What are the worst classic D&D adventure modules?

[olshanski]

I've never read the Avatar series: so keep that in mind... they sound like they could be worse than the "Marco Volo Trilogy".

One of My votes for the worst is the Marco Volo trilogy. They were actually pretty well written, somewhat humorous, just terrible to play. This was a series where the party basically followed around the NPC Marco Volo, who got to do all of the interesting stuff. Marco Volo was written as totally annoying, yet with lots of good dialog as well, so the party was not only useless, but also completely outshined, and burdened with a completely annoying NPC. Simply unplayable.

My other vote for the worst is B9 Castle Caldwell. The crappiness was alleviated only by its brevity.
The first "adventure" is when the party is asked by a guy to clear out a keep that the guy inherited. The keep is basically a donut shape, surrounded by rooms filled with completely arbitrary monsters. The party has to circumnavigate the keep, going room to room, killing the monsters. one room has bandits. The next room has kobolds, the next room has slime, the next room has stirges, the next room has orcs, next room has a mummy, etcetera. In the middle of the keep is a door that cannot be opened until the party has cleared everything on the top level. Then the guy who inherits the keep gives the party a key to the locked door. The party is asked to clear the basement of monsters. This is roughly a repeat of the first level, the party goes from room to room getting rid of the completely random monsters.... except at one point there is a "trick" There is a secret exit that can only be opened if the party recites the lines "Owah tagoo Siam" 3 times (oh, what a goose I am).
This is the only adventure that I ever threw away. I sort of regret throwing it away, because I'd like to go back to it and make a "worst module ever" thread similar to the treatment received by the Forest Oracle. I do believe that Castle Caldwell is as bad or worse than the Forest Oracle.

 

[olshanski]

2. To Find a King and the companion one (I forget the name) that comes after it. These two modules are actually a series of 8 little vignette-size adventures that get really boring after about the first two. That said, the very last 'otherworld' bit holds some merit - my suggestion would be to pluck it out and use it somewhere else.

Whoah, I really liked these: these are C4 (To Find a King) and C5 (Bane of Llewellyn), they are competition modules with "scores" for how well you did. I think that there were some really clever bits in there, and they were extremely challenging.

I have recycled bits from these adventures in many campaigns for the past 20 years.

Did you actually read them or only play in them? There is one excruciating bit where a buerocrat has been bribed to delay the party as long as possible... so in roleplaying this, the party has to recognize that they are being screwed with and take charge... the longer they are delayed, the further the bad guys are able to get away... If your players are too obedient, they will be totally screwed, but if the players are suspicious and don't trust the beurocrat, then the'll do much better.

 

[rogueattorney]

Wow... you tried to play those? At least some of the Dragonlance modules read well. The Avatar modules read like... well... umm...

Let's just say that they compare poorly with watching the GM play solitaire for six hours.

-KS

My group sort of played through the first one... ("Shadowdale?") We found that it did indeed compare poorly with watching the GM play solitaire, and we scrapped plans to keep playing it.

I believe it was the series that created the Elminster as the Omni-Mary Sue character for the entire Realms trend.

 

[Chris Knapp]

. . . and they have to survive. If they don't, you, the DM, make up a reason that they did. Up to and including being saved by a powerful NPC.

Its one thing to not like the Dragonlance modules for their railroadyness, but don't make stuff up please. If you died in the Dragonlance campaign, you died. Maybe you're confusing it the Obscure Death rule for NPC's.This basically asks the DM to always keep in mind an "out" to explain how an NPC's body was never recovered so they can come back later. And all this was just a published way to do what DM's had been doing for years anyway: preventing their story from breaking when the PC's do something unexpected.

 

[Celebrim]

Various thoughts:

1) The DL modules are actually very good. However, the DL's demanded more from most DMs that were running them than most DM's (especially ones in high school) could be reasonably expected to handle especially given the fact that prior to DL, most adventures were simple dungeon crawls in some form. Don't blame the module for your bad DM.

2) The same is true of ToH. Moreover, don't blame your lack of play skill (at the time) for your experience of ToH. There is nothing at all 'arbitrary' for instance about ToH. The amazing thing about it is that it is one of the least arbitrary modules ever written. Having a monster get a critical hit with a battle axe and suddenly you are dead is arbitary. ToH is not unfair. It's one of the most fair modules ever written. You almost can't die to bad luck in ToH, and a clue is provided to avoid pretty much every obstacle. Grimtooth's traps are frequently arbitrary and unfair, but unlike Grimtooth, Ascerak plays fair. ToH is not actually deceptive or tricky. There aren't alot of 'gotcha's that you find in later products inspired by ToH. Touching something that gets you killed after you've been warned by a clue not to touch it is not arbitrary. Charging ahead without investigating what you were charging into and then dying after you know that you are in a tomb filled with lethal traps is not arbitrary. You may have had an arbitrary DM running it, but that is not the same thing. What is true about ToH is that if you leave anything to luck, very very soon you will die because ToH has very very little mercy on those that expect the dice or their hit points to save them.

3) Virtually all the 2e modules were terrible. However, for the same reason, there a virtually no classic 2e modules.

 

[the Jester]

If you died in the Dragonlance campaign, you died.

You sure about that? I recall the "obscure death" rule explicitly applying to pcs in the early modules. I don't have any of the early ones anymore, though- and I do know that the "obscure death" rule was later applied only to important npcs, such as Kitiara and Fizban. That's almost worse, imho; why the hell can't the party kill their enemy?? Ridiculous. Plot immunity has no place in an RPG in my opinion.

 

[Doug McCrae]

why the hell can't the party kill their enemy??

Ask Doctor Doom.

 

[rogueattorney]

You sure about that? I recall the "obscure death" rule explicitly applying to pcs in the early modules. I don't have any of the early ones anymore, though- and I do know that the "obscure death" rule was later applied only to important npcs, such as Kitiara and Fizban. That's almost worse, imho; why the hell can't the party kill their enemy?? Ridiculous. Plot immunity has no place in an RPG in my opinion.

My recollection is similar, and I recall reading the passage in DL8, I believe, that stated that rule was no longer in effect for pcs.

Nothing about pc plot immunity is in the first installment of the DL series. It was introduced somewhere from DL2 to DL5.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Nothing about pc plot immunity is in the first installment of the DL series. It was introduced somewhere from DL2 to DL5.

IIRC its DL4...Because we used to play DL1-3 every Christmas holiday and we died a lot, destroyed Haven a few times, and generally ran amok before finding the temple. (even tried to attack the elves and unicorn)

 

[Mouseferatu]

A real clunker from the dying days of 2E: The Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad.

I don't know how CoLtM would play as a module, but I found it a great resource for pulling out logic puzzles to use elsewhere. And there was a wide enough variety of them that I could avoid the kinds I don't like, and still find plenty to use in my own adventures.