 23 +1 = 24.
U1-U3 Saltmarsh Series 22
UK2 Sentinel 15
WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 22
X1 Isle of Dread 20
X2 Castle Amber 20

 

[Lanefan]

On the modules in question, the Wonderland series (EX1-2) will always have a special place in my heart. Not just because they were fun modules (they were), but because ... and this may be hard for people to grok right now ... but Alice in Wonderland just wasn't as omnipresent then as it is now. When those modules were released, there were the original books (which weren't widely read), the Disney movie (which wasn't really available), and that was it. There was some cultural knowledge (people, generally, knew what "Alice in Wonderland" meant) but there weren't multiple movie reboots of the franchise, video on demand, and the internet. So I ran it and it was, well, fresh. And it sent me to the library to read the source material, and read the Annotated Alice, and more about logic puzzles, and introduced me to portmanteaus, and so on. In essence, it was perfect ur-Gygaxian D&D in that it was a gateway to broadening my horizons (just like the list of suggested reading in the DMG).

Ah, there's the difference: I was an Alice fan long before those modules were written, where you hit the modules first and the original material second.

Lan-"one pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

A1-A4 Scourge of the Slave Lords 17
B2 The Keep on the Borderlands 22
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan 22
C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness 14
D1-D3 Drow 13
EX1-EX2 Dungeonland/Magic Mirror 21
G1-G3 Against the Giants 15
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City 24
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King 17
I3-I5 Desert of Desolation 26
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill 11
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits 12
S2 White Plume Mountain 19
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 8
S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 27
T1 Village of Hommlet 24
U1-U3 Saltmarsh Series 22
UK2 Sentinel 12
WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun 22
X1 Isle of Dread 20
X2 Castle Amber 20