Favorite adventure authors

[Dragonhelm]

Cam Banks. And I don't say this just because he's my friend.

His work on the Age of Mortals adventure trilogy for Dragonlance has produced the most epic Dragonlance adventures since the originals came out. He's a game designer who knows rules, yet has a firm grasp on story.

 

[Wicht]

What I'm really interested in is what each particular author brings to the table, style- and idea-wise. What are some specific adventure bits (encounters, plots, foes, etc) that they've written that you think stand out most? Who's great at evocative descriptions? At original and fun NPCs? At traps that the players will actually appreciate getting hit by?

Thinking about your question, I realize that I don't judge adventures that way. Some really bad adventures might have some very good individual parts. But when you actually play through them, the experience is not really all that special.

The authors I listed I like because when I play through their adventure, the whole thing works to produce a fun experience.

James Jacobs (Burnt Offerings, etc.) - Burnt offerings works really well as an adventure and a setting. Taken individually, the NPCs are nothing special but you still end up caring about them and the Town of Sandpoint. It is the sort of adventure that creates memories. It has spawned a cult following of Golarion goblins and even had a high-school play written and produced based on it.

Jason Bulhman (Crypt of the Everflame) - Crypt of the everflame is a good introductory adventure. It has a decent storyline but it also has a nice basic premise suitable for introducing players to the game.

Stephen Greer (Tower of the Last Baron) - Tower of the Last Baron is a spy adventure, presenting a challenge (take out the Baron), a town, a keep, and no set method by which the adventure has to be accomplished. It is a very nice mini-sandbox adventure.

Richard Pett (Skinsaw Murders) - In the Logue versus Pett war, I tend to prefer Pett. Pett is just a very capable adventure crafter capable of delivering some captivating scenes. Yet the scenes blend well into the whole, making his adventures fun to play. Skinsaw murders is a nice combination of haunted house/mystery and though the last fight is a bit overpowered, the whole thing is pretty fun.

Nicolas Logue (Hook Mountain Massacre, Edge of Anarchy) - Nicolas Logue is better than Pett at producing disturbing images. I don't think, however, his adventures hold together in quite the same way that Pett's do. Nevertheless, if you want evocative gore, Logue is your man. The Hook Mountain Massacre is a good example of this, with its inbred ogres and ogrekin.

Eric Mona (Howl of the Carrion King) - I tend to prefer Jacob's adventures over Mona's but only just. Howl of the Carrion King is a very good adventure, one without any large dungeons. The Pugwampis make for a memorable foe and the adventure is open ended enough to allow for multiple solutions and outcomes.

Gregg Vaughn (Shadow in the Sky, Varnhold Vanishing) - Vaughn's adventures are consistent. I don't remember any of them being exceptional in any one spot and yet they are almost always well worth reading and playing.

 

[Celebrim]

On that last one, in the adventure Ari Marmell wrote for War of the Burning Sky there's one encounter ...

What you describe would get him kicked off my team.

When reading a module from a DM's perspective, I continually ask myself, "What could go wrong?" In this case, the obvious problem is that we have a very extended series of scenes that depend on one bad guy living. I consider anything that depends on one NPC surviving to be a plot flaw. A large amount of text spent on fleshed out contingencies in the event of NPC survival strikes me as a waste of space. How is the adventure experienced by the 10% or parties that kill the Shadowdancer in 'round one' (or at least, much earlier than intended)? Is there still something fun to do?

Additionally, having played through this sort of thing from a player perspective, it's rarely as fun as the DM thinks it is to jerk players around like this. You very much get the impression as a player that you have no choices but ride along in the rail car and get ganked for the DM's amusement. It very much raises the spectre that you are fighting a DM PC and that the DM will not let you succeed in disrupting the DM's plans until the DM decides you can. You feel as if the DM mainly wants to show you how cool he is. You feel deprotagonized and disempowered.

It's great when a foe becomes a reoccuring one, but it shouldn't be something that you should be striving for explicitly or something that the plot should depend on.

This particular flaw is in my opinion the result of a DM pre-imagining how scenes are 'supposed' to play out too much and then investing himself in having exactly the scenes he imagines. This is the writerly equivalent of that flaw - a guy that seems to be writing screen plays for an action movie rather than modules for an RPG.

In one, he runs into a house and then shadow jumps out the back window, but when the PCs enter they see his 'shadow companion' running downstairs to the basement. The moment the PCs step onto the floor, it crumbles beneath them and drops them into a spiked pit trap. This sets the tone.

Yeah, doesn't it though. As a player, I'd immediately stop playing chase, declare, "It's a trap" (IC and OOC) to the rest of the party, and refuse to be led any further.

One of the reasons that the guys who got on my list got there is that they tned to explicitly allow for challenges to be resolved in several potentially interesting ways. The scene might become a chase scene, and if it does, that will be fun. But if it doesn't, that will be fun too. The stronger the writer is in that, the more respect I have for them, because it indicates alot of strength as a DM and not just strength as a writer.

Of course, what this really means is that what each of us want in a module can be very difficult things. I have the same problem with Nicholas Logue, who you also seem to respect highly. These are guys who I admit write very strongly and who I would choose if I was the producer for a D&D inspired television series, but who I'd be leery of as adventure writers. On the other hand, what they write seems to work for a lot of people, and if the whole thing comes off and the player's cooperate and enjoy the mine car ride, then yeah, it will work really well.

 

[helen82]

Kevin Kulp
Ari Marmell
Eric Mona
Jason Bulmahn
However, I like Ari Marmell most. His work with title "The Conqueror’s Shadow" attract me much.

_____________
Web Development

 

[Grue]

Bruce Cordell - Return to the Tomb of Horrors and Gates of Firestorm Peak are probably my favorite canned adventures of all time. He also gave us the accidental iconic kobold Meepo in the Sunless Citadel. Some of his later stuff is a bit spotty but most provided a solid foundation for a memorable adventure after a bit of revamping to suit.

Cordell does tend towards the rat bastard dm side of adventure design though. Would love to see him do some work with the solid Paizo team (who also tend toward rat bastardry but they know how to write and edit adventrures).

Ari's Tomb of Horrors is great. Probably the best 4e adventure produced thus far. Hopefully we'll see more like it.

Carl Sargent- He's out of the industry but City of Skulls and I remember some of his Warhammer FRPG stuff worked very well. Kept my players engaged and on their toes everytime I used a bit of his stuff.

Thinking about it, overall wotc has been a bit mediocre on producing adventures. While Paizo hasn't been golden (notably foreshadowing the importance of a particular npc or two in future APs and then leaving it dangling), I think the editing and production team have just as great an impact on the process.

Ravenloft for example. The production values (for the time) of that adventure were very high. Played as written though at suggested levels.... I used to run this one every Halloween when I was a kid. Never had a group finish it successfully. Even upgrading equipment significantly and lobotomizing Strahd somewhat. It's a great adventure though, but it probably owes quite a bit of that to the great map and art (that set the tone for the iconic bbeg).

 

[Glyfair]

Me, I very much enjoyed the Sharn trilogy (Chimes at Midnight, Quoth the Raven, and Hell's Heart) by Nicholas Logue. He really evoke the pulp feeling I wanted with his elaborate traps and well-scripted set-piece climaxes. They're the only published adventures I've run in the past few years, and normally I don't run modules.

I agree. No adventures I have read in the last handful of years have been as evocative as this series of adventures (admittedly, I have only run Chimes at Midnight).

The series sets it self up so that it can easily be foreshadowed in adventures before the adventures are ran. They also can easily lead to future adventures if and when various of the NPC villains survive (indeed, even when they don't).

 

[Quickleaf]

I'd put Wolfgang Baur toward the top. I have fond memories of Assassin Mountain. I think his Open Design stuff is just great, and a wonderful insight into adventure design.

I agree. No adventures I have read in the last handful of years have been as evocative as this series of adventures (admittedly, I have only run Chimes at Midnight).

I've enjoyed Nicholas Logue's stuff too, but I'll especially be keeping my eye on Razor Coast which is a non-linear web-based adventure. Check it out over here: Sinister Adventures