D&D 5E Rejecting the Premise in a Module

[Raaron]

It's kind of an odd hair to split, but I don't think players need to conform to the module as they're playing it. I think that responsibility comes in when you're between sessions. If things have gone so far off the rails that books 2-6 of the AP are about to get invalidated, I think it's time to discuss that as a group.

"OK guys. We can go off in this other direction, but we're switching to homebrew if we do this. Do you guys still want to play [Insert AP title] or revert to our own thing?"

Sure it parts the veil and breaks immersion, but I know that I'd be a bit salty as a player if my group had decided to play Saltmarsh only to have random hijinks send us spinning off into homebrew One Piece land. I want to enjoy my shenanigans, then get back on track for the next plot point.

See, if you get into some shenanigans but then try to get back on track for the next plot point I don’t see that as rejecting the premise ...

 

[Stormdale]

Saltmarsh is bascially just an anthology of martitime themed adventures anyway so not sure how you can not go off path with it but it is easy to add more options to it!

Here is my current "Saltmarsh" campaign. I started out with U1 then an idea of where I wanted the campaign to go..kind of. To start I had 3 possible paths/ rough ideas.

1. Follow from Saltmarsh to Smugglers and possibly link the the Slavelords series
2. Follow up lizardmen to U2 and then and possibly lead to Tomb of the Lizard King (eventually)- I had a group of lizardmen arrive at the mansion to meet the smugglers (the party didn't get to the Sea Ghost).
3. Follow up on some other threads (some Dungeon mag adventures) and lead to isle of the Abbey/ Evil Tide and other sahuagin adventures (maybe the whole 2e Sahuagin series).

As you can see at the end of each adventure the party were usually given (or had already a good hook or two to follow up if they wanted) their next adventure choices. Only Light of lost Souls was directed as the fighter had died in U1 and his uncle being the inheritor of the mansion and their sponsor they were asked to clear to start the series wanted his nephew and heir back so they owed him and the church a little favour...

Post Evil Tide they wanted the hell away from the sea and sahuagin so I threw in a little bugbear raiders homebrew while I sorted out where to next.

I've tried to maintain 2-3 options for the next adventure for them to choose and that has lead from the Sea to the heart of the crystalmist mountains

Red arrows indicate choices not taken or the next options to follow up.

There has been minimal prep from me but the players are directing where they go rather than having little input at the next "adventure decision point" (which really isn't) or chapter in the adventure path. I much prefer this style game to a more linear structured adventure path. Sure you can, and should add material to adventure paths (or take away form them too) but this style of gaming is much more my preference for D&D.

It was interesting early on the arguments between different options between the players as they valued different choices (especially as they wre keen to deal with the smugglers but had a few weeks before the smugglers were returning to Saltmarsh so wanted something todo till the Sea Ghost returned on the enxt full moon. I find that after 3-4 adventures the next step organically grows out of previous choices and once the players become invested and feel their choices matter and are driving their story the game grows organically and gathers its own momentum more so that we need to do A-->B--C to "finish" the adventure path.

I could start this campaign again with U1 and another group and I'm sure the players would choose a very different path as they went.

Stormdale

 

[Lanefan]

Uhhuh. There is no responsibility on players to, basically, buy into the premise of the game being played?

IMO they need to buy into the setting at least to the point of being able to integrate and-or position their PCs within it. (one assumes they've already bought into the rules system in use or they wouldn't be at the table in the first place)

After that? Pretty much anything goes.

 

[Lanefan]

@Stormdale - that chart looks so much like one of my storyboards I thought for a moment you'd stolen it from my notes!

My question is, how flexible are you with it? Or, put another way, roughly what percentage of that chart do you expect you'll actually end up running; and how much of it will be in the same order as shown?

It's funny for me now, looking back at the storyboard ideas from the early days of my current campaign and seeing how little resemblance there is between what I obviously had in mind then and what I ended up running since.

 

[Scott Christian]

If you find modules more work, not less, they're literally failing to do their job, but I do sympathize, because with a bad enough mod, I find the same thing. Good ones though lighten a DM's workload massively (or ones that are bad but the DM just doesn't fix). You're still not engaging with what I see as the central issue here though - sometimes it's not the DM or the players who are at fault - sometimes it's just a crap module.

You keep saying this over and over. There may be a few out there, but none by the experienced companies. I'll give you a freebie: Hoard of the Dragon Queen. An AP everyone claims is the worst published for 5e. Go ahead. Make your case. Why is the a "crappy" AP?

You see, I see so many things in your answers that tell me it is something else, not the AP. Such as making a PC so your DM can run Ravenloft, but then making sure the backstory had nothing to do with the adventure. After reading all these posts, it's my belief that some tables (DM's) don't lay the groundwork, or players are immature, or the DM doesn't do a good job (either doesn't prep well/isn't into it/fails to understand the premise), or players don't believe in being respectful to other players or the DM. Those are the four. I find it dubious that any AP is so sucky, that it can't be fun.

So do your best: Hoard of the Dragon Queen. The one most talked about being terrible.

 

[Scott Christian]

Third-off, you say the DM puts in more work than any given player, but when he's running a pre-gen module (not one he wrote himself), especially running it stock, with few/no modifications, is he really putting in more effort than the entire rest of the table? I doubt it. I've never felt like I was, when running a largely-stock pre-gen module/AP/campaign. When I'm writing adventures from scratch, heavily modifying a campaign, running in my own gameworld and so on, yeah, then absolutely, I am putting in more work than the entire other 4-6 people, but that's not the case here.

Ruin,
I am sorry if you mentioned this before, but when was the last time you ran a stock AP for 5e, or even 4e for that matter?
It requires an enormous amount of work. Every paragraph generally has something that needs to be remembered, and many memorized. Important NPC's all have motives, generally very specific, that need to be expressed with every interaction. They also have distinguishable personalities and physical characteristics that need to be memorized.
The plot, everything from the timeline of the initial event that causes the story's conflict to the conclusion needs to be understood (and again, probably memorized).
The dungeons, caves, forests, etc all are generally unique ecosystems: lighting, temp, etc. that play directly into the module. These need to be memorized so you can pepper it throughout. Then each of those areas also have things like difficult terrain, traps, and creatures that you need to take into account. Can the bad guys hear the fight from there? Would they be able to see from the ridge of this area? All these things are discussed in paragraph form after each room or at the beginning.
Then there are the "what if?" factors of players coming up with clever ideas that are not detailed in the module. Or they begin to follow a different path.

I am sorry, but when I sit down to play a character, I reread my background traits (so I play the character according to how he was made, not on my own RL whims), I glance at my stats and equipment, and if there are spells I glance at those. Done. That takes about five to ten minutes. To run one episode of an AP takes me 2-4 hours of prepwork. Vastly different.

Maybe that is your superpower, you memorize it with a glance. But, most I know are not able to do this. And if you just wing it, that is not doing what the module intended. I am not saying winging it is worse or not as fun or wrong, but it's not the same as prepping. It's like the teacher that has never taught about the industrial revolution, so they glance at the pages in the SS book and say, I've been teaching twenty years, I got this. Yeah, to me there is a big difference. Again, the professor's class might be fun, interesting and unique. But, odds are, they didn't capture the curriculum that was intended.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So do your best: Hoard of the Dragon Queen. The one most talked about being terrible.

Sorry mate, but your whole post here reads like one of those brow-furrowing "Why won't people just argue with me on exactly my terms? I guess they all suck!" posts that gets downvoted into oblivion on reddit. Further, I've engaged with those people a bunch of times, and what happens? If you present a good argument, or obviously know more about something than them, they just stop posting. They don't engage back in a rewarding way, they aren't constructive, they don't have ideas, they just wanted you to meet their ultra-specific criteria, and when you did, they left. As I've never seen your posts before, I'm reluctant to engage with it. (Some to keep replying, but they always latch on to some bit of semantics and keep trying to argue that whilst ignoring the literally dozen other points you made in response to their points - that's even more exhausting).

Furthermore, I don't own Hoard, and I've never read it. Is it free? It doesn't seem to be. So you want me to buy an AP that's notably dreadful, then read this dreadful AP, then write up an essay for you on why it's bad?

OK, I will do that, if you:

A) Pay my expenses for buying Hoard (or provide me with a legal copy).

and

B) Pay my hourly rate, which I'm going to set at $50 (that's actually a discount) for however many hours it takes me to read, take notes, and then write up the essay you're demanding.

You going to do that? No. It's ridiculous. And so is your demand that I give specific criticism on this specific module which I don't own.

I find it dubious that any AP is so sucky, that it can't be fun.

For the full reddit experience, I see you have added a bonus strawman argument. This isn't reddit, mate. Maybe don't do that, because it makes me think "Oh, this guy is demanding detailed arguments, but isn't going to actually read them". I've never said anything of the sort. In fact, the opposite is true. I've played some dreadful modules that, once we realized how bad they were, they were kind of hysterical. I don't know the names of all of them, because I wasn't running them, because I'm the sort of twonk who won't run something that bad. But I've played them, and they were really fun, once we adjusted for the fact that they were appallingly written. None of them lasted particularly long though. We were rolling around with how dubious the one that starts with that town blowing up in the FR is.

I am sorry if you mentioned this before, but when was the last time you ran a stock AP for 5e, or even 4e for that matter?

I ran several in 4E, but they were so bad that they made me give up on modules.

It requires an enormous amount of work. Every paragraph generally has something that needs to be remembered, and many memorized. Important NPC's all have motives, generally very specific, that need to be expressed with every interaction. They also have distinguishable personalities and physical characteristics that need to be memorized. The plot, everything from the timeline of the initial event that causes the story's conflict to the conclusion needs to be understood (and again, probably memorized).

To me it sounds like you're saying reading a book and remembering stuff is hard. Which I don't think is true for me at all.

Like, you may be right that my "superpower" is absorbing information. I am good at it. But I do have ADHD, so you'd think that'd counter it to some extent.

Also, don't you take/make notes (margins, sticky, digital, etc.) and glance at them? If you're literally trying to memorize every single thing in an AP, you're doing it wrong mate. Especially if you're not really good at memorizing things, as you seem to be saying.

And don't you find, in the process of doing the above, particularly the last line, that you often find tons and tons of problems in modules? The early 4E WotC modules stood out for me as being deeply flawed when you tried to follow the logic, ecosystems, timelines and so on. Indeed, ecosystems in most of the WotC material I have seen are almost entirely lacking. You're lucky if the enemies even have a latrine (and if they do, it probably has an otyugh in it!).

I'd also love to hear from other DMs in this thread if they find what you're describing both "an enormous amount of work", and particularly whether they're taking the same "memorization not notes" approach as you. You also make it sound really un-fun, which is pretty wild. I only find it work when I have to correct an AP.

To run one episode of an AP takes me 2-4 hours of prepwork. Vastly different.

By "one episode" you mean an entire AP segment/book, right? Not like, one session? Because if you mean one session, why on earth are you even using an AP? Writing up the stuff for a session from zero, just from my mind takes 30 mins to 2 hrs, generally, and I enjoy it, except loot can in 5E, oddly. If I was taking 2+ hours to get ready to run a session of an AP, well, I wouldn't run that AP (the initial read-through and notes take longer, of course).

Generally speaking, 5E is about the third easiest D&D to prep for, in my experience. For me it goes AD&D/early editions, then 4E, then 5E, then really distantly beyond them 3.XE. And I don't find it hard to prep for as RPGs go. It's not like it's Shadowrun or something, where you can be there for literally hours and hours.

I also would say that your "curriculum as intended" point is pretty ridiculous. Running a module isn't a university class, for god's sake. It's a fun thing people do with their friends. That's a patently ludicrous comparison. The reality is, a DM who has 20 years experience, and glances at a module, is almost certainly going to do a massively better job overall than a guy who has significantly less experience, but obsesses and frets over the module in the way you're describing. It's not like I haven't had DMs like both (and many points in-between).

Further, you're really playing into my point here. Mr Obsessive McFrets who wants a precise reproduction of the module is going to totally wrecked when it turns out the module doesn't remotely account for the PCs making what, when you actually play it, is the obvious decision or the like.

In the end, I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here. Running modules is really hard for you? I guess that sucks. Maybe don't do it?

Also, given I answered your question re: when I last run a module, can you answer me this - when was the last time you ran D&D/PF AP for people you liked and had a good time? Because the vibe I get is never. You seem really down on reading an AP (and to have specific expectations of them that most APs don't meet, like proper ecosystems). And what was the AP?

 

[Oofta]

@Ruin Explorer not really sure what you're trying to get at. For a lot of people running a mod is more work than a home campaign. While my sample size is limited, it's true for everyone who does both that I've discussed this with. I don't use mods other than occasionally bits and pieces for my home game, but I was heavily involved with LG and LFR both DMing and organizing game days.

If I just read the text as people were playing, a mod might be easier. I, and DMs I would consider good, do not. I want to understand who's who, what their motivations are, how are they going respond if the PCs deviate from the standard path (which is practically guaranteed). In my home game I can just have a vague idea and flesh it out as I go along. With a mod, what I thought was a minor NPC may later be important to the overall plot.

In my experience it takes 2-3 times longer to prep a mod than it does to prep for equivalent amount of play in my home campaign. As the acronym says, your mileage may vary but your personal experience is hardly universal.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

@Ruin Explorer not really sure what you're trying to get at. For a lot of people running a mod is more work than a home campaign.

Fair question - what I'm saying is - if using a module/AP/etc. is more work than a home campaign, why on earth do it? It's literally perverse.

The guy I'm responding to seems to think it's some sort of Herculean task, and seems not to enjoy it, but is apparently willingly doing it (?!?!). So I think it's fair to ask "But why?".

If I just read the text as people were playing, a mod might be easier.

You and this other guy seem to be working on this bizarre binary thing, where there are exactly two ways to run a module:

1) Obsessively memorize the entire thing, and try and run it as close to how it is written as possible, even if this means 2+ hours before every single session.

2) Don't even glance at it, and just read through it as you get to stuff, probably in a bored voice whilst checking your phone.

I mean, I'll be real - I have played with both types of DM! They definitely exist! I'm not sure I've been either, but whatever. But neither of those ways looks like good DMing to me, and people who do 1 often are terrible DMs in my experience, because they're among the worst railroaders, tantrum throwers, and so on. I've literally see Type 1 DMs stop a campaign because the PCs didn't choose the right thing, and the campaign didn't allow for it. Literally. More than once actually. For balance, let me say also that I've seen Type 2 DMs turn extremely good modules into extremely boring and bad ones, just by being extremely lazy.

But I think it's a false dichotomy, and both these kinds are freaks, and not great at DMing. Most DMs aren't much like either.

I think a good DM, unless they genuinely have memory problems (which sucks, I admit, and you need to find workarounds if so, or consider being a player), reads through a module/AP once, cover to cover, makes notes somewhere (depending on the format and technological era - things were very different in 1990 to 2020!), maybe literally highlights a real document or PDF (I don't buy fancy expensive adventures - if it's too expensive to write on, it's inappropriate as a module imho - it's just a collectible) for stuff that's easily missed. You take quick notes after a session (like, if this takes you more than 10 minutes, something is wrong), sometimes you don't even need to do that. Then before the session, you flick through the module/AP and check your notes. If you're me, or my brother, or at least one of the other DMs I play with, who I've talked to about this, this takes about 5-20 minutes with a module/AP (totally different if you're running a home campaign ofc).

Now, if it's me, and the campaign has problems - like a badly-written or boring bit, or terrible encounter design, I may need to put in a few hours, or even a lot of hours, fixing that. But I do that after I read it, not before a session - this is why I stopped using modules. Too many of them were so bad I had to spend more time revising them than it would take me to write something more personalized and engaging for the PCs.

So when I hear someone finds just reading a module/AP to be an "enormous effort" and that they maybe put in 2-4 hours before every session just to understand it - especially if, like you, they find it far easier to do home campaigns, then I don't know what hell is going on with them. Why would you ever do that? It's like saying you get intense leg pains when you play tennis, and you don't enjoy tennis, but you keep playing tennis. What's going on to make that happen?

And I'll be honest, I have no comprehension of how you even could spend 2-4 hours/session (assuming 3-5 hour sessions) on a module/AP, every session (and maybe he didn't mean that, but it kinda seemed like he maybe did). I don't even know what you'd be doing. Reading an entire AP segment (which is likely a six to a dozen or more actual sessions of material) cover-to-cover is usually like 1-3 hours, and much less for a lot of modules (some are under 5-10 minutes at a normal reading/comprehension speed). Do you re-read the entire AP every time or something?

EDIT - Apologies for the wall of text. I feel like I could make myself understood better if I could edit this down a lot, but it would take a while.

 

[Scott Christian]

Sorry mate, but your whole post here reads like one of those brow-furrowing "Why won't people just argue with me on exactly my terms? I guess they all suck!" posts that gets downvoted into oblivion on reddit. Further, I've engaged with those people a bunch of times, and what happens? If you present a good argument, or obviously know more about something than them, they just stop posting. They don't engage back in a rewarding way, they aren't constructive, they don't have ideas, they just wanted you to meet their ultra-specific criteria, and when you did, they left. As I've never seen your posts before, I'm reluctant to engage with it. (Some to keep replying, but they always latch on to some bit of semantics and keep trying to argue that whilst ignoring the literally dozen other points you made in response to their points - that's even more exhausting).

Furthermore, I don't own Hoard, and I've never read it. Is it free? It doesn't seem to be. So you want me to buy an AP that's notably dreadful, then read this dreadful AP, then write up an essay for you on why it's bad?

OK, I will do that, if you:

A) Pay my expenses for buying Hoard (or provide me with a legal copy).

and

B) Pay my hourly rate, which I'm going to set at $50 (that's actually a discount) for however many hours it takes me to read, take notes, and then write up the essay you're demanding.

You going to do that? No. It's ridiculous. And so is your demand that I give specific criticism on this specific module which I don't own.

I am sorry you feel this way. I believe if you read most of my previous posts where I have "argued" with someone, you will see that I whole-heartedly concede and thank the person for educating me or I realize we are on opposite sides and can't cross the chasm. And when I do recognize either of those things, I state it directly without obfuscation. In fact, you can see me concede right in this very thread about chaotic neutral alignment.
As for Reddit, I do not go there. I only visit it to look at the maps for the Inkarnate map maker design tool. And even then, it is infrequent.
As for Hoard, I picked it because it is the most dissed AP D&D has for 5e. It was the first AP for 5e, so I assumed (possibly incorrectly) most on this forum have it. If not to run, at least to read and see how D&D is doing AP's with 5e. It has had so many negative reviews and comments I can't even keep track of them.

For the full reddit experience, I see you have added a bonus strawman argument. This isn't reddit, mate. Maybe don't do that, because it makes me think "Oh, this guy is demanding detailed arguments, but isn't going to actually read them". I've never said anything of the sort. In fact, the opposite is true. I've played some dreadful modules that, once we realized how bad they were, they were kind of hysterical. I don't know the names of all of them, because I wasn't running them, because I'm the sort of twonk who won't run something that bad. But I've played them, and they were really fun, once we adjusted for the fact that they were appallingly written. None of them lasted particularly long though. We were rolling around with how dubious the one that starts with that town blowing up in the FR is.

I say this, not as a strawman, but as a matter of dynamics. I simply am referring to your words. In this text, you won't run something so bad, but how do you know if you haven't read it? Seems impossible. You might glance through it and think it is unimaginative. That's possible and maybe even probable for most here. But you don't know if something is bad unless you run it. It's the person who says they won't watch the terrible movie, but hasn't seen it. The person who disses a book without having read. The person who hates a sport, but never played it. It's all the same.
It all goes back to what I stated earlier. There is no professional published AP from Pathfinder or D&D that can't be fun. And not in a sarcastic way, but fun. It all depends on the DM, the players and the chemistry between everyone. That's it. The material is professionally written, and it shows.

I ran several in 4E, but they were so bad that they made me give up on modules.

Sorry to hear that. Sometimes a change of players, different DM or even a different setting can help with the chemistry.

To me it sounds like you're saying reading a book and remembering stuff is hard. Which I don't think is true for me at all.

Like, you may be right that my "superpower" is absorbing information. I am good at it. But I do have ADHD, so you'd think that'd counter it to some extent.

Also, don't you take/make notes (margins, sticky, digital, etc.) and glance at them? If you're literally trying to memorize every single thing in an AP, you're doing it wrong mate. Especially if you're not really good at memorizing things, as you seem to be saying.

And don't you find, in the process of doing the above, particularly the last line, that you often find tons and tons of problems in modules? The early 4E WotC modules stood out for me as being deeply flawed when you tried to follow the logic, ecosystems, timelines and so on. Indeed, ecosystems in most of the WotC material I have seen are almost entirely lacking. You're lucky if the enemies even have a latrine (and if they do, it probably has an otyugh in it!).

I'd also love to hear from other DMs in this thread if they find what you're describing both "an enormous amount of work", and particularly whether they're taking the same "memorization not notes" approach as you. You also make it sound really un-fun, which is pretty wild. I only find it work when I have to correct an AP.

That is not what I was saying. I am saying to not always rely on improv, and to play the adventure as intended, there are a lot of things a DM needs to remember and prep for. If you wanna roll with improv, I can read a section of the AP and run it in twenty minutes, maybe fifteen. But I guarantee that is not how it was intended to be run. I feel like half the problem people have with AP's is due to lack of prep. Yes, I take notes. Yes, there are problems. Yes, I fix them. Which means more time. Are they so bad that they cause all the players to go, "This is stupid." Never seen it in thirty years. And yes, there is always an otyugh in the latrine. (PS - In Hoard it is a bunch of troglodytes.)

By "one episode" you mean an entire AP segment/book, right? Not like, one session? Because if you mean one session, why on earth are you even using an AP? Writing up the stuff for a session from zero, just from my mind takes 30 mins to 2 hrs, generally, and I enjoy it, except loot can in 5E, oddly. If I was taking 2+ hours to get ready to run a session of an AP, well, I wouldn't run that AP (the initial read-through and notes take longer, of course).

Generally speaking, 5E is about the third easiest D&D to prep for, in my experience. For me it goes AD&D/early editions, then 4E, then 5E, then really distantly beyond them 3.XE. And I don't find it hard to prep for as RPGs go. It's not like it's Shadowrun or something, where you can be there for literally hours and hours.

I also would say that your "curriculum as intended" point is pretty ridiculous. Running a module isn't a university class, for god's sake. It's a fun thing people do with their friends. That's a patently ludicrous comparison. The reality is, a DM who has 20 years experience, and glances at a module, is almost certainly going to do a massively better job overall than a guy who has significantly less experience, but obsesses and frets over the module in the way you're describing. It's not like I haven't had DMs like both (and many points in-between).

Further, you're really playing into my point here. Mr Obsessive McFrets who wants a precise reproduction of the module is going to totally wrecked when it turns out the module doesn't remotely account for the PCs making what, when you actually play it, is the obvious decision or the like.

In the end, I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here. Running modules is really hard for you? I guess that sucks. Maybe don't do it?

One session, yes. Heck, the time to make the maps and print them or build the Dwarven Forge and find all the miniatures takes a few hours. And reading it thoroughly, so I am not always improving is running it as intended. You seem to equate with running it as intended as someone fretting over it. That is, and I mean this sincerely, ridiculous. Paying attention to minute details gives some people a sense of accomplishment. Some people enjoy it. If I am prepping for a game and I nail a NPC and practice them a little. Then I have the map perfect. Then I think of alternatives for the PC's and add those into the lines. And think of clever or well crafted scenery descriptions or unique things that add to the local color of the setting. That is not fretting. That is trying to do a good job and enjoying my job.
And this is why I have the view that I do. A well prepped DM with players that play their characters that has chemistry can make any professionally written AP work.
And running a module is second nature to me. I don't fumble or stutter when someone goes off the rails. It doesn't bother me, no matter the situation or crazy event or thought process. I can roll with it easily. I can do it improv. I can do it with stuff I have made. I can do it with an AP. The difference is the AP requires more linear paths; therefore, a DM needs to be more cautious with each scene.

Also, given I answered your question re: when I last run a module, can you answer me this - when was the last time you ran D&D/PF AP for people you liked and had a good time? Because the vibe I get is never. You seem really down on reading an AP (and to have specific expectations of them that most APs don't meet, like proper ecosystems). And what was the AP?

I am not sure if you have read my posts, but I insist that professionally written AP's can be fun, even the ones that people review as terrible. The vibe I give is consistent: professionally written AP's are very well done. They are good, if not great. I even compared them to Shakespeare. So where you get I don't like them, I have no idea. (Maybe a rant about ecosystems, but that seems to hold true for almost all of RPG-dome. I fix it for them.)
As for running them:
Two PF modules:

• Mask of the Living God
• The Midnight Mirror

Both these are short, but fun. They do require quite a bit of work (for me) to get the setting details on point. They require little logic fixing.
D&D 5e:

• Curse of Strahd
• Tomb of Antihalation

DM'ed one, playing in the other. Both are a complete blast and very well done. I really can't imagine fitting more information into a book that size.
D&D 4e:

• Almost every single organized play AP. They only went to third or fourth level, but they were fun. They explored the different settings for 4e, and the plot hooks were well crafted.

My stuff:

• Two adventures I wrote that worked into my friend's campaign. (I only include these as they were a railroad style adventures. But it was easy to railroad as the characters already had a vested interest in securing their keep and protecting the town. These went very well.)
• An AP that houses alternative paths for characters (play the hero or scoundrel). If they choose neither, then we play something else. They chose the hero path. It worked out nicely. Halfway through one character decided to suddenly be a scoundrel. I worked it in. He was on his secret mission. He enjoyed it. The other characters found out from his doing and killed him. It was a blast.

Of course all of these require player buy-in: be it backgrounds, hooks, and/or motives. Of course, if someone is just playing their character as a conduit of any whim the player may be feeling, then none of it works. Fortunately, the five different groups through these scenarios, had no such player.