I like 4E. But I also like good adventures with a strong theme, a cool backstory, exciting locations and memorable NPC's.
So I ask you. Is it just me, or are all the adventures put out by Wizards so far "less than they could have been" (up to and including Scepter Tower of Spellguard).
In another thread N'Wah paraphrased something from the latest Wizards podcast
PS: If you're planning on sending Dungeon/Dragon submissions to WotC, they apparently don't like long adventure backgrounds- something about "if the PCs will never find out, we don't care" or somesuch. Odd, but whatever. They babble about it for a bit. Honestly, I understand both ways, and as a DM, I love excessive background and often spill it to the PCs after the adventure when plied with drinks, but I can run a good adventure without it.
Is this really all that Wizards want? Short and neat excuses to explore dungeons, towers and the like, and then straight on to the tactical encounters (in many cases complete with silly illogical traps).
So far I have like Thunderspire Labyrinth the best, maybe for its potential for me to expand it...
But are we never gonna get any cool stories? I am a little dissappointed here. But what do the rest of you think?
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I own Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth and to be honest, both adventures are incredibly dull. They're good adventures if you want to test the D&D 4e rules but other than that, bleh! The biggest problem I have with them is the lack of roleplaying potential. An adventure doesn't have to have a two-page Adventure Background section to be a good adventure but it does need an interesting bunch of NPCs and locations the heroes can interact with. In my opinion, Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth have none of that.
Personally I disagree with the whole "if the PCs will never find out..." notion. I like adventures with a lot of background material and I often use the background stuff to create additional encounters that match the general feel of the adventure. The statement made by the guys over at Wizards of the Coast really just shows me that I made the right decision when I decided not to purchase any gaming products published by Wizards of the Coast in the future.
Not a 4e player but,yall do need some good adventures. Wotc was never very good at em the best ones always were freelance work. The GSL makes it rough on any 3pp that wants to do 4e stuff. Maybe Goodmen will be able to get yall something with more depth,I hope yall get some good ones anyhow.
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Although I'm not a fan of 4e, I did check out both of the adventures mentioned above thinking that they would contain some material that I could 'liberate' for my 3.5 campaign.
I've got to admit that I was very disappointed in both cases. Both adventures were uninspired, and I suspect that one reason may be that 4e hasn't really found it's own 'voice' yet. However, I also get the feeling that the designers were playing it very safe with these initial releases. This timidity is a bit surprising considering that 4e is a pretty big break with D&D tradition in a whole lot of other ways. And I'm not sure that this is a good thing - WoTC really need to pump out a couple of solid adventures to win over those gamers who are still sitting on the fence.
I wasn't convinced that 4e is for me from the outset...and these initial adventures did very little to win me over. To be honest, deep down I was kind of hoping to see something awesome that would make me reassess my opinion of the new edition - and in both cases all I got was a string of combat encounters strung together by a flimsy plot.
As noted in another thread, Goodman has released at least two "4E-compatible" adventures under the OGL.
I've given Dragora's Dungeon a quick read and its backstory is not in the least flimsy, and there's more to do than hack-and-slash.
Although I'm not a fan of 4e, I did check out both of the adventures mentioned above thinking that they would contain some material that I could 'liberate' for my 3.5 campaign.
I've got to admit that I was very disappointed in both cases. Both adventures were uninspired, and I suspect that one reason may be that 4e hasn't really found it's own 'voice' yet ...
I think what you're complaining about is actually 4e's 'voice' according to WotC thinking. As we can see from the quoted comments from WotC upthread, they don't want long backstory, and aren't particularly interested in stuff like complex dungeon ecologies, overly detailed npc/monster descriptions and motivations, etc etc.
Dungeons you enter, monsters you kill, treasures you steal. 4e has pared down that basic premise of D&D, in a way back to basics, but it means flavour, detail, and atmosphere are no longer particularly on the menu. As far as I can see, and especially judging by the above comments from WotC for what they want from adventures they're going to publish.
That restriction on adventuring backgrounds described by the OP is not something new; it was in effect in 3e for both WotC and Paizo. Nobody wants to publish 2e style novellas before you get to the actual adventure.
BTW, I disagree that their are no good 4e adventures produced by WoTC (or 3e for that matter, with the Red Hand of Doom, the final FR adventure trilogy, and several of the Expedition series). H1 was humdrum IMO, but H2 and H3 were great adventures dripping in old school nostalgia; admittedly the stories were not "in-depth," but they did not lack interesting places to adventure, cool encounters, NPCs to interact with, etc. I haven't had a chance to read FR1 yet.
I haven't found any 4E adventures that I've really wanted to run yet. Right now I'm running 2nd darkness using 4E rules, so far the conversion hasn't been too bad. We may switch to pathfinder if I find it becomes too much of a pain or if after we've played 4E for a while we decide we aren't liking it.
Shroomy, part of the issue some people are bringing up is this. While there have occasionally been good modules produced by WotC, the ones you started to mention, Red Hand of Doom, some of the Expedition series, etc....take a look at who wrote them.
Red Hand of Doom: James Jacobs and Richard Baker
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk: Erik Mona, James Jacobs, Jason Bulhman
Exp. to Demonweb Pits: Wolfgang Baur and Gwendolyn Kestral
Of the FR Super-Adventures: Anauroch, the Empire of Shade: Greg A. Vaughn, Thomas Reid, Sean K. Reynolds
Notice any similarities between these books and authors? Nearly everyone on this list works for Paizo right now and has written for them often in the past. This is one of the reasons that so many fans of 4e want to see Paizo do some adventures for 4e. I think saying that WotC made some good adventures in 3.5 without disclosing whom it was that wrote them doesn't really count to their credit entirely.
A solid 3rd edition adventure was City of the Spider Queen (3.0 though). Written by James Wyatt as I recall.
Shroomy, part of the issue some people are bringing up is this. While there have occasionally been good modules produced by WotC, the ones you started to mention, Red Hand of Doom, some of the Expedition series, etc....take a look at who wrote them.
Red Hand of Doom: James Jacobs and Richard Baker
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk: Erik Mona, James Jacobs, Jason Bulhman
Exp. to Demonweb Pits: Wolfgang Baur and Gwendolyn Kestral
Of the FR Super-Adventures: Anauroch, the Empire of Shade: Greg A. Vaughn, Thomas Reid, Sean K. Reynolds
Notice any similarities between these books and authors? Nearly everyone on this list works for Paizo right now and has written for them often in the past. This is one of the reasons that so many fans of 4e want to see Paizo do some adventures for 4e. I think saying that WotC made some good adventures in 3.5 without disclosing whom it was that wrote them doesn't really count to their credit entirely.
A solid 3rd edition adventure was City of the Spider Queen (3.0 though). Written by James Wyatt as I recall.
Perhaps people should focus on writers of adventures exclusively and not focus on the company printing them. Just an idea.
4e or not, WotC has rarely if ever produced decent mods with deep backstory, complex situations, sophisticated settings, or memorable NPCs. I have never looked to WotC for good adventures.
Agreed.
Probably just in time for 5th edition to be released.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Kobold Press
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Must .... brag... about WRATH!
I tried to resist, I really did, but I can't help but mention Wrath of the River King. It is a 4E adventure with a rich set of NPCs (some of them recurring), several big skill challenges and roleplay encounters, a decent sandbox-style plot, plus a ton of new monsters.
I've been playtesting it since GenCon, and it is really coming together.
It will be a limited edition for patrons of Open Design. Check out the writeup.
But are we never gonna get any cool stories? I am a little dissappointed here. But what do the rest of you think?
Keep an eye on what the 3PPs are doing. There's likely to be some real gems coming from talented writers here and there...of course sorting the wheat from the chaff is, as always, tricky.
Dungeon should also put out some great material as well. Their model of going with the best script from a pile of 116 scripts virtually insures quality. Dungeon does go up and down in quality historically but I don't think its ever really been actually bad. Even the rather chaotic and underwhelming transition period we just experienced had some good material. That said writers are still learning the system so it might be a bit before we start to see any real high points. I found this when they did the transition to 3.0 as well. For a few months nothing really spectacular happened as the writers tried to get their feet back under them but then they began to figure out the game and realize its strong points and we got some great stuff again.
I think what you're complaining about is actually 4e's 'voice' according to WotC thinking. As we can see from the quoted comments from WotC upthread, they don't want long backstory, and aren't particularly interested in stuff like complex dungeon ecologies, overly detailed npc/monster descriptions and motivations, etc etc.Dungeons you enter, monsters you kill, treasures you steal. 4e has pared down that basic premise of D&D, in a way back to basics, but it means flavour, detail, and atmosphere are no longer particularly on the menu. As far as I can see, and especially judging by the above comments from WotC for what they want from adventures they're going to publish.
That really sucks for you guys.
From what I've heard, it's supposed to be easy to churn out combat encounters in 4e. For me, that would mean that published adventures aren't attractive because of their encounters, but rather for their stories, innovations, suprises.
But when 4dventures are little more than dungeon crawls, why bother with them?
I hope some decent publishers will do some 4e adventures for you guys - proper ones with gripping stories and such.
Thank you all for the feedback. Nice to know I am not the only one underwhelmed by the offerings so far.
I hope that Wizards are just looking for their "voice" as someone suggested. However I fear this is just the new (old) style. As seen in the quote in my OP.
A few suggest I check out 3PP, like Goodman games. Honestly I have found the quality of Goodman games scenarioes to be poor. They focused on old style dungeon crawls... and that is just what Wizards do now. Complete with Tomb of Horror style visual aids.
I will of course be checking out Goodmans first few adventures, but I do not have high hopes.
Since Paizo is not going 4E I am hoping someone else will show that you can make compelling stories, with rich background and cool villains with 4E.
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Thank you all for the feedback. Nice to know I am not the only one underwhelmed by the offerings so far.
I hope that Wizards are just looking for their "voice" as someone suggested. However I fear this is just the new (old) style. As seen in the quote in my OP.
A few suggest I check out 3PP, like Goodman games. Honestly I have found the quality of Goodman games scenarioes to be poor. They focused on old style dungeon crawls... and that is just what Wizards do now. Complete with Tomb of Horror style visual aids.
I will of course be checking out Goodmans first few adventures, but I do not have high hopes.
Since Paizo is not going 4E I am hoping someone else will show that you can make compelling stories, with rich background and cool villains with 4E.
Try Dragora's dungeon, whilst the DCC's are dungeon crawls, this Master Dungeon is a Howardesque adventure with plenty of room for roleplay and investigation as based on your players personal preference.
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I think we have to bear in mind that the "adventure situation" has nothing to do with the edition of the game but everything with WoC.
They set the "style" of the game and how they think it should play.
As we can see from the adventures so far, they focus lies heavily on hack n' slash.
As the GSL is so restrictive there is not much competition from 3PPs at the moment.
So far so bad.
I must admit that I really do not understand why they produce adventures like this!
Although I might err in this assumption, I do not think that the designers would play their own adventures -as written- in a campaign of their own. They probably would modifiy them heavily.
Maybe these adventures are there to reflect the tastes of the casual gamer who enjoys a once in while beer and pretzels game?
Maybe the style of the adventures reflects -or is supposed to reflect- the tastes of the new target group of gamers?
Maybe it works and this will bring a lot of new blood to the game.
As for me, I do enjoy a good backstory. Even if the PCs will never know the whole of it, a good story helps me to get th feel for the adventure or campaign. And there is a big difference between the old chtulhuesque evil that awakens and threatens the world or the old wizard-king that reawakens as a Lich to take back his empire.
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Maybe these adventures are there to reflect the tastes of the casual gamer who enjoys a once in while beer and pretzels game?
Maybe the style of the adventures reflects -or is supposed to reflect- the tastes of the new target group of gamers?
Maybe it works and this will bring a lot of new blood to the game.
Yes, I think WotC does keep the more casual gamer in mind when it creates its products. I also think it is a fairly low barrier to cross for those that are new to roleplaying.
WotC has a very broad audience. In order to satisfy that audience it cannot tailor its offerings to the veteran roleplayer that wants tremendous depth and complexity in a published adventure.
In fact some of the adventures that folk here say they love just leave me cold because it feels like I have to study a novel before I run a four hour game session. I do love the Pathfinder material but I have to admit that I skip over huge chunks of it when I read through it.
I would love to see adventures that are halfway between the current WotC offerings and the Pathfinder APs. Great stories, wonderful roleplaying, fun combat encounters but not so much detail that it feels like cramming for a history exam.
I"m digging on Goodman Games Sellswords of Punjar. Some real old Sword and Sorcery feel to it with a lot of grimy beggars and rogues and a ton of interesting traps along with some cursed magic!
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In the same boat...
I've actually been converting 2nd ed and 3.5 adventures to 4e for my 10th level FR.
I am trying the Scales AP, but so far the first adventure is...not so good...the players are trying to make the best of it adding in player/player interactions...However, the next two parts of the path look more promising. There's more background on the locales in these cases and bad guys are doing things behind the scenes.
I have heard that the Goodman offerings Swords of Punjar and the Dragotha's Dungeon are pretty good and not like the previous DCCs (little background, all dungeon).
I'll have to check out Open Design though..sounds very intriguing.
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But are we never gonna get any cool stories? I am a little dissappointed here. But what do the rest of you think?Keep an eye on what the 3PPs are doing. There's likely to be some real gems coming from talented writers here and there...of course sorting the wheat from the chaff is, as always, tricky.
Dungeon should also put out some great material as well. Their model of going with the best script from a pile of 116 scripts virtually insures quality. Dungeon does go up and down in quality historically but I don't think its ever really been actually bad. Even the rather chaotic and underwhelming transition period we just experienced had some good material. That said writers are still learning the system so it might be a bit before we start to see any real high points. I found this when they did the transition to 3.0 as well. For a few months nothing really spectacular happened as the writers tried to get their feet back under them but then they began to figure out the game and realize its strong points and we got some great stuff again.
only one problem with this theory: dungeon was pretty good to average under TSR, pretty lousy under WotC (maybe they can't even recognize goodness as they can't produce it, adventure-wise?) and rocked under paizo (moreso after they dropped the polyhedron anchor).
so, given the track record, i wouldn't expect much from dungeon as long as it stays under WotC's roof...
for those waiting for good adventures, yeah, 3pps are going to be your saviors when they get cranking full bore...
I tried to resist, I really did, but I can't help but mention Wrath of the River King. It is a 4E adventure with a rich set of NPCs (some of them recurring), several big skill challenges and roleplay encounters, a decent sandbox-style plot, plus a ton of new monsters.
As a patron for Wrath, I've seen the work in progress. I can say it has turned me around on the potential for 4th edition adventures. A great story and good examples of how to do skill challenges well. I'm really looking forward to the finished product.
H1 was humdrum IMO, but H2 and H3 were great adventures dripping in old school nostalgia; admittedly the stories were not "in-depth," but they did not lack interesting places to adventure, cool encounters, NPCs to interact with, etc. I haven't had a chance to read FR1 yet.
I was a player in H1 and it was ho-hum. But I'm DMing H2 and it's one of the most enjoyable DMing experiences I've had. I like the setting a lot and feel it allows me to really make it my own. I can't read H3 as I'll be a player once again.
"In the Grim Darkness of D&D 40,000 There is Only HACKA HACKA HACKA!"
Just a joke, folks! Put down the spatulas!
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"In the Grim Darkness of D&D 40,000 There is Only HACKA HACKA HACKA!"
Just a joke, folks! Put down the spatulas!
Well, D&D has returned to its roots.
I am pretty harsh on their mods - perhaps too harsh. I don't mind the combat encounters but for them to dominate the current offerings is a bit much.
Love the rules not the mods.
I"m digging on Goodman Games Sellswords of Punjar. Some real old Sword and Sorcery feel to it with a lot of grimy beggars and rogues and a ton of interesting traps along with some cursed magic!
I'll second this one. It's got a great Fritz Lieber/ Lankhmar feel. I wish it would've been available when my group first started 4e.
That really sucks for you guys.From what I've heard, it's supposed to be easy to churn out combat encounters in 4e. For me, that would mean that published adventures aren't attractive because of their encounters, but rather for their stories, innovations, suprises.
It certainly is. I figure I could stock a 5th level dungeon with monsters, including stuff like stat blocks and templates and probably even a made up monster or two in about 3 1/2 hours of prep.
But when 4dventures are little more than dungeon crawls, why bother with them?
Good point...in the long run we simply won't.
I hope some decent publishers will do some 4e adventures for you guys - proper ones with gripping stories and such.
They better - 'saving the DM prep time' is not going to cut it. Not enough prep time. Make compelling adventures with interesting back stories, great NPCs and good skill challenges or we'll do it ourselves.
This is in fact what makes me sure that some companies are going to 'get it' and start to make some really interesting and compelling stuff. Much like 2nd edition you can't rope the audience in with complex stat blocks because they are far to easy for any DM anywhere to make on his own. WotC might just manage to sell lousy adventures and still squeak by with a small profit but the 3PPs are going to have to blow us away with great stories or they are going to loose their shirts.
Goodman appears to have already figured this out. Their offerings are a lot more interesting theme and story wise then most of the '1st Edition Feel' stuff they historically have produced.
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I would love to see adventures that are halfway between the current WotC offerings and the Pathfinder APs. Great stories, wonderful roleplaying, fun combat encounters but not so much detail that it feels like cramming for a history exam.
Well, for an adventure I like enough background to provide DM and players with enough incentives to play thorugh it but not too much so I won't b able to fit it in my homebrew campaign.
For APs I like it exactly how PIAZO are doing them. Enough background and information that I only have to read the books and can play and don't have to worry about coming up with a campaign arc myself.
And last but not least, for the once-in-a-while beer and pretzels night I like an adventure that starts with a "bang" (Monte Cooks "Temple of Mysteries: In medias res" is the standard setting adventure for me here).
Different grades of "fluff" infomation for different adventures.
I raised this same issue in a previous thread but for me I've struggled to find more than a handful of decent adventures since the early days of 2E. Stories have been paper thin, adventures have been combat orientated and that was still under TSR.
Roll on external companies coming up with new material.
I was disappointed by The Scepter Tower of Spellguard---advertised as the final book in the 4e FR set, I was hoping it would contain the setting and campaign elements missing from the other 4e adventures. It's just more of the same, however, and doesn't have much to say about FR.
The latest Wizards' podcast does explain the reasons for the products we are seeing. I've come to believe that a 4e game will function best as a Dungeon Delve campaign.
Must .... brag... about WRATH!
I tried to resist, I really did, but I can't help but mention Wrath of the River King. It is a 4E adventure with a rich set of NPCs (some of them recurring), several big skill challenges and roleplay encounters, a decent sandbox-style plot, plus a ton of new monsters.
I've been playtesting it since GenCon, and it is really coming together.
It will be a limited edition for patrons of Open Design. Check out the writeup.
It is okay to brag :-)
You have a good track record in my book Mr. Baur, so I will be keeping an eye out for "Wrath of the River King". Will this be out a printed module or pdf only? And sticking to my original question - when? :-)
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You have a good track record in my book Mr. Baur, so I will be keeping an eye out for "Wrath of the River King". Will this be out a printed module or pdf only? And sticking to my original question - when? :-)
This adventure is a limited edition for patrons of Open Design. To get it, you have to be a patron. To become a patron, you have to donat a certain amount of cash to open design. There is a basic amount, which gives you access to some previews and the final product and there is the patron of the art which gives you insight in the whole process of the adventure creation.
You will receive the final poduct as a PDF first. Later, after Errata have been integrated you also can do a POD.You get more detailed info on Wolfgangs Open Design page.
I was patron on Empire of Ghouls and Arabian Nights and Senior Patron on Blood of the Gorgon. I can only say that the adventures are high class and the senior patron status gives you a lot of insight of how an advnture is created and how the designers' mind works*
*In case of Blood of the Gorgon and Nick Logue as designer that was disturbing...
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I've come to believe that a 4e game will function best as a Dungeon Delve campaign.
That may be WotC's intentions but the rules are not bound to them. The adventures created for 4e can match anything published under the OGL.
There have been some really fun Living Forgotten Realms mods that have completely avoided the dungeon delve meme.
What do people think of H3: Pyramid of Shadows?
Pyramid of Shadows may have a spectacular location, but the nature of the adventure is way too chaotic to fit my taste. It is extremely old school complete with a dragon inside a room and creatures of all types living next door to eachother in entirely different enviroments.
I like the villain i PoS, and I may lift parts of the adventure for use elsewhere, but I will not be running it as is.
Well, D&D has returned to its roots.
That's not always a good thing. Imagine Coca Cola in its original composition, containing both cocaine and alcohol. I'm quite sure most of us don't want that to go back to its roots.
That's not always a good thing. Imagine Coca Cola in its original composition, containing both cocaine and alcohol. I'm quite sure most of us don't want that to go back to its roots.
Well, D&D has returned to its roots.
In a Dungeon issue way back, there was a top 30 adventures of all time article in which several top designers (many of whom work at WotC and Paizo) were polled. Most of those adventures were old school 1st ed, including the top 5.
Despite the fact that I'm not sure I agree with the list, doesn't the abundance of the old school in this prominent list make them a worthy aspiration?
With all the arguments against 4e because it is ignoring tradition, I'm surprised people would be unhappy that the adventures reflect something more old school.
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Kobold Press
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You have a good track record in my book Mr. Baur, so I will be keeping an eye out for "Wrath of the River King". Will this be out a printed module or pdf only? And sticking to my original question - when? :-)
DOH! Ninja'ed by Tharen the Damned.
Oh, and the adventure will be released to patrons before the end of the year, most likely in November.
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You have a good track record in my book Mr. Baur, so I will be keeping an eye out for "Wrath of the River King". Will this be out a printed module or pdf only? And sticking to my original question - when? :-)DOH! Ninja'ed by Tharen the Damned.
Oh, and the adventure will be released to patrons before the end of the year, most likely in November.
I wish I'd caught this from the beginning, sounds fascinating.
Will their be another opportunity? And will it be 4E?
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I wish I'd caught this from the beginning, sounds fascinating.
Will their be another opportunity? And will it be 4E?
There will certainly be another Open Design project. Until now it worked this way: Wolfgang tossed a few ideas at patrons of former projects. And patrons also posted a few ideas. From a dozen ideas the best few got voted by the patrons. Those were put up by Wolfgang on the Open Design page. Now it was down to voting with your Cash. You either subcribed to one or the other project. The poject that got the most patrons (or got the critical cash value first) was the one that was now tackled by Wolfgang. Patrons for the losing poject got their cash refunded or could be patrons for the winning project.
If "Wrath" is successful and patrons like it, I am sure there will be another 4th edition project.
So I suggest to visit the Open Design page on a regular basis after "Wrath" is released.
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I wish I'd caught this from the beginning, sounds fascinating.
Will their be another opportunity? And will it be 4E?
There will certainly be another Open Design project. Until now it worked this way: Wolfgang tossed a few ideas at patrons of former projects. And patrons also posted a few ideas. From a dozen ideas the best few got voted by the patrons. Those were put up by Wolfgang on the Open Design page. Now it was down to voting with your Cash. You either subcribed to one or the other project. The poject that got the most patrons (or got the critical cash value first) was the one that was now tackled by Wolfgang. Patrons for the losing poject got their cash refunded or could be patrons for the winning project.
If "Wrath" is successful and patrons like it, I am sure there will be another 4th edition project.
So I suggest to visit the Open Design page on a regular basis after "Wrath" is released.
Will do. Thanks!
So what would be some examples of the kinds of adventures you'd like to see in 4E? What kinds of adventures would be so different from the early crop? Feel free to point to a particular adventure as an example.
See, my favorite Dungeon adventures were in the Shackled City/Age of Worms paths. I never got to run Savage Tide, but I'm sure they were fine adventures too. But thinking back, even those great adventures were essentially dungeon crawls with some extra material. You had the occasional adventure that broke the mold (the Prince of Redhand, for example), but for the most part it was go here, fight some guys, learn some stuff, lather rinse repeat. And I, for one, loved it.
(I'd also like to point out that, while you can say that many of the best WotC adventures were written by 3rd regulars, I think many of the best 3rd Party adventures are written by WotC regulars, like Chris Perkins, Dave Noonan, Chris Thomasson/Youngs, Jesse Decker, Ari Marmell, Robert Schwalb, etc. Credit where credit's due.)
I also think that judging an adventure path by its first adventure may be a bit harsh. Life's Bazaar was just a big dungeon crawl. Now, Life's Bazaar did set up the whole city of Cauldron, and of course the Whispering Cairn set up Diamond Lake; for Rescue at Rivenroar, Brindol was already set up by Red Hand of Doom. I also don't think RaR gets enough credit for what it does do in unique ways: it has a series of linked encounters that are part of a village raid, and it has a puzzle surrounding the captives...where the captives themselves are the clues. I'd call that fairly atypical.
Beyond that, I think that Siege at Bordrin's Watch and the Shadow Rift of Umbraforge both are as chock-full of interesting locales, background, etc. as you can get. Overlook is a great, detailed, useful city. I'm super jealous of Rob Schwalb's city design, as it makes Mithrendain look so ho-hum next to it. Scott Gray brings the Shadowfell to life. I think both adventures are extremely detailed and leave a lot of hooks for the DM to develop on his own.
Back to my original premise, I'll agree that I tended to run 3rd-party adventures in 3E, so what makes them more interesting? It may be too big a topic for just this thread, but when you think of adventures from the past that you'd like to see something that good in 4E, what do you think of?
Me? I think of Test of the Smoking Eye and Ravenloft.
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So what would be some examples of the kinds of adventures you'd like to see in 4E?
See - I love RuneQuest. To me the gold standard is Griffin Mountain and the exploration of an untamed and extremely dangerous wilderness. I also loved Apple Lane, Borderlands, and the whole Pavis/Big Rubble thing. I also loved third edition works like Sun County and River of Cradles.
What ties them all together is that they each present a wide variety of situations and locations. The Wizards adventures, so far, have been crawl and more crawl. I did enough crawl from 1975-1982 when AD&D was my game of choice. Now I dig more variety and sophistication. I don't mind the odd trip underground - just not as the dominant theme.
Oh, and for a more contemporary source of great adventures - WFRP. The Paths of the Damned trilogy is fantastic as are many of the small episodes in Plundered Vaults.
In LFR I loved all of the first seven mods. They all had a great feel, lots of roleplay, and the crawls were minimalist.