TSR/WotC Adventures - Are they REALLY any good? (Warning: Possible Spoilers)

[the Jester]

I hear good things about Red Hand of Doom, but have not run it. What makes it so good?

Oh, man, it is totally awesome for so many reasons. Tons of spoilers:

[sblock]First of all, it has a timeline. The bad guys have an agenda and actively promote it; the pcs can interfere how they like, but if they just ignore the bad guys, they will sweep through the region that the adventure takes place in with an army of evil humanoids and their allies.

Second, it doesn't assume that the pcs automatically win, or that they do everything in the adventure. RHoD uses the victory point system, in which the actions of the pcs throughout have an effect on the big end battle (a siege and assault against a city).

(Actually, the actual final chapter in the module isn't the assault on the city, but it works better if you switch the order IMHO.)

Third, the maps are beautiful. Good legible cartography is an art that seems to have been neglected in the 4e era, with the prevalence of (crappy IMHO) dungeon tiles and printed battlemaps that are often murky and hard to see what's supposed to be what. The maps in RHoD are just gorgeous.

Fourth, the whole thing is a huge sandbox set up in the order the pcs are most likely to tackle it. There is a tremendous amount of freedom to act built in; the pcs can ignore the main plotline if they'd like and cruise around the valley that the adventure is set in while the Red Hand of Doom rolls over the towns. It just makes it harder to win against them in the end.

Fifth, it has a variety of different encounters, including an assassination attempt if the pcs interfere with the RHoD too much and a bunch of really awesome different foes. I especially dig the blighter lich.

Finally, the whole thing is really well organized. Even though I'm not a fan of the "appendix with all the stat blocks" approach, I can see why they did it and it really works.[/sblock]

I'm actually going to have to re-read it now.

 

[Mengu]

I've never really liked published adventures, I can never fit them into my vision of a campaign, though I've found neat little things in them that I could use in my own adventures. Red Hand of Doom is probably one exception, where I enjoyed playing through that campaign immensely, but part of that is probably the way our DM converted it to 4e, and molded it around our characters.

I want to see a few published adventures early on, to get a sense of how to design encounters and adventuring days (I wouldn't necessarily run said adventures). But beyond that, once I get the hang of the system, I don't really care what adventures they publish, how many they publish, etc. But I'm probably not the target audience for published adventures anyway. For me, it's too much work to learn an adventure to the point where I feel I own it, so I can run it without hiccups. I'd rather take the agile approach, and make stuff up as I go, based on the actions of the PC's, so the adventure is the result of a collaborative effort between DM and players. And I have the home field advantage of knowing my campaign world and my adventures better than a world/adventure someone else (or multiple someones) wrote.

 

[Failed Saving Throw]

I'll echo some earlier points made. I've always been a big fan of published adventures, and I've had great fun with them with various groups, from D&D Basic all the way up to 3.5. I ran a long campaign where we played through most of the Savage Tide adventure path, which was contained in the final printed issues of Dungeon. That group fell apart after our host had to move to Detroit, and by the time I assembled a new group we decided to try 4E. And one of the many things that killed my interest in 4E completely was trying to play with published adventures.

First we tried one of the first 4E modules put out by Goodman Games - Isle of the Sea Drake. That is seriously one of the worst adventures ever printed. We scrapped it after a single session. From there I turned to WoTC stuff, and the group's enthusiasm waned with each game. By the time we made it to Thunderspire Labyrinth, everyone was done. I pulled the plug and that was that.

My biggest complaint about the 4E modules were that they all revolved completely around combat - repetitive, grinding combat. I think that's interesting to some people but not to most experienced players.

 

[amerigoV]

T1 - Village of Hommlet is a excellent adventure that is still viable today.

• Another good "home base" type adventure that a DM can build out from
• Lots of little hooks embedded into the town description. Its not well organized, but not all the little bits of information is meant to be used, but its there to create some flexibility
• A rich of bit of history in a small area
• The adventure at the Moathouse could be better (plot itself is ok). On the other hand, there are a nice number of set pieces that can be tweeked -- example, instead of the bandits working with the Temple, they could be independent and Lareth is sent to wipe them out to avoid attention (ie, the PCs show up and the bandits are dead - it turns it into a nice horror adventure).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Desert of Desolation: Possibly my favorite series of modules ever, and this is with the first module containing exploding pineapples and a random gnome mining with a spoon. And the Waters of Athis? Gee, where did that story line lead them. ;-)

That series is probably my all-time favorite of the old modules that I actually ran. I'm still not sure why, either. When I look at it logically, I don't see anything in particular that really sticks out. Yet the whole thing just seems to fit together so well. Very much a "sum is greater than the parts" series for me.

 

[Stormonu]

Okay, fair enough. In hindsight, I was being over-sensitive. Sorry.



I certainly agree with the second (PCs being the rudder).

However, I'm not so sure about the detailed backstories. What I've noticed as I read more and more adventures is that they now tend to have long and lovingly-detailed backstories... that aren't really followed up on in the adventure itself.

If the BBEG has a detailed backstory of lost love and betrayed honour, but the players never learn of this, what's the point? Indeed, even if the PCs do learn these things, but can't put that information to any use, why bother? Isn't it just wasted paper? If all they actually see is "Vampire Lord, CR 16", then their response will be predictable: hack, hack, hack.

I should perhaps note here: even Paizo seem to be as guilty of this as anyone else. Sometimes, they do properly tie the background to the adventure... but not as often as they maybe should.

I certainly understamd where you are coming from, but as a mostly-DM, I do enjoy 1-2 really detailed NPCs in an adventure (more than that, and it becomes homework - bleh!)

As you said, sometimes Paizo overlavishes on their NPCs. But a couple of times I've actually found that to be beneficial. In Rise of the Runelords, for example, the party managed to capture one of the bad guy's luietenants, and because of his write-up, he got played in a way the party was actually able to turn him to their side. In another, the NPC notes ended up skewing a fight, where a NPC ally deserted the party mid-combat to settle a score with a reteating NPC enemy miniboss, putting the PCs in a dilemna of choosing to mop up a handful of easyminions (who could warn the rest of their base if left unchecked) or chasing after their ally to aid in a tough fight. These actions came about from knowledge I had that the PCs didn't from their NPC write-up. While I'd not enspouse every NPC to have pages devoted to their life story, you never know when a couple of paragraphs about an NPC willl change how the adventure plays out.

 

[Cybit]

1) I think nostalgia colors a lot of it; we were far more tolerant of bad design when we were younger, cuz, frankly, we didn't know any better.

2) KotS really hurt 4E. Had they released Madness at Gardmore Abbey or even Thunderspire Labyrinth as their original adventure, the "rollplaying" comments would have been kept to a minimum, and I think 4E would have gained far more acceptance.

Our initial playtest of a game can very powerfully (irrationally so) shape our thoughts of a system. Unfortunately, KOTS did not live up to the challenge.

As for adventures, Red Hand of Doom is really good, Thunderspire Labyrinth is fun, as is Gardmore. Couple of the Encounters seasons (the Neverwinter one and the Crystal Cave) were pretty good. The DM Rewards Tomb of Horrors was also really fun. I want to redo Revenge of the Giants one day; it has really good potential, but just flawed execution (and terrible monster math).

 

[Obryn]

Our initial playtest of a game can very powerfully (irrationally so) shape our thoughts of a system. Unfortunately, KOTS did not live up to the challenge.

Yep. I think it's fair to say that the first adventure for a game is a sales pitch, of sorts.

Every game has good points and bad points. The game should convince you that its good points outweigh its bad points. KotS shined a spotlight right at all the places where 4e does not excel.

There's the seeds of a good adventure there. A skilled DM can make it great. But it's just not a good introduction to the system... and as a very early adventure, there are no skilled DMs yet.

-O

 

[Mattachine]

As others said, the Desert of Desolation is among my favorites in D&D history. Well-written, interesting story, lots of fun, lots of puzzles/traps, even meaningful rp.

I also really liked the 3.0 Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil . . . except that I had to add my own timeline, and allow PCs to know there was some sort of timeline. Otherwise, the PCs could simply take their sweet ol'time and make the adventure too easy.

 

[ExploderWizard]

B1 - In Search of the Unknown. The Good: you can customize the rooms with your own creatures (from a list in the module). The Bad: Lots of maze-like deadends with no purpose. Plot is wet t-paper thin.

B2 - Keep on the Borderlands. The Good: A home base and a mini ecosystem dungeon. The Bad: Overwhelming odds tends to mean the PCs die in their first foray until they learn caution.

Lets examine the bad a little more closely:

B1- As to the maze-like deadends with no (seeming) purpose, take a look at the list of monsters used to stock the module. There are 56 numbered areas on the map and only 25 monster encounters. Furthermore, the DM is instructed to use only 16-20 of those presented for the entire module. This means that roughly 66% of all keyed areas will not have a set monster encounter.

This gives the PCs a bit of exploration space and those maze-like dead ends can be areas where the PCs can hole up and catch a bit of rest, or places to lure monsters into to kill them. Clever players can probably find other purposes for empty areas too.

The plot is the meat and potatoes of D&D! There is a dangerous underground complex said to hold great wealth. It awaits adventurers brave enough to explore it. Considering the bulk of XP is gained from aquiring treasure, the "plot" is fairly rich.

B2- Learning caution early on is beneficial. As adventurers become more powerful and are able to handle greater threats, caution can sometimes be forgotten. If the players never learn the need for careful, clever play then the lesson won't be learned in the first place. 1st level is the best time to learn these lessons. Better to lose a newly rolled 1st level character than a 3rd or higher level one because you never learned not to bite off more than you can chew.

Selections from AD&D 1E

A4 - In the Dungeons of the Slavelords. The Good: Tests the character's wits. Fun final encounter really lets the PCs get their revenge. The Bad: Railroad beginning requires the PCs to be bereft of equipment.

A fair assessment.

I6 - Ravenloft. The Good: Strong story-based atmosphere. The villain does not sit idle waiting for the PCs. High replayability due to random placement of key story objects and villain goals.

Lets not forget the super-duper railroad that starts this eh.

S1 - Tomb of Horrors. The Good: Can't be defeated via violence. Interesting puzzles and traps. The Bad: You're not going to make it through without dying unless you cheat. It's only fun for the sadistic DM.

From personal experience, the bad is not universally true. I have survived play in the tomb ( can't say the same for the whole party but it is a contact sport), and had genuine fun as a player.

Some personal favorites:

L2- The Assassins Knot

I really enjoyed this adventure. There were events taking place, a timeline that kept the pressure on the PCs to solve the mystery, interesting NPCs to interact with and cool places to explore- all without being linear or feeling like a railroad.

I1- Dwellers of the Forbidden City

Great sandbox module. There are multiple plot hooks leading to the ruined city, multiple factions and power players to interact, ally with, and use for your own advancement. It has a really good S&S vibe. Yuan-Ti and Aboleth are new and alien creatures. I have run it for different players in both 1E and 3E and it rocked every time.