Published Adventures - How Many Do You Own?

[Olaf the Stout]

When I start DMing 5E (sometime later this year) I want to run a more dynamic, player-driven campaign. Given that I’m still fairly time-poor, I figure the easiest way to do this is to throw out a heap of different plot hooks, rumours, etc., from different adventures and see which plot hooks the players follow up on. From there I would run that adventure as far as the players wanted to take it, whilst introducing other plot hooks as they went along (maybe in a dungeon they find clues that point them to 3 further adventures).

So I went through my collection to see exactly what published adventures I owned and what levels they were for. I was surprised to find that I own 138 published adventures for D&D 3.XE/Pathfinder. On top of that I own about 50-ish Dungeon issues from the same era. I knew I had a lot of published adventures, but didn’t realise it was quite that many!

Most of them are in PDF format, but about 55-ish are in dead tree format. I didn’t pay a huge amount for most of them. Around 10 adventures were free releases. Most of the 34 DCC adventures I own are PDFs that I bought for $2 each at a Paizo sale. Similarly I bought 15 Monkey God adventures in PDF for $1 each and 4 Wicked Fantasy Factory and 4 Bleeding Edge adventures in hard copy at another $2 sale. So I got over half my collection at the cost of a little over $100. The amount I’ve spent on Pathfinder adventures and mega-books like Rappan Athuk I’d rather not think about!

If I had to pick a favourite out of all of the published adventures I won, it would be my Shackled City Adventure Path hardcover compilation. It was the first ever campaign that I ran from 1st level to 20th level and it was also the first campaign I ever ran that reached its designated end point (i.e. the campaign didn’t end early due to other reasons, such as player disputes, people losing interest or players moving away). It kept our group going for over 3 years of fortnightly gaming sessions and I was really happy with how it all ended. So I have a lot of find memories.

I normally keep all my roleplaying books in mint condition, but the Shackled City book was well and truly trashed by the end of the campaign, simply due to the amount of use it got and the amount of time it spent going back and forth in my work bag as reading material.

So how many D&D published adventures do you own? What era are they from? What adventure is your favourite?

 

[delericho]

Too many to count, I'm afraid. Mostly from the 3e era, including every Dungeon from 82 (first 3e issue) to 150 (the last print issue). And every Pathfinder AP volume to date, if you want to count those.

The best adventures I own are probably "I6 Ravenloft" (from the 25th anniversary boxed set) and "Lost Mine of Phandelver" (no, seriously). But my favourites are probably the "Shackled City" AP (the magazine version) and "The Shattered Circle" (by Bruce Cordell, from the tail end of 2nd Ed), both of which I had a particularly good experience running.

 

[Voadam]

Probably hundreds.

Every 3e Dungeon Crawl Classics plus Wicked Fantasy and X-Crawl, all but one of the MonkeyGod ones, lots of 3e Dungeon ones, and six Pathfinder adventure paths. Big ones include Shackled City harcover, World's Largest Dungeon, Rappan Athuk Reloaded, Sword of Air, Slumbering Tsar, City of Brass, Razor Coast, Castle Blackmoor, Warlords of the Accordlands Campaign Adventure, Ruins of the Dragon Lords, The 3e Dragonlance Non war of the lance Trilogy, The Drow War Trilogy, The Nocturnum d20 CoC campaign, Freeport Trilogy, War of the Burning Sky, AEG's Adventure I & II compilations, Eyes of the Lich Queen, City of the Spider Queen, Castle Ravenloft, and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I own most of the Necromancer Games modules, most of the Eberron modules, a bunch of Atlas Games modules, 1 on 1 adventures from XRP, Green Ronin's Bleeding Edge, Malhavoc Press' modules, Troll Lord Games' modules, a ton of Adamant Entertainment d20 modern and fantasy modules, and a bunch of Paizo's game mastery modules. That covers most of my d20 modules.

And that's for d20 only. I have a lot of AD&D modules and some 4e ones as well.

 

[Ranes]

I don't know how many I own. They date from the earliest 1e mods (many of which I've supplemented with their 3e conversions) to the end of the 3e publishing era. I don't have any PF, 4e or 5e modules, yet. I have countless mods from Dungeon, some dating as far back as 1e, and dozens more in White Dwarf. And I've got some Necromancer Games mods, too.

As for my favourite, that's tricky. I have a certain regard for White Plume Mountain and the U series, having run them in two different editions and them having played well in both. Far too many I've never run at all but really want to. Come on, anti-aging drugs and time machines, I could use a little help here!

 

[Celebrim]

X10, U2, I6, C1, S1, C5, I3, S3, I4, B2, B8, DL7, DL8, DL9, DL10, D1-2, I10, UK1, X1, M3, CM2, WG4, Of Sound Mind, and 30 or so Dungeon mags.

So 23 plus the Dungeon mags.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

All of them.

OK, maybe that isn't quite true, but too many to count especially after 15 or so years of buying PDFs indiscriminately as well as 34+ years of buying almost anything I could find whether new or secondhand.

 

[trancejeremy]

Lots and lots. Almost all the 3.x DCCs, most classic TSR modules (not the rarities), all the adventures from Green Ronin and most from Necromancer for 3.x, a smattering of Troll Lord stuff, a bunch of other third party stuff. Missed that monkey god stuff.

And that's for D&D. I have have every Shadowrun Adventure up to third edition (1st & 2nd), every Star Wars module from West End Games (including Adventure Journals), and pretty much everything for CoC up to 5th Edition, every classic Traveller module.

Mostly I've been buying OSR modules lately. Got the Advanced Adventures line in hardback (that's 30 modules total), and a few megadungeons in print, as well as a number of PDFs

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've got loads of them. I'm not a fly by the seat of the pants DM, and IME most plot hooks only excite one or two players (each). At minimum I need to introduce plot hooks before the campaign actually starts, otherwise the PCs have no reason to hang out together.

 

[steeldragons]

Let's see if I can get stuff (roughly) in order of levels...

1-3, B2 Keep on the Borderlands
1-3, B4 The Lost City
1-3, B8, Journey to the Rock
1-3, MSOL, Blizzard Pass
1-3, T1 Village of Hommlet
1-3, N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God
1-3, U1, The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
1-4, U2, Danger at Dunwater

2-4, L1, The Secret of Bone Hill
3-5, U3, The Final Enemy
3-6, X2, Castle Amber
3-7, X1, The Isle of Dread

4-7, UK1, Beyond the Crystal Cave
4-7, A1, Slave Pits of the Undercity
4-7, A2, Secret of the Slavers' Stockade
4-7, A3, Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords
4-7, A4, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords
4-7, C5, The Bane of Llywelyn
4-7, I1, Dwellers of the Forbidden City
4-8, I7, Baltron's Beacon

4-10, I13, Adventure Pack I, contains 11 different adventure hooks/miniscenarios, each across different level ranges from 4-10.

5-7, I2, Tomb of the Lizard King
5-7, X3, Curse of Xanathon
5-7, C1, the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
5-7, C2, The Ghost Tower of Inverness
5-7, C3, The Lost Island of Castanamir

5-10, WG4, The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
5-10, S2, White Plume Mountain
6-10, S4, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

8-10, I11, Needle
8-12, S3, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
8-12, G1-2-3, Against the Giants
9-12, EX1, Dungeonland
9-12, EX2, The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
9-14, D1-2, Descent to the Depths of the Earth

10-14, D3, Vault of the Drow
10-14, Q1, Queen of the Demonweb Pits
10-14, S1, Tomb of Horrors

16-18, H2, The Mines of Bloodstone

18-100, H4, The Throne of Bloodstone

and DL1-thru-10 & 12, which cover levels 4-10
+ DL15, Mists of Krynn, which is 12 short adventures/scenarios that cover various spreads of levels from 1 to 15.

...I think that's everything. None of the other names in the WIki list are ringing any bells or have covers that look familiar enough that I know they're boxed away somewhere.

So that's 73 possible adventures, as written. Picking and choosing and swapping and adding and subtracting and mining and I will still not have enough time in my lifetime to create all possible good times with what I have...applied to any edition/system.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Hmm ... my collection is not nearly as impressive as those listed. I have the Shackled City hardcover and a few other adventures that were being offered for free for various reasons. (free rpg day, offered on wotc/paizo website, etc)

With that being said, I do have the majority of all my old D&D notes from past campaigns still. I keep them in laboratory notebooks. So if I ever need any ideas or an old map I can grab those.