Worst D&D adventure of all time?

[Akrasia]

I loved War Rafts of Kron....

Same here. It was one cool module!

The worst one I ever played was DL1. (But the maps were nice, and I had a crush on that cleric, "Moonbeam", or whatever her name was.)

 

[Akrasia]

I'll try not to derail the thread to much.../hijack

What is a good 1st Edition Module (free?) that we could get off of the interweb, as our group wants to run a 1st Ed. game?

If I recall correctly, the WotC site will let you download a free copy of L1 (Secret of Bone Hill).

It's a fine module -- really a mini-campaign setting.

 

[Wraith Form]

Curse of the Azure Bonds.

Total from start to finish. You follow the storyline of the novel, complete with protagonists (The requisite sexy girl and her extra-dimensional Lizardman Paladin buddy) and watch them have the adventure while you tag along.

Sucked hard.

But.....how do you really feel about it?


(dodges thrown stuff)

 

[Pants]

You undoubtably meant to say "I can accept robots, but warforged? C'mon!"

Nope, not really.
Maybe I could accept the robots if they all didn't look like Lost in Space rejects.

I'll happily admit that my dislike is due more to a style issue than a structural one.

At least, that's what *I* would have meant to say. Really, if you don't want chocolate in your peanut butter, stay out of Greyhawk.

So... not being as well-versed in Greyhawk lore as I'd like... do rayguns and robots make any other appearances in the setting?

 

[Qualidar]

Ship of Horrors is a masterpiece compared to Thoughts of Darkness, a "gothic horror" module which features:
a realm that looks like something off the cover of Heavy Metal Magazine
Roving bands of 15th to 18th level drow warriors, wizards, and rogues
Massively overpowered hordes of spellcasting, vampiric Illithid
And a ridiculously stupid "God brain" that reads like something out of 60's era DC comics.

It's absolute garbage from start to finish, a hackfest module that takes the supposed feel of Ravenloft out behind the woodshed and beats it with an axe handle. I don't know how the hell the module ever made it past concept stage, let alone onto store shelves.

If I remeber correctly, you got teleported away when you tried to kill the god brain, making it impossible to even "win" the module. I thought most of the Ravenloft mods had a tenuous grasp of "Gothic Horror", but Thoughts of Darkness takes the cake, and wins my vote.

~Qualidar~

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

2. The original Tomb of Horrors. Surely you jest. This was the "Killer Dungeon" that all Killer Dungeons were patterned after. Truly, a perverted masterpiece.

Except, of course, that it's blatantly built to kill PCs who aren't supremely paranoid.

I can't really see how it's fun. I like Return to the Tomb of Horrors much better, since it doesn't make up arbitrary rules as it goes.

Brad

 

[VirgilCaine]

I'd have to say Ship of Horrors for Ravenloft. It doesn't make enough use of its cool elements such as the three ghosts or the undead who can pull off their limbs. Ravenloft empowers undead to grossly powerful levels but the necromancer's created undead are not empowered. There is a whole section of the plot where the DM is left on his own with just a family chart and set of personalities, no guidance on using them or even a map of the home where the party will interact with them. I ran a really cool adventure using the module, but it was cool because I fleshed everything out on my own and put the elements they had in there to some relevant use that the PCs could interact with and notice. As a DM tool for out of the box use it was really poor.

Any suggestions?
Using the salvageable modules from the Grand Conjunction is something I would like to do (i.e. not the last two, and not Touch of Death).

If I recall correctly, the WotC site will let you download a free copy of L1 (Secret of Bone Hill).

It's a fine module -- really a mini-campaign setting.

Key word--setting. I have looked through it a bit, but without the simple organization of 3e modules, it's hard to go through lots of location keys, villager descriptions, etc. without some guide to what the PCs ARE SUPPOSED TO DO! The temple of Olidammara is nifty, though.

They also have the sequel module, L2, for download.

 

[Staffan]

4. Modules based on Novels, Computer Games. I've always avoided these like the plague. Too much risk of the featured NPCs overshadowing the PCs, and too much plot-hammering.

The only module I've run that has a good tie-in to a novel is Freedom! for Dark Sun. Basically, the end of the module plays out at the same time as the finale of the novel The Verdant Passage, but the stuff that happens in the novel works mostly as a backdrop to the stuff that happens in the adventure. I'll put the specifics in spoiler blocks, just to be on the safe side.
[sblock]The main part of the adventure has the PCs enslaved, working on the sorcerer-king Kalak's ziggurat. Toward the end of the adventure, the ziggurat has been finished, and king Kalak has everyone in the city of Tyr watching the inaugural gladiator games. In the novel, during these games the main characters make an assassination attempt against Kalak, who retreats to the interior of the ziggurat where he starts a fell ritual designed to turn him into a dragon. Chaos ensues, and the protagonists seek out Kalak and kill him. The adventure has the characters trying to navigate and survive in the ensuing chaos.[/sblock]

 

[Templetroll]

The whole time of troubles series: Shadowdale, Tantras and Waterdeep. The player characters took a back seat to the NPCs. They were just along for the ride. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great adventures that were published for Forgotten Realms. The Horde/Horse Lord trilogy of adventures were awesome. I just really hated the time of troubles trilogy. Heck, maybe it was just our DM at the time.

It was not your DM. The Times of Troubles modules were a horrible concept - the DM was to let the PCs fight non-entities while the characters from the books did the waycool important things they did in the books and the DM was to describe it so the PCs are awed at being in the presence of such wonderful folk/gods. :\

My wife stopped running the first one and we never bought the others, we just played in FR without the Times of Troubles.

 

[S'mon]

I'm glad I missed out on most of the 2e crap.

BTW re B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, I ran the online/original version as my first 3e scenario and it worked fine, though I mixed up Basic & 3e rules, eg I had ghosts aging on a hit, and minor magics worth huge sums of gold. I thought it was a pretty nice introductory scenario & I didn't experience any problem with the map of the ruined palace.

The worst scenarios I've ever seen was a collection of I think 66 Lankhmar scenarios by Dale 'Slade' Henson, which had titles like "A Dying Pleea" and which comprehensively trashed the Nehwon setting, Slade (May He Rot in Hell Forever) had clearly never even read a Fafhrd/Mouser story.