What Is Your Favorite Linear Adventure/Campaign

[zarionofarabel]

The Darkening of Mirkwood, TOR1ed

Oh wow, I'm embarrassed I forgot that one. It's the GPC for LotR.

 

[dbm]

Savage Worlds Plot Point Campaigns are my favourite style of linear-ish modules. The concept is that each adventure has 6-8 plot related encounters / mini adventures (they might include several encounters chained together as one plot point - easily a full session of content, perhaps two session worth) and they also include around a dozen non-plot encounters / adventure seeds plus additional random adventure generating tools. These assets can then be used to make a full campaign which has key touch points while existing in a larger and more dynamic campaign backdrop and you can tailor the overall campaign length to suite your group’s preferences.

I’ve run three of them in more recent times, two Deadlands: Lost Colony and one Last Parsec: Eris Beta V. Of those, the Last Parsec was the best in my group’s experience. It was written for Deluxe edition, but runs easily in SWADE with conversion on the the fly if you are comfortable with the system. VTT support on Fantasy Grounds is excellent, too, though you will need to make some maps of your own.

 

[TheSword]

So the best linear campaign of any system is The Enemy Within. Five parts. There’s a lot of agency within each part. It’s got the best NPCs of any campaign and a scale that makes it epic. I have played it in WFRP and also converted it to 3e/Pathfinder - possible because the story and characters are so darn good. It’s long though and spread across 5 books it’s relatively expensive - though you could absolutely just get the foundry modules and run from that.

Runners up would be…
2nd : Rise of the Runelords - far tighter than the Age Of Worms and Shackled City which suffered from bloat and irrelevant adventure. Grand in scale but with tons of small details. Excellent starter adventure.

1st : Curse of the Crimson Throne - cool premise. Set in a city which is fairly unusual for a 6 part AP.

 

[TheSword]

They are Adventure Paths, and therefore, can be played linearly. Their setup in the book is linear.

Tomb of Annihilation and Rime of the Frostmaiden aren’t adventure paths and definitely aren’t linear. They’re both Sandboxes. I’d throw Curse of Strahd into this mix as well. Their chapters or parts of chapters can largely be played in varying orders.

 

[Scott Christian]

Tomb of Annihilation and Rime of the Frostmaiden aren’t adventure paths and definitely aren’t linear. They’re both Sandboxes. I’d throw Curse of Strahd into this mix as well. Their chapters or parts of chapters can largely be played in varying orders.

That's fair. Although Rime starts out sandboxy with Ten Towns, but then definitely gets on the linear path later. And Tomb is definitely sandbox, but with little work, it can become very linear.

 

[Heilemann]

Easily Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

 

[Reynard]

That's fair. Although Rime starts out sandboxy with Ten Towns, but then definitely gets on the linear path later. And Tomb is definitely sandbox, but with little work, it can become very linear.

I think Rime is an illusory sandbox. If you follow the advice in the book, the PCs can do like 3 things before they have to move on. It is the most "tabletop CRPG" of all of WotC's adventures I think.

 

[GuyBoy]

Enemy Within is probably the champion here, but I’d also give praise to RHOD and Carrion Crown from relatively recent times. Going back further, I’m a big fan of the GDQ series and the wonderful Night Below.

 

[jian]

So the best linear campaign of any system is The Enemy Within. Five parts. There’s a lot of agency within each part. It’s got the best NPCs of any campaign and a scale that makes it epic. I have played it in WFRP and also converted it to 3e/Pathfinder - possible because the story and characters are so darn good. It’s long though and spread across 5 books it’s relatively expensive - though you could absolutely just get the foundry modules and run from that.

Runners up would be…
2nd : Rise of the Runelords - far tighter than the Age Of Worms and Shackled City which suffered from bloat and irrelevant adventure. Grand in scale but with tons of small details. Excellent starter adventure.

1st : Curse of the Crimson Throne - cool premise. Set in a city which is fairly unusual for a 6 part AP.

Having played TEW, I’d say that it’s excellent for the first three parts and then falls down badly in Kislev (there are lots of online fixes for this) and the last part is honestly kind of a massive genre change with railroaded cod-LotR shenanigans. So yes, definitely great for the first 60% but I don’t think they stuck the approach or the landing.

Really liked the setting of The Shackled City but as the first AP it really leaned hard on dungeons, fights, and railroading. I think I preferred Age of Worms. Great to have both in Dungeon, though.

 

[TheSword]

Having played TEW, I’d say that it’s excellent for the first three parts and then falls down badly in Kislev (there are lots of online fixes for this) and the last part is honestly kind of a massive genre change with railroaded cod-LotR shenanigans. So yes, definitely great for the first 60% but I don’t think they stuck the approach or the landing.

Really liked the setting of The Shackled City but as the first AP it really leaned hard on dungeons, fights, and railroading. I think I preferred Age of Worms. Great to have both in Dungeon, though.

You’re missing out. Parts four and five have been completely reworked in the latest release.

Instead of traveling to Kislev in Part Four you now track down the remnants of the purple hand, the jade scepter and stop a terrifying Skaven plot beneath the city and in the middle mountains.

Part five is far more political as well as a tour of the empire. It’s much improved.