Best D&D Adventures

[Prism]

1. Ravenloft
amazing stuff this one. played it several times, never completed the deed
2. Red Hand of Doom
Best of the 3e adventures. Just finished it before moving to 4e. Great at providing the illusion of total choice while keeping things on track. A weaker adventure could easily have lost the party from the main plot
3. Mordenkainens Fantastic Adventure
Had great fun with this in 1e, played the 3e updates from Dungeon and the Gencon special last year. IMO the best dungeon crawl module
4. Sinister secret of Saltmarsh
We played this numerous times in the early days. great plot
5. Sons of Grummsh
Loved it. Here is a keep full of nasties. Work out how to get in avoid/kill everything and save the captives. Very freeform

 

[Odysseus]

Desert of desolation series
Secret of saltmarsh
Whispering cairn
Borshaks lair
Dungeon of kubla khan

 

[thatdarnedbob]

I suppose I'll be showing my relative lack of age and experience by posting this list, but oh well. Started playing in 2006, and my faves so far:

Red Hand of Doom (WotC, standalone)
The Skinsaw Murders (Paizo, Pathfinder #2)
Burnt Offerings (Paizo, Pathfinder #1)
Vault of the Iron Overlord (Goodman Games, DCC #50)
Voyage of the Golden Dragon (Wotc, standalone Eberron)

The first three are ones I melded together to form my most recent campaign, the DCC is something that just screams "use me!" from my shelf, and the last is the only prepared module I've played as a player, so it holds a special place at the moment.

 

[Arnwyn]

The only way I can see all those 1st e stuff being on the list is for nostalgic reasons.

That's very unfortunate that it's "the only way you can see" - since I have updated the 1e adventures on my list (as well as many others listed here) to 3e and actually played most of them recently in that edition.

Nostalgia? You are demonstrably wrong. Whoops!

 

[El Mahdi]

It would be interesting to see people post how long they've been playing along with their choices. I am shocked to see so many 1st/2nd adventures in here, because quite frankly I found them to be incredibly boring compared to more modern ones. The only way I can see all those 1st e stuff being on the list is for nostalgic reasons...

knightofround: In opposition to some that have posted on this thread, I appreciate your oppinion and apoligize for those who have slapped you down for it. I enjoyed your list just as I have enjoyed everyones list on this thread.

To be 100% honest with myself, I would say there is a bit of nostalgia in my choices, but not the only reason why I picked them. I tend to pick adventures to run based on story and plot. That's not to say that others choices don't have good story and plot, or that your picks don't have story or plot. I haven't read every RPG adventure in existence and don't know much about most of the ones you picked as your favorites (however they seem to be an interesting mix after looking up and reading synopsis on the internet).

As concerns my picks, I'm sure there are some newer adventures that would be, from a purely subjective view, better adventures, but nostalgia is a powerful thing. For example Highlander is one of my favorite movies. However, if this movie came out today, and I saw it for the first time, I would probably hate it. I would pick it apart for its historical inaccuracies and lack of understanding of weapon construction, pan it for its simplistic story line, and never watch it again. But, because I saw this in High School (dating myself here), at a time when this really appealed to me and stood up well with other movies of its time, I love it. It will always be one of my favorites.

I would imagine that nostalgia probably plays a role in everyones picks. But thats part of the fun of this thread. After reading some of the other lists, I keep thinking "Ahh, I wish I had put that on my list too!". But then my list would have quickly gotten out of control. I think that shows though, that the classics have withstood the test of time fairly well.

P.S. knightofround - just because some have higher posts counts than you doesn't mean your oppinion matters any less. I look forward to more posts from you.

 

[T. Foster]

1. The Abduction of Good King Despot (Will & Schar Niebling and Russ Stambaugh; New Infinities, 1988)
2. Caverns of Thracia (Paul Jaquays; Judges Guild, 1979)
3. Necropolis: The Land of AEgypt (Gary Gygax; GDW, 1992 (for Dangerous Journeys -- re-release for d20: Necromancer Games, 2002)
4. EX2: The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (Gary Gygax; TSR, 1983)
5. D2: Shrine of the Kuo Toa (Gary Gygax; TSR, 1978)

 

[S. Baldrick]

The Village of Hommlet
Pharaoh (The whole Desert of Desolation series was great but I think Pharaohwas the best of the bunch.)
The Lost City
The Sentinel and its sequel The Gauntlet.
The Destiny of Kings
Keep on the Borderlands
Return to Keep on the Borderlands
Night Below boxed set adventure.
The Forge of Fury
The Crucible of Freya
The Whispering Carin
NeMoren's Vault
The Shackled City Adventure Path
The Red Hand of Doom
The Night of Dissolution
Dro Mandras Technically not D&D but C&C is close enough in my book.

 

[Jhaelen]

Oh, well if "knightofround" found them boring then they must be. There's no chance that he might have missed the point of their design philosophy.

Umm. Would you allow for the possibility of someone not liking 'the old classics' despite fully understanding their design philosophy? The often praised 'openness' and 'number of choices' in many old adventures don't create excitement in everyone when they basically consist of random encounters in a randomly generated dungeon.
An adventure isn't inherently better because it offers more paths to get from A to B or because the entry room has doors leading to twenty other locations.

Let's take "Sunless Citadel" for example, a module many here have probably played. It was basically linear in nature, with at most two paths, a sub boss or two and a main boss. To people who are looking for a "story" then that may work, but where I come from it's boring design. Where's the labyrinth of passages, the sublevels, the spelunking, the challenge? If the players don't (or can't) miss half the encounters, it's not a dungeon.

I typically enjoy 'basically linear' adventures with a good story more than a sprawling complex that is completely illogical.

To me it's like the difference between Doom and Half-Life. Obviously I prefer the latter.

I also enjoy playing Hack/Rogue from time to time, but ultimately it's just killing time, nothing to get excited about.

This isn't entirely black or white either. If an adventure is nothing but a railroad that doesn't offer any choices at all, it cannot be more than mindless fun even if the story is absolutely exceptional.

Back in the days I had an eye-opening experience when I read my first MERP adventure. It was a dynamic, a 'living dungeon'. It was neatly divided into a description of the static elements (rooms) and a list of inhabitants, their typical time-schedule, tactics, etc.
It didn't have any pre-planned encounters or set-pieces like all the D&D adventures I had read before. I.e. it offered a completely different kind of freedom. _Meaningful_ choices rather than 'door A' or 'door B'.

As a final disclaimer: Not all old D&D adventures were bad, imho. Some of them also included elements of a dynamic, living dungeon and some actually did a good job of telling an interesting story along the way. I just can't remember the title of any of them...

 

[Keldryn]

I've been playing since 1986, starting with BECMI D&D, then moving on to 1st Edition AD&D, then through 2nd, 3rd, and now 4th Edition (though I haven't actually played a real session of 4th yet due to time constraints).

My favourite adventures (not in any order) would be:

B7 Rahasia - Great intro adventure, more than just a mindless dungeon crawl, with some great flavour and several encounters that require some thought.

B10 Night's Dark Terror - This one really defined the flavour of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos and is a fairly long adventure that was designed to get players out of the dungeon and into wilderness and urban adventures. Just a great adventure all around.

U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh - lots has been said about this one already. It's a great one to start a campaign with, even if you don't move on to U2 and U3.

The Sunless Citadel - this one is more or less a dungeon crawl, but it's a very good one and again rewards players for not just running through killing everything. It's sort of the 3e equivalent of Keep on the Borderlands, but I think it's a much better-designed adventure.

X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield - a war spanning the known world, the players rushing to recruit allies for their side before the emissaries of the Master do... what's not to like? Okay, it needs some fleshing out because some of the nation entries are quite sparse, but it's a great foundation for a significant story arc within the campaign (much like CM1 Test of the Warlords).

I usually preferred the BECM adventures to the 1e AD&D modules, perhaps because many of them were rooted in and developed the campaign setting, so they started to feel less generic. I didn't care for the A series (Slavers), or any of the GDQ stuff, or really even the S series. The I, U, and UK series probably had the most of interest to me.

When I get the time to start up a 4e game, I think I'm going to run it as a "Known World" campaign. B10 will be the anchor for the early-to-mid Heroic tier, X10 for the early paragon tier, and CM1 for the late paragon and early epic tier. X1 (Isle of Dread) can be the launching point for the mid Heroic tier, perhaps culminating with X4 and X5 (Master of the Desert Nomads and Temple of Death) to finish off the Heroic tier.

 

[knightofround]

Yeah I wouldn't say that I categorically hate *all* the classics; hell I even included one in my top five =P

Its just that when I go through the old adventure books, they seem to be very vague compared to adventures found today. I mean, I look at the Caves of Chaos in B2 and although I can see "hey-there's some nifty encounters here", its largely just a bunch of rooms. Or I can look at the Giants series and say "hey this is a neat concept, but where's the plot to tie this together?"

I dunno I guess I just tend to prefer adventures that have strong plot and fascinating villians. Stuff like B2 just doesn't interest me because I see a stat block for a Dark Knight...but there's little/no detail into why he's in the caves, whats his motivations/alliances. He's just another guy in a room. And I know this is a fantasy game, but dungeon ecology is pretty much lacking in 1st/2nd ed. Its more of a room-room-room-boss-town experience, and I'm sure thats fun for some people...its just not my cup of tea.

Thats why the adventures I've picked are more focused on having great plot (drow war) awesome dungeon ecology (banewarrens and RttToEE), and settings with a lot of depth to them (ravenloft).

Again I'm not bashing all the classics, I'm just shocked that so many people here prefers 1st/2nd ed adventures when it seems like everybody on this forum discusses 3rd/4th ed.

I'm curious as to what you think the "design philosophy" of earlier adventures are compared to modern ones? To me, it seems to be a dichotomy between vague sandboxes which give the DM alot of room to maneuver (early) against more-defined storylines that the PCs flesh out.