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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quasqueton" data-source="post: 2451551" data-attributes="member: 3854">I have never said any of the old modules were unfun, or that anyone who had fun with them was wrong for it.What I *have* said, though, was that some of the old modules were very badly designed.What flabbergasted me in the Desert of Desolation thread was that so many people said that module was well *designed*, or one of the greatest in *design*. In the case of that module, I think the overall plot and concept is cool, but the execution (room by room) was atrocious. The *design* is bad.Does this mean I hate earlier editions of D&D? Or that I hate the old modules? No, not at all. I played AD&D1 for 15 years, even when AD&D2 was the current game. I bought and read and mined for ideas many of the old adventures. I still use many of their ideas and concepts, and sometimes even encounters from those old adventures.My favorite module of all time (for current edition or older) is The Temple of Elemental Evil. A very close second is Keep on the Borderlands. Does my love for them mean they are well designed? No. I beleive ToEE is decently designed (which is all I ask for). A decent DM and Players can have a good fun time with it without the DM having to cover for and make up excuses for it, or the Players having to overlook or just blindly accept too many stupid things. I beleive KotB is similarly decently designed, but it has no plot or connecting element to it. Plus it is very poorly laid out/formatted.I have officially stated that I think the worst module of the "old days" is The Forest Oracle. The overall "plot" is stupid, the individual encounters are stupid, and the resolution to the adventure is stupid. Interestingly, no one seems to want to take issue with my statements on that adventure -- either I'm completely right, and everyone agrees, or this adventure is no one's treasured memory for them to jump up and defend it. Palace of the Silver Princess is similarly stupid in plot design. Both of these may be someone's treasured memory of older D&D. In Search of the Unknown was the very first D&D adventure I experienced. I fell in love with the game through that adventure. But reading it in full, it also is badly designed.But I give leeway for some of those older adventures because they were written without any precedents or examples to go by. They were designed for novice players to just run around in, kill things, take their stuff, and occassionally fall into traps. They weren't *expected* to make sense. But then there are some of the older adventures that *were* well designed:The Sinister Secret of SaltmarshAll That GlittersThe Sentineland some others. [And yes, I see the pattern above.]I have only read a handful of the adventures for the current edition (the 8 adventure path mods, Return to ToEE, and the first Rappan Athuk), and I think each of them are at least decently designed. But they were also written with plenty of game experience behind them, lots of game design philosophy to support them, and possibly for a more mature audience (the D&D gamer demographic has gotten older).Now, if I found a really badly designed adventure for D&D3, and I said it was bad, would all the D&D3 fanboys here jump on me as a D&D3 hater?This has nothing to do with edition wars. Bad design is bad design.Desert of Desolation seemed to be intended as a serious adventure but, for me, that mood/feel is spoiled by bad design where the "rubber meets the road".Castle Amber seemed to be intended as a silly trip down the rabbit hole, not intended to be taken seriously. But it is still poorly designed.You can say that a good DM and good Players can cover for or overlook bad design in an adventure, but that just acknowledges the adventure has bad design. A well designed adventure shouldn't require a particularly good DM or a good set of Players. A well designed adventure shouldn't require anyone to cover for or overlook a ton of missing or non-sensical elements.Quasqueton</blockquote>

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