D&D 5E Ranking the 2014-2024 5E Adventures

[Zaukrie]

There were so many directions they could have gone with a hardcover Lost Mines. Poorly grafting on unrelated material and making LMoP harder weren't on anyone's wish list.

I'm running out right now, and bought it on foundry.... And I continue to be amazed at what they did, not in a good way. I'm considering just blowing it all up at this point

 

[Burnside]

I...got the Beadle & Grimm edition of Shattered Obelisk.

...yeah...

 

[kaintxu]

S TIER:
1.Tomb of Annihilation (perfect hexcrawl with time limit, killer dungeon inherits Tomb of Horrors spirit, fantastic story and NPCs, masterpiece)
2.Curse of Strahd (fantastic rework of a classic)
3.Lost Mines of Phandelver (instant classic starting adventure)

A TIER:
4.Descent into Avernus (railroady, the DM must rework it, but great)
5.Rime of the Frostmaiden (achieves survival horror atmosphere)
6.The Light beyond the Witchlight (achieves fairytale atmosphere first time in D&D history)

B TIER:
7.Ghosts of Saltmarsh (good frame, but some adventures aren't very good)
8.Tales of the Yawning Portal (conversion could be better)
9.Dungeon of the Mad Mage (I know many megadungeons that aren't boring like this)
10.Dragon Heist (underdeveloped)

C TIER:
11.Storm King's Thunder (illogic, pointless and plotless)
12.Tyranny of Dragons (soulless Dragonlance clone)

D TIER:
13.Dragon of Icespire Peak (uninspired, disjointed)
14.Princes of the Apocalypse (utterly boring)
15.Shattered Obelisk (why ruin LMoP?)
16.Vecna Eve of Ruin (offended my sense of logic, ruined Vecna)
17.Xarxys (killed Dark Sun because reasons)
18.Radiant Citadel (guess what)

Can you please share some of those megadungeons you know that are better?

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Can you please share some of those megadungeons you know that are better?

Eyes of the Stone Thief
Rappan Athuk
The Tomb of Abyshtor
The Windsong Abbey (in Beyond the Doomesday Door)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

We've done this before, but with all of the official adventures of the 2014/5E era now published, it seemed like the right time to look back on them as a whole.

In the past, the campaign-length adventures have often been lumped in with the anthology/compilation books, but I'm gonna create two different rankings as I think they are very different animals that serve disparate purposes for gaming groups.

5E Campaign-length adventures, my rankings:

Top Tier
Curse of Strahd (DMed multiple times)
Lost Mine of Phandelver (DMed multiple times)
Tomb of Annihilation (Played)
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (DMed multiple times)

Mid-Tier
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (DMed portions of)
Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis (Read)
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen (Read)
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (Read)
Dragon of Icespire Peak (DMed)
Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (Read)
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (Played)
Out of the Abyss (DMed portions of)

Bottom Tier
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (Read)
Planescape: Turn of Fortune’s Wheel (Read)
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (DMed)
Storm King’s Thunder (DMed portions of)
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (Read)

Haven't Read or DMed/Played
Tyranny of Dragons
Princes of the Apocalypse
Wild Beyond the Witchlight
Vecna: Eve of Ruin

5E Compilations/Anthologies, my rankings

Top Tier
Keys From the Golden Vault (DMed multiple adventures)
Candlekeep Mysteries (DMed multiple adventures)

Mid Tier
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (DMed one, read the rest)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Read, DMed one of the small quests from the appendix)
Quests from the Infinite Staircase (Read)
Tales from the Yawning Portal (DMed two, read the rest)

Bottom Tier
None

I think I aught to post, since my ratings are very very different to the OPs.

5E Compilations/Anthologies, my rankings

Top Tier
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (DMed several)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (DMed several)
Quests from the Infinite Staircase (Read, DMed one)

Mid Tier
Keys From the Golden Vault (DMed multiple adventures, would be good but 5e doesn't do stealth well, and Mission Impossible jokes make me laugh so hard that I can't take it seriously)

Bottom Tier (but better than the campaign bottom tier)
Candlekeep Mysteries (DMed multiple adventures)
Tales from the Yawning Portal (DMed multiple)


Campaign Paths

Top Tier
None. They are all inferior to the anthologies.

Mid-Tier
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (DMed)
Dragon of Icespire Peak (read)
Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (DMed, curate's egg, has very good parts but doesn't hang together, pacing and difficulty way off)
Tomb of Annihilation (Read)
Wild Beyond the Witchlight (played)
Vecna: Eve of Ruin (currently DMing, with major alterations)

Bottom Tier
Curse of Strahd (DMed, broken and boring, the original module was much better)
Lost Mine of Phandelver (Played, read, too generic for my taste)
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (Read, probably would have been good if it had double the page count)

Haven't Read or DMed/Played
Storm King’s Thunder
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Out of the Abyss
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus
Planescape: Turn of Fortune’s Wheel
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Tyranny of Dragons
Princes of the Apocalypse