Please recommend some great non-dungeon delving D&D/d20 adventures!

[DrSpunj]

I've just started DMing a new campaign for our weekly group. They just went through Gorgoldand's Gauntlet and made 2nd level. It was very clear to me that the majority of the group are not "hack and slash" players, or even "dungeon delvers" so I started looking for something that would appeal to them. I was lucky enough to find PirateCat's Of Sound Mind and am going to run them through that next. After finishing that I expect them to be around 4th level or so.

While reading that excellent adventure (seriously, if you haven't looked at it take the time) it hit me that my group is really into adventures similar to Of Sound Mind. By that I mean part mystery (with meaningful NPC interactions for the 1-2 true "role"-players), part varied locale (so they don't get bored in the same place and feel like they're exploring the world) and part dungeon-like area (for the 1-2 "delvers" in the group). Of Sound Mind very neatly fulfilled all of these requirements.

From classic D&D Keep on the Borderlands also comes to mind, and I may work on converting that as a higher level adventure for them. With the wide array of adventures out there does anything else of a similar vein come to mind? I'm going to take a look at Death in Freeport and tried to step through the d20 Guide here on EN World, but couldn't find an easy way to find what I'm looking for. Can anyone help point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[JohnNephew]

My company, Atlas Games, has published two adventures for 4th level (both 4-6 actually, but depending on your group size all 4th level may be fine) characters that are not really dungeon crawls (though both have some location/exploration bits and some combat): The Last Dance and The Tide of Years. I believe there are reviews of both on the d20reviews.com database (and lots of off-size reviews, since they've both been out for months -- more than a year in the case of ToY). Both of them are pretty portable to different settings, too. In any case, if you check out a handful of reviews, you'll probably get a good idea of whether or not they'd fit your game.

 

[Crothian]

Standing Stones, one of the core adventures by wizards might be what you are looking for. 3 Days to Kill is another good one. It's not a mystery, but not a dungeon crawl.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Heh. I opened the thread expecting to recommend Of Sound Mind and find that you've already got it! (and if anyone wants to find out more about the adventure - read my storyhour in the .sig! - Mucho Spoilers though, so don't read it if you will be a player!)

Standing Stone could be turned into a good role-playing adventure, but it has a lot of railroading in it. I think that Speaker in Dreams is a better choice (and it is aimed at ~6th level characters). You will need to tone down some of the encounters, but it has bags of potential for interaction and investigation if you don't mind doing a bit of work to move it away from a "dungeon hack in the city". Again, for an idea of one way it can go, take a look at my first storyhour - which in its later stages goes through a (slightly modified) Speaker in Dreams.

Cheers

 

[Psion]

Standing Stones, one of the core adventures by wizards might be what you are looking for.

Let me counter-recommend on that point. The Standing Stone is event based, but goes to some pretty extreme lengths to pull of its ruse, which amounts to railroading in my book.

Danger in Deadwood (downloadable adventure from Bastion Press) is a fairly nice event based adventure with mystery and interaction. Though really, other than OSM I have seen few event based/investagative d20 adventures I am really happy with (and OSM is more or less a "hybrid"; the event/investigative part is only expected to take you through so much of the adventure.)

 

[Wicht]

Speaker in Dreams would be a good read, though I gotta agree that Standing Stones could have been better.

One query - how does keep on the borderland meet your criteria of not being a dungeon based adventure, or what is it that recomends itself from the module to you. It is IMO a classic hack and slash module and does not really seem to be what you are asking after at all.

 

[drnuncheon]

I gotta plug the Freeport adventures. There's not as much 'varied locale' but Freeport is big and wild enough to remain interesting. There's plenty of mystery and investigation, some horror (especially if you know the sources for sme of the stuff and play that up - I'm avoiding minor spoilershere) and some dungeony stuff as well.

They might be a little hard to find, though - I think that the first and maybe the second are out of print.

J

 

[DrSpunj]

One query - how does keep on the borderland meet your criteria of not being a dungeon based adventure, or what is it that recomends itself from the module to you. It is IMO a classic hack and slash module and does not really seem to be what you are asking after at all.

I guess that one comes to mind because of the several encounters outside the caverns: the bandits, the lizardman tribe, the cavern you can fill in on your own with whatever. There is also uncovering the evil cleric-type in the Keep that the DM can run with. I agree that the Caverns of Chaos themselves are very much hack-n-slash oriented, but if you play up the antagonism between the different groups, your party doesn't have to just walk in and slaughter everything.

Thanks all for the list. I've looked over some of those recommended and am pleased with the ideas so far. Any more ideas are always appreciated.

DrSpunj

 

[Horacio]

I gotta plug the Freeport adventures. There's not as much 'varied locale' but Freeport is big and wild enough to remain interesting. There's plenty of mystery and investigation, some horror (especially if you know the sources for sme of the stuff and play that up - I'm avoiding minor spoilershere) and some dungeony stuff as well.

They might be a little hard to find, though - I think that the first and maybe the second are out of print.

J

I agree with drnuncheon, Freeport adventures are very good, with mistery, investigation, the good dose of combat and evil cults!

 

[Nikchick]

They might be a little hard to find, though - I think that the first and maybe the second are out of print.

Thanks for the plug.

It's true that Death in Freeport is out of print and hard to find in stores, but we've still got several scratch and dent copies (minor cosmetic stuff that makes them unacceptible for sale to stores) available here at GR HQ.

Terror in Freeport and Madness in Freeport are both very much in print.

Nicole