What are your favorite adventures (and why)?

[Weather Report]

The 2nd Ed FR Horde trilogy of modules (Black Courser, etc) by Troy Denning, a mix of Gengis Khan, The Man Who Would Be King, and Conan the Barbarian.

Great exploration, cultural adjustments, epic backstory, intimate role-playing encounters, fantastic maps, and overall great vibe.

 

[billd91]

I suppose another way to look at it is that by "good adventure" I'm thinking more along the lines of entertainment value trumping the RPG-equivalent of literary merit or artistic value. The best of art is both; classics, I think, are often quite entertaining and of great artistic merit--at least the very best classics; many books and such that are considered "classics" I find to be quite tedious. For example, I'd much rather re-read the poorly written but enormously entertaining Dragonlance Chronicles than slog through The Grapes of Wrath again. But that is, again, subjective - which is why I'm asking for "favorite" adventures.

Your comment here struck me as particularly interesting because a friend of mine (a little bit older, been gaming longer than me, player in games I run and play in, and aspiring co-author along with her husband) recently brought up the same basic subject. Why are classics so dull or painful to read? My answer would be that some "classics" are considered classics not because they're spellbindng page turners but because they are important because of other criteria. The Grapes of Wrath, for example, is a classic because of its historical significance - highlighting the plight and experience of a segment of American society during a tremendous economic displacement. It's worthwhile to study and understand in its context - but it may not have wide appeal.

Turning this back to the topic at hand, I want to say that if you have a favorite adventure that maybe didn't fit the definition of being fun, don't hold back. Bring it up and explain why it may fallen a bit flat, but you still saw or see the great potential in it or other significance - historical, cultural, or even technological. I'll start by saying that B2: The Keep on the Borderlands was never my favorite to either run or play, but after reading Return to the Keep on the Borderlands treatment, I can see the enormous potential in a module of this sort with a creative DM keeping the area dynamic and players approaching the situation creatively or with an open mind to try many different ways of dealing with the caves and their denizens.

 

[Kinak]

B2: Keep on the Borderlands for old school fun. It's a great excuse to just GM. Played strictly from the text, I don't think it does much, but it asks a lot of the right questions.

Jacob's Well from Dungeon 43 is the first adventure I ever DM'd and is a personal favorite. I also remember it as a fairly good horror romp, but it's been a while.

For newer stuff, my group has an unholy love of We Be Goblins. We used it as a one shot to introduce one of the players to roleplaying, which worked shockingly well, and the group still talks about it.

On a Paizo note, I really like Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition. In particular, we were really impressed by the relationships and history in Burnt Offerings and the horror elements in Skinsaw Murders. It's a lot of really interesting elements in a very classic shell, which isn't normally my cup of tea, but was a great change of pace.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Weather Report]

On a Paizo note, I really like Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition. In particular, we were really impressed by the relationships and history in Burnt Offerings and the horror elements in Skinsaw Murders. It's a lot of really interesting elements in a very classic shell, which isn't normally my cup of tea, but was a great change of pace.

Yep, I am in it right now as a player (after 19 years!), very nice and sophisticated.

 

[randomwizard]

B2: Keep on the Borderlands for old school fun. It's a great excuse to just GM. Played strictly from the text, I don't think it does much, but it asks a lot of the right questions.

Since B2 has been out so long, there are now a lot of resources out there to customize/enhance the adventure. The Weem did a high res version of the caves. I recently created a 3D map of the overland terrain.

 

[pemerton]

Why are classics so dull or painful to read?

<snip>

The Grapes of Wrath, for example, is a classic because of its historical significance - highlighting the plight and experience of a segment of American society during a tremendous economic displacement. It's worthwhile to study and understand in its context - but it may not have wide appeal.

I wouldn't describe The Grapes of Wrath as dull or painful to read!

 

[pemerton]

What are your all-time favorite adventures and why?

Sticking to D&D adventures that I've run substantial portions of:

* OA3 Ochimo the Spirit Warrior (run using Rolemaster);

* OA7 Test of the Samurai (run using Rolemaster);

* B10 Night's Dark Terror (run using 4e);

* Bastion of Broken Souls (run using Rolemaster).

For me, a good module has a compelling situation with lots of interesting implications, and interesting antagonists with which to confront my PCs. Each of the above, while it needed some work (Bastion of Broken Souls, in particular, has very poor GM advice text that significantly undercuts the presmises inherent in the encounters it presents), satisfied those desiderata.

 

[Raith5]

I really like D2 (Shrine of the Kuotoa) and D3 (Vault of the Drow). I played them in 1st ed and used an army of rescued slaves to raid and eventually take over the vault! Good times. In my 3rd ed campaign I DMed my group through D2 and D3 and finished in G3 the Lair of the fire giants. They are both heavy slogs in terms of combat - they are more like a genocide than a raid by adventurers - but I really like them.

I also like I6 Ravenloft - great villain and atmosphere.

I also really liked the adventures written by Jim Bambra in UK and I series - Dark Clouds Gather and the Ravager of Time - especially.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

RQ1 - Night of the Walking Dead. Love that module. Loved to play it, loved to run it to a different group some years later. Doesn't exactly reads well, but playing it was awesome for our group.

 

[Lanefan]

But it also means that the quality of an adventure can only be discussed after the fact, and is entirely subjective ...

Yes, and - er - yes.

Some adventure modules "read" well - you check it out in the store, it looks like it'll rock, and you buy it and run it - but don't necessarily "play" well once your group gets started on it. The reverse is true for others - they "read" like garbage but once you play them you realize they're pretty damn good.

My criteria for a good adventure module:
- minimal or no built-in backstory - I want to be able to wrap my own backstory around it with a minimum of effort
- numerous different ways to approach and-or enter it and to move around once inside. Too many dungeons don't have enough staircases between levels, for example; or only one entrance.
- twists, turns, and unexpected developments
- detachable hard-card maps (21st-century adventure publishers, are you listening?!?)
- some attention to proof-reading and playtesting e.g. if there's an area 19 shown on the map is there an area 19 written up in the module? (Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, I'm looking at you)

Bone Hill by Len Lakofka is one of the best out there. There's numerous ways in, lots of different ways to go once inside, a nice assortment of different foes and things to find in there - I've played or run it something like 4 times now and it never gets old because it's so different every time! This is a fine example of an adventure that plays better than it reads, as on initial reading it looks kinda like a whole lot of others.

Rahasia by Tracy Hickman is another good one mostly for what can happen once inside. It's got some backstory to it but it's malleable enough to still be useful.

A2 Slaver's Stockade is an excellent module if you make one minor change: put a few more doors on each level to give some choice where to go. It's very linear as written (hardly surprising for what is at heart a tournament module), but bust up the linearity and it's great! It can work just fine as a stand-alone if you're not running the whole A-series.

Lan-"and never judge any adventure by its cover"-efan

That's a good list, and things that I would like to see. Though I suspect that list isn't either a set of necessary conditions, nor a set of sufficient conditions. That is, you could have a good adventure that falls short on one or more of the above, and conversely you could have an adventure that does all of this, and yet still falls short.[/QUOTE]