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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5013018" data-attributes="member: 3586">I'm quite fond of published adventures, if not least because the amount of time I have to write my own has diminished over the years, and - to be brutally frank -it rarely comes off for me. Yes, I've run great games, but they can be very up and down.However, as I revisit some of the classic adventures of my youth, some of them aren't quite as classic as I thought they were. Applying current standards to old adventures might not be fair, but, as I'm quite likely to convert an older adventure to a newer system - I did a lot of that during the 3e era - I do have to consider whether the adventure still holds up today and will entertain my players.It has occurred to me that there are adventures that are striking for their concept, although the actual execution is lacking; likewise, there are those adventures that are dull but have excellent execution. And then there are those that have both - rare though they may be.Of course, not everyone agrees on what is a good concept or good execution.Here a few adventures and my take on them.D3: Vault of the Drow: Great Concept; Poor ExecutionA race of underground evil elves serving a demoness? Brilliant! Unfortunately, when it comes to the actual vault, there's not really that much there for the DM. A list of noble houses and the soldiers employed by each one? Are the PCs going to kill each group in turn?Astonishingly, the Eilservs faction - who precipitated the entire mess with the giants - get a mere column of information.This is one of those adventures that a DM with a lot of ingenuity and creativity can make into something great, but this needs a lot of work.I3: Pharaoh: Great Concept, great execution.It's my favourite adventure of all time. Pharaoh has it all - good set-up, encounters (and a wide variety of them all) and overall arc.H1: Keep on the Shadowfell: Good concept, problematic execution.The first half of Keep is as good as any adventure I've seen - then it gets to the lower level of the Keep and it turns into a slog. It isn't helped by the village encounters drying up, but the BBEG is rather boring when you get down to it... and there's not enough good leadup to really bring home his threat.I'll let you give some examples - more from me tomorrow!</blockquote>

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