Classic Adventures Modules -- wishes and failures

[Ed_Laprade]

Failure: Temple of EE. Nulb was fun, but I've tried to play through it a few times with different groups and we all just gave up on it.

Wishes: Any number of things.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Wishes: I have always wanted to run D1-3 (Descent into the Depths, Vault of the Drow) and, at some point, I will before I give up RPGs for good.

Failure: Echoing some earlier posters, I rate Temple of Elemental Evil as one of the worst adventures ever half-published. Like most, I loved T1 The Village of Hommlet then waited for seven or so years for this unfinished mess to finally be published.

It was also the adventure that really turned me off the AD&D ruleset as no effort was made to turn clerics of elemental evil into anything other than plain old generic clerics with the same spells as every other cleric in every other module. I believed then, and now, that surely some time could have been found in the seven years that the module was vapourware to develop something to give the clerics of the module a unique flavour.

 

[Wik]

WISH: I would love to run Isle of Dread again, or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan once more. As for adventures I've never actually had a chance to run - Slaver's Stockade comes to mind, and the last half of the Queen of the Demonweb pits has been one I've often considered brushing off. And I often entertain the idea of fully running (as opposed to just snippets) of Barrier Peaks. I also would like to give Castle Amber a try, one of these days.

FAILURES: The biggest one for me is the Keep on the Shadowfell. That adventure was just super boring to us, and there was no real plot threads that caught my attention - the whole thing just fell completely flat, and we got little more than halfway before it was dropped for something else.

Because of that, I didn't expect Sceptre Tower of Spellgard to be, well, ANY good, but it wound up being an excellent addition to my campaign. Of course, I modified a large chunk of it, but the general set up (ie, the first book of the two) is amazingly well put together, and wound up fueling a good three months' worth of adventure. The encounters themselves, however, can be a bit dodgy and boring.

 

[Hussar]

What classic adventure module have you always wanted to run or play through, but you've never been able to?

I've always wanted to play through the Barrier Peaks module. I've played in the other three, but not that one. I also own The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun and have never run it.

What classic adventure module have you run or played through that turned out very different than it was "supposed to" or than you expected?

Bullgrit

The Dragonlance modules. I bought them all, loved the hell out of them, Ran them and discovered I was a lot less happy than I thought I should have been. To say the least.

I wonder if I could run them now better than back then? Possible.

 

[arscott]

Wishes: The one classic adventure I'd really like to play in is Masks of Nyarlathotep, from Call of Cthulhu.

Failures: None so far. Here's hoping the trend continues.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I ran RttToEE and it was fun at first but it's basically a huge dungeon crawl. I got tired of it and spiced up one encounter too many and had a TPK which stopped the module dead in it's tracks. Forever.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Failures: Not a classic as I define it, but I tried running Scourge of the Howling Horde and ended up with a TPK in the first couple of encounters. Our group's epilogue to the adventure featured one of the named bugbears in the adventure using the Warforged player character's skull as a soup bowl.

Failures (Cont): Not a failure, per se, just a miscalculation/rookie DM error on my part. I caved to player whining and threw a Deck of Many Thing in to the middle of the Ashardalon (Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury, etc) series. The group pretty much breezed through the adventures after that.

Wishes: I would have dearly liked to have run the included adventures in Wrath of the Immortals as a full campaign. Likewise with Council of Wyrms.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Wishes

• I want to play the Saltmarsh (U) series -- I've DM'd it numerous times.
• I've never actually played the Slavers (A) series.
• I think with tightening and modification to make it much shorter, the Age of Worms adventure path could be fun to play. (Is that old enough to be a classic? *shrug*)

Failures

• Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure / Maure Castle -- I don't think the adventure failed so much as I imposed it upon the wrong group. With a group that enjoys a straight-out dungeon romp, I think this would be a great adventure.
• The Forest Oracle -- an infamously bad one, for good reason.
• Keep on the Borderlands -- sacrilege? Honestly, this is a pretty lame adventure.
• Tomb of Horrors -- everything that is wrong with Gygaxian D&D in one neat package.

Surprising Successes

• Tomb of the Lizard King has gone amazingly well every time I've DM'd it. Highly underrated aventure, methinks.
• Egg of the Phoenix is a mess, but somehow all the cool ideas in it make up for the utter crap. A timed race into a vampire's lair to acquire several potions of dragon control before the vamps can use them against allied good dragons is a highlight. Fighting hordes of devils and undead on a mini-plane, while dodging the attacks of an evil sentient moon (!) is another highlight.

 

[ExploderWizard]

• Keep on the Borderlands -- sacrilege? Honestly, this is a pretty lame adventure.

You are of course entitled to your opinion but I am curious. What makes this module lame to you?

 

[Wicht]

Wishes: I never got the chance to run Expedition to Barrier Peaks and I have always wanted to.

Failure: When I tried to run the Dragonlance modules, I was too young and too inexperienced and we never made it past the first. I think I could do it better now, having the maturity to be willing to depart from the storyline of the novels.