What is your favorite pre-built adventure? Why?
Personally I will always reserve that special title for the old Night Below box set. I may be a bit biased as that was the first campaign I've played all the way through, but it suited me well. While there is a general storyline it was also a bit of a sandbox (especially the first book), offering plenty of places to explore and mini-adventures aplenty. It had a solid mix of dungeon crawling and social situations as well. I've played through it twice and run it for others three times (once using 2nd Edition, and twice after converting it to 3.X). I've been thinking about converting it to Pathfinder and giving a new group another run through it too.
I'm going to give Rise of the Runelords an honorable mention though, for if I wasn't so biased towards Night Below, this may well take the top sport. I find the story to be great involving many NPC's with surprising depth, especially the villians. The AP sets a delightfully gruesome tone with just enough comedy seeded throughout to keep it from getting stale (the goblins entertain me to no end). When running it for various groups, though, I've found that as written the combats are entirely too easy and had to be ramped up to keep PC's from plowing through it with ease.
Sticking to just an adventure (and not a whole pre-built campaign) I'd say its pretty much a toss up between I6: Ravenloft, DL1: Dragons of Despair and Whispering Cairn.
I6: Ravenloft has an awesome and evocative setting, great maps, a fantastic villain and manages, more then any other adventure I have encountered, before or sense, to give off that classic Gothic horror feel.
DL1: Dragons of Despair has an awesome map, involves exploration into and through an environment that is both unique and compelling without being 'beyond the pale'. It also involves Gully Dwarves and Gully Dwarves are the perfect NPC. They are hysterically funny and interesting to interact with and yet don't give away the plot (because they are just too stupid to do so).
Whispering Cairn is maybe the perfect 'teaching dungeon'. It'll teach any new group, no matter how neophyte they are, to play fantasy RPGs and cover almost all the basic points, and will do so in a awesome adventure. The adventure itself, due to its strong plot and varied themes, is great for veteran groups as well but I think its value as an introductory adventure is what pushes it from being an excellent adventure up into the 'best of the best' category.
Bump!
Though I never ran it in the system for which it was originally written, my vote is for Rich Baker's "Prism Keep", from Dungeon #45. I read it when I was 12 and could more easily scrape up enough pocket money to buy an issue of the magazine than any other published gaming product for AD&D.
It has everything I love about D&D: dueling wizards, fun encounters with quirky rooms (the bottomless pool is always fun to run), some nasty monsters, including staples like gargoyles, demons, cockatrices, manticores, and golems. The overarching puzzle isn't so oblique as to confuse players - they get the concept pretty quickly, and it's the act of gathering the crystal pieces that requires finesse and smarts unless you can manage to steamroll it. Players who have a knack for role playing can also affect the outcome with good diplomacy or a clever ruse, especially if the GM works to make the evil sorceress's henchmen have distinct personalities.
When I first started running D&D 3.5 in earnest circa 2002, I converted it ham-handedly, changing the antagonist mage, Irinia, to a drow sorceress to fit in with a Forgotten Realms game I was running, but it was more or less intact otherwise. Years later, in 2008, I adapted it for use in my own campaign world using what I'd learned from a few years of GMing experience, and gave the keep to the party at the end, assuming that the archmage Alarius perished and the castle was eager to serve new masters after displacing Irinia.
I've always wanted to see "Prism Keep" officially redone for a newer edition of the game with Baker's input - and it's one of the few scenarios I feel confident I could run in nearly any given system, and even a tweaked-genre setting, in a real bind. Heck, just writing this post makes me wanna run it again! =]
I've almost never played a module my entire career. Of those I have, I have some fond memories of Tree of Life, Blade of Vengeance, and Twilight Calling. For reading, I liked Night Below. It felt very complete to me, very thoroughly thought-out. Of those I've run, I had a fun Dragon Mountain campaign my first time in college. Kobolds + Humanoids Handbook + tactics + crazy players = win.
Castle Amber: Just had soo much fun playing though that. Lots of many fond memories.
Though alot of the older D&D or 1st ed modules. I liked alot...
Always love putting players through an old White Dwarf scenario called "The Lichway". A statue of a vampire at the first corner just to freak 'em out a bit and a horde of skeletons who are kept at peace by the singing of a caged creature at the far end of a crypt. Are they going to be dumb enough to kill the beastie in the hope of raiding the tombs, knowing that the exit is the far side of the mausoleum. There's also a bunch of bandits led my a sorceress to deal with as well and not a vampire in sight. Big fun.
In enjoyed most of the handful of modules I have played in over the past 30 years. We just didn't do a whole lot of premade or using printed settings the ones that I enjoyed the most:
Lich Lords: Was a TPK but still great.
Egg of the Phoenix: The wand of prismatic nullification Yan-Ci-Bin uses needs to be reprinted
Harbinger House for Planescape
Shadows Over the Empire/ Drachenfels/ Something's Rotten in Kislev for Warhammer fanatasy RP.
Ones I started but never finished they showed promise though:
Temple of Elemental Evil: (5 times I stated and never got much further than the outpost)
Great Modoron March: Just the tip of the iceberg. My dustman sold the information to the titan weapons dealer and another player got his salt blade for informing his Doomguard Factols of the marches begining.
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I6: Ravenloft
from 1983 by Tracy Hickman is by far the greatest adventure ever done. No other single adventure comes close.
After that, here's my list:
1) Vault of the Drow
2) The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
3) Dwellers of the Forbidden City
4) The Egg of the Phoenix
5) The Village of Hommlet
Honors: Castle Amber, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Hidden Tamoachan, The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Curse of Xanathon, Into the Fire, Wards of Witching Ways
1) Kingdom of the Ghouls
2) Umbra
3) A Paladin in Hell
4) Ex Libris
5) City of Skulls
Honors: The Gates of Firestorm Peak, A Rose for Talakra, Slave Vats of the Yuan Ti, Lear the Giant King, The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, Lady of the Mists, Eye of Myrkul, Return to White Plume Mountain, Old Man Katan
1) The Styes
2) The Harrowing
3) Fiend's Embrace
4) And Madness Follows
5) Root of Evil
6) Interloppers of Ruun Khazai
7) Death in Freeport
8) The Sunless Citadel
9) Tammaraut's Fate
10) Zenith Trajectory
1) The Skinsaw Murders
2) Stolen Land
3) Hangman's Noose
4) Howl of the Carrion King
5) Gallery of Evil
6) Realm of the Fealnight Queen
7) Tower of the Last Baron
8) The Hook Mountain Massacre
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Greatest CAMPAIGNS of all time....
1) Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk
2) Queen of Spiders
3) Age of Worms AP
4) Kingmaker AP
5) Shackled City AP
6) Dead Gods
7) Temple of Elemental Evil
8) Rise of the Runelords AP
9) Expedition to the Demonweb Pits
10) Expedition to Undermountain
11) City of the Spider Queen
12) Dark Tower
NOTE: This does not include Savage Tide AP, Curse of the Crimson Throne, or Council of Thieves because I've not read them (I'm still hoping to find a DM who will run them so I can be a PC)
1) Vault of the Drow
2) The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
3) Dwellers of the Forbidden City
4) The Egg of the Phoenix
5) The Village of HommletHonors: Castle Amber, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Hidden Tamoachan, The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Curse of Xanathon, Into the Fire, Wards of Witching Ways
?
Castle Amber and Curse of Xanathon were Expert D&D, not 1E.
This thread serves to remind me how awesome it is that we've got a company putting out consistently high-quality adventures at a steady pace that shows no sign of letting up. Damn, it's good to be into tabletop gaming right now.
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Castle Amber and Curse of Xanathon were Expert D&D, not 1E.
Yeah.
I should note that I formed my list, in addition for sake of ease, into time periods because of design style and evolution -- not rules changes.
Of course, what that implies about me is that I don't give a damn about the rules set, the crunch factor; I made my lists based on good adventure ideas and execution, novel design concepts that were fun, playability and of course, emotional impact of the Players from the NPCs, setting and background.
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Regarding my list:
Oh crap, I forgot about the Campaigns Desert of Desolation (which is better than Dead Gods on my list) and Maure Castle Redo (which is better than Wyatt's Demonweb Pits).
Favourite adventures in no particular order:
Thiondar's Legacy (Dungeon)
The Styes (Dungeon)
Tealpeck's Flood (Dungeon)
Hook Mountain Massacre
Four from Cormyr (Forgotten Realms)
Dead Gods (Planescape)
When a Star Falls
Crystal Spheres (Spelljammer)
Treasure Hunt (Forgotten Realms)
Vecna Lives! (Greyhawk)
A common denominator of these is that they are quirky, weird, well executed, and generally full of ambience. To the crowd praising things like the Against the Giants and other old school adventures: What is so much better about the oldies than what is more recent? To me, evolution of RPG products has always been pretty obvious and something positive, so I guess it's something else that I am missing, right?
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What is so much better about the oldies than what is more recent?
I would certainly agree that the game has evolved and as a result the current good material is superior to the oldies.
Nonetheless, you can still play them with stat block revision. A buddy of mine ran our group through the original A Series about a year ago, only changing the stat blocks from 1E to Pathfinder.
It was fun, playable with the new rules revision. But there were certainly times where we chuckled and remarked, only in 1E could this happen.
Nonetheless, when rereading the (good) oldies there are character designs, plot developments, moods and atmospheres and story backgrounds that, despite being products of an archaic era, stand strong even today.
The original Ravenloft, with only two minor changes of things that scream 1E stupidity, could be published today and be spectacular. Add to that the three novel design concepts that had never been done in roleplaying and it's obvious why people love it so much. In fact, people love it so much that they have bought tons and tons of really crappy products just because they have the Ravenloft name.
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Ultimately though, you're right, so much of the old stuff is completely unplayable today, even with stat block rewrites. Looking at my lists you'll see far more post 2000 adventures and campaigns than late 70s / early 80s. And from '84 to 90 pretty much everything published was offal.
My favorite 'old school' adventures are Egg of the Phoenix, already mentioned, and Castle Greyhawk, the best light hearted set of adventures ever published. Ravenloft is also great.
For more recent adventures, I love Red Hand of Doom. Night of the Fellnight Queen is also very high on my rankings. Savage Tide is my favorite AP.
Favourite adventures in no particular order:
Thiondar's Legacy (Dungeon)
The Styes (Dungeon)
Tealpeck's Flood (Dungeon)
Hook Mountain Massacre
Four from Cormyr (Forgotten Realms)
Dead Gods (Planescape)
When a Star Falls
Crystal Spheres (Spelljammer)
Treasure Hunt (Forgotten Realms)
Vecna Lives! (Greyhawk)A common denominator of these is that they are quirky, weird, well executed, and generally full of ambience. To the crowd praising things like the Against the Giants and other old school adventures: What is so much better about the oldies than what is more recent? To me, evolution of RPG products has always been pretty obvious and something positive, so I guess it's something else that I am missing, right?
I was fond of When a Star Falls also, don't see it mentioned often at all.
1. The power behind the throne, WFRP
2. The night floors, call of cthulhu/delta green
3. Tatters of the King, call of cthulhu
4. The skinsaw murders, pathfinder
5. Stolen land, pathfinder
5. Edge of Anarchy, pathfinder
Man where to begin...
With you Ringtail on Night Below - it was the first campaign that I DM'd from start to finish [prior to that the group would rotate through adventures]... I linked it to the Illithiad Monstrous Arcana adventures (to keep the players off the true enemies scent) - good times!
Have a huge fondness for TSR UK Alderweg Series The Sentinel & The Gauntlet. A labour of love of these is the plan to run a PF conversion as a pbp later this year...
From my Basic/Expert D&D days "Night's Dark Terror" is awesome and so evocative of a fantastic Pathfinder Society super-adventure now... goblin tribes, evil slavers, lost civilisations in a lost civil war.
Finally a little known White Dwarf adventure for AD&D 1E - The Eagle Hunt... fond memories of my Berserker character holed up in an assassin guild armoury fighting a forlorn hope! Another I'd like to run as a conversion here one day... man all this nostalgia has got my creative dander up!
Temple of Elemental Evil.
Greg
Damned DnD fanboys/fangirls. The power behind the throne would take any of your adventures out back and beat them like the red headed step children they are ;)
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Finally a little known White Dwarf adventure for AD&D 1E - The Eagle Hunt
Wow, I mean, Wow, it's extremely rare when I find out about an adventure from back in the day that I don't know about.
Can you say who the author is, when it was published and give a bit of a description, please?
EDIT:
. . . .(Found it, Marcus Rowland, 1983.
But nothing else -- what was the premise?)
Damned DnD fanboys/fangirls. The power behind the throne would take any of your adventures out back and beat them like the red headed step children they are ;)
Part of why Something's Rotten in Kislev and Drachenfels made my list:
Those early 90's GW adventures are incredibly strong.
Finally a little known White Dwarf adventure for AD&D 1E - The Eagle HuntWow, I mean, Wow, it's extremely rare when I find out about an adventure from back in the day that I don't know about.
Can you say who the author is, when it was published and give a bit of a description, please?
EDIT:
. . . .(Found it, Marcus Rowland, 1983.
But nothing else -- what was the premise?)
Yeah no worries man...
Basic premise is that the Green Eagle - an item of undetermined nature - was stolen by thieves from the King's armoury.
Crown hired and sent a couple of powerful detectives after the Eagle and they never came back. Party are hired by their remaining employees to find the 'tecs and (if possible) return the missing Green Eagle.
The protagonists are up & coming assassin's guild who plan to use the Eagle for their own nefarious ends. Throw in other kidnappings, undercover assassin agents and a sub-plot with army deserters and you have The Eagle Hunt in a nutshell.
The exact nature of the Green Eagle itself is left to the DM to determine.
Cracking adventure - aimed at 1st level but as final encounter was against an 8th level assassin with a 9 lives stealer, I pitched it higher...
From the Paleolithic Era, I have fond memories of Keep on the Borderlands (Basic D&D), Citadel by the Sea (AD&D, from Dragon magazine) and Crisis at Crusader Citadel (V&V).
From the Modern Era, I'll go with There Is No Honor and Whispering Cairn (both 3.5 D&D).
As a bonus, I'll also toss in Blood Brothers, a book of horror-movie-inspired Call of Cthulhu scenarios.
Damned DnD fanboys/fangirls. The power behind the throne would take any of your adventures out back and beat them like the red headed step children they are ;)What gaming system is that from? Gamma World? Not familiar with it.
As far as non D&D adventures.
At the Mountains of Madness - Call of Cthulhu. Read through it and wanted to run it but have not gotten a chance to yet, it is pretty amazing.
Giovanni Chronicles I - White Wolf. This I thought was the best module released for the Vampire oWoD game. I never really read other mods for the other Supernaturals so I can't say it is the best WW mod but I bet it is up there.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It is the middle adventure of "The Enemy Within" campaign. The power behind the throne is a sprawling political intrigue based city adventure, set in the mountain top fortess city of middenheim. Set during a major festival, the PCs have to balance investigating several leds, with social events and distractions, digging out the truth from layer upon layer of misdirection and red herrings. And they must do this with only one week to investigate.
The enemy within is often mentioned in the same breath as campaigns such as 'Masks', as being one of the best campaigns ever published, and the power behind the throne is arguably the best adventure in it. You can play it 100 different times, with 100 different groups, and never get the same play experience. It really is a master piece.
We played Temple of Elemental Evil with 2nd edition rules, was great. We had soooo many people hunting us it made us laugh when they just kept coming out of the forest. Out of the hills. From everywhere! :D
Had alot of TPK with Night Below, Tomb of Horrors, Ruins of Undermountain.
Pools of Radience and Curse of the Azure Bonds never really took off due to player infighting.
The first five Dragonlance modules were good but players did not want to deviate from the books they loved so much.
I have to say _every_single_Dungeon_Magazine_adventure i've played and ran went great. There were ways to tie in several characters backgrounds/motivations and the description captions were vivid but not verbose.
Out of all of them the most memorable are Ravenloft's Baron's Eyrie & Sea Wolf, also Pyramid of Jenkel & School of Nekros were most enjoyed.
To the crowd praising things like the Against the Giants and other old school adventures: What is so much better about the oldies than what is more recent? To me, evolution of RPG products has always been pretty obvious and something positive, so I guess it's something else that I am missing, right?
Probably mostly nostalgia. Remember our tastes have evoled along with the game is also a factor, but our memorieas of fun have not changed.
Personaly most modules bore me now....the APs by Pazio are a exception to my rule for the most part. The relie too heavily on railroding....instead of being flexable. Which to me is a devoltion of RPG products.
I forgot one more recent(ish) module -- Silent Tide.
Green Eagle
Ah that was a cracker all right! I think I might have to go into the archives and drag that one out to redo it for a game I'm running. With a few tweaks it would fit right in ....
The original Ravenloft, with only two minor changes of things that scream 1E stupidity, could be published today and be spectacular.
I agree - but you have me curious as to what the two flaws you see are.
Of those I've run, I had a fun Dragon Mountain campaign my first time in college. Kobolds + Humanoids Handbook + tactics + crazy players = win.
I really liked Dragon Mountain myself (well the second two thirds when they are actually at the mountain anyway).
The problem with it is that its no longer really doable as far as I can see. I guess what I'm saying is that, for me anyway, to be a truly great adventure it needs to be convertible to the modern versions of the game.
Dragon Mountian, Tomb of Horrors, Mud Sorcerers Tomb and a handful of others don't really convert.
Tomb of Horrors and Mud Sorcerers Tomb both rely on classic versions of dealing with traps - where traps are essentially puzzles to be solved more by the players sitting around the table then their characters in the fantasy world. Take that away and they are little more then shells of their former glory.
Dragon Mountain is a victim of the way the power curve in D&D switched between 2nd and 3rd. In 1st and 2nd characters gained less and less with each passing level while from 3rd on characters gain a great deal at most or every level and are phenomenally more powerful at 10th then they where at 1st.
Dragon Mountain had already pushed the boundaries as far as they could possibly be pushed just to make kobolds a challenge for 10th level characters in 2nd. By 3rd (and PF/4E) that is just not possible anymore - there is no way to make normal kobolds a challenge to a 10th level party while maintaining the spirit or essence of the adventure. I mean one could give them all class levels (or increase their combat level for 4E) to make up for it but it'd really not be the same. They would not be normal kobolds anymore.
Its odd but Dragon Mountain in particular is a good example of how the modern versions of the game actually hurt certain elements of fundamental assumptions of our fantasy worlds. In some sense one can see how in 1E/2E goblinoid hordes or the armies of man can make empires through the sheer power of numbers but by 3rd that actually falls apart - there really is not any reasonable number of 1 HD bad guys that a 10th level party can't defeat. It even tends to start earlier then that - I personally had my players attack (at about 5th level in 3.5) an orc fort that had traps and even some leveled baddies as well as some allies like Orogs and, while it took three sessions, my players eventually killed something over 200 orcs in a single combat.
In essence the power curve in the modern versions of the game are totally out of wack when we consider many of the fundamental tropes of our fantasy worlds.
Not that I'd go back really...3rd and its derivatives have characters that are a lot more fun to play - if one has to sacrifice a bit of Gygaxian Naturalism on the alter of entertainment, well so be it.
Well-thought-out stuff.
You're quite right, conversion of the mountain would be tough to pull off in the same spirit of the previous editions. If you give all the kobolds templates and class levels to make them more challenging, then you have to ask why there's an elite regiment of kobolds out there that hasn't taken over the surrounding countryside, with or without draconic help. All of your other comments ring true as well. It was great in its day, but I wouldn't want to try doing this one nowadays unfortunately. Temple of Elemental Evil, OTOH....
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I agree - but you have me curious as to what the two flaws you see (in Ravenloft) are.
1) Once the PCs cross the gates -- after the geniusly designed letter, the fog prevents them from leaving. It was an acceptable device back then (Castle Amber, Ghost Tower, Tamoachan, etc., the list goes on and on) but now that kind of Railroading is not cool. But that's only a minor flaw, easily redesigned.
2) Once the PCs enter Castle Ravenloft they're attacked by a Red Dragon who has absolutely nothing to do with anything, has no backstory, name, purpose, reason for being -- nothing. As if a great red dragon can just be a mook guard like a minotaur or hobgoblin. Again, acceptable back then (see Asperdies) but now just "screams 1E stupidity." (Actually, the really uber pathetic WoTC campaign, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, was filled with this kind of crap, so I guess it still happens today when companies can't come up with anything good.)
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It's odd seeing adventures like Pools of Radiance and Four from Cormyr on the list. I've always kinda thought those mid-90s adventures were quite banal, with just a few exceptions (and Dungeon, of course)
Also, Four from Cormyr is 4 adventures. I think it should be grouped as a Campaign or broken down into its 4 adventures, in which the fourth is pretty solid but the others were kinda bland.
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Props to Necromancer's Rappan Athuk, especially the first but not as much the second -- the third was just yet another million-room dungeon like ToEE, Undermountain, etc., etc. For a super dungeon it is solid.
(Not sure what was so special about Crucible of Freya; I was excited when I got it but I was left feeling cheeted.
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I thought about considering a couple Pathfinder Scenarios, specifically "Silent Tide" and "Black Waters" but felt they were too small to compare to 30+ page adventures -- the way I don't like comparing 30 page adventures to 100+ page Campaigns.
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The only thing that kept me from putting "The Whispering Cairn" -- an otherwise great 1st level adventure, on my list is the amount of gold given at the end. SPOILER: .... The PCs are basically teenagers who go through a dungeon next to town that a bazillion others have gone through and came out empty handed but the PCs end up fabulously rich. Lame, Mr. Mona. But awesome every other way.
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I love this Thread, though -- so much fun to read everyone's favs.
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To the crowd praising.... old school adventures: What is so much better about the oldies?
Probably mostly nostalgia.
I agree to a point.
Anytime I see someone point out Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil, G1-3 and a few others, part of me wonders if it's just good memories. If you've never read them or played them and picked them up today for the first time, I wonder how much you'd like them.
For me, even though I started in '81, I was a young child and played in only a couple published adventures, all of which were heavily redone by my DM.
It wasn't until the mid 90s that I started buying Dungeon and reading adventures and even then I didn't run them; I was running my own Campaign.
I started collecting and reading -- and running -- published adventures around 2003/4. I've got pretty much all the old school stuff by now and some of it (see my first post) is really good not just for its time but even today.
The only thing that kept me from putting "The Whispering Cairn" -- an otherwise great 1st level adventure, on my list is the amount of gold given at the end. SPOILER: .... The PCs are basically teenagers who go through a dungeon next to town that a bazillion others have gone through and came out empty handed but the PCs end up fabulously rich. Lame, Mr. Mona. But awesome every other way.
Thanks for the pointers on whats not cool about Ravenloft - I completely forgot about the Dragon and I agree. I have less issues with the mist. Castles that are not exactly part of the surrounding land and yet hide a terrible secret are a pretty classic trope in Gothic Horror.
As to Whispering Cairn. I felt the adventure itself did quite a good job on tackling the 'why has this place not been explored before' issue.
Its pretty clear why the locals mostly stay away (tanagers taking dares excepted) - they have lost at least one child to the place before. After that it in fact has an expedition into it some 70 or so years back - one that took most of the early obvious loot as well. Finally the PCs are only able to actually succeed because of a coincidence - in which they can make a deal with Allaster Land to get into the true tomb. Until Allaster Land became a ghost you'd have need to be a lot more powerful or a lot richer to break into the true tomb.
Admittedly what we are really facing here is an issue regarding low level tombs. If the tomb is designed to be for 10th level characters then its pretty easy to see why the place is not explored...its to friggen dangerous for the vast majority of people and real hero's who could handle it have yet to show up (this presumes that your campaign world makes 10+ level hero's fairly rare). Thing is hero's of such level don't really have much use for a town and town encounters. The whole back and forth element where the hero's go into and then out of the dungeon repeatedly tends to get lost in higher level adventures since the PCs are so self reliant.
Adventure
Return to the Tomb of Horrors
Vecna Lives
The City of Skulls
Greyhawk Ruins
Hook Mountain Massacre
Labirynth of Madness
Mini Campaign
Night Below
Age of worms
Kingmaker
Vecna Lives
Will some one explain to me what made this adventure so great? I recall being severely disappointed with it.
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As to Whispering Cairn....
Absolutely, you're right.
But,....Because the game has evolved so much over the decades and the quality and quantity have dramatically improved, "things like this" that wouldn't hurt an adventure from back in the day being on my list will hurt an adventure today.
Comparing "The Whispering Cairn" to "And Madness Follows," "The Styes," "Fiend's Embrace" and such leaves little room for "an issue regarding low level tombs."
On the other hand, comparing adventures like Ravenloft and Pharoah to adventures such as Horror on the Hill, In Search of the Unknown and Dungeonland, well, a minor issue like that is barely recognizable.
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Greyhawk Ruins
I'm curious, is this Mona & Jacob's Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk or is it Chris Mortika and all those others' Castle Greyhawk from the late 80s?
I thought Labyrinth of Madness was great but I didn't include it in my From 2E list cuz it didn't seem to have anything novel, nothing that I hadn't really seen or done before. It was just a really cool, high level adventure.
Dead Gods, on the other hand, was 2E greatness. I don't mind admitting that personally I had more fun with Labyrinth but the return of Orcus in a Campaign and planescaping through Dead Gods in all its glory is much better.
Vecna Lives was kind of beat but the opening scene was pretty amazing in a railroady way. Let you kow that this adventure would be playing for keeps!
I could not stand the opening scene - the adventure was not playing for keeps - it was just pretending too by rigging a bunch of deaths for the players henchmen. After that we don't really see anything like that again.
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Somehow I just lost my post about Vecna Lives! and the later two Vecnite Campaigns.
Damn it!
Anyway, it's hard for me to comment because when running any of the three I've changed, rewritten and redesigned so much that my experiences are far different from the published page.
Nonetheless, I am quite surprised to see Vecna Lives! even once on this Thread, let alone several times.
Most people on Paizo over the the years have considered it among the WORST adventures ever cuz of the Railroading, 3rd behind only the Avatar trilogy and the first Dragonlance campaigns (all based on novels).
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I tried to look it up online, out of print. Too bad, I would have liked to have checked it out. I may take a look at DrivethruRPG and see if they sell a PDF.
I've spent gazillions at NobleKnight.com over the last 10 years, very happy. Also, there's HitPointe.com which I used for a couple years before I switched to NobleKnight.