Worst D&D adventure of all time?

[VirgilCaine]

Ravenloft is a roach motel, PCs go in, nothing comes out. Any setting that is a one-off PC setting is by default a loser and waste of time. If you can't play your main PC there, why bother?

I guess your party wasn't good and lucky enough.
Ravenloft has a similar theme to Call of Cthulhu--if you're lucky, you get out, probably not whole and maybe not with everyone you came in with. It raises the bar for heroism precisely because it is so dangerous.

 

[Voadam]

Uh ... Its the first time its been mentioned. You're getting confused with the Time of Troubles adventures.

Terrible Trouble at Tragidore was the adventure you got free with with 2nd edition DM Screen.

Never ran it myself...

He said he was surprised nobody had mentioned Terrible Trouble at post 148.

Check out posts 11, 12, 19, 63, 105, 110, 144, and 146.

Tragidore has three or four different spellings in this thread, but they are all talking about the Terrible Trouble at Trag* from the 2e DM screen.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

To be fair this is never part of the module, in fact the closest thing to this railroad is a small note in a list of ways to defeat the blue dragonarmy that gives something like a +2 morale modifier for a self sacrificing heroic leader.

Your dm either had issues with you or was beholden to the novels; neither had anything to do with the modules.

(And it was through the heart anyway, not the eye)

He was in absolute love with the books. We were told that the PC's were pregens and were the ones in the books.

The whole thing left such a sour taste in my mouth about Dragonlance, that I just gave up on it completely.

I might pick it up and read it from a GM's point of view instead of relying on the memories of getting aboard the Dragonlance Express.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I might pick it up and read it from a GM's point of view instead of relying on the memories of getting aboard the Dragonlance Express.

Ouch, that does not sound a cool adventure experience. I don't think a gm's pov is going to reconcile anything because there is never any arbitrary pc death at all through out all the modules. Arbitrary npc death & misfortune otoh, occurs all the time.

 

[balam_br]

"Terrible Trouble At Tragidore" was the first published adventure that i happen to have in my hands...

I runned this and it was so terrible that i gave up on published adventures considering them all to be crappy. Thinking that homebrewed adventures were the only way to go.

I got "scape from thunders rift" a lot of years ago and it was really better... but till this day i still think twice before reading pre made modules...

 

[Cam Banks]

I might pick it up and read it from a GM's point of view instead of relying on the memories of getting aboard the Dragonlance Express.

Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. At least then you could see for yourself if it's as bad as all that or if it's no worse than any other adventure with a plot.

The Dragonlance series is in some ways like Final Fantasy 7, in that the beginning is somewhat constrained by certain events or tasks, which open the world up a little at a time, until the point that you gain the freedom to take your own path through the story. While that's clearly not to everybody's tastes, at the time it was pretty groundbreaking - especially since the players end up being the ones who do everything, rather than sit back and watch an NPC do all the work.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Well to be fair to DL, at the end of the green modules you get to choose to do the blue or red modules, with both tying back together near the end of red module. In both blue & red there are heaps of places that are particularly open ended.

Actually in the green module, it is really not that much of a railroad either. You have a huge map to wander but with encroaching draconian armies to be sure, but there is no need to rediscover the old gods. It does not take any effort on the dms part to simply allow the pcs to opt out of that adventure to flee south to the elven or dwarven kingdoms. So long as the pcs can handle not having clerics at all for the rest of the adventure. Ecen if the pcs attempt to sail away, the situation in the middle sea is covered within the blue modules, basically privateers run the show.

So long as players made up characters compatible to the dragonlance theme, there should not even be much resistance to the railroad elements. If otoh, the players did not want to buy into the dragonlance theme then of course they were going to be miserable.

 

[francisca]

nevermind. too heavy handed.

nothing to see here. move along.

 

[BWP]

Uh ... Its the first time its been mentioned. You're getting confused with the Time of Troubles adventures.

No, it wasn't, and no, I'm not. The only people confused around here are those who apparently haven't been reading the thread very closely before stating what isn't mentioned in it.

 

[Orius]

Ironically the shortest worst adventure of all time is "Pie and Orc". An orc is trapped inside a giant pie and you have you eat your way to him to get him out.

Har har!