D&D General The most played D&D Adventure of all time

[Zardnaar]

Also, the intro modules in the rulebooks need to be part of the conversation. Lots of folks still curse Bargle's name, meaning he had to traumatize a lot of players. There's also the tower of Zenopus. And the AD&D DMG dungeon has been reprinted in multiple later books.

They can't compete with Phandelver or Keep, but I think a lot more people have played through those than we realize.

Also, the most popular Dragon and Dungeon magazine adventures were also very popular. I ran Citadel by the Sea -- a great classic PCs versus orcs adventure -- many times, for instance, and Fedifensor, by virtue of being one of the first planar adventures and featuring the githyanki when they were new and very hot, was also super-popular.

Dungeons great but they didn't sell that many copies relative to the big B/X, 1E and 5E modules.

Solid contender for 3rd place would also be Tyranny of Dragons/CoS along with one other 2E modules or X1.

After that it's probably various 5E modules. Only around 3 or 4 B/X or 1E modules broke 200k+ sales.

B2 a long time with AD&D crossover as well.

Nothing certain but B2 and LMoP are the biggest selling adventures of all time.


LMoP is the second biggest selling adventure of all time just using that partial glimpse they gave us 5-6 years ago NA sales only. Probably the biggest selling ever. Can't 100% say that and there's various estimates of B2 as well.

 

[The Hierophant]

True but those are really niche products; I think the vast majority of folks who played this will have done so because of the pack-in with Basic.

Oh I’m sure. I started with B/X and played B2 many times. Metric was talking about versions and the Hackmaster version is possibly the best.

 

[TerraDave]

I think a big challenge is that, in the AD&D days, we replayed the modules a lot, because there weren't many of them, but the number of players was so small, that even if we ran the G, D, Q, I, U, L, A and especially S series over and over and over again, it isn't hard for a large number of 3E or 5E players to come along and just play the bejesus out of an intro module and jump past all of those.

Even back in the day, I'm skeptical that many people played through the big megadungeons even once, much less multiple times. I'd say the T1 Moathouse, because it's short, low level, well-designed and was one of the first adventures ever, is probably top 5 and certainly top 10.

Pretty sure there were more AD&D players then 3e ones, and, at least for those modules, much higher sales

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I last ran B2 in 2021. Also ran it in 2015, in 2006, in 1996, in 1990, and several times in the 1980s - probably three times; it's been a while. It was also the second game I played in as a player, although it was AD&D, not B/X. I don't think I'm unusual in having played this module to death, and given its age and ubiquity it's hard for me to believe that anything has overtaken it yet in terms of "most played."

 

[MerricB]

I last ran B2 in 2021. Also ran it in 2015, in 2006, in 1996, in 1990, and several times in the 1980s - probably three times; it's been a while. It was also the second game I played in as a player, although it was AD&D, not B/X. I don't think I'm unusual in having played this module to death, and given its age and ubiquity it's hard for me to believe that anything has overtaken it yet in terms of "most played."

Part of the point of this thread is that it's hard to grasp how popular 5E has been.

It's also rather tricky for us grognards to know how people who started later (say in the 90s, or the 2000s) view Keep on the Borderlands. Because, for those eras, it wasn't an available adventure. I ran Keep for my friends, converted to 3E during the early 2000s, but I don't think any of the new 5E players - of which there were many at my FLGS - know what it is.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Ancalagon]

In my 30+ years of playing D&D I've never played keep of the borderland...

 

[Lanefan]

Also, the intro modules in the rulebooks need to be part of the conversation. Lots of folks still curse Bargle's name, meaning he had to traumatize a lot of players. There's also the tower of Zenopus. And the AD&D DMG dungeon has been reprinted in multiple later books.

It has? I've never stumbled across it.

They can't compete with Phandelver or Keep, but I think a lot more people have played through those than we realize.

Also, the most popular Dragon and Dungeon magazine adventures were also very popular. I ran Citadel by the Sea -- a great classic PCs versus orcs adventure -- many times, for instance, and Fedifensor, by virtue of being one of the first planar adventures and featuring the githyanki when they were new and very hot, was also super-popular.

Lots of people would have seen these but I'm not sure how many ran/played them

 

[Lanefan]

Dungeons great but they didn't sell that many copies relative to the big B/X, 1E and 5E modules.

Solid contender for 3rd place would also be Tyranny of Dragons/CoS along with one other 2E modules or X1.

After that it's probably various 5E modules. Only around 3 or 4 B/X or 1E modules broke 200k+ sales.

B2 a long time with AD&D crossover as well.

Nothing certain but B2 and LMoP are the biggest selling adventures of all time.

I can't think of any 2e modules that got nearly the airplay that a lot of the 1e-era ones did before and some key 3e-4e-5e ones did since.

2e, for all its good settings and other material, really was a wasteland for adventure modules.

And I suppose somebody should at least mention them: the Judges' Guild modules Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia are two more of the few dozen modules in outer orbit around this discussion.

 

[MerricB]

It has? I've never stumbled across it.

I think its most prominent reprint/revision was in Dungeon Magazine #84 - as "Dungeon of the Fire Opal" by Jonathan Tweet.

The map appears in the 3E DMG and the 5E DMG.

But... that dungeon is a fragment. It pretty much is ONLY the map. The only time it's fully stocked is in Dungeon Magazine #84, otherwise it's a couple of rooms.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Lanefan]

I think its most prominent reprint/revision was in Dungeon Magazine #84 - as "Dungeon of the Fire Opal" by Jonathan Tweet.

The map appears in the 3E DMG and the 5E DMG.

But... that dungeon is a fragment. It pretty much is ONLY the map. The only time it's fully stocked is in Dungeon Magazine #84, otherwise it's a couple of rooms.

Cheers,
Merric

That would explain why I've never seen it, I pretty much gave up on Dungeon magazine after about issue 12.