-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Best D&D Adventures
- Thread starter Doug McCrae
- Start date
Yes, I would allow for that possibility. It just wasn't operative in this case.
Here's the sentence that set me off:
"The only way I can see all those 1st e stuff being on the list is for nostalgic reasons."
So this guy can only see so many 1E (and, presumably, the older material) modules being on people's lists because of "nostalgia".
That is simply wrong. There are perfectly reasonable factors that would cause a person to put older modules on their list. There are a number of differences between many of the classic modules and the sort of stuff that is produced nowadays. And I can see a person being aware of those differences and still perferring the more recent offerings. Just like I can see a person saying that they prefer V-Larp to tabletop gaming... I have nothing in common with that kind of aesthetic position and probably wouldn't be inclined to hang out with that person, but there are differences between the two pursuits and therefore grounds for distinguishing one taste from another.
It's offensive to just toss off a handwaving dismissal of appreciation for old school modules as mere "nostalgia". Nostalgia in many, if not most, cases has nothing to do with it. They are genuinely good modules for the sort of things they set out to do. Now if "knightofround" doesn't want to buy what they're selling, no problem. But he shouldn't throw around such rude dismissals. I mean, I could say that everyone who likes 3rd and 4th ed modules is just some candy raver whose mind has been blown on X, but it would be both erroneous and extremely unfair.
Freakohollik
First Post
Tomb of Horrors
My favorite. I loved this one on my first reading. I finally got to run it recently and it was great fun. Characters die frequently, but we knew this going in, so I just let them instantly return to life. Going in with that kind of attitude is essential to enjoying this one.
Maure Castle / Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure
Now this one I was a player in. We did the 3.5e update with a really small group and had a blast. Huge place with tons of fun rooms, encounters, exploration, etc. All that classic 1e adventure style greatness. Sure its a dungeon crawl all the way, but thats what I like.
Ravenloft
I ran the 3.5e update of this. Best part is exploring a spooky castle and fighting Strahd. As a vampire, he can escape every fight, and as a wizard and master of the castle, he provides for so many great encounters. There is just so much stuff you can do with him. Then you can keep reusing him. It's giving the DM the power to put in an exciting BBEG fight whenever he wants. Brilliant.
Forge of Fury
I've only read this one, so I don't have too much to say. Plays at a good level range for 3.5e and the encounters look like a lot of fun.
Gates of Firestorm Peak
I'm currently converting this one to 4e. It should be a lot of fun. My only worry is that it won't be able to sustain itself for how long it is.
As far as this old adventure style vs new adventure style goes, I'm clearly in the old style group. There is much more focus on exploration and being cautious, whereas in the newer adventures, you follow a straight line, win every fight and you're done. The good 1e adventures really make you think about what you're doing, where you're going, and plan ahead. And I'm sure this isn't nostalgia because I started with 3.5e.
For the complaints about monster details, thats really nonsense to me. Monster ecology is something that the players don't need to know about, and never find out about. A monster is on stage for very little time. I don't care what it eats, why its here, and so on. This is a big thing that bugs me in the Paizo adventures. They're all really interested on telling you every monster's life story. Thats a total waste of space. That information is not relevant to the players or the DM.
On other choices I've seen
Temple of Elemental Evil: To all the people that picked this, did you finish it? This adventure has some good stuff, but its just so long that I don't think it would be able to sustain itself.
The Whispering Cairn: This adventure I like a lot. I ran it and we had good fun with it. The dungeon is good, but the real fun comes when you travel back to town and to the observatory. I also liked the The Three Faces of Evil, but I never played/ran it.
Rise of the Runelords: I played through the first 3 adventures in this path, and they are quite poor. The things I see people praise these adventures for make me wonder if we were playing the same adventures. Whatever overarching plot was going on was completely hidden from the PCs. Uninteresting encounters/locals. Painful amounts of description on every monster. Plot that strings the PCs along. Towards the end of the 3rd adventure a pixie shows up and makes the PCs go to a dungeon on a fetch quest for her powerful wizard master. We all started making Forest Oracle jokes when this happened. After that we gave up on this AP.
Sunless Citadel: A good adventure, a little too linear, but otherwise very good. I would have put it on my list if Forge of Fury wasn't a bit better.
Whispers of the Vampire's Blade: I'd like to give this one an honorable mention. It didn't have any exploration, and was way too linear, but it has some really great big encounters in it that make the whole adventure.
My favorite. I loved this one on my first reading. I finally got to run it recently and it was great fun. Characters die frequently, but we knew this going in, so I just let them instantly return to life. Going in with that kind of attitude is essential to enjoying this one.
Maure Castle / Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure
Now this one I was a player in. We did the 3.5e update with a really small group and had a blast. Huge place with tons of fun rooms, encounters, exploration, etc. All that classic 1e adventure style greatness. Sure its a dungeon crawl all the way, but thats what I like.
Ravenloft
I ran the 3.5e update of this. Best part is exploring a spooky castle and fighting Strahd. As a vampire, he can escape every fight, and as a wizard and master of the castle, he provides for so many great encounters. There is just so much stuff you can do with him. Then you can keep reusing him. It's giving the DM the power to put in an exciting BBEG fight whenever he wants. Brilliant.
Forge of Fury
I've only read this one, so I don't have too much to say. Plays at a good level range for 3.5e and the encounters look like a lot of fun.
Gates of Firestorm Peak
I'm currently converting this one to 4e. It should be a lot of fun. My only worry is that it won't be able to sustain itself for how long it is.
As far as this old adventure style vs new adventure style goes, I'm clearly in the old style group. There is much more focus on exploration and being cautious, whereas in the newer adventures, you follow a straight line, win every fight and you're done. The good 1e adventures really make you think about what you're doing, where you're going, and plan ahead. And I'm sure this isn't nostalgia because I started with 3.5e.
For the complaints about monster details, thats really nonsense to me. Monster ecology is something that the players don't need to know about, and never find out about. A monster is on stage for very little time. I don't care what it eats, why its here, and so on. This is a big thing that bugs me in the Paizo adventures. They're all really interested on telling you every monster's life story. Thats a total waste of space. That information is not relevant to the players or the DM.
On other choices I've seen
Temple of Elemental Evil: To all the people that picked this, did you finish it? This adventure has some good stuff, but its just so long that I don't think it would be able to sustain itself.
The Whispering Cairn: This adventure I like a lot. I ran it and we had good fun with it. The dungeon is good, but the real fun comes when you travel back to town and to the observatory. I also liked the The Three Faces of Evil, but I never played/ran it.
Rise of the Runelords: I played through the first 3 adventures in this path, and they are quite poor. The things I see people praise these adventures for make me wonder if we were playing the same adventures. Whatever overarching plot was going on was completely hidden from the PCs. Uninteresting encounters/locals. Painful amounts of description on every monster. Plot that strings the PCs along. Towards the end of the 3rd adventure a pixie shows up and makes the PCs go to a dungeon on a fetch quest for her powerful wizard master. We all started making Forest Oracle jokes when this happened. After that we gave up on this AP.
Sunless Citadel: A good adventure, a little too linear, but otherwise very good. I would have put it on my list if Forge of Fury wasn't a bit better.
Whispers of the Vampire's Blade: I'd like to give this one an honorable mention. It didn't have any exploration, and was way too linear, but it has some really great big encounters in it that make the whole adventure.
I obviously don't mind if it's not your cup of tea. But you're close to touching on the differences here.
First, old school adventures are not about having a "plot", especially not a "strong" one. To most old schoolers, a "story" is not something you have during play... it's something you tell about the play session once it's over. As I believe the great Papers&Paychecks (OSRIC guru) said: "We explore dungeons not characters."
Old schoolers don't really view D&D sessions as if they were movies. You know, the best Star Trek movie is Wrath of Khan not just because it's the only one with cool ship to ship combat but also because it explores the character of Captain Kirk. If I'm the moviegoer I want the movie to explore Kirk... but if I'm Captain Kirk I don't want to explore Captain Kirk, I want to explore outer space! We the moviegoing audience might want to see the character explored, but the character himself wants to explore outer space not inner space. And in D&D you get to be the character. So let's go exploring!
Second, one of the reasons that extreme detail was not given in the earlier products is because you were expected to make it up! Why is this "Dark Knight" character here? I don't you... you tell me. Maybe he's under a curse. Maybe he's trapped. Maybe he's running from the authorities of the Realm. Maybe he's running from the Furies, and they can't find him while he's in the Underworld. Maybe he has amnesia. Maybe he's just a weirdo. But unless it's relevant, we don't really need to know where he poops or how his mother treated him as a child. We need just enough for him to be an interesting and cool challenge to throw in the way of the players. Also, old school games often operated under the assumption that you were going to be rolling for NPC Reactions. Maybe the Dark Knight doesn't want to fight. Maybe he wants to challenge somebody to let them pass. Maybe he will give up his magic shield if they win (maybe he's got a lot of shields already on his wall). Maybe he will join the party... and maybe he will betray them later.
The DM can make up all that kind of stuff. He can tailor it to fit his campaign and his group. If you're all engineering students, maybe the "Dark Knight" needs help repairing a Dwarven mining device (break out the slide rules, boys).
Part of the "old school way" is to give the player or DM something partial and see what they make out of it. Look at how characters are made: you roll randomly for your attributes. What if you roll high Strength and low Constitution? Maybe he's a wiry character, or maybe he's big and strong but has a weak immune system. That's part of the challenge: take these raw numbers and make them into something imaginative and fun.
Third, remember that dungeons were originally called "underworlds". You suggest that they don't make sense. And you're right... they don't. They're the city of Chaos, the "anti-city", which stands as an opposite and counterbalance to the organized and logical realm of Law, the city. Ever notice how, in Greek myths, the monsters and crazy cultists and strange visitations all usually happen out in the wilderness or underground? That's because you're safe in the city, where reason and order prevail, but outside the city walls you are in the realm of the mythic. It's basically that way in D&D, too. Especially with regard to the "dungeons" component of "Dungeons and Dragons". The dungeon or underworld is the opposite of the civilized realm, and things work differently there than they work in the realms of men.
Well, that's enough for now. Just a few points for you to munch on. Again, if you're into a different kind of experience, that's fine. But I hope you come to see that there are reasons why things were done the way they were, and why those of us who still run and play in old school games continue to do so. It's not because we're unable to keep up with change (like, we're on the internet and all) or that we have "rose colored glasses" or something. It's just a different approach to gaming which aims at delivering a different kind of experience.
I've forked a thread to continue discussion of Dungeon Design Philosophy.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=237519
If you want to discuss that, continue over there.
Favourite adventures may remain here.
Cheers!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=237519
If you want to discuss that, continue over there.
Favourite adventures may remain here.
Cheers!
TheSleepyKing
First Post
I actually find it hard to judge the 1e adventures. On the one hand, they’re often burdened with illogical dungeon structures and ecologies (you have manticores happily living one room over from oozes and orcs). But the era also produced some of the most daring and innovative adventures, the kind of which you don’t see very often anymore. You know, there are freakin’ spaceships, portals through time, shrinking magic that made household pets dangerous and trips to fairy tale realms. I love those adventures that really push the envelope beyond “go to dungeon; kill stuff.” (That’s not to say that I don’t like the occasional dungeon hack, but the adventures I remember best are the ones that took players on weird and wonderful journeys, or mixed things up from regular modules
That said, some of my favourite adventures include
From 1E:
I6 - Ravenloft
I3-5 - Desert of Desolation
S3 - Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
X2 - Castle Amber
From 2E:
Reverse Dungeon (which I think would work really well in 4e
Axe of the Dwarvish Lords (which actually made goblins fun)
Golden Voyages and Assassin Mountain (both Al Qadim adventures
From 3E:
The Last Dance from Atlas Games
Dungeon Crawl Classics #51 – Castle Whiterock
Shackled City Adventure Path
That said, some of my favourite adventures include
From 1E:
I6 - Ravenloft
I3-5 - Desert of Desolation
S3 - Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
X2 - Castle Amber
From 2E:
Reverse Dungeon (which I think would work really well in 4e
Axe of the Dwarvish Lords (which actually made goblins fun)
Golden Voyages and Assassin Mountain (both Al Qadim adventures
From 3E:
The Last Dance from Atlas Games
Dungeon Crawl Classics #51 – Castle Whiterock
Shackled City Adventure Path
vazanar
First Post
Last edited:
Cool, someone else liked this as well. I remember running it long ago, when I was still learning the ropes as a DM. I'm fairly confident I botched the whole thing, as I had very little idea what I was doing with it. Strangely, the players seemed to enjoy this part of the campaign more than many of the other modules I ran for them.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
Wow, reading thru everyone's lists just make me aware of how few actual purchased modules I've run/played. Almost none from 3.X at all. But anyhoo, here (in no particualr order) are my top 5.
Isle of Dread. As someone above said: dinosaurs in D&D!! And the first feeling of a more expanded world hinted at within a module.
Tomb of the Pharoah. A classic hook followed by a classic dungeon, with Prit the Gnome and a flying ship at the end!
Mad Monkey vs Dragon Claw. I'd forgotten this one until seeing it in the list above. But it has everything you could want in a martial arts adventure, including a training montage!
Tomb of the Lizard King. Deadly, fricking deadly. Almost Tomb of Horrors style deadly but the deadly is not quite so predestined/inescapable.
G1-2-3: I like giants. Not so excited by the follow ups (and never played Demonweb) but a mad hack fest against very strong, intelligently run opponents. A good lesson in thinking before kicking in the door.
Isle of Dread. As someone above said: dinosaurs in D&D!! And the first feeling of a more expanded world hinted at within a module.
Tomb of the Pharoah. A classic hook followed by a classic dungeon, with Prit the Gnome and a flying ship at the end!
Mad Monkey vs Dragon Claw. I'd forgotten this one until seeing it in the list above. But it has everything you could want in a martial arts adventure, including a training montage!
Tomb of the Lizard King. Deadly, fricking deadly. Almost Tomb of Horrors style deadly but the deadly is not quite so predestined/inescapable.
G1-2-3: I like giants. Not so excited by the follow ups (and never played Demonweb) but a mad hack fest against very strong, intelligently run opponents. A good lesson in thinking before kicking in the door.
Similar Threads
