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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Monte At Home" data-source="post: 1108833" data-attributes="member: 1335">"Classic," I think, is a word that gets thrown around too freely sometimes when talking about old stuff (movies, books, TV shows, etc.). For example, while I loved the Giants series of modules, I don't know if they are obviously classics. Here are three old D&D modules that I'd say are classics:Tomb of Horrors: The archetypal trap dungeon that so many people all played. Even still today it stands as a hallmark of dangerous dungeons and incredible challenges to its fans (and to its detractors as the epitome of railroading, nonsensical dungeons). A lot of people would like to call this the archetypal dungeon, but of course it's not because it has almost no monsters and its puzzles were considerably harder than average. Still, it's a classic more based in its position of "D&D lore" than anything else. It's like a rite of passage.Ghost Tower of Inverness: Although White Plume Mountain gives it a run for its money, I'd say that this is the classic dungeon. Period. With its crazy magical traps (including a chessboard room), a multipart key you have to find to get to the end, monsters just standing around waiting for the PCs to show up... virtually every room in this module is a cliche. But the thing is, back then, they weren't cliches. They BECAME cliches later, because so many dungeons followed this model. This module is often overlooked, I think, because the whole thing has become hackneyed, but only if you look backward. I don't think that Ghost Tower was the first dungeon to do all these things, I just think it's the best collection of D&D cliches out there, created when they were all still "cutting-edge."D1-3: The Drow Series: Arguably, the first non-linear plot-driven model for an adventure. The PCs' goals are not precise (go get this specific item) and their path is not clear. It's not a single dungeon, but a series of locations of varying importance that the PCs have to interact with in different ways. I can remember reading Vault of the Drow and my mind reeling with how different it was from other adventures.There are lots of really great old modules out there and many of them deserve to be lauded, but if you're going to raise just a few of them above the others I'd pick those.</blockquote>

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