D&D General Iconic and Best Adventures in each Edition

[Enrico Poli1]

I was wondering about the great adventures produced for each iteration of the game. What are the ones that you consider the "MUST PLAY", the ones you absolutely have to experience? I'll list the ones I keep in high regard.

BECMI:

• Keep on the Borderlands: iconic "enter, kill monster, take stuff" dungeon
• Isle of Dread: iconic wilderness/jungle hexploration
• Castle Amber: iconic madhouse
• Master of the Desert Nomads + Temple of Death: iconic voyage traveling to far, exotic lands, to save the world
• Red Arrow Black Shield: unique module that mixes normal adventuring with a continental-scale war and political diplomacy
• Test of the Warlords: quintessential Dominions & War experience

AD&D1e/2e:

• Against the Cult of the Reptile god: iconic mystery adventure
• The City of Skulls: iconic rescue mission
• The Tomb of Horrors: iconic deathtrap dungeon
• Ravenloft: iconic gothic horror adventure
• Dragon's Crown: captures the feeling of Dark Sun setting, epic voyage

D&D 3.0/3.5:

• Age of Worms: epic save-the-world Adventure, a love letter to D&D tradition
• Savage Tide: pirates, dinosaurs and demons. You feel as in an adventure movie

Pathfinder 1e:

• Curse of the Crimson Throne: fantastic city adventure
• Kingmaker: hexploration + Dominion
• Reign of Winter: epic voyage, you feel as inside a slavic fairytale

13th Age:
- Eyes of the Stone Thief: best Megadungeon of them all. A one unique thing of a dungeon.

D&D 5e:

• Curse of Strahd: an implemented Ravenloft
• Tomb of Annihilation: hexploration in the jungle + deathtrap dungeon
• Descent into Avernus: planar adventure done well
• Light Beyond the Wytchlight: manages to recreate the atmosphere of Oz/Neverland/Wonderland

 

[DND_Reborn]

Really? No Against the Giants...? :-(

It is one of the quintessential adventures in D&D history IMO.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

• Against the Cult of the Reptile god: iconic mystery adventure
• The City of Skulls: iconic rescue mission
• The Tomb of Horrors: iconic deathtrap dungeon
• Ravenloft: iconic gothic horror adventure
• Dragon's Crown: captures the feeling of Dark Sun setting, epic voyage

1E and 2E are separate editions and cover an awful lot of time, they should probably be covered separately. I'd also say there's a huge difference between "best regarded", "must play" and "most iconic" - it's easy for an adventure only be one of those three.

I've never even heard of The City of Skulls and I've been playing since 1989 so I have difficulty believing it's that iconic. Seems to be an obscure 1993 mid-level Greyhawk module.

The biggest 2E adventures I'm aware of are probably:

Dragon Mountain

The Night Below

Dead Gods (and possibly other Monte Cook ones - definitely not Faction War though!)

 

[Haplo781]

Pretending 4e doesn't exist yet again

Reavers of Harkenwold and Madness at Gardmore Abbey were the standouts.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Pretending 4e doesn't exist yet again

I love 4E but it had uniquely few good adventures for it, due to a combination of WotC incompetency and intentionally driving away 3PPs.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

B - Lost City, Keep on the Borderlands
X - Isle of Dread, Castle Amber
1E - Queen of Spiders, Desert of Desolation, Temple of Elemental Evil, Ravenloft, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
2E - Night Below, Rod of Seven Parts
3E - Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury
4E - Raiders of Oakhurst
5E - Curse of Strahd

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Raiders of Oakhurst

whoaaa, stop there a minute!

Where was that? I missed that. A follow up adventure for Sunless Citadel's Oakhurst?! For 4e?!

 

[Rabbitbait]

The Red Hand of Doom was one of the best modules ever. 3e if I remember rightly.
4e's Tomb of Horrors was also brilliant.

 

[Rabbitbait]

I enjoyed the Slave Lords series in AD&D, but my memories from 40 years ago are wearing thin. It may be nostalgia rather than it actually being a good series.

 

[Hex08]

BECMI: Keep on the Borderlands: the first adventure I ever played will always hold fond memories
1E: Temple of Elemental Evil, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh or Queen of the Spiders
2E: Night Below
3.x: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil: wins by default because I think it was the only published adventure my group played during this era, everything else was homebrew
Pathfinder 1E: Rise of the Runelords AP
4E & 5E - never player either

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

whoaaa, stop there a minute!

Where was that? I missed that. A follow up adventure for Sunless Citadel's Oakhurst?! For 4e?!

Ennie nominated! Available for free pdf download right here at EN World!

 

[Kobold Stew]

My must play module list:

• B1 Keep on the Borderlands (Gygax). Came with the Basic box I first bought, and has been kept relevant for 40 years, even into the 5e playtest period.
• G1-3 Against the Giants (Gygax). The first three legs of the mega-GDQ campaign, with new challenges in every module, which remain thematically linked but still feel like distinct challenges. The 4e Revenge of the Giants is an appropriate substitute.
• S2 White Plume Mountain (Schick). Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor are still the quintessential D&D artifacts for me, and this puzzle fest istands out so muchc, in part because of Jeff Dee's art. Trying not to cheat by including Gygax's S1, which introduces Acererak, and S3, you got SF in my fantasy! you got fantasy in my SF!, all of which have proven to have legs that last through editions.
• Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (Cook). Better than the original, this 3.0 module showed what an adaptation of a classic module could be, elevating the original and making it more memorable. This made Monte Cook's name.
• Something in Sigil. I don't know if I've ever played a proper module here (I'm aware of 2e's Doors to the Unknown), but Sigil is such a fun location for a campaign, allowing wacky plane-hopping creativity and urban intrigue to sit side-by-side. In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil is a great resource and enough to generate adventures even without a through-line.
• Also, Everyone should play some SF planet-hopping, and for that I would say the Classic Traveller LBB, Twilight's Peak gives everything one needs for an epic space campaign,
• Finally, two wildcards, both from 3.5 days: First, Goodman Games's Dragonfiend Pact, a low level dungeon crawl in which everyone is shrunk to tiny size, and The Last Days of Constantinople, a low-level historical adventure set in the 1450s. I've only rread both of these, but they still shape the way I think bout a fun adventure.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Dragonfiend Pact is fantastic. It'd be easy enough to convert the module (a $1 promotional adventure for Goodman Games' 3E Dungeon Crawl Classics line) to whatever system one uses. Highly, highly recommended.

 

[Haplo781]

• Something in Sigil. I don't know if I've ever played a proper module here (I'm aware of 2e's Doors to the Unknown), but Sigil is such a fun location for a campaign, allowing wacky plane-hopping creativity and urban intrigue to sit side-by-side. In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil is a great resource and enough to generate adventures even without a through-line.

Tales from the Infinite Staircase, maybe?

 

[Digdude]

No love for expedition to the barrier peaks or the dessert of desolation series.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

AD&D - Barrier Peaks; Giants -> Drow/Demonweb Pits; Tamoachan; White Plume Mtn. In that order imo
2e - did not play
3e - did not play
4e - Scales of War AP
5e - Icewind Dale (without spoiling, loved the final quarter of the AP)

 

[Clint_L]

BX: Keep on the Borderlands, the introduction to D&D for many.
AD&D: White Plume Mountain (still a favourite); Against the Giants (first one my friends and I tried)
2.0: The Night Below - such an epic
3.0: Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. Spiders freak me out.
4.0: not qualified
5.0: Lost Mine of Phandelver - no adventure has introduced more players to the game.

 

[billd91]

I enjoyed the Slave Lords series in AD&D, but my memories from 40 years ago are wearing thin. It may be nostalgia rather than it actually being a good series.

Not just nostalgia. It was a good series.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The quintessential 5e adventure is Lost Mines of Phandelver. I can't say there is anything exactly special about it. It's main virtue is that it is not so overwritten with bloat as the big book adventures WotC makes these days, sticking to something simple and loose that even a first time DM can riff on, expand on, and remix without too much stress or loose ends. It's second greatest virtue is that it efficiently delivers everything a first time player expects D&D to be. It is the thesis statement of 5e era D&D.

In any case, as the starter set adventure it is absolutely the "Keep on the Borderlands" of 5e, and the one that will be a nostalgic touchstone for a lot of the people who started in the 5e era, which is a lot of people. If there is a 5e adventure whose place in the pantheon of D&D adventures is assured, it's LMoP.

 

[GuyBoy]

Adding my support for those who include the Giants series for 1E and Night Below for 2E to the list.
I’d also add Temple of the Frog from the Blackmoor supplement to Original. Not so much due to quality, but due to its position as the first published adventure for the game.
The OP doesn’t specify that the adventures have to be TSR/WOTC, so I’d add Jennell Jaquays’ work for 1E to the list, particularly Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia.