This lovely Adventure Path is centered on the infamous Isle of Dread. According to Wikipedia the original module X1 wasn't merely another adventure, but an important expansion of the game as a whole adding the type of wilderness adventure to D&D's variety. The know-it-all website also states that it was released in 1980, I was born in 1982 so one might think that the STAP isn't all about nostalgia to me. Strangely it is. I always wanted to run a campaign all about demons and one all about pirates. It didn't occured to me to combine these two elements. Up to the new world of Eberron I despised dinosaurs in my games and now I love them! There are many things I envisioned for my campaigns, I somehow now recognize in this AP.
Next to my never finished plans for the aforementioned campaigns there were several moments as a player bringing up nostalgic feelings in this AP.
The first session I took part in as a player with a character named Aureus was about a noblewoman's mansion taken up by orcs. So I really loved BG! One of the greatest adventures I experienced, written by a good friend of mine, was an underdark exploration featuring an ancient city in which the showdown took place. So LD is really great stuff! The mentioned showdown was somehow similar to the fight with Vanthus Vanderboren, although it was a shard and a wizard not a pearl and a tempest. There are much more moments in STAP that remind me of great D&D-moments I can't think of right now. Perhaps every good D&D campaign features many such situations and themes, but they are just that nicely arranged in this AP.
As far as I know many people frequent these boards, that played the original module X1 back in the eighties and I would love to hear (or read) your stories and memories about this adventure!
As a DM I'm really enjoying the nods to the classic D&D products that I and my group played when we were younger.
My big fear with Isle of Dread, though, is that my players will immediately want to bee-line for the central plateau that was the crux of the original X1 adventure.
Hopefully my planned campaign developments will keep them from putting the plateau at the top of their list.
Fortunately for me, most of my players had never played or ran X1. They've all heard of the module and know it's got dinos and exotic natives, but little more than that. So, they're pretty much experiencing it for the first time. Well, they're about to at least, since we're just about to land (read: wreck!) on the island.
Creative Director
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Once you have issue #145 handy, feel free to let your 7th-level PCs beeline to the central plateau. I just hope that the group also has the common sense to know that they probably shouldn't stick around in an area where the wandering monster CR averages at about 11. To say nothing of the monsters up there who have over 200 hit points.
None of my players have ever gone through X1, so I'm safe there. As for me, X1 was actually the first D&D game I ever played. The DM had us disembark on some random section of the coastline, into a swamp, wherein a horde of some 200 lizardmen (they were "men" back then rather than "folk") proceeded to slaughter us. Oddly enough, looking back one would think I'd hate the game from that experience, but I was hooked from that very day. The DM decided soon after that he didn't like D&D, so he handed over his books (the old '81 Expert set, with the X1 module). That spurred me into buying the Basic set, then Companion, then Master, and finally Immortal sets. Snapped up every Known World Gazetteer I could find (got 'em all now). And here I am 23 years later...
Needless to say, Savage Tide was a must-run for me!