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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 6207005" data-attributes="member: 58416">Ghost Tower of InvernessI played this for the first time ever earlier this year.  The DM ran Ghost Tower via GURPS 4th Edition.  While he wasn't using D&D rules, the game still had a classic D&D vibe.  What I liked most about the adventure was that it forced the players to think.  It's certainly not a "hack first and ask questions later" style of adventure, and I loved that about it.  I loved that I was challenged to think and use tactics.  For the people who wanted combat, that was there too.  The challenges are well written and challenging without seeming  impossible or unfair, and there is potential for a lot of freedom on the  part of the players concerning how they choose to approach a  challenge.  I feel it does a good job of being a dungeon crawl without  feeling like the same old ho-hum stuck in a cave somewhere hacking  through kobolds for treasure routine.  I enjoyed it so much that I sought it out and purchased it.  My only complaint about it would be that -strictly as written- there's not a lot of information about what the orb does or how the campaign should progress after the adventure.  For a tournament module (which I believe Ghost Tower is,) that's not a flaw at all because the challenge was to compete against other groups.  However, the vagueness can be a little less than ideal for an ongoing campaign.  That was an easily remedied complaint though, and I realized that the vague nature of the orb was a strength instead of a weakness because I had the ability to tie it to my campaign -or even other adventures- in just about any way I wanted.  If need be, the orb can become something else entirely, and in at least one instance, I used Ghost Tower together with Mirror of The Fire Demon (a GURPS adventure) to create what I believe was a memorable story arc.In fact, I'd like to see Ghost Tower used for a season of Encounters to test Next.  I'd like to see that because I think it would be a great way to see how Next handles a variety of different encounter types and more than one pillar of play within the same adventure.  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Tower_of_Inverness" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Tower_of_Inverness</a><a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasyadventure1/" target="_blank">http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasyadventure1/</a>Red Hand of DoomI'm not even quite sure where to begin with this one.  Admittedly, it may be a touch of nostalgia on my part.  All I can really say is that it's the adventure path I remember the most out of anything I've played in either 3rd or 4th edition.  I like that the combats seem to have meaning.  Pass or fail, the story can still evolve and progress; Red Hand is written in such a way that it has a ton of information, but is also flexible enough to lead elsewhere without throwing the story off the rails.  I suppose it also hit a sweet spot for me because I'm a big fan of war campaigns, and it's not often that I see them done in a way which I consider to be done well when it comes to D&D.  It remains, for me, the adventure from the modern era (3rd Edition and beyond) that is the most memorable.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hand_of_Doom" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hand_of_Doom</a>The Adventure From The Pathfinder Beginner's BoxI think what I liked about this adventure was that it was very straight forward.  It wasn't complicated; it was written in a way that gave me a very clear idea about why the characters were there, and why the players should care about the outcome of the mission.  It got to the point, but still left enough bread crumbs scattered about to give me an idea of the world I was playing in, and what was going on it in that brought me to the entrance of the cave.  I think it did a really good job of being an intro adventure for Pathfinder.Overall, it might pale in comparison to the scope and impact of many other adventures.  However, it's one of my favorites because it served the purpose it was supposed to serve - teaching a game, and it did so in a way that wasn't dry.  It is one of the primary reasons (but certainly not the only reason) I feel the Pathfinder Beginner Box was a better product than the D&D 4th Edition Red Box.  It helped make me want to buy into the product line.<a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/products/beginnerbox" target="_blank">http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/products/beginnerbox</a></blockquote>

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