So do your best: Hoard of the Dragon Queen. The one most talked about being terrible.
Sorry mate, but your whole post here reads like one of those brow-furrowing "Why won't people just argue with me on exactly my terms? I guess they all suck!" posts that gets downvoted into oblivion on reddit. Further, I've engaged with those people a bunch of times, and what happens? If you present a good argument, or obviously know more about something than them, they just stop posting. They don't engage back in a rewarding way, they aren't constructive, they don't have ideas, they just wanted you to meet their ultra-specific criteria, and when you did, they left. As I've never seen your posts before, I'm reluctant to engage with it. (Some to keep replying, but they always latch on to some bit of semantics and keep trying to argue that whilst ignoring the literally dozen other points you made in response to their points - that's even more exhausting).
Furthermore, I don't own Hoard, and I've never read it. Is it free? It doesn't seem to be. So you want me to buy an AP that's notably dreadful, then read this dreadful AP, then write up an essay for you on why it's bad?
OK, I will do that, if you:
A) Pay my expenses for buying Hoard (or provide me with a legal copy).
and
B) Pay my hourly rate, which I'm going to set at $50 (that's actually a discount) for however many hours it takes me to read, take notes, and then write up the essay you're demanding.
You going to do that? No. It's ridiculous. And so is your demand that I give specific criticism on this specific module which I don't own.
I find it dubious that any AP is so sucky, that it can't be fun.
For the full reddit experience, I see you have added a bonus strawman argument. This isn't reddit, mate. Maybe don't do that, because it makes me think "Oh, this guy is demanding detailed arguments, but isn't going to actually read them". I've never said anything of the sort. In fact, the opposite is true. I've played some dreadful modules that, once we realized how bad they were, they were kind of hysterical. I don't know the names of all of them, because I wasn't running them, because I'm the sort of twonk who won't run something that bad. But I've played them, and they were really fun, once we adjusted for the fact that they were appallingly written. None of them lasted particularly long though. We were rolling around with how dubious the one that starts with that town blowing up in the FR is.
I am sorry if you mentioned this before, but when was the last time you ran a stock AP for 5e, or even 4e for that matter?
I ran several in 4E, but they were so bad that they made me give up on modules.
It requires an enormous amount of work. Every paragraph generally has something that needs to be remembered, and many memorized. Important NPC's all have motives, generally very specific, that need to be expressed with every interaction. They also have distinguishable personalities and physical characteristics that need to be memorized. The plot, everything from the timeline of the initial event that causes the story's conflict to the conclusion needs to be understood (and again, probably memorized).
To me it sounds like you're saying reading a book and remembering stuff is hard. Which I don't think is true for me at all.
Like, you may be right that my "superpower" is absorbing information. I am good at it. But I do have ADHD, so you'd think that'd counter it to some extent.
Also, don't you take/make notes (margins, sticky, digital, etc.) and glance at them? If you're literally trying to memorize every single thing in an AP, you're doing it wrong mate. Especially if you're not really good at memorizing things, as you seem to be saying.
And don't you find, in the process of doing the above, particularly the last line, that you often find tons and tons of problems in modules? The early 4E WotC modules stood out for me as being deeply flawed when you tried to follow the logic, ecosystems, timelines and so on. Indeed, ecosystems in most of the WotC material I have seen are almost entirely lacking. You're lucky if the enemies even have a latrine (and if they do, it probably has an otyugh in it!).
I'd also love to hear from other DMs in this thread if they find what you're describing both "an enormous amount of work", and particularly whether they're taking the same "memorization not notes" approach as you. You also make it sound really un-fun, which is pretty wild. I only find it work when I have to correct an AP.
To run one episode of an AP takes me 2-4 hours of prepwork. Vastly different.
By "one episode" you mean an entire AP segment/book, right? Not like, one session? Because if you mean one session, why on earth are you even using an AP? Writing up the stuff for a session from zero, just from my mind takes 30 mins to 2 hrs, generally, and I enjoy it, except loot can in 5E, oddly. If I was taking 2+ hours to get ready to run a session of an AP, well, I wouldn't run that AP (the initial read-through and notes take longer, of course).
Generally speaking, 5E is about the third easiest D&D to prep for, in my experience. For me it goes AD&D/early editions, then 4E, then 5E, then really distantly beyond them 3.XE. And I don't find it hard to prep for as RPGs go. It's not like it's Shadowrun or something, where you can be there for literally hours and hours.
I also would say that your "curriculum as intended" point is pretty ridiculous. Running a module isn't a university class, for god's sake. It's a fun thing people do with their friends. That's a patently ludicrous comparison. The reality is, a DM who has 20 years experience, and glances at a module, is almost certainly going to do a massively better job overall than a guy who has significantly less experience, but obsesses and frets over the module in the way you're describing. It's not like I haven't had DMs like both (and many points in-between).
Further, you're really playing into my point here. Mr Obsessive McFrets who wants a precise reproduction of the module is going to totally wrecked when it turns out the module doesn't remotely account for the PCs making what, when you actually play it, is the obvious decision or the like.
In the end, I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here. Running modules is really hard for you? I guess that sucks. Maybe don't do it?
Also, given I answered your question re: when I last run a module, can you answer me this - when was the last time you ran D&D/PF AP for people you liked and had a good time? Because the vibe I get is never. You seem really down on reading an AP (and to have specific expectations of them that most APs don't meet, like proper ecosystems). And what was the AP?