[Dungeon] Top 30 Greatest Adventures Discussion (Spoilers)

[Staffan]

I find it interesting that of the three panel members who so far have shared their lists with us, none have included the adventure I feel is the best ever at using a "different" world's interesting stuff well: Dragon's Crown. It's a Dark Sun adventure that features:

• mucho psionics (the plot is psi-based),
• infiltrating a sorcerer-king's palace to spy on him,
• gladiatorial combat,
• travel across the Sea of Silt,
• giants,
• ruins and ghosts going back to before the Cleansing Wars,
• man-eating halflings,
• thri-kreen driven mad by the thing that drives the plot,
• the first hints of the Great One (some avangion-like thing that apparently had lots of interaction with kreen in the distant past),
• and an assault on the fortress of Dragon's Crown.

So, is it just that the panel folkses didn't like Dark Sun and thus never saw the adventure, or is it that their priorities are totally different from mine?

 

[DMAC]

I played one session of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and had my gnome character permanently blinded. I would have died if my dacshund familiar hadn't critically bitten a hobgoblin for two damage to knock him out.

Wasn't my best moment.

That sounds like a character I'd like to draw. Drop me an e-mail at calvertdarren@hotmail.com if you're interested.

 

[LeapingShark]

Tho awesome, I think Dragon's Crown isn't mentioned because the adventure cannot easily be dropped into a typical D&D campaign. It's more suited for the specifics of a Dark Sun game where it can take advantage of it's ties with the unique aspects of Athas. All of the other adventures fit very well in a standard medieval fantasy world like Greyhawk & Forgotten Realms, versus the utter blasphemy of using Dragon's Crown (or Freedom) in such a place (with some major reconstructive surgery you might be able to cram it into an obscure corner of a standard world, but it would ruin the intricacies that make both it and Dark Sun so good).

 

[Erik Mona]

I haven't double-checked my files, but I don't think anyone voted for "Dragon's Crown," or any Dark Sun adventure, for that matter. The list includes very few adventures with strong ties to a campaign setting, so Dark Sun wasn't the only world to "get the shaft," in the vernacular of EN World.

It's probably worth noting that the difference in print runs between something like "Temple of Elemental Evil" and "Dragon's Crown" can be measured in orders of magnitude, which no doubt played a role.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon

 

[Arnwyn]

I'm pretty impressed with the list - most of my favorites are up there, barring a few 2e mega-modules that I thought should be (Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, Rod of Seven Parts, Night Below, Return to the Tomb of Horrors) and that the order is a bit off in some places for me (though #1 and #2 are bang-on, IMO!).

I do think, though, that no 3e adventure should be there and that FoF being #12 is complete and utter nonsense.

 

[Uder]

I've always thought that B1: In Search of the Unknown was hands-down the best dungeon adventure ever published. Did it even get a mention from any of the panel? I would think that its uniqueness alone would earn it a nod... perhaps the more widely distributed B2 simply overshadowed it.

The background was sparse but made sense, and the room descriptions were top-notch. Just drop it into a setting (nearly anywhere!), stir in some monsters and treasure, and get to bashing doors.

I guess I'll just take consolation in the fact that the map manages to show up by way of Ruins of Undermountain.

(As an aside, were there any other "easter egg" maps in Undermountain?)

 

[mattcolville]

I always felt that Night Below was the last word in the traditional dungeoneering adventure. It was as though Carl Sargeant said "I'm going to make a modern adventure, with everything in it we loved from back when we were young and had no taste or standards, but that actually entertains us as adult players and provides the level of sophisitcation we need."

 

[Knightfall]

29 - The Assassin's Knot
27 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

Were available online at WotC's website. I still have them in electronic format. Never took the time to read/run them. Don't know if they're still available for free on their website.

28 - The Lost City
16 - The Isle of Dread

Two of the best.

My favorites of the old modules. Have completely integrated them into my homebrewed World of Kulan campaign setting. Loved the recent Dungeon Magazine that revisted the Isle of Dread. Their was a Lost City article in Dragon, as well.

4 - The Temple of Elemental Evil

Have it, read parts of it, never played or tried to run it. Would like to. This one will likely end up integrated into Kulan as well, after reading the Jester's great story hours showing how it could be done. Would love to run it in Greyhawk too.

17 - Ruins of the Undermountain
15 - Castle Amber
10 - Return to the Tomb of Horrors

Owned these, sold them for food/rent money. Had the redux of Castle Amber for 2E as well. Never really got into Tomb of Horrors.

Cheers!

KF72

 

[Staffan]

I haven't double-checked my files, but I don't think anyone voted for "Dragon's Crown," or any Dark Sun adventure, for that matter. The list includes very few adventures with strong ties to a campaign setting, so Dark Sun wasn't the only world to "get the shaft," in the vernacular of EN World.

Which is a crying shame. I always found setting-specific adventures to be muchly superior to "vanilla" adventures, which tend to be isolated dungeon-crawls because they have no setting in which to be grounded.

An adventure for Forgotten Realms ought to include things like Red Wizards, Waterdeep, Zhentarim, Fire Knives, or other Realms-specific stuff. An adventure for Eberron should include warforged, dragonmarks, aberrations, exploring Xen'drik, shady alignments, and similar things. A Dark Sun adventure needs man-eating halflings, thri-kreen, psionics, lack of water, defilers, templars, and so on. An Al-Qadim adventure has to include sha'ir, Fate, the desert, dervishes, hospitality, etc.

"Vanilla" adventures are boring. It's in the setting-specific stuff the fun lies.

 

[DaveMage]

1. GDQ Period. Nothing else compares to the early stuff, these were the first and best and most flexible and malleable modules put out there. They don't give you the reson why and what. They give you the data and say "Here you come up some reasons!" and let you goto town.

EXACTLY!