Jacob Lewis
Ye Olde GM
This seems like an odd exercise. Rating entire editions based solely on the caliber of adventures produced as support material? I think every edition is going to have more than its share of highlights and embarrassing low points. And I suspect many GMs (like myself) rarely ran the materials as written, if they bothered using published materials at all.
That said, I agree mostly with the assessment by @Enrico Poli1, but...
4th Edition didn't change anything about the way the game was played. Story was still an integral part of the game. Much of the fluff and lore created during that period was among the best we had seen explaining the entire cosmos of the D&D multiverses. But the system forced a lot of the player attention in the combat encounter, which the edition elevated into the centerpiece-showcase of the game experience. So while players were occupied in hours-long combats with lots of tactical options, interactive terrain, and stacking conditions, we often lost sight of the bigger narrative as we moved from one elaborate encounter to the next.
In a way, it hearkens back to the old Gygaxian-style dungeon crawls of 1st edition where the stories were overdrawn, and then summarily overlooked as the party raced to kick down the next door. So while 4e had probably the least memorable adventure or hooks published as a whole, I daresay it probably had the best singular encounters of any edition simply because the edition directed so much attention there.
Furthermore, the Neverwinter Campaign book, though technically not an adventure, was a ginormous toolbox in a sandbox of potential adventures. It is one of my favorite things from that edition. Alas, it came towards the end just before WotC dropped the whole thing and we barely saw anything more come out of it than a mediocre tie-in season of Encounters and a small handful of adventures in Dungeon.
Also, Halls of Undermountain needs an honorable mention. It doesn't have the laser-focus of the encounters like previous 4e adventures, and it leans closer towards what we see now in most 5e adventures: a linear path embedded in a sandbox setting that allowed DMs flexibility and freedom to move the pieces as needed to set their own pace and include their own personal additions.
That said, I agree mostly with the assessment by @Enrico Poli1, but...
I didn't. Allow me to fill in the missing piece.
4th Edition didn't change anything about the way the game was played. Story was still an integral part of the game. Much of the fluff and lore created during that period was among the best we had seen explaining the entire cosmos of the D&D multiverses. But the system forced a lot of the player attention in the combat encounter, which the edition elevated into the centerpiece-showcase of the game experience. So while players were occupied in hours-long combats with lots of tactical options, interactive terrain, and stacking conditions, we often lost sight of the bigger narrative as we moved from one elaborate encounter to the next.
In a way, it hearkens back to the old Gygaxian-style dungeon crawls of 1st edition where the stories were overdrawn, and then summarily overlooked as the party raced to kick down the next door. So while 4e had probably the least memorable adventure or hooks published as a whole, I daresay it probably had the best singular encounters of any edition simply because the edition directed so much attention there.
Furthermore, the Neverwinter Campaign book, though technically not an adventure, was a ginormous toolbox in a sandbox of potential adventures. It is one of my favorite things from that edition. Alas, it came towards the end just before WotC dropped the whole thing and we barely saw anything more come out of it than a mediocre tie-in season of Encounters and a small handful of adventures in Dungeon.
Also, Halls of Undermountain needs an honorable mention. It doesn't have the laser-focus of the encounters like previous 4e adventures, and it leans closer towards what we see now in most 5e adventures: a linear path embedded in a sandbox setting that allowed DMs flexibility and freedom to move the pieces as needed to set their own pace and include their own personal additions.
