Did these old adventures suck? Nobody talks about them

[Nellisir]

I never owned the Rod of Seven Parts, Dragon Mountain, or Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, but hear about them occasionally. Mixed reviews, as other people have noted. I (think I) sold my copy of Return to the Tomb of Horrors a few years ago. Seemed ok, but not for me. The city of Moil is occasionally referenced in material about Orcus.

Night Below is one of the few 2e items I kept. I played through the second book (as Asilud Sunnilda Gelud-Diedelindasdottur, a svirfneblin illusionist/cleric with a Swiss/German accent...seriously fun!), but the party fell apart in the City of the Glass Pool and the campaign took a serious sideways turn (the elf siblings died, the cleric was stranded on the ethereal plane, the dwarf was unconcious - so my gnome grabbed the dwarf and dimension doored into a solid stone wall, knocking us into the astral plane...where we were taken as slaves by githyanki, escaped with a rogue modron and...some other characters, and went Planescaping for awhile).

I've heard the second book needs some careful DMing, but it's otherwise an excellent adventure.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Now, if you really want to find something that is worthy of a 'fun' discussion, I submit to you, 'Vecna Lives,' which was one of the most bizzare and mind numbing experiences I ever had reading standard D&D material.

That's the only published D&D module I've ever run. Looking back on it, I think it was too railroaded, though i could've modified it if I'd been a more experienced DM.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

That's the only published D&D module I've ever run. Looking back on it, I think it was too railroaded, though i could've modified it if I'd been a more experienced DM.

That is amazing. Telling me that it is the only published modual you have ever run? Wow. I have to ask: was it fun? Was it silly? Did the players enjoy it?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Now, if you really want to find something that is worthy of a 'fun' discussion, I submit to you, 'Vecna Lives,' which was one of the most bizzare and mind numbing experiences I ever had reading standard D&D material.

Sweet Kord's beard that one sucked. Any module that ends with 2 mega NPC's duking it out while you run for cover is just pathetic. Granted, that type of pc puppet railroad sums up far too many 2nd edition modules.

 

[DaveMage]

My group had a blast with Return to the Tomb of Horrors.

It was the first time I noticed Bruce Cordell's name and made a point to look for his stuff afterwards.

 

[gizmo33]

Sweet Kord's beard that one sucked. Any module that ends with 2 mega NPC's duking it out while you run for cover is just pathetic. Granted, that type of pc puppet railroad sums up far too many 2nd edition modules.

QFT. Early 2E modules are horrible. I should start a thread that describes why, because the writing in some of them is so obnoxious and redundant that TSR should have been called out on it. I own RttToH and Night Below, I don't remember being too impressed with either but this thread inspires me to take a second look.

 

[Celebrim]

Plenty of discussion of all of them. I'm only personally familiar with a few.

1) Return to the Tomb of Horrors: A well-written mega-module that doesn't depend on a single potentially redundant dungeon. I've never had much of any desire to run it though. First, because it is a meat-grinder, and secondly because its a very different sort of meat grinder than the original tomb. To understand what I mean, consider this difference:

Original ToH:

DM: "You touched something, now you dead."
Player: "Don't I get a saving throw?"
DM: "Of course not."

New ToH:

DM: "Something touched you, now you are dead."
Player: "Don't I get a saving throw?"
DM: "Of course not."

That's a parody, and as such it over simplifies, but it is still to me basically true. Still, with the right group of players who were willing to use disposable characters, this could be alot of fun and I've heard alot of good reports about running it. Definately worth owning.

2) Axe of the Dwarven Lords: Definately written by someone who knows how to abuse the eccentricies of the old monster manuals. It's a well written imaginative mega-dungeon written by a RBDM who really knows how to bury what we'd now call 'CR'. However, I've never felt a desire to actually run it. The problem with it is that the peices are far better than the whole. The dungeon is too big. The encounters too redundant in places. In particular, I think - and have heard - that the whole 'Tucker's Kobolds' syndrome (only in this case with goblins) pretty much takes the fun out of it. Not only is 600 goblins divided out into scores of encounters going to be boring after the first couple hours of play, but its one of the worst cases of NPC favoritism I've ever seen in a published text. Basically, the rules that apply to the goblins and the rules that apply to the PC's are so completely different, that they don't even use the same mechanics. Missile fire, item creation, opening doors, you name it - the world the goblins inhabit is a different one than the PC's inhabit. The designer wants to pretend that the goblins are so clever (and therefore so is he), but really he's just cheating. Ruined the whole read for me. Lots of things I would take from this module (and for that matter have), but I'd never run it as written.

Night Below: Never read it. Can't comment.

Rod of Seven Parts: I remember skimming through it and being very unimpressed.

Dragon Mountain: Never read it either.

 

[Voadam]

I was going through my collection to sort out stuff that's going on the local con auction block. I realized nobody ever talks about the following adventures. Did they suck or what?

Axe of the Dwarvish Lords
Return to Tomb of Horrors
Night Below
Rod of Seven Parts
Dragon Mountain

I don't know why I ever bought them. I know I probably just ripped off the plastic and never read them.

jh

I'm currently playing in a Ro7P game but the others I've never owned or played in.

The Ro7P has been fun with a little bit of wonkiness, but it has also been modified for a 1st level 3.5 campaign in a homebrew campaign setting. You can check it out in my signature, it is a play by post game on ENWorld.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Of those, I've run both Dragon Mountain(probably why I love Kobolds so much now) and Return to the Tomb of Horrors.

The latter was just plain fun in trying to see if any PC could actually survive. But Dragon Mountain's had the most effect on my games sense. as I loved the Kobolds in it and have adapted them to most of my games in similar ways. Its just too fun.

 

[Nebulous]

Return to the Tomb of Horrors absolutely rocks. We never finished it about 5 years ago. It was a 3rd edition conversion i was doing. The party got 3/4 and the campaign stalled for different reasons, never got it up and running again. I would never sell my copy though, too many fun memories in that box set.