D&D General OAR: If the next module chosen is not from TSR, what would you choose?

[Urriak Uruk]

Imagine a cruel future: Goodman Games announces that Wizard's of the Coast is no longer interested in leasing old TSR adventures for reprint and expansion through the Original Adventures Reincarnated line. It is a dark day, as hundreds of voices cry out in terror only to suddenly be silenced.

But there is hope! With OAR's most recent release being "Dark Tower" by Jennell Jaquays, the OAR line looks like it can continue with adventures that are not owned by WotC.

So my question is; if Goodman no longer has the rights to make future OAR with TSR adventures, what non-TSR adventure would you want them to give the OAR treatment to?

Here are my picks;

Caverns of Thracia

The other classic dungeon crawl by Jennell Jaquays, some would argue it is superior to Dark Tower. With the same non-linear design as Dark Tower, no two playthroughs are likely to be the same. A dungeon ruled over by a Minotaur king and his family with a strong Greek mythical vibe, seems like a good choice.

Palace of the Vampire Queen

A five-level dungeon, The Palace is technically the first standalone adventure ever published for D&D. Although it's considered to have some great maps and interesting encounters, some would argue this early iterations lacks the fluff and descriptions of the best of the OG. Still, who can compete with the very first adventure published, and perhaps getting a full OAR treatment can take the Palace to the heights it's original may lack!

Griffin Mountain

All right, I may be cheating a bit on this one as it was written for Runequest and not D&D. Still, considering how OAR's non-TSR line is dual-managing D&D and DCC, I can dream of taking fantasy modules from other systems too. And Griffin Mountain is arguably one of the best, if not huge at around 200 pages. Still, it's considered not only bigger but better, with detailed encounters and rules for wilderness, and essentially it's own detailed piece on the world of Glorantha. With a great writing team, it's hard not to see this as one of the best fantasy campaigns written for a different system.

So those are my picks, but what would you fight for to get an OAR release? Very curious to hear others thoughts, and learn which adventures I'm probably missing. I do ask that folks try to keep suggestions firmly before 2000 though, as this is supposed to be reprinting old adventures, not just really good ones.

 

[John R Davis]

Starstone from Northern Sages.
The Enchanted Wood ( another Jacquays classic).

 

[Retreater]

I could be splitting hairs and suggest some of the Paizo APs from 3.5 (including Age of Worms) - even though I know they're Wizards' property.

Maybe a 5e version of The Enemy Within for Warhammer Fantasy?

 

[GuyBoy]

City State of the World Emperor would be fun, particularly if some new locations or encounters were added to the project.

 

[Yora]

They already did Dark Tower, which only leaves Caverns of Thracia.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

City State of the World Emperor would be fun, particularly if some new locations or encounters were added to the project.

For a moment I thought you meant City State of the Invincible Overlord, but then realized it essentially got a sequel.

 

[Retreater]

For a moment I thought you meant City State of the Invincible Overlord, but then realized it essentially got a sequel.

The City State of the World Emperor is its own city. It's not really a sequel at all, but its own location.
"Wraith Overlord" is an expansion to Invincible Overlord (I think mostly focusing on subterranean locations).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Came here to post a combo Palace of the Vampire Queen/ Dwarven Glory. There are modern reprints available, but there's so much that could be done in the expansion part of OAR releases with them. There are these tiny worldbuilding hints in each of them that could readily be built upon.

The immature part of me also wants to suggest Judges Guild's Glory Hole Dwarven Mine. It's actually a neat adventure, but that name always makes me chuckle.

 

[Parmandur]

If they could somehow get Judges Guild material away from the Judges Guild...doing an OAR of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy publications (such as the City State) to create a slipcase with reprints, and another book with modified and updated unified Campaign Setting would he interesting.

 

[Retreater]

If they could somehow get Judges Guild material away from the Judges Guild...doing an OAR of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy publications (such as the City State) to create a slipcase with reprints, and another book with modified and updated unified Campaign Setting would he interesting.

Yeah. I have the boxed set put out by Necromancer Games back in 3.5, and it's a great product.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah. I have the boxed set put out by Necromancer Games back in 3.5, and it's a great product.

The biggest barriers are practical: I don't think most would want to support Judges Guild as the property holder, so Goodman would need to procure the IP outright and cut out the JH folks in the future. Would they be willing to sell, and even then would customers be uncomfortable with supporting the IP having been purchased?

 

[Retreater]

The biggest barriers are practical: I don't think most would want to support Judges Guild as the property holder, so Goodman would need to procure the IP outright and cut out the JH folks in the future. Would they be willing to sell, and even then would customers be uncomfortable with supporting the IP having been purchased?

I guess other people have to make up their own minds of what conditions would make purchasing it acceptable for them. As for me, I find the past conditions that JG's licensing fees go to charity, and the rest of the profit is divided between the Goodman team and the designers (Jennell Jaquays in these examples) acceptable for me.
Goodman's buying out the entirety of the JG line for a nominal fee would also be acceptable for me. However, I wouldn't want to support JG in its current iteration - or depend on them to produce content. If JG were to sell out and leave the industry, that would be okay with me.
Of course, I would not argue if a person wanted to not purchase JG products henceforth, but I feel that to cut out a phenomenal talent and (from everything I can tell) a good person like Jaquays would be more harmful than necessary.

 

[Parmandur]

I guess other people have to make up their own minds of what conditions would make purchasing it acceptable for them. As for me, I find the past conditions that JG's licensing fees go to charity, and the rest of the profit is divided between the Goodman team and the designers (Jennell Jaquays in these examples) acceptable for me.
Goodman's buying out the entirety of the JG line for a nominal fee would also be acceptable for me. However, I wouldn't want to support JG in its current iteration - or depend on them to produce content. If JG were to sell out and leave the industry, that would be okay with me.
Of course, I would not argue if a person wanted to not purchase JG products henceforth, but I feel that to cut out a phenomenal talent and (from everything I can tell) a good person like Jaquays would be more harmful than necessary.

Yeah, I would be fine with a buyout being remote material cooperation. Still a huge mess, alas.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

If they could somehow get Judges Guild material away from the Judges Guild...doing an OAR of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy publications (such as the City State) to create a slipcase with reprints, and another book with modified and updated unified Campaign Setting would he interesting.

I don't know much about the Judges Guild controversies, but it does seem their site is just a wasteland. I don't think it'd be difficult for Goodman to get the rights for old stuff, as it doesn't seem to me JG is doing anything with anything.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know much about the Judges Guild controversies, but it does seem their site is just a wasteland. I don't think it'd be difficult for Goodman to get the rights for old stuff, as it doesn't seem to me JG is doing anything with anything.

The Judges Guild ownership turned out to be raging anti-everything nutjobs, and committed public self-annhilation on social media ticking off just about everyone. Bad enough that literally everyone cut business ties with them, banned from drive-thruRPG and so on.

 

[Retreater]

I don't know much about the Judges Guild controversies, but it does seem their site is just a wasteland. I don't think it'd be difficult for Goodman to get the rights for old stuff, as it doesn't seem to me JG is doing anything with anything.

There's been some bad things posted to social media by the current owner (who - to my knowledge - had nothing to do creatively with the original content and is a descendent of the original owner/writer). So it's likely not so much that Goodman couldn't afford the rights - it would be the connection to the bad statements (which I won't get into here) and some outstanding debts that JG has for products they haven't delivered.

 

[Parmandur]

There's been some bad things posted to social media by the current owner (who - to my knowledge - had nothing to do creatively with the original content and is a descendent of the original owner/writer). So it's likely not so much that Goodman couldn't afford the rights - it would be the connection to the bad statements (which I won't get into here) and some outstanding debts that JG has for products they haven't delivered.

It might be more an issue that the individual with problematic views wouldn't want to sell his dad's work, since he doesn't have much else going on. Then again, he still owes those Kickstarter backers...

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

That and the original CSIO. I think it likely that we'll see more Jaquays releases, but those two would be big. I splurged on Wilderlands last year and regret nothing, but it would be nice to have those back in print, freed of the garbage of Bledsaw II and III. And with better paper quality.

If they could somehow get Judges Guild material away from the Judges Guild...doing an OAR of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy publications (such as the City State) to create a slipcase with reprints, and another book with modified and updated unified Campaign Setting would he interesting.

I think the chances of them letting go of the full Judges Guild rights are incredibly low, but the chances of them actually getting that Kickstarter released are zero.

It might be more an issue that the individual with problematic views wouldn't want to sell his dad's work, since he doesn't have much else going on. Then again, he still owes those Kickstarter backers...

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It might be more an issue that the individual with problematic views wouldn't want to sell his dad's work, since he doesn't have much else going on. Then again, he still owes those Kickstarter backers...

They did sell the right to Dark Tower, right? I'm still kind of confused how that deal came together.

 

[Parmandur]

They did sell the right to Dark Tower, right? I'm still kind of confused how that deal came together.

They didn't go into great detail. Goodman had a pre-existing relationship with the Bledshaws, so they had a line of communication to make some sort of offer to procure the IP entirely. Having rhe involvement of the original author, and both publisher and author being included among the groups that Bledshaw invented against (antisemitism and transphobia, respectively) probably helped make people not mind the last bit of business...