D&D 5E Silver thread and golden needles

[GuyBoy]

These adventures were, to my mind, things of beauty and warm nostalgia when they celebrated our game’s 25th.
The Ravenloft 25th and the Dragonlance one were also part of the Silver Anniversary lineup, though I didn’t get to play or DM them myself, unlike the three above.
I even managed to get together with an old school friend to return to Kendall Keep to revisit the gaming aspects of our teens.

So, with the Golden Anniversary approaching ( and cognisant of Goodman Games excellent work), what gems could get the golden treatment?
Personally, I’d like to see a Return of Tharizdun, with an updated threat linked to the Temple of Tharizdun and the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
Other views?

 

[Omand]

A Return to the Return to the Keep on the Borderlands?

More seriously, some revamped versions similar to the Silver Anniversary versions is what I would expect and hope for. I think the nostalgia thing is something WotC will seek to mine.

I really hope for a Collector's Box Set like the Silver Anniversary one. Still have mine, slightly damaged, on the shelf.

Cheers

 

[Shiroiken]

I'd love some Tharizdun return, but I'd rather it fit more closely with the original. Return of the Slave Lords and a Return to the Desert of Desolation come to mind, and Return to Castle Amber might be really cool too.

 

[Yora]

An updated and expanded version of Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun would be cool. As great as the whole place is, it just suddenly sputters out at the very bottom of the chasm, right when you're close enough to touch something really amazing, and all you can do is count your treasure and go home.

I'm not usually a fan of Gygax' work, but the Forgotten Temple is a hugely imaginative place. I think it absolutely has the potential for an iconic event piece, if it just gets some more meat on the bones. Maybe also expand on the journey to, and the discovery of the temple before going inside.

 

[GuyBoy]

The meat could be good, maybe even a mini-campaign as a 50th celebration. Tsojcanth already has a wilderness area around it, which could be built on easily enough, and Lost Temple (As Yora says) could definitely be expanded around the Cyst-prison of the Chained God.
If the two classics got a revamp in the style of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, it could be a mightily impressive product.

 

[Yora]

The Lost Temple is already a follow up to Tsojcanth.

Using both modules as the basis for a Yatil Mountain campaign could be pretty cool. You get both Ygwilv and Tharizdun.

 

[Stormonu]

Castle Amber got a non-silver treatment with a boxed set in the 90’s - I kept mine as I think it was rather well done. I’d also consider the Return to the Tomb of Horrors among those ones shown above.

Honestly, I actually didn’t like the content of the Return series - they seemed to mock the originals, especially White Plume Mountain (where the original dungeon has been literally vandalized).

I much more enjoy Goodman’s versions that reprint the original and then include a 5E take. I have both The Lost City and Castle Amber and of what I read, they are really excellent.

As for republished/upgraded adventures of yore, I’d definitely like to see Pharaoh (not necessarily Desert of Desolation), and Bone Hill/Assassin’s Knot/Deep Dwarven Delve in 5E would make me happy as well. As would the Slavelord series (including A0) - I used that series of modules for a long-running thread in my longest running 2E campaign (it was basically A1-A4, G1-G3, D1-D3 and topped with Q1).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

View attachment 138627

These adventures were, to my mind, things of beauty and warm nostalgia when they celebrated our game’s 25th.
The Ravenloft 25th and the Dragonlance one were also part of the Silver Anniversary lineup, though I didn’t get to play or DM them myself, unlike the three above.
I even managed to get together with an old school friend to return to Kendall Keep to revisit the gaming aspects of our teens.

So, with the Golden Anniversary approaching ( and cognisant of Goodman Games excellent work), what gems could get the golden treatment?
Personally, I’d like to see a Return of Tharizdun, with an updated threat linked to the Temple of Tharizdun and the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
Other views?

Hopefully with the 50th edition, WotC will acknowledge all the editions and decades D&D has existed.

With the 25th, in 1999, AD&D only had two editions and basically two decades, so it made some sense to go back to 1980s 1E stuff.

But with the 50th, in 2024, D&D will have had five decades and five editions. Going back solely to the 1980s 1E stuff people are suggesting in this thread would make absolutely zero sense, if it was all they did.

I'd like to see WotC make an effort to do updates for 5E or "return to" adventures for all the decades and editions D&D has had. Not just 1E, for god's sake. There's this weird bias among grogs that basically all the good adventures are from a seven-year span, discussed here: https://dmdavid.com/tag/why-did-so-many-classic-adventures-come-from-7-years-of-dds-45-year-history/

(I have no idea who DM David is btw, hope he's not a monster!)

Yet far more adventures have been published after that, and many of them are extremely good, and frankly, deserve recognition that they've never really had. Campaigns do get recognition, but individual adventures? Not much. That would take some work on WotC's part, but I think it's doable.

It may be kind of hard to find a good WotC 4E adventure (remember, I'm a 4E fan - but I am not a fan of WotC's low-quality 4E adventure output, which was how it was at release), but I'm told that late in the edition, it did happen.

But let's not just have yet more repetition of "D&D between 1978 and 1985 was awesome cool but all that stuff afterwards was lame and forgettable!". Not on 50th anniversary with 5 editions.

 

[GuyBoy]

You make several good points.
I am a bit of a grognard, more due to age than inclination I think, and the late 70s/ early 80s stuff definitely hug my nostalgia emotions.
But......you are absolutely right. There are now 5 editions to draw from them and I believe all can provide a rich mine for 50th Anniversary treatment.
I have to confess that I never played 4E but I played a lot of 3 and 3.5 and there were some superb adventures, including many from the pages of Dungeon magazine.
In sporting terms, it would be called a “nice problem to have” in selecting a collection to give the Golden treatment to.

A Return to Forge of Fury would be great. Other suggestions?

 

[Yora]

Forge of Fury just got a 5th edition conversion a few months back. Probably not going to go with that again.

The reason that they keep going back to the old TSR modules is that until 5th edition, WotC has never really been much in the adventure business. 3rd edition had a couple of dungeon modules right after launch and then four Forgotten Realms adventures towards the end, and that was it, as far as I can recall.
For 4th edtition, the only adventure I could name is Keep on the Shadowfell, which I heard is pretty bad.