Best D&D/d20 event based published adventures

[Glyfair]

It occurs to my while reviewing an adventure that I have yet to see an event based adventure in d20 that really pleases me. Some hybrids like "Of Sound Mind" seem to work, but it seems to me like most purely event based adventures tend to be either too railroaded or too vague. I was rather excited about The Standing Stone at first, but I eventually developed such a poor opinion of its heavy handed ruse that my rating of it sunk from a 4 to a 2.

So what do you think? What published adventures out there (if any) do the "event based" thing right?

I think the problem is that event based adventures have a very thin line to walk.

The easy way to design an event based adventure is to limit the options of the players so you can detail what will happen if they make a choice. If you try to avoid limiting those options, you end up with many, many choices. A published adventure cannot possibly take into account many of the directions the players may take (at least not while being a value for your money) if you don't limit those options somewhat.

The best event based adventures are usually specifc to the game and campaign. They take into account the abilities and personalities of the adventurers. Thus, they really can't properly be published.

I think a persons opinion of any given event-based adventure will vary greatly. They all will try to limit the players options (or railroad them). How much you like one will depend on how much of this limiting you feel is allowable in an adventure. I think this varies from person to person, even more than the usual differences in taste and such.

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[7thlvlDM]

I personally think event based adventures are fine. The adventure model cannot be expected to have an answer for everything the PCs do. As a DM, you should be able to impromptu what happens when an event doesn't unfold how the author of the model predicted, and make it work well! That's part of the thrill of the big chair.

Psion, no offense intended, but if you gave The Standing Stone a 2 I'm a little concerned because the vast majority of its reviewers gave it a 5. I don't mean that you aren't entitled to your opinion, you are. But in this case you don't represent the norm, and since you are an Official Reviewer, your opinion will carry more 'weight'.

I think plot, production quality, and good rules outweigh balance and linearity, because the last two can be modified by an experienced DM to fit his PCs. Ease of use is an issue (I'll give you that ) but going from Excellent to Poor because of this one criteria is a little harsh, IMO.

-7th

 

[Eryx]

I don't buy many adventures/scenarios as I've found most are not very good in one way or another.
However, The Standing Stone I found to be the best 3rd ed scenario published so far. My group and I had great fun with it.

I prefer that style of scenario as opposed to a standard Dungeon Crawl, because of it's freeform nature. The PC's can wander where they want and do what they want, and the events of the adventure change to fit what they do.

 

[KnowTheToe]

I really enjoy event based adventures. I find little motivation to be crawling in dungeons. I would much rather be involved in politics and scheming. The problem is, that as a DM, they are A LOT of work. You have to be prepared to modify your story line / module story line and come up with creative and believable hooks to get the characters where you need them to be. Due to unruly players in my past, I am good at this.

I have just bought and am currently reading Prophesies of the Dragon and outside of the first section (which might be the worst writen stuff I have seen from WoTC) the adventure seems very sound. At the same time I will have to add a lot to this for it even to have a chance to work. There is no way for event based modules to incorporate player styles and motivations which are key to successfully pulling of any adventure.