What is THE classic dragon-hunting/slaying adventure?

[Lancelot]

B5 - Horror on the Hill. It's not strictly about dragon-hunting, but the final bad guy is indeed a dragon, and there's plenty of fun goblin-hunting on the way.

O1 - Blade of Vengeance. This is all about the dragon, and is perhaps the best example I've seen from the older TSR modules. It's designed for a single player (no, it's not a solo adventure - it's for 1 DM + 1 player). Having said that, it's easily adaptable to a group and has a lot of forest/fey/elven goodness.

G3 - Hall of the Fire Giant King (part of the classic GDQ series). Could be adapted to make good ol' Brazzemal the Big Bad. Most players find him to be the ultimate opponent, anyway. Snurre (Fire Giant King) is usually one of the first few encounters, and the notorious Eclavdra (Drow Priestess) is down on level 2. But Brazzemal the Golden is unquestionably the big challenge on level 3 of the dungeon, and could even be positioned as the master behind all the giant/drow shenanigans.

 

[Mercurius]

Am I the only one to run or play Sabre River?

The main part of this thing was to kill the dragon, and her 5 kids. Imagine the looks of fear on your players faces as they are approaching the mountain and you describe to them a flight of 5 red dragons preparing to make a flaming run on their group. Priceless! Every time!

DriveThruRPG.com

I remember the whole CM1-3 series: Test of the Warlords, Sabre River, and Death's Ride. The cover of the last was particularly evocative, at least to a 10-year old kid!

 

[Jasperak]

I remember the whole CM1-3 series: Test of the Warlords, Sabre River, and Death's Ride. The cover of the last was particularly evocative, at least to a 10-year old kid!

Sabre River references Test of the Warlords at least three times... the first adventure path?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I find it amazing that in 30 years there has not been a published adventure primarily dealing with hunting a dragon. I refuse to believe that there was never one published for OD&D, BD&D, AD&D1e.

Well, as other have pointed out, there have been a few-- though I could have named only Dragon Mountain, myself.

Now, what I think is truly amazing is that in 30 years there has not been one iconic published adventure dealing with hunting dragon that rises to the same level of shared experience as ToEE, G1-3, D1-3, etc.

Might as well have called our game Dungeons & Drow.

A very astute observation. I don't know why but this thread has simultaneously depressed and motivated me.

Quick question, please keep the answer spoiler free:

Would Red Hand of Doom count?

 

[Jasperak]

Quick question, please keep the answer spoiler free:

Would Red Hand of Doom count?

I cannot say from personal experience but from what I can gather, no it would not.

As a matter of fact, so far I cannot find a SINGLE TSR module that has a dragon as its main antagonist, that isn't related to Dragonlance. Kinda makes me wonder about Goodman Games whole "Get to the 20th level and fight a dragon shtick."

This also makes me a sad panda

 

[olshanski]

I thought the culmination of the 3rd edition "Adventure Path" series was Ashardalon, a red dragon.

Goodman Games has a boxed-set combining several adventures, "Saga of the Dragon King".

 

[Klaus]

I think one of the main characteristics of a classic "dragonslaying" story is that the heroes set out to "slay the dragon" from the get-go. They don't go on another adventure and become surprised to find a dragon there. If Forge of Fury was adapted to make the hunt for Nightscale the point of the adventure, it would be a very classic "dragonslaying module".

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I remember playing Dragon Mountain back in my 2e days. I remember it sucking so bad that we never even got to the mountain.

The RPG.net review is interesting.

Having played the module and been lucky enough to have a DM that skipped the whole first section, I can confirm (from reading) that the first part was pretty horrible.

However, the actual mountain itself, packed full of devious kobolds with nasty, nasty traps plus a tough-as-iron Dragon at the end of it, was very much Good Fun.

Even though we suffered a TPK.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I thought the culmination of the 3rd edition "Adventure Path" series was Ashardalon, a red dragon.

I thought of that this morning. Sad that it was forgettable.

I think one of the main characteristics of a classic "dragonslaying" story is that the heroes set out to "slay the dragon" from the get-go. They don't go on another adventure and become surprised to find a dragon there. If Forge of Fury was adapted to make the hunt for Nightscale the point of the adventure, it would be a very classic "dragonslaying module".

I also thought of this this morning. I did enjoy Forge of Fury very much-- probably my best D&D experience of my life, actually!

But I think you nailed it: It's the expectation that the players are hunting a dragon from the get-go that makes all the difference.

 

[GuJiaXian]

I thought of that this morning. Sad that it was forgettable.

See, and I actually enjoyed that final module: Bastion of Broken Souls. As written it needs a fair bit of fleshing out, but it's got a cool core concept, and the final "boss" is indeed a CR 28 (as I recall) dragon. That's appropriately epic, as the PCs are supposed to be 20th level or so when they fight him.