In Search of the Best Module Ever

[Olgar Shiverstone]

My top ten favorites:

1. I1-3 (Desert of Desolation series)
2. B2 Keep on the Borderlands
3. B4 The Lost City
4. T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil
5. I6 Ravenloft
6. X2 Castle Amber
7. GDQ1-7 Giants/Drow/Demonweb
8. S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
9. X4/5 Master of the Desert Nomands/Temple of Death
10. S2 White Plume Mountain

(Come to think of it ... I think this was the exact set of modules I used in my 1985 Greyhawk Campaign, except for X4/X5.)

 

[Ampolitor]

Ravenloft

Hmmm the original Ravenloft module, way cool and still brings back great memories of a great game!
The second had to be the Temple of elemental evil or the village of Hommlet.

 

[tarchon]

The Empire in Flames

 

[Staffan]

This might be my nostalgia speaking, but I really liked Dragon's Crown for Dark Sun. It's big, it's epic, and it varies itself. It has some dungeons, but it's not a mega-dungeon. You need to travel all across the known lands of Athas (which, admittedly, are rather small), there's plenty of interaction going on, and general all-around goodness. The end of the adventure is a bit over the top (with multiple level 20+ psionicists), but overall it's excellent stuff.

I also liked the first Dark Sun adventure, "Freedom!" (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name). It showcases the brutal nature of Athasian society and slavery, and lets the PCs take a part in metaplot developments.

Big dungeons don't generally do anything for me - though that might also be filtered through being rather tired of running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. It's a good dungeon and all, but it does lack variety. Dragon's Crown had the PCs going through ancient ruins, infiltrating the Sorcerer-King Hamanu's palace, travelling volcanic islands in the Sea of Silt, exploring an ancient fortress and learning some of the history of the Cleansing Wars, interacting with thri-kreen tribes on the verge of madness, and taking the fight to the stronghold of the most powerful and reclusive organization on Athas.

 

[rounser]

Agreed, Staffan, the Dark Sun series of core adventures was great fun to play and featured a lot of variety. Thanks for the reminder, and yeah, IMO, the various megadungeons have nothing on that series.

I think an honorary mention should go to The Veiled Society for using the format of urban adventure quite successfully, and in a way that is done all too rarely.

 

[Agamon]

Castle Amber, Ravenloft and the DoD series are big for sure, but I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet. It opened my eyes as a youngster as to how much fun a open-ended adventure can be:

The Secret of Bone Hill

 

[jester47]

I would thinkn that the ideal module would introduce a wilderness, a base of ops, and have a few dungeons thrown in for good measure. I would also say that they should not be campaign world specific.

I3-5 Desert of Desolation (pre-realms format),
Well Designed Dungeons +2
Well Designed Wilderness +1
Plot +1
Style +1

B7 Rahasia
Well Designed Dungeon +2
Well Designed Plot +2
Style +1
Memorable NPCs +1

T1 The Village of Hommlet (town, outdoor and dungeon)

Well Designed Dungeon +2
Well Designed Base +2
Outdoor +1

B2 Keep on the Borderlands
Dungeon +1
Well Designed outdoors +2
Plot +1
Well Designed Base +2

X4/X5 Master of the Desert Nomads
See Desert of Desolation

So here is the best (IMO):

I6 Ravenloft (masterpiece, has it all)
Well Designed Dungeon +2
Well Designed outdoor +2
Variable Plot +2
Detailed Base +2
Memorable NPCs +1

Clearly the best is I6 Ravenloft, the original ravenloft adventure.

Aaron.

 

[jester47]

Additional:

It seems to me that anything with one of the following Authors gets onto the tops of people's lists:

Tracy Hickman
Graeme Morris
David Cook
Gary Gygax

These gusy seem to have written the best, and since ravenloft and DoD are both hickman, I would say that we have a winner.

Aaron.

 

[King_Stannis]

*concentrates really hard*

I...I think I remember that one. Did it have a party fighting a black dragon on the cover?

You got it. Breathing green acid, if I recall correctly.

 

[Psion]

Pity they left it less than a quarter complete, and therefore almost unplayable without extensive development (or extensive improvisation, or PCs walking through very large empty areas), though.

Yeah, too bad they didn't give you 500 pages of room descriptions instead of 128. We all know that 128 pages is positively anorexic when in comes to room descriptions. And lord forbid you provide room to expand a module...

rounser, you wouldn't happen to be one "mike" who thinks Greyhawk Ruins is everything that RoU isn't, would you? This argument sounds vaguely familiar to me.