What Is Your Favorite Linear Adventure/Campaign

[jian]

You’re missing out. Parts four and five have been completely reworked in the latest release.

Instead of traveling to Kislev in Part Four you now track down the remnants of the purple hand, the jade scepter and stop a terrifying Skaven plot beneath the city and in the middle mountains.

Part five is far more political as well as a tour of the empire. It’s much improved.

Ah, yes, I was thinking back to playing in the 80s and 90s. Glad to hear it’s been reworked, it really needed it. The release of and reception to EiF back in the early 90s was such a huge thing, it was so hard to actually get a copy and play it.

So it looks (on DTRPG) like it’s now:

1. Enemy in Shadows
2. Death on the Reik
3. Power Behind the Throne
4. The Horned Rat
5. Empire in Ruins

So presumably Kislev is replaced by a skaven plot and 1 and 5 have been at least renamed (from Shadows over Bogenhafen and Empire in Flames). Is that right?

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I think Rime is an illusory sandbox. If you follow the advice in the book, the PCs can do like 3 things before they have to move on. It is the most "tabletop CRPG" of all of WotC's adventures I think.

Fair point. The Alexandrian blogged that it's this close to being a sandbox. I think you could make it one pretty easily by ripping out the metaplot and mixing in whatever elements you like from the new Forgotten Realms GM book and the older Legacy of the Crystal Shard.

 

[Reynard]

Fair point. The Alexandrian blogged that it's this close to being a sandbox. I think you could make it one pretty easily by ripping out the metaplot and mixing in whatever elements you like from the new Forgotten Realms GM book and the older Legacy of the Crystal Shard.

You can make any adventure a sandbox by ripping out the main story.

For Rime, though, I think it would suffice to eliminate the milestone leveling and just let the players do whatever they wanted.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Easily Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

I've never played that but I read through it once...wow.

 

[Voadam]

I really like the Pathfinder 1e adventure paths. I have run campaigns of Reign of Winter (Baba Yaga and Ice Witch themed), Carrion Crown (Gothic and Lovecraftian Horror themed), and Iron Gods (Thundar the Barbarian, Sci-Fi and postapocalyptic stuff in D&D land), the latter two as 5e conversions. I only got two to three modules into each (plus two supplementary modules for Carrion Crown), but I had a fantastic time running each.

They are strongly themed and easy to riff off of. I had some hesitation on some of the later modules I had not gotten to yet. Reign of Winter 4 has a sort of Pern/Dragonlance feel that did not grab me but book 5 Rasputin Must Die looked amazing, Carrion Crown first three are really strong classic horror monster of the week themes, 4 is Cthulhu, 5 is D&D vamps, and six is lich theme, which get more and more off the gothic horror monster movie themes.

I have played in a bunch more (Shackled City, Age of Worms, Savage Tide, Rise of the Runelords, Second Darkness, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Wrath of the Righteous, etc.) and had a blast each time.

Paizo has usually come up with fun strong adventure campaign themes for their adventure paths, though there can be weak link individual adventures and sometimes weak linkages of one part to the next and tying things all together, particularly for the climax villains being connected throughout path.

 

[TheSword]

I really like the Pathfinder 1e adventure paths. I have run campaigns of Reign of Winter (Baba Yaga and Ice Witch themed), Carrion Crown (Gothic and Lovecraftian Horror themed), and Iron Gods (Thundar the Barbarian, Sci-Fi and postapocalyptic stuff in D&D land), the latter two as 5e conversions. I only got two to three modules into each (plus two supplementary modules for Carrion Crown), but I had a fantastic time running each.

They are strongly themed and easy to riff off of. I had some hesitation on some of the later modules I had not gotten to yet. Reign of Winter 4 has a sort of Pern/Dragonlance feel that did not grab me but book 5 Rasputin Must Die looked amazing, Carrion Crown first three are really strong classic horror monster of the week themes, 4 is Cthulhu, 5 is D&D vamps, and six is lich theme, which get more and more off the gothic horror monster movie themes.

I have played in a bunch more (Shackled City, Age of Worms, Savage Tide, Rise of the Runelords, Second Darkness, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Wrath of the Righteous, etc.) and had a blast each time.

Paizo has usually come up with fun strong adventure campaign themes for their adventure paths, though there can be weak link individual adventures and sometimes weak linkages of one part to the next and tying things all together, particularly for the climax villains being connected throughout path.

I was a player in 1-3, and abridged versions of 5 and 6 of Carrion Crown and thoroughly enjoyed them. Very evocative. Would make an amazing framework for a Ravenloft campaign. Maybe enhanced by the various Van Richten Guides from 2nd Edition.

I think when converting to 5e the best thing is to leave a lot on the cutting room floor and keep the cool stuff. The NPCs, particularly high level ones can be really evocative and well thought out.