What are the worst classic D&D adventure modules?

[Stormonu]

I can't agree on the DL modules, I find them quite good. DL16 - World of Krynn, however, is another story (Soth with the Tarrasque in his closet, really ?!?)

I also vote for WGS7 Castle Greyhawk as THE WORST; that module should never have been made. Strangely, both Dungeonland and Through the Magic Mirror seem to be decent, if really, really strange.

H4 is horrible as well - it is unintended comedy displaying that the staff of TSR had no idea how to handle high-level adventurers intelligently. The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga shows the same absurdity.

I'll also throw in D1 - Descent into the Depths. It seems to be nothing more than "lets throw the entire monster manual into one big area and let the adventurers loose in it" sort of module. I don't even seem to remember it having a plot.

 

[Filcher]

But heh, I was only 14, and as much as I wince to admit it, I loved "The Forest Oracle"...

Sign me up as well as a FO lover. But a Caldwell cover and an isometric map of a ruined keep went a long way in those days.

 

[Mistwell]

The DragonLance modules were far from the worst; some were among the best.

There are a few encounters in DL1 which made the railroad unacceptable (elven Rangers - I'm looking at you), but the entire design concept in terms of the story flow was VERY new to what had essentially up to that point been some pretty lame location based advantures which were almost entirely of the Old Skool dungeon designs where "plot" and "motivation" was something that was almost entirely absent from the adventures' "story".

What became obvious in terms of DL1 and DL2's flaws were corrected in later module designs within the DL series. These are only "obvious" mistakes now because of Tracy Hickman's and the rest of the DL design team's initial work. Somebody had to be first to make the mistakes in order to correct them. They blazed the way in both capacities. They deserve to be cut a little slack.

We seem to go through a DragonLance hate thread every year or two on EnWorld. The conlusion is the same in most of the threads, so why not try and cut it off at the pass before we spend another 50-100 posts on it, shall we?

It comes down to this: DragonLance was released ca. 1984 and was the first module series directly supported by novels. This was the real problem, as the tendency of DMs' to try to "force" the characters playing the module to do the same thing as the characters in the novels was repeated time and time again and colors the experiences and recollection of most players. Those problems had exceedingly little to do with the design of the actual modules themselves, but was a consequence of the novels and the age of the players and DMs involved. There are a few exceptions to this - but most of those over-arching railroad problems were fixed by DL6 when the obscure death rule is wiped from the game's design after a fan backlash.

A lot of the DragonLance module series designs were, in fact, quite brilliant and original. DL4 is an awesome dungeon, as is DL6. The War fought in DL8 and 9 using the Battlesystem rules was very entertaining and innovative and the artwork stunningly detailed and superb.

To this day, the map for the Tower of the High Clerist in DL8 has NEVER been surpassed in detail and size in a single structure map depicted in any other module product published by any other company in any other product line since then -- and they've had 25 years to equal it since the map to the Tower of the High Clerist was released. TWENTY-FIVE FRIKKIN' YEARS. That's a Looooong time folks.

So be a little more balanced on the "DragonLance modules suck" stuff.

I would argue that DL10 and that module's '"dreamtrack design" was incredibly clever and allowed a DM to wipe out his entire party of players with maniacal glee in a TPK - more than once in the same adventure. The value of the look on the player's faces during that event alone was well worth the price of several of the DL modules.

In the end, people recall their experiences with the DragonLance modules as much younger players or as much younger DMs -- and in the vast majority of cases, the real problem with the modules related to the age of the people who were running them and playing them -- and the fact that the DM and players both were far too hung up in recreating the stories of the modules as depicted in the novels, as opposed to actually playing and creating their own stories.

Played on their own, with original characters and without a DM bound and determined to try to make the PCs do "something the way they were supposed to", the DL modules were among the very best modules released for either 1st or 2nd ed.

There is also no doubt that in terms of impact on modern adventure design, the DragonLance series had probably as great an impact - indeed, maybe greater than any other module series ever published, in all of FRPG history. Yes, that "ever" would include Keep on the Borderlands and GDQ1-7.

The plot based structure of the DragonLance module series remains with us today and lies at the core of Paizo's Adventure Path design.

For someone completely unfamiliar with this modules, and only vaguely familiar with the novels, what would you say is the one thing in these modules worth pulling out and plopping down into an entirely unrelated campaign?

 

[Steel_Wind]

For someone completely unfamiliar with this modules, and only vaguely familiar with the novels, what would you say is the one thing in these modules worth pulling out and plopping down into an entirely unrelated campaign?

That's easy: the maps.

The adventure maps for virtually all of the first two thirds of the series are brilliantly inspired and heavy in atmosphere. They are as follows:

DL1- Map to Xak Tsaroth: The ruins of a city that have been swallowed by the earth, party turned upside down and in a vast cavern below ground level.

DL2 - Map to Pax Tharkas: A keep astride a pass, featuring a central mechanism which drops an improbably large block of stone which seals off the pass. There is a secret passage and small dungeon below the keep which provides an interesting entrance into it.

DL3 - Map to Skullcap: A Wizard’s lair that has exploded in a colossal event in the past, leaving a twisted and melted ruin beneath. A final boss battle with a mechanical hydra located in a maze of invisible walls can save or damn the party from breath weapons.

DL4 - There are some dungeon geomorphs to Thorbardin, a Dwarven city that is on the scale with - and more complicated than Moria. These are interesting and useful - but ultimately, anything that big is difficult to actually use.

The Map to Duncan's Tomb is a floating castle/Dungeon ripped from the ground and hovering hundreds of feet up in the air. Repurpose the map for whatever purpose your heart desires. I have used this map several times in other unrelated campaigns. It's a great map.

DL6 - Map to Icewall Castle: The lair of the BBEG, carved from a glacier, complete with secret ways in via tubes in the ice created by - and still inhabited by - Remorhaz.

DL7 - Map to the Temple of the Dragon: a Huge Temple to a dragon, resembling a dragon carved from Stone and set in to the side of a cliff. Epic looking - though perhaps not as much fun as the earlier map designs, despite its epic appearance.

DL8 - Map to the Tower of the High Clerist: A castle that is nearly 800 feet tall, with level after level after level of floor map designs and layouts for you to fill with whatever your heart desires. Still the largest published Castle Map of all time, AFAIK. If you wanted to run the whole damn dungeon as one campaign - 1st to 20th a la WLD, you easily do so. As the lair of your BBEG and the last dungeon crawl of your campaign? This is >>Da Shizznit<<. I have often re-used sections of this map in other campaigns. I don't think my players ever recognized it either. It's a MASSIVE castle. The module itself does not even pretend to detail less than a few dozen areas. There are Hundreds and Hundreds of area in the thing. It's MONSTROUSLY HUGE, okay?

The maps in the later adventures are also good - though not nearly as good as those that appear in the first 8, imo.

The thing that grabs me with DragonLance has always been the production values in the maps. Most were reprinted in one form or another in the Atlas of the Dragonlance World as well - which is actually going for pretty cheap on eBay these days. The number of copies of each these modules that TSR was selling at the time was ridiculously high by today's standards, and as these were the flagship products of TSR in the mid 80s, they sunk a lot of time and money in to making these maps. They have stood the test of time. Even today, they are among the finest FRPG maps ever made, imo.

 

[ExploderWizard]

For someone completely unfamiliar with this modules, and only vaguely familiar with the novels, what would you say is the one thing in these modules worth pulling out and plopping down into an entirely unrelated campaign?

The actual theme of the real gods turning their backs on mortals and the need to bring awareness of their existance to civilization is pretty cool and could be done as the overall theme of a campaign minus the heavy railroading.

 

[Chris Knapp]

For someone completely unfamiliar with this modules, and only vaguely familiar with the novels, what would you say is the one thing in these modules worth pulling out and plopping down into an entirely unrelated campaign?

This is a great tangent but should probably be forked so as not to derail the OP.

That said, in my opinion and experience, DL is best taken as a whole, not its collective parts. You can pick individual sections apart but taken as a grand epic, it was revolutionary for its time. Much more so than GDQ.

The most original thing is the Silvanesti Nightmare module (DL10.) The entire 2nd half is a waking dream and the chance to revist past deeds and previously slain enemies (and allies) messes with players heads to no end. Plus foozle is the baddest green dragon ever!

 

[MortonStromgal]

For someone completely unfamiliar with this modules, and only vaguely familiar with the novels, what would you say is the one thing in these modules worth pulling out and plopping down into an entirely unrelated campaign?

I would just add DL1-3 are incredibly good for ideas on how to run world events vs character events if your willing to sit down and take the time to reorganize the whole thing. Rather than choose your own adventure, read each section and tie it in to all the other possibilities for that section. The ideas were solid even if the execution was poor. A lot of the earlier storyline adventures were formatted badly.

 

[rogueattorney]

A lot of people are picking adventures from the earlier part of the 80's for stylistic reasons. Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horror, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and the Dragonlance series may not be your bag, but I'd say they were largely successful at achieving what they set out to do.

I believe the worst AD&D modules were mostly published from about 1986 to 1990, in the transition between 1e and 2e. TSR was moving away from adventures as the featured support for the game and concentrating on campaign settings and rule supplements. That's where their main efforts were going. They also started publishing Dungeon magazine during this time period, and although I was not a subscriber, I've had more than one person tell me that the good adventures were being put in the magazine.

A lot of the adventures during the time period seemed to be slap dash, barely edited, space fillers.

For the worst, I'd pick the following:

The railroad-y Avatar trilogy has already been mentioned, as have the early 2e revival of the WG series - Puppmaster, Gargoyle, etc.

I'd add the FRC series, which straddled 1e and 2e, and read and played more like advertisements for the Gold Box CPU games than D&D adventures and the horrible I10 sequel to Ravenloft, which turned the events of the original into a dream.

Also OP1 Tales from the Outer Planes anthology was pure dreck. In the first adventure, the party literally has nothing to do until the end scene. Until then, they are led by the nose through a series of planar scenes. Horrible!

Interestingly, many of the adventures in this era had tiny print runs (compared to the monstrous print runs in the hundreds of thousands for the modules in the earlier part of the decade) and despite their inferior quality actually are pretty darn expensive to get a hold of.

Some of the worst D&D modules were published a little before the bad AD&D period. D&D seemed to be where the b-list of contributors was being shunted. About the same time AD&D started going down hill, Bruce Heard (1987-ish to 1992-ish) took over as the D&D product manager, and he did a great job of getting some top-flight freelancers to work on the D&D projects, as seen in the generally high-quality GAZ series of products.

But some of the worst from the earlier phase were:

B8 Journey to the Rock (1984)
X6 Quagmire! (1984)
B9 Castle Caldwell and Beyond (1985)
X9 The Savage Coast (1985)

All four suffer from similar problems of being just plain empty of any good content. Very thin for the price tag back then and very thin for what you'd have to spend t get a hold of one of them now.

 

[Lancelot]

N2 - The Forest Oracle is far from bad. Yes, it's illogical in some places. Yes, it has plot holes. However, it's an awesome module for teaching new players (especially female players) about D&D. Bear with me here...

It has a high proportion of fey. There's a dryad and a nymph and a trapped pegasus. There's a wicked ogre. It's set in a magical forest with druids and crumbling ruins. There's an enchanted lake with a sleeping "prince".

I've used this module to show my girlfriend what D&D was about, and she loved it. I've DM'ed this module for an ex-girlfriend and her (female) friends, and they loved it. Name me any other "classic" module with a vibe that makes it attractive to casual, first-time, female players.

Please note that I'm not suggesting that all female players are girly-girls who like flying horses. However, if I had a daughter, N2 would probably be the first module I'd DM for her.

I'll join the defense of the Dragonlance modules as well. Yes, many of them are railroads (and I hate that aspect of them). But there are too many good things about them to call them the "worst". The maps, in many cases, are outstanding. The world-building aspects are outstanding. Some of the NPCs are outstanding.

If you want "worst" modules, you're looking at some other candidates that have been raised here. My personal vote goes to H1-H4 (...if we're only talking the "classics"). They are truly appalling. The tarrasque in a room, with no explanatory notes, as a random encounter. A chubby gun-toting Texan angel. Encounters that are simply "100 Type 6 demons". Poor maps. No story-line to speak off. No compelling NPCs. Nothing that is attractive to new players. Poor artwork (except for the covers). Terrible... just terrible.

 

[ExploderWizard]

N2 - The Forest Oracle is far from bad. Yes, it's illogical in some places. Yes, it has plot holes. However, it's an awesome module for teaching new players (especially female players) about D&D. Bear with me here...

It has a high proportion of fey. There's a dryad and a nymph and a trapped pegasus. There's a wicked ogre. It's set in a magical forest with druids and crumbling ruins. There's an enchanted lake with a sleeping "prince".

I've used this module to show my girlfriend what D&D was about, and she loved it. I've DM'ed this module for an ex-girlfriend and her (female) friends, and they loved it. Name me any other "classic" module with a vibe that makes it attractive to casual, first-time, female players.

This module has all the trappings of a potentially cool adventure but that's about it. A good DM can effectively re-write the thing into something playable.

Another classic? UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave. Romeo and Juliet gets em wet