Did these old adventures suck? Nobody talks about them

[Treebore]

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."

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.

I have found over the years that a great many modules play much better than they read. I shudder to think how many great RPG experiences I would have missed out on if I judged modules by how they read. Fortunately I was in a big enough gaming community to be told by others how well they played, so I ended up running them too.

Even the "Vecna Lives" module runs well. Of course when I ran it the PC's were powerful enough that they are the ones who did the fighting (It was a 20th to 22nd level campaign at that point, set in GH), and it was an awesome grand finale type of fight.

In Dragon Mountain I am sure the Kobolds can get "old", especially with all the save and die poisons, which wouldn't have been a problem with my campaign since they all had a certain potion (usually 5 or 6 of them) that would make them immune to poisons for a week.

So there are plenty of ways to alter the "problem areas" of most modules and easily turn it into a great gaming experience.

 

[Nebulous]

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.

Somewhat true, later on especially. I had to lighten the load a little bit for my PC's, they tended to get attached to their characters. Still had some messy deaths though. They got their asses handed to them in the Black Academy. If they had ever made it to the final confrontation i'm sure it would have been much worse.

 

[Erik Mona]

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.

Isn't that how "Temple of Elemental Evil" ended?

--Erik

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Isn't that how "Temple of Elemental Evil" ended?

--Erik

And Desert of Desolation. And the Avatar Trilogy. And the Witchfire trilogy. And...

I'm never a fan of a module where the payoff is getting sideline tickets to the main event. Imagine how irritated players of The Age of Worms would have been if the final battle had been Avatar of God X vs. Kyuss.

 

[Erik Mona]

We did imagine that, which is why it doesn't end that way.

--Erik

 

[Khairn]

I ran both Ro7P and RToH and had fun with them.

But ... when I converted Dragon Mountain to 3E and ran it for my group, well ... lets just say that my group now has a healthy respect for kobold's. Actually, its a passionate hatred of the bastiches and to this day they continually go out of their way in any game to kill the scaly buggers in as many bloody and brutal ways as they can conceive.

Dragon Mountain kobolds taught everyone the joys of monsters with class levels.

The culminating fight at the end with the illusioned wicker dragon was a great way to close out the adventure.

It took a lot of work on my part to convert it over, but it was time well spent.

 

[Minicol]

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
jh

No I don't think so; Well except the axe. I really enjoyed the others, though

 

[TarionzCousin]

We did imagine that, which is why it doesn't end that way.

--Erik

Score: E.Mona 1, Bad Module Endings 0.

 

[GVDammerung]

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

IMO (NB - I don't tend to run one-offs) -

Axe of the Dwarvish Lords - Works best if used as a strong feature in a campaign, not just another adventure on the way to glory. Great opportunity to play with dwarven history. As an adventure - so/so.

Return to Tomb of Horros - Takes the entirely wrong approach to a "return." Too much ignores what is being "returned" to in favor of new, other (bloated) stuff that does not strongly invoke what is being "returned" to with the result that it feels flat. As an adventure - mostly no thanks.

Night Below - Too by the book. Should have developed more "lore" ie more and better back story. Everything happens in foreground with the result that the adventure feels empty unless DM does lots of legwork that the author should have done. As just an adventure - works fine.

Rod of Seven Parts - Train wreck. By its nature railroady - it has SEVEN PARTS! Needs to be split up and parts integrated into campaign over time. Still, at that rate, that's the best that can be done? Some nice background but no "there there" as purely an adventure. As an adventure - yeah, it sucks.

Dragon Mountain - Exceedingly fine adventure if used as a strong campaign feature, much like Ax of Dwarvish Lords. As a straight run through it is meh. Good open and end but weak midgame.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

We did imagine that, which is why it doesn't end that way.

--Erik

And there was much rejoicing!