So, what makes 1e adventures so great?

[Henry]

Me, I like things specific. A Dark Sun adventure should use psionics, desert travel, elven nomad tribes, city-states with their corrupt templarate, and so on. An Eberron adventure should use the Houses and their Dragonmarks, Inspired, remains of the Last War, and so on. That's why you use settings, because you like the things that make them different. Otherwise, what's the point?

When Keep on the Borderlands, White Plume Mountain, Dungeons of the Slave lords, etc. were written, campaigns were not quite that varied at the time. Two campaigns were probably more alive than they were different. Even now, the number of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance players, or players of homebrews in these veins, probably still outstrip the number of Eberron, Planescape, and Dark Sun players. With the core of the idea as it is, it can be placed in any of them with a minimum of fuss. The Cleric in the Caves of Chaos can be a cleric of the Mockery, or Bane, or Hextor; however, The avangion in a Dark Sun module would be a little harder to translate -- perhaps a powerful fey or some such.

Even then, I admit that the appeal of the old modules has faded largely now that both the game rules and settings are so varied; But when a cleric was a cleric was a cleric, it was more portable to put the caves in the Flanaess, or Faerun, or Krynn than to convert so much. My point is mainly why the modules were so popular for so long, rather than supporting why they would be popular now. Although I'll always admit to stealing a bit or piece for something current every now and again. I don't do that for much of anything from the 1990's from TSR.

 

[TerraDave]

Its not just nostalgia. Having played through a some of these in later times with players not having much of a nostalgia factor I will repeat it is not just nostalgia.

The work of Col Pladoh and Tracy Hickman (pre DL), was extremely creative while remaining focused on the PCs going in, really kicking some butt and being involved in something interesting and extremely dangerous. At the same time, Eric Mona is right (of course), at some point TSR lost the point of what the adventures and game was about. This made those early adventures look all the better.

There are newer adventures that recapture some of that feel (or much of it) with the new rules and some times better implementation. Sunless Citadel is good, and does work as an introductory module. NeMoren's vault is great, and impresive in how it combines a strong backstory and 3.0 rules with a very first edition feeling dungeon crawl (just be carefull with the treasure). And Necromancer has a number of modules that do in fact do what they promise in terms of combining new rules (and usually more background and setting material) with a "first edition feel".

So it can be done. But it wasn't, for a really long time.

 

[T. Foster]

Hey Merric, nice summary of the earliest adventures, but you made one mistake -- D3 was published in 1978, simultaneously (AFAIK) with D1 and D2. It was re-published in 1981 with different cover-art (as were all of the 'pastel' modules) but the contents were pretty much unchanged (check The Acaeum for exact details).

 

[demiurge1138]

I had no idea about the editing of Palace of the Silver Princess, and that's the only one of the classic modules I've actually read. Thanks for the link, Jody Johnson.

Demiurge out.

 

[Shade]

On top of what everyone else said, I always felt like the old modules were an "event'. Where nowadays you get a new monster and a magic item, in the old days you got them by the truckload. Heck. S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth gave you a sizable chunk of what would be the Monster Manual 2. I doubt we'll ever see that happen again.

I'd also open them with eager anticipation, waiting to see the next future iconic adversary (such as drow), or demon prince, or evil artifact, etc.

With some exceptions, 1E modules felt like summer or Christmastime blockbusters, 2E like indie flicks, and 3E feel like the stuff sprinkled throughout out the rest of the year.

 

[Erik Mona]

For what it's worth, Dungeon #112's "Maure Castle" was our attempt to present an "old style" dungeon crawl with all of the fixins players have come to expect over the last 30 years. Whether we ultimately succeeded in that attempt is of course up to the reader, but I strongly feel that you don't need to sacrifice what was cool about the old adventures to present something that is at the same time modern and new. It is a false dichotomy, and one I hope dies violently, perhaps with a lethal result on the "Good Hits and Bad Misses" chart.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

 

[Shade]

For what it's worth, Dungeon #112's "Maure Castle" was our attempt to present an "old style" dungeon crawl with all of the fixins players have come to expect over the last 30 years. Whether we ultimately succeeded in that attempt is of course up to the reader, but I strongly feel that you don't need to sacrifice what was cool about the old adventures to present something that is at the same time modern and new. It is a false dichotomy, and one I hope dies violently, perhaps with a lethal result on the "Good Hits and Bad Misses" chart.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

You succeeded. Big time. Maure Castle, to me, is the best 3E adventure, bar none.

 

[MerricB]

Hey Merric, nice summary of the earliest adventures, but you made one mistake -- D3 was published in 1978, simultaneously (AFAIK) with D1 and D2. It was re-published in 1981 with different cover-art (as were all of the 'pastel' modules) but the contents were pretty much unchanged (check The Acaeum for exact details).

Ah - I see where I went wrong, I didn't scroll down enough on the Acaeum page. I mistook the listing for D1-2 for D3.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

The Fourth Year: 1981
S2: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
L1: The Secret of Bone Hill
I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City
U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade
A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords
A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords
X1: The Isle of Dread
X2: Castle Amber
B3: Palace of the Silver Princess

One of the most interesting adventures of 1981 was the first release of the Expert D&D series of module: The Isle of Dread. This was the first module to be made up of adventuring in the outdoors wilderness (as opposed to the underground wilderness of D1-3). X1 was an exploration module where the PCs ended up on Skull Island with a hexgrid map that they had to fill in as they went along. I don't know of many other adventures of this type - if any! Mostly the wilderness is not mapped by the players. Added to this was the Lost World/Skull Island motif, and the adventure must be considered a classic, though it still required a good DM to fill in the additional details (and to make the Cthulhu-like Kopru significantly scary).

The other Expert-series module, X2, also owed its debt to written works, in these cases the works of Clark Ashton Smith. I am not sufficiently familiar with either the adventure or the books to comment further, however.

The problems that beset the original version of B3 have been detailed elsewhere (and here), again, I'm not sufficiently familiar with the revised adventure to comment much upon it. As I recall, it was turned into an entertaining quest adventure, which set the template for the more structured modules that would arrive from the Basic line.

Returning to AD&D, S2: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is one of the great classics. There is no big villain (as there was for the Giants, Drow and Tomb), but instead just a strange metal dungeon filled with very strange devices and monsters. Kill monsters and take their stuff - certainly - but with a fantastic and extremely challenging environment to do it in.

A2 and A3 followed the pattern of A1 and C1: challenging encounters for tournaments. Little here that we hadn't seen before. A4, however, is something special as the PCs had to escape from the dungeons without any equipment!

I1, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, was the first installment on the "Intermediate" series of modules for mid-level characters. It was another tournament module, although fleshed out more than others of the time. It is primarily interesting for introducing the Aboleth and Yuan-Ti, and for being set in an exotic tropical setting. This is another of the classic AD&D modules.

Finally we come to L1 and U1, two adventures for beginning characters.

U1, The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, was the first adventure of the UK branch of TSR. It is well regarded, and is actually quite unusual. Containing two linked adventures, it takes remarkably little time to play through. The first part deals with a "haunted" house that actually turns out to be the home of smugglers; the second part deals with a raid on their ship which finds more secrets that would be dealt with in the next installment. It also suggested a greater involvement of the home base than was normal, although it left much of the detailing of the town up to the DM.

L1, The Secret of Bone Hill by Lenard Lakofka, followed the pattern of T1 by detailing the home base of the characters in some detail. Where it varied from that pattern is by also giving a lot of detail about the countryside and the adventure opportunities there. When I consider Lenard Lakofka's articles in Dragon magazine, I see someone who wanted to add more detail to D&D than it needed. That trait is definitely in L1!

I find the adventure to be confused in layout, though containing much good material. Similar to T1, the PCs begin in the town trying to discover details about adventure opportunities - a striking contrast to the "here's the dungeon and go get it!" of other modules. For reasons that Erik touches on above, I think that's why I've never warmed to L1 and T1 as much as others.

Cheers!

 

[Patman21967]

Its been said before, but it bears repeating now...

Originality is probably the biggest key, coupled with nostalgia.

Combine that with all the growth in the hobby- the countless articles on how to improve your DMin style, how to run scary dragons again, the ecology articles, the slayers guides... Every player and DM has learned and internalized SO MUCH about how to be a better RPG hobbyist that we have higher standards.

An analogy if I may...

Bootsy Collins is credited with being one of the greatest bass guitar players of all time, but there are many modern players who are, quite simply BETTER. Yet he retains this status- How can this be? He is great because he did so many things first and well, but the modern players have learned the lessons he taught. The bar has been raised. What Bootsy innovated, the new guys must learn merely to be considered compitent.

So when we encounter modules or supplements that seem to be lacking, we are seeing that supplement through the internal lenses of knowing so much more than we did in 1979. Maybe this new adventure has mindless undead that we know the party will simply wade through in a couple of rounds, when we know that an encounter with even mindless undead can be a serious challenge to even a medium level party...if handled properly. Maybe the BBeDragon at the end seems wussy, because we know that these are ancient and crafty beings who can use magic and tactics as well as any party could...and possibly better.

Think about how liches were run before and after "Vecna Lives!"

To further your incredible analogy, and because i just saw him, and my best friend sang with him 2 weeks ago in NYC..Les Paul. Les, while at 82 is still a better guitar player than most, is widely regarded as the best because he was a pioneer. He was and still is a God. Same with Gene Krupa on drums, and Rick Wakeman with Keys, although Wakeman probably is and was the greatest. They did many things first.

But for me, as a GM, the thing I like most is the ease of running them. Most modern modules take a lot of prep work. Lots of reading, trying to fit it into your campaign, and making adjustments. Old ones, you could just pick up and run...period