Nothing compares with the Three That Shall Not Be Named: Puppets, Gargoyle, and Child's Play. Players made into dolls? Check. Wingless gargoyles? Check. Bad parody of 80s horror movies? Check.
It's possible I've mis-summarized them, I can't bare to pull out my copies to verify their plots.
As it turns out, while Puppets did have dolls as villains, the PCs weren't made into dolls during the adventure. The module you're thinking of where that happened is The Created, from the Ravenloft line.
As it turns out, while Puppets did have dolls as villains, the PCs weren't made into dolls during the adventure. The module you're thinking of where that happened is The Created, from the Ravenloft line.Nothing compares with the Three That Shall Not Be Named: Puppets, Gargoyle, and Child's Play. Players made into dolls? Check. Wingless gargoyles? Check. Bad parody of 80s horror movies? Check.
It's possible I've mis-summarized them, I can't bare to pull out my copies to verify their plots.
In The Created, an evil Pinnocchio (they didn't even try to conceal the source - Malocchio indeed) commands creatures called "Carrionettes" who can stick needles into people and control them like marionnettes.
I don't believe the PCs actually BECOME dolls in that one but it's been over a year since I last read it and I've never tried to run it...
I have the module in front of me. Maligno is the name of the evil puppet in the module (Malocchio also is a character in the Ravenloft setting, but he doesn't appear in The Created).
And here's a direct quote from the module: "When the characters wake up, they are in the bodies of dolls..." (p. 15). The challenge is then for the doll-sized PCs to find a way to transfer back into their physical bodies, which have been taken over by carrionettes.
That having said, I think there are far worse modules than The Created out there...
All time worst, by far: Dungeonland and Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.
Aw man - those are two of my favorites! Well, actually, I love almost all of Dungeonland (the ending is a bit... vague) and ... uh ... two or three encounters ... in LBtMM
I enjoyed them a lot, too, but then again I got to play through them, and I always did like Lewis Carroll. My Ftr/M-U ended up taking over Courland, as I recall, only to be deposed by a popular uprising.
Terrible Trouble in Tragidore should be on that list.
Wow yes, horrible module for a starter kit.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Mike's comments about the Dread Three are correct, and they are incorrect.
As four-hour adventure modules in the wacky "Fluffy Quest" era of RPGA tournament play, I have no doubt that they made fun diversions during a convention.
As Greyhawk adventures they were garbage, pure filler farted out by a publisher that had long ago lost interest in maintaining the quality of their brand.
Puppets featured a leprechaun named "Freddy MacKreuger."
Gargoyles was basically a five-minute joke stretched out over an entire module.
Childsplay was set in a "fictional kingdom" in Greyhawk because the editors were too lazy and too ill-informed to properly adapt it to the setting.
As short convention diversions, they are salvageable.
As a continuation of the line that brought us Queen of the Spiders and The Village of Hommlet, they are abominations.
Here are a few others that I wrote a long post about that got swallowed by the boards:
Also-Rans
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The Dread Three
The Avatar Trilogy
Ones Not Yet Mentioned
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Howl from the North: TSR followed up a workmanlike "Five Shall be One" by the company's best freelancer (Carl Sargent) with a piece of crap by its worst on-staff designer (Dale "Slade" Henson). That man's name on the cover of a TSR product is like a Mr. Yuck sticker on a can of poison.
Patriots of Ulek: The slow death of TSR's Greyhawk line continued with this unremarkable adventure by Anthony Pryor. Almost every possible PC interaction in this thing was "handled" in boxed text. For example, in one encounter the PCs enter a town, talk with the populace, meet the local mayor, eat a meal with him and leave, all without ever having made a decision for themselves, all within a single piece of boxed text.The bulk of the "adventure" takes place in a huge mansion containing about three interesting rooms. All of the rest of them are empty.
I don't think very many of the writers and editors at TSR in the early 1990s even played Dungeons & Dragons. Almost all of the decent work at the time happened almost by accident, and almost all of it came from freelancers.
The Forest Oracle: I've not studied this one closely, but EN World has a famous thread outlining its many, many faults.
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Howl from the North: TSR followed up a workmanlike "Five Shall be One" by the company's best freelancer (Carl Sargent) with a piece of crap by its worst on-staff designer (Dale "Slade" Henson). That man's name on the cover of a TSR product is like a Mr. Yuck sticker on a can of poison.
Heh... I take it we shouldn't expect to see Mr. Henson's name on Pathfinder or GameMastery products in the near future? Is he even still active in RPG design? Poor dude... ;-)
I agree with you where Sargent is concerned. I know that opinion on his work is divided in the Greyhawk fan community, but I think he is/was one of the best (if not the best) RPG product designers out there. The stuff he generated for Greyhawk in the early '90s was, IMO, awesome (and a godsend, too, coming out a few years after the release of Castle Greyhawk and the Three That Shall Not Be Named to breathe new vitality into a dying setting). It's a shame he seems to have mysteriously dropped off the face of the earth... I would so love to see him write for Paizo!
Henson wrote one of the worst 'modules' I possessed, (good thing I was given it as a gift on joining the RPGA!) Wonders of Lankhmar. Sorry, Slade, it was anything but wondrous.
Mike's comments about the Dread Three are correct, and they are incorrect.
As four-hour adventure modules in the wacky "Fluffy Quest" era of RPGA tournament play, I have no doubt that they made fun diversions during a convention.
As Greyhawk adventures they were garbage, pure filler farted out by a publisher that had long ago lost interest in maintaining the quality of their brand.
Puppets featured a leprechaun named "Freddy MacKreuger."
Gargoyles was basically a five-minute joke stretched out over an entire module.
Childsplay was set in a "fictional kingdom" in Greyhawk because the editors were too lazy and too ill-informed to properly adapt it to the setting.
As short convention diversions, they are salvageable.
As a continuation of the line that brought us Queen of the Spiders and The Village of Hommlet, they are abominations.
I can't really argue with any of that. But I still like Gargoyle.
Mike
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Off topic - this thread has sparked my curiosity, anyone know what happened to Dale "Slade" Henson?
Yeah, he churned out some crap back in the day (Howl from the North, I'm looking at you. This poster was once a very disappointed 12 year old that spent his Christmas money on that hunk of turd), I was just wondering if he was still working in the industry? It looks like his name hasn't popped up on a product since about 1996.
I often wonder whatever became of TSR employees of yore.
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Eyebite....were you going to ask him for a refund?
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Eyebite....were you going to ask him for a refund?
Hah!
No...it really isn't his fault. I mean, sure he designed it, but I blame the company more for accepting it and releasing it to customers.
I'm just curious in a "Where Are They Now" kind of way.
The guy had a fairly lengthy career in the industry, with the industry leader at the time, and put out a lot of sub-par material. I don't know if it failed in the execution or design stage - but it just wasn't that great. I'm amazed that a lot of that stuff was even published honestly.
Heres a piture of him...
http://www.ptolus.com/images/Ground92c.jpg
Where are you Slade? Seems like a guy I could get along with.
What is he doing now?
I bet he works in someones landscape gardening business, or at a plant shop...
All time worst, by far: Dungeonland and Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.Aw man - those are two of my favorites! Well, actually, I love almost all of Dungeonland (the ending is a bit... vague) and ... uh ... two or three encounters ... in LBtMMI enjoyed them a lot, too, but then again I got to play through them, and I always did like Lewis Carroll. My Ftr/M-U ended up taking over Courland, as I recall, only to be deposed by a popular uprising.
I liked those as well, in fact two of the guys in my group also loved these and are begging me to convert and run them. I don't have the time to convert them, but I'd run them if I could find them. Does anyone know if these have been converted?
Nothing compares with the Three That Shall Not Be Named: Puppets, Gargoyle, and Child's Play. Players made into dolls? Check. Wingless gargoyles? Check. Bad parody of 80s horror movies? Check.
It's possible I've mis-summarized them, I can't bare to pull out my copies to verify their plots.
Those were so bad that I'm angry with you for even mentioning them. I hate scrubbing my brain with steel wool trying to erase memories.
All-in-all I wouldn't grade the adventure high by Paizo standards, but I ran this adventure multiple times over the years and enjoyed it each time. I find it hard to believe it's the worst D&D adventure of all time.
I have to say I like this adventure a fair bit myself. In fact when we started up playing 3.5 with a number of vets and a few players that had very little RPG experience I purposely choose Return To the Keep on the Borderlands (which is pretty similar to the original in most ways that matter) as the adventure to start with figuring that by converting a classic feeling adventure I'd get my old players back into the groove and give my new players a taste of some classic D&D before taking things to the deep end.
At worst one might say of this adventure that it did not do anything for you, to much hack and slash. OK - but there must be hundreds of modules like that around. Not good but not really awful either. Meanwhile there are adventures out their where the authors should legally change their name just to avoid the utter shame they should feel for having written such complete (often campaign destroying) drek.
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A lot of the 90's was massive hit or miss. I ran my campaigns almost exclusively from adventures in Dungeon Adventures magazine, which seemed to never fail me.
Stuff like the Night Below campaign was great, but the three beholder adventures and the mind flayer adventure trilogies they did to support their specialty monster books were horrors without massive DM revision.
Forgotten Realms fans fared no better with the Sword of the Dales trilogy which basically had the players WATCH the adventure happen around them, and the Marco Volo trilogy which was written (presumably) while heavily medicated.
-DM Jeff
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Forgotten Realms fans fared no better with the Sword of the Dales trilogy which basically had the players WATCH the adventure happen around them, and the Marco Volo trilogy which was written (presumably) while heavily medicated.
-DM Jeff
Never read Sword of the Dales, but I loved the foppish, I think Gnoll, they encounter "Is that real Shou silk in your scarf? Mahvolous!" I look at the Gnoll pimp and think of him.
The Sword of the Dales trilogy is drek.
Don't forget about the DLE adventures for Dragonlance, where we were introduced to half dragon ewoks, contradicted half the information on the cosmology and the gods in the setting, found out that there are tons of "dragon" weapons like dragonflails (and probably dragon caltrops for that matter).
Or the Kara-Tur (Ronin Challenge) adventure were the fate of Eastern Realms hangs on your ability to properly perform a tea ceremony.
Or Nightmare Keep, the Forgotten Realms adventure that has something to do with some weird twisted castle and a giant lich with the body of a huge locust that is mutating to do . . . something . . .
Come to think of it, there were a lot of Rick Swan adventures that had a ton of detail and rules for doing obscure things and that had plots that I never could completely fathom, at least at the time.
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I have a love/hate relationship with Chateau D'Amberville (X2?).
On the one hand, from a player's perspective, woot, free powers in every room! It's like the mirror image of the Tomb of Horrors, with something giving you a plus to saves or an extra ability point lurking around every corner.
From a DM's perspective, oh hell no. My least favorite plotline ever, 'Find the powerful NPC (Stephen D'Amberville?), who is billions of times cooler than you, and 20 or so levels higher than you, and watch him finish the adventure for you.'
But it will never be as bad as any adventure based on a novel. Whether it be Avatar Trilogy or Dragons of Seasonal Time-of-Day-Referent, any adventure where you walk around and watch stuff happen, and the boxed text tells you that you can't kill X or stop Y from happening *no matter what,* annoys the crap out of me. That's not an adventure, that's a travelogue of *somebody elses vacation.*
Novel 'adventures' are as to real adventures as slideshows are to action packed blockbusters.
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But it will never be as bad as any adventure based on a novel. Whether it be Avatar Trilogy or Dragons of Seasonal Time-of-Day-Referent,
Exactly. I bought the first three Dragonlance modules all at once, and upon opening the shrink-wrap, found a kabuki dance where you get to reenact the novels in excruciating detail. Never even thought about running them.
I also have to step up to defend the Magic Mirror and Dungeonland adventures. I ran those one summer at Scout camp and had hours of glorious hacking and slashing.
I didn't buy any adventures between about 1987 and 2002. Sounds like I didn't miss anything.
To be fair, the DL series of adventures were written before the novels.
The first book was (Dragons of Autumn Twilight. The other two in the original trilogy were written before the modules.
True, but the fact that they weren't just made to mimic the novels was my point.
Which is not to say that there wasn't problems with railroading in the adventures, just that the railroading wasn't because the adventures were following the novel storylines.
I dont really have any mods I really hated except for one that was pure heck to run...
World's largest Dungeon was rather mpntonous and seemed repetitive at low levels.
as for the Terrible Trouble in Tragidore I rewrote the module quite extensively but during the conversion of my rewrite from 2nd to 3rd edition the word document got corrupted and I lost just over half of the module (I still have the hard copy just need the time to re-type)
I actually re wrote the entire mod almost from scratch with some interesting plot twists.
I can't argue with a lot of these picks: Castle Greyhawk, Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, Needle. These were all lousy. I'm gonna stick with the 1st edition stuff (the nineties had way too much good and bad to keep track of) and add The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. This dungeon just came across as a half-assed attempt to showcase Fiend Folio. A real shame, it had a lot of potential but was a huge letdown.
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The monster ecology of the Forgotten Temple is just ridiculous. However, the location itself is rather cool - I kept the maps, repopulated the temple and used it as a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil sidequest (the PCs chased a Elder Elemental Eye strike force, which killed all the "original inhabitants" of the Temple and reanimated them as zombies. Thus the upper level was full of giant zombies, while the lower levels were defended by a bunch of BoVD-enhanced creepos and their bound extraplanar servants). It went over quite well, actually, especially the transdimensional whatzit.
A bunch of the old adventures had all kinds of weird crap in it. For example, what's up with the tentacle altar in the basement of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief?
I don't think very many of the writers and editors at TSR in the early 1990s even played Dungeons & Dragons. Almost all of the decent...
That was just after I stopped playing D&D. Glad I didn't miss anything.
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The first book was (Dragons of Autumn Twilight. The other two in the original trilogy were written before the modules.
True, but the fact that they weren't just made to mimic the novels was my point.
Which is not to say that there wasn't problems with railroading in the adventures, just that the railroading wasn't because the adventures were following the novel storylines.
I have to agree with you here. While their were very significant issues with those modules there are also a lot of very strong points with them. If you want to argue that they ultimatly fail as a product I'm going to agree with you. They don't actually work but what they did was still revolutionary for its time. They really redlined what it meant to run a campaign. We have a series of tightly linked adventures that represent an over arcing story thats epic in scope. You have reoccurring NPCs with complex motivations that matter to how the story itself plays out. Each individual adventure makes a serous attempt to put the PCs into a unique and extremely interesting environment.
To this day I consider the adventures themselves to be an absolute gold mine for good story ideas, great maps, and evocative locations. We have a sunken city hooked together by its sewer system and bits of ruins scattered over an elevation of about 800 hundred feet. An adventure about infiltrating an ancient Dwarven Fortress with the goal of initiating a slave revolt. An expedition to a glacier of unfathomable size. A battle for a fortress tower of epic proportions designed by the ancients to allow mortals to do battle against armies of Dragons and on and on. Every adventure made a serous attempt to place the PCs in a situation that just screamed epic fantasy like no other product out there up until that time and damn few afterword would reach its highs - or even try too.
Honestly the next time I really got that same sense of 'Mother of all Awesomeness' feel from a series of D&D products would not be until the latter stages of Age of Worms. The material starting with Champions Belt would, for the first time in a long time, have the same kind of 'this belongs inside a summer blockbuster' feel. Thats not to say that there was not a lot of absolutely fantastic product put out in the interim but material with this kind of breadth, scope, and truly epic feel was, IMO, exceedingly rare.
The monster ecology of the Forgotten Temple is just ridiculous. However, the location itself is rather cool - I kept the maps, repopulated the temple and used it as a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil sidequest (the PCs chased a Elder Elemental Eye strike force, which killed all the "original inhabitants" of the Temple and reanimated them as zombies. Thus the upper level was full of giant zombies, while the lower levels were defended by a bunch of BoVD-enhanced creepos and their bound extraplanar servants). It went over quite well, actually, especially the transdimensional whatzit.
Nicely done. Although not a big fan of the RttToEE, I like how you turned the original inhabitants into zombies. Like you, if I were to run this module I'd keep the location, maps and BG and gut the rest.
A bunch of the old adventures had all kinds of weird crap in it. For example, what's up with the tentacle altar in the basement of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief?
True, but that weird crap was kinda cool sometimes. They could be used as hooks for a sidequest or just as a "what the hell..?" moment in the game. Not everything needs an explanation and a little random mystery is good for variety in the game.
I have to second the vote for Thoughts of Darkness. I actually made the mistake of trying to make sense of that module and running it once and it utterly killed a game that was going smoothly. The module doesn't give a clear idea of what the party is doing, why they are doing it or who they are doing it to. There's something about Strhad's daughter and the mind flayers. There are then some random room descriptions and a little story disguised as a module. The map doesn't even show how to get between different places or how fan anything is. It was abysmal.
On an unrelated note, last summer I converted Sword of the Dales to a successful Vampire:The Requiem mini-campaign. It was lots of fun but I did change a few things, mostly the passive involvement of the party. We had lots of fun with it and we played it in a few sessions.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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A bunch of the old adventures had all kinds of weird crap in it. For example, what's up with the tentacle altar in the basement of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief?
As I recall, it is in Hall of the Fire Giant King, not the Steading. House Eilserv (of which Eclavdra is a member) serves the Elder Elemental God, the altar is a manifestation of his power.
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The monster ecology of the Forgotten Temple is just ridiculous. However, the location itself is rather cool - I kept the maps, repopulated the temple and used it as a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil sidequest (the PCs chased a Elder Elemental Eye strike force, which killed all the "original inhabitants" of the Temple and reanimated them as zombies. Thus the upper level was full of giant zombies, while the lower levels were defended by a bunch of BoVD-enhanced creepos and their bound extraplanar servants). It went over quite well, actually, especially the transdimensional whatzit.Nicely done. Although not a big fan of the RttToEE, I like how you turned the original inhabitants into zombies. Like you, if I were to run this module I'd keep the location, maps and BG and gut the rest.
With the Tharizdun connection, those two modules fit together rather nicely. The EEE cultists were there on a "field research trip" and wiped out the giants before the PCs caught up; once the initial PC assault was repulsed, the bad guys just locked themselves into the lower leveles and animated the rest of the corpses as uncontrolled undead. The Huge mountain giant zombie scared the daylights out of the PCs. Once the PCs drove away the baddies, they found the keys and enteted the extradimensional pocket, eventually leaving completely creeped out - they kept that horn secure after that, so that it would be "secure forever". Of course, that was the best part of the original adventure.
A bunch of the old adventures had all kinds of weird crap in it. For example, what's up with the tentacle altar in the basement of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief?As I recall, it is in Hall of the Fire Giant King, not the Steading. House Eilserv (of which Eclavdra is a member) serves the Elder Elemental God, the altar is a manifestation of his power.
There was the big Drow Elemental Eye temple in the Halls, but wasn't there an abandoned Eye altar underneath the Steading as well? I seem to remember that the giants didn't even know about it - it was just there to lash out and absorb a PC or two.
- they kept that horn secure after that, so that it would be "secure forever". Of course, that was the best part of the original adventure.
Yeah, that horn also makes an appearance in the 3.5 version of "Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth." A pretty good way to connect the two modules, I thought.
There was the big Drow Elemental Eye temple in the Halls, but wasn't...A bunch of the old adventures had all kinds of weird crap in it. For example, what's up with the tentacle altar in the basement of the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief?As I recall, it is in Hall of the Fire Giant King, not the Steading. House Eilserv (of which Eclavdra is a member) serves the Elder Elemental God, the altar is a manifestation of his power.
Yes, I looked it up. There is chamber (area 17)blocked off by rubble that contains a strange "greasy" altar that drives people mad if they get too close.
I found several modules for the Old D&D Master's Sets (M1-3) to be very uninteresting reads, and did not even attempt to use them, nor anything beyond the Companion Set.
M1- Let's do an adventure based on Homer's The Oddessy!
M2- Let's create a dungeon composed primarily of logic puzzles!M3- Let's trick the party into breaching an extradimensional prison and not having it affect anything until they can seal it again!
There were a few nuggets that could be used, but the contradictions between the modules and the earlier adventures (CM1 for instance), not to mention the rules in the Immortals Set, make them unplayable without heavy modification for continuity.
The only thing I remember about the adventure was that it involved one of the villains secretly casting Simulacrum in order to commit a crime or something and none of us (the players) were able to figure it out in time. I seem to recall Frank being amused by that ...
Sounds like The Doc from I12 Egg of the Phoenix, one of the best 1st Ed AD&D modules (although there was some pretty heavy railroading in spots).
I would love to have been in an early Blackmoor game, maybe the initial run at the Temple of the Frog, or something just to soak it all in. But short of that, I enjoy The Keep on the Borderlands as a sampling such a style of play.
I think there is a good point in that there are adventures that seem a little simple or unsophisticated by today's standards, and adventures that were just bad because of the plot, special rules, or silly logic contortions that were needed to play the adventure.
Oh, did anyone see the news item on WOTC's site that some of the last Living Greyhawk scenarios are going to be reworked versions of the "goofy" Castle Greyhawk levels? Where was the outpouring of thought towards doing that?
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My biggest disagreement is that I LOVE The Keep on the Borderlands!
To be fair, I think there has only been one or two who would put KEEP up as an example of a bad adventure.
Personally, of all the modules I have ever played over the last twenty five years, KEEP was the most used. For one thing, it was the only one I had for a number of years, but for another, it was fun as a young kid to roll up a new character or two and see how far we could make it through the dungeons before we died.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Oh, did anyone see the news item on WOTC's site that some of the last Living Greyhawk scenarios are going to be reworked versions of the "goofy" Castle Greyhawk levels? Where was the outpouring of thought towards doing that?
Did you notice the date on that announcement, KE?
After reading the discussion about the terrible, horrible parts of "Forest Oracle", I went and bought the pdf. Woooh. There's a lot of stinky little encounters in there, as people note, and there's a lot of bad editing there, as people note.
But the overall scope of the adventure is worthy of comment, too, in its breath-takingly poor handling. An area is blighted. You need to see the local druids to fix it.
The head druid has an amazingly powerful potion, at hand, tailor-made to take care of the problem. But he won't let you have it until you do a task for him. Apparently, he's corrupt, like a firefighter who won't extinguish your burning house unless you first do a favor for him.
Everything else in the adventure --including the dopey dryad, dopey wererats, dopey brigands, and dopey river rapids-- is filler, side-quests, and incidental encounters that don't progress the storyline at all.
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After reading the discussion about the terrible, horrible parts of "Forest Oracle", I went and bought the pdf. Woooh. There's a lot of stinky little encounters in there, as people note, and there's a lot of bad editing there, as people note.
I got the hard copy of that one and it is bad. I still think The Needle is worse but Forest Oracle doesn't have a lot to recommend it.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Oh, did anyone see the news item on WOTC's site that some of the last Living Greyhawk scenarios are going to be reworked versions of the "goofy" Castle Greyhawk levels? Where was the outpouring of thought towards doing that?
Yes, but it is also dated April 1st :) The only Castle Greyhawk adaptation in LG is one of the excellent Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk.
Yes, but it is also dated April 1st :) The only Castle Greyhawk adaptation in LG is one of the excellent Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk.
Oh, thank God. I'm glad I was just not paying attention. I would have hated to think that WOTC had gone that far over the bend. ;)