Last Man Standing: Best D&D Modules

[Sacrosanct]

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.

Some of those were, and still are, excellent. Especially Village of Homlett. Adventures are there to give you the structure and outline of what's going on. You still have to DM them. And unlike modern adventures (that are more campaign books rather than 30 page modules) that define out everything for you, those adventures allowed you as the DM to flesh out a lot of things (NPCs, relationships, areas) how you wanted. That to me is way more appealing than being hand held through the entire adventure. Largely because it felt more organic because without everything predefined, it's easier to adapt on the fly to PC actions during the adventure. I'd prefer to paint on a blank canvas with tools provided, then have all the tools and a painting already done that I have to paint over and hide the existing stuff.

"The PCs killed the bandits in this cave? Ah, well these NPCs over here will be perfect to use as relatives of those bandits for some interesting future interactions."

You may think they aren't good, but that's just your opinion. It seems most of the gaming community disagrees with you though, judging by the results every time a poll gets put out on this topic

 

[Paul Farquhar]

those adventures allowed you as the DM to flesh out a lot of things (NPCs, relationships, areas) how you wanted.

Modern adventures allow you to do that. But they also provide enough detail that if the players do something the DM didn't anticipate there is something written down.

Village of Hommlett is quite literally what you get if you use the random town generator tables in the DMG and a particularly poor random fantasy name generator on the internet.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Modern adventures allow you to do that. But they also provide enough detail that if the players do something the DM didn't anticipate there is something written down.

Village of Hommlett is quite literally what you get if you use the random town generator tables in the DMG and a particularly poor random fantasy name generator on the internet.

No, modern adventures don't allow me to do that. I have to rewrite everything because every thing and everyone is already fleshed out in detail in modern adventures.

Also, if that's what you think VoH was like, I doubt you ever actually read or ran that adventure.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No, modern adventures don't allow me to do that. I have to rewrite everything because every thing and everyone is already fleshed out in detail in modern adventures.

​

It sounds to me like your ideal adventure would be twenty sheets of blank paper.​

Also, if that's what you think VoH was like, I doubt you ever actually read or ran that adventure.

I read it. I didn't run it, on account of it being garbage. And, contrary to some comments, there was much better material available.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It sounds to me like your ideal adventure would be twenty sheets of blank paper.[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

Yeah, using extreme hyperbole is a great way to back up your argument...

I read it. I didn't run it, on account of it being garbage. And, contrary to some comments, there was much better material available.

I don't think you did, because if you had read it, you would have known the first half of that module does exactly what you're saying it doesn't.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I haven't said it doesn't do anything apart from not suck.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I haven't said it doesn't do anything apart from not suck.

No, you said this:

Village of Hommlett is quite literally what you get if you use the random town generator tables in the DMG and a particularly poor random fantasy name generator on the internet.

Which clearly tells me you didn't read that module. Judging by your extreme hyperbole and hostility towards them, and extreme mis-characterization of my words, you probably still haven't. I don't know, maybe you're just trying to be edgy or something. Either way, you're simply wrong about what T1 was by making a statement like that. Literally the first half of the entire module was fleshing out the town and surrounding area, giving you enough information to see how every NPC was interrelated to each other and motivations, but not too much info that you had to do major rewrites to change someone to fit your campaign.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes, I said that. You can get plenty of detail from the random tables in the DMG. It's just wont be very interesting or logical detail. You are the one vaunting a lack of detail as a positive feature.

This is what Hommlett doesn't have:

* Any original ideas;
* Any interesting characters;
* Any names that don't look like they have been pulled out of the Scrabble bag;
* Any logic (the village is chock full of high level characters far more capable of dealing with problems than the 1st level PCs).


Basically its a boring generic village full of boring generic people beset by boring generic problems (It's kinda like home).

 

[JonnyP71]

I'm currently running a 1E campaign and have used Village of Hommlet, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and the 3 Giants modules and all have been great fun...

The level of depth in the Giants modules especially is phenomenal, there's just enough there for me to work with as DM, the layouts are logical, the descriptions concise and flavourful - and all 3 modules are excellent. There's inner politics, good scope for roleplay, and they can challenge even the most skilled of players.

Between them they've already generated 80+ hours of play - all from just 32 pages - and we still haven't finished with G3...

Sancrosanct, you are correct about Village of Hommlet too, a great little campaign starter.

By contrast, more modern modules are too heavy handed and verbose, and a pain in the backside to run. The older modules gave the DM so much more freedom.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The level of depth in the Giants modules especially is phenomenal, there's just enough there for me to work with as DM, the layouts are logical, the descriptions concise and flavourful - and all 3 modules are excellent. There's inner politics, good scope for roleplay, and they can challenge even the most skilled of players.

Which may be true, but is also pointless. Because all the players see is a corridor full of always-CE giants to fight. Followed by a room full of giants to fight. Followed by another corridor full of giants to fight, and so on ad nauseum.