Greyhawk RuinsI'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.
Probably this one - the second published version of the ruins (2E): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhawk_Ruins.
the combats are entirely too easy and had to be ramped up to keep PC's from plowing through it with ease.
*Twitch*
That...stupid...quasit...
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I have to go with Entombed with the Pharaohs as my personal favorite from recent memory. Dungeon crawl with multiple threats and excellently paced, it felt more like a classic adventure than anything else I've played lately.
I also had a lot of fun with The Skinsaw Murders and the Hook Mountain Massacre.
Outside of D&D, I have to go with Unknown Armies' Jailbreak and Garden Full of Weeds, and Poisonous Ambition for Burning Wheel.
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).
The Novels where based on the campaign - not the other way around. In fact some of the scenes in the novels actually come from the campaign - specifically the scene where Tasselhoff uses a wicker dragon to scare some Draconians and allow his friends to escape was cited as an inclusion into one of the novels because it had turned into such a fun scene during play testing.
All that said the Dragonlance Campaign was an insane railroad. Practically unrunnable it was so bad. On the other hand if you take the individual adventures in isolation there were a lot of them that where really pretty phenomenal for the era.
Almost all of them where designed to be unique with fantastic environments (A sunken city, the Ice Wall, The tomb of a Gold Dragon etc). They tend to have strong plots (help the slaves escape an ancient Dwarf Fortress, Race the enemy armies to the important location etc). Really for their time they where just ground breaking, most of them. I've used the environment and plots for around half of them in other campaigns, obviously reworked not to have Dragonlance references. Fairly easy until you get to the last handful of adventures. Most of the earlier ones are just a good adventure that happen to be part of a campaign. The last few are where this stops working.
Really the fundamental problem with the Dragonlance Campaign is you can't do a continent spanning campaign like this on a railroad and the links between adventures are often just unbelievably bad. The railroad itself was just aweful - as I recall actual player characters are expected to just leave the active game to lead armies of good and stuff like that. Really, really, does not work. In the end you have a lot of excellent adventures wrapped in a non-functional campaign.
Somehow I just lost my post about Vecna Lives! and the later two Vecnite Campaigns.
Damn it!
That just happened to me too - fortunately Lazerus saved my post...but this thread seems a bit untable. Copy your replies guys.
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The Novels where based on the campaign - not the other way around.
Well, that's not what I really mean.
Sure the novel Dragons of Autumn's Twilight was based on Hickman's game but the adventure we own came shortly after and is just a plotline of the (excellent) book.
Just like the Avatar Trilogy is based on (the incredibly pathetic) Waterdeep, Tantras and Shadowdale.
Incidentally, a couple weeks ago I was thumbing through some old mags and read an article (I think in Dragon Annual #4) where Hickman says that so much of the novel (not including the famous scene of Tasslehoff in the dragon) was not from his home game originally-- that he and the others had outlined it first as an adventure, and then written the novel. I guess only that same ole famous story of Tasslehoff in the Dragon is the only (or one of the only) times where they added something specifically from their game to the novel.
Anyway, DL1 is most certainly based on the novel (which, funny enough, is based on an outline for an adventure).
I'll say this though, when I first heard about the in-game story of Tasslehoff in the Dragon I thought, "Ah, now it makes sense." I've always felt that that part of the novel was stupid, badly written and completely out of place. When I learned that Hickman just had to include it because of the funny in-game moment it finally made sense.
What is your favorite pre-built adventure? Why?
Palace of the Silver Princess. It's a fabulous little meat-grinder of an adventure. Shoot, there's a decent chance on the first floor that the first thing the players will encounter is a mama bear and her two cubs. I like to convert it to each new edition as one of my many yardsticks for measuring the changes.
The Novels where based on the campaign - not the other way around.Well, that's not what I really mean.
Sure the novel Dragons of Autumn's Twilight was based on Hickman's game but the adventure we own came shortly after and is just a plotline of the (excellent) book.
Just like the Avatar Trilogy is based on (the incredibly pathetic) Waterdeep, Tantras and Shadowdale.
Incidentally, a couple weeks ago I was thumbing through some old mags and read an article (I think in Dragon Annual #4) where Hickman says that so much of the novel (not including the famous scene of Tasslehoff in the dragon) was not from his home game originally-- that he and the others had outlined it first as an adventure, and then written the novel. I guess only that same ole famous story of Tasslehoff in the Dragon is the only (or one of the only) times where they added something specifically from their game to the novel.
Anyway, DL1 is most certainly based on the novel (which, funny enough, is based on an outline for an adventure).
I'll say this though, when I first heard about the in-game story of Tasslehoff in the Dragon I thought, "Ah, now it makes sense." I've always felt that that part of the novel was stupid, badly written and completely out of place. When I learned that Hickman just had to include it because of the funny in-game moment it finally made sense.
This makes it sound like it was based on Hickman's home campaign. That is not my understanding. My understanding is that Hickman proposes a series of Dragon based adventures and Gygax approves as its along the same lines he's thinking (i.e. that Dungeons and Dragons needs some more Dragons). Shortly after the project is started Gygax leaves to California to pursue possible TV opportunities for TSR (hence - outside of the most broad basic idea of a dragon themed campaign he is not involved in developing this). The whole project begins development in earnest sometime in '82 and the novels begin development sometime in '83 when TSR decides to go all out on marketing this (they dub it Project Overlord) and develop a book for release alongside the campaign.
Hence there is a campaign and after the story line for the campaign is developed its turned into a series of books. Tasselhoff and the wicker Dragon comes about during some kind of play test session during the development of the campaign. The first four modules are written prior to their being any book and the book is based on the modules after that they are all in parallel development and neither is exactly based on the other though both are based on the story line for the campaign.
Will some one explain to me what made this adventure so great? I recall being severely disappointed with it.
Vecna Lives
The reason I Liked it so much is that : At the time, i felt it was very inovative. It's not an adventure I would play today.
My fondness of various adventures is based on how the adventure manages to do new things with the game, and on the feelings the adventure invokes. When it comes to music, I adore film music, that should tell you something.
Vecna lives: Before this came out, I had drooled about the concept of artifacts. Jacinth of inestimable beauty, invulnerable coat of Arnd... these things sat there in the treasure chapter of AD&D 1st edition DMG and mocked me! So when I saw what had been done with the artifacts in Vecna lives, and the solid end-of-the-world ambience of the module, I was gobsmacked. It is mechanically interesting as well, being the (to my knowledge) first adventure to change the concept of priestly magic in a world without reachable deities. Sure, I realize these things are nothing new today, but we already established that nostalgia was a valid selling point. As to the opening scene, the entire purpose is to scare the crap out of the players in the time-honoured "first victims" tradition of horror movies. That said, it's not a very good introduction and could perhaps better have been described to the players.
Four from Cormyr: This series of adventures has several strong points. It deals heavily with the culture of adventuring, something that is quite unique and strengthens the concept of adventurers greatly. The PCs also get to interact with other adventuring parties, this leads to complex fights and a quirky storyline that I appreciate. Each of the four adventures is measurably DIFFERENT, something not often appreciated today when every adventure location must hold a combat. Finally, it has one of the most mythical NPCs I have seen (lord Mournsoul). I do agree that the connection between the adventures is weak at best, though.
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My understanding is that Hickman ....
Yeah -- especially that first paragraph -- it sounds exactly what the article I read says. I guess we're both right; I was just somewhat unclear on articulating what I was saying and misunderstanding what you were saying.
My take: bad campaign / great D&D novel.
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My favorite adventure ... is "Dragon's Crown" for Dark Sun.
I have to admit I don't know any of the Dark Sun material (except the 3.0 redo in Dungeon).
I wouldn't mind adding some to my (nearly comprehensive) collection of D&D adventures and campaigns, though -- is that the most quintessential of Dark Sun's adventures? Is there another that I should consider instead (or get both)?
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My fondness of various adventures is based on how the adventure manages to do new things with the game, and on the feelings the adventure invokes.
Vecna lives: Before this came out, I had drooled about the concept of artifacts.
Yeah, I think we have nearl;y identical criteria for great adventures.
Regarding the introduction of artifacts, though, Dungeon had already published "House of Cards" which completely revolved around the Deck of Many Things (the whole dungeon was like a Card House). Waaay cooler an artifact, mostly because of the chance factor and the fact that it specifically affects the PCs.
And we had seen some other things like that, too. In Ghost Tower was the Soul Gem; in Tsojcanth was Daoud's Wondrous Lantern -- and others as well.
I spent about an hour Sunday skimming back over the three Vecna adventures and have to admit, Vecna Lives! doesn't seem to be as bad as I had remembered (save for the beginning). And I saw that I like Die Vecna Die! the most (not that there's anything novel or spectacular, just a good adventure). Still think Vecna Reborn! is a relatively solid execution of a horribly bad adventure idea.
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Regarding the introduction of artifacts, though, Dungeon had already published "House of Cards" which completely revolved around the Deck of Many Things (the whole dungeon was like a Card House). Waaay cooler an artifact, mostly because of the chance factor and the fact that it specifically affects the PCs.
And we had seen some other things like that, too. In Ghost Tower was the Soul Gem; in Tsojcanth was Daoud's Wondrous Lantern -- and others as well.
I always wanted an adventure around the Teeth of Navil-Dar(sp?). Those artifacts seemed to lend themselves to an adventure or AP type chain.
But I liked The Lost Room on sci-fi for its handling of artifacts related to one person/locale and though that would have been great for the Teeth.
My fondness of various adventures is based on how the adventure manages to do new things with the game, and on the feelings the adventure invokes.
Vecna lives: Before this came out, I had drooled about the concept of artifacts.
Yeah, I think we have nearl;y identical criteria for great adventures.
Regarding the introduction of artifacts, though, Dungeon had already published "House of Cards" which completely revolved around the Deck of Many Things (the whole dungeon was like a Card House). Waaay cooler an artifact, mostly because of the chance factor and the fact that it specifically affects the PCs.
And we had seen some other things like that, too. In Ghost Tower was the Soul Gem; in Tsojcanth was Daoud's Wondrous Lantern -- and others as well.
I spent about an hour Sunday skimming back over the three Vecna adventures and have to admit, Vecna Lives! doesn't seem to be as bad as I had remembered (save for the beginning). And I saw that I like Die Vecna Die! the most (not that there's anything novel or spectacular, just a good adventure). Still think Vecna Reborn! is a relatively solid execution of a horribly bad adventure idea.
Have to take a look at House of Cards then. Regarding the Vecna trilogy, the one that stands out is Vecna lives!, simply because the second is decent but doesn't do anything really new or special, and the third has my enmity for milking the Planescape setting to sell more. It is generally okay even so, but leaves a sour aftertaste. Also, the big plot device in the adventure is... not appealing, to say the least.
Favourite adventures - nothing from the D&D line really springs to mind, Castle Amber was great, but there are others which I personally think are better:
Infected (Earthdawn) - a city under control by the Grim Legion, lots of roleplaying opportunities, great story line, just brilliant
Die Froschkoenig Fragmente (Cthulhu) - The Frog Prince - this fairytale transferred to Cthulhu, great fun.
Regarding the introduction of artifacts, though, Dungeon had already published "House of Cards" which completely revolved around the Deck of Many Things (the whole dungeon was like a Card House). Waaay cooler an artifact, mostly because of the chance factor and the fact that it specifically affects the PCs.
I liked A House of Cards as it had a cool gimmick but it never really stepped up much beyond just this gimmick. A reasonable, even unusually good, adventure and I'd not hesitate to run it but I don't think it quite gets to the level of best of the best.
Mike Mearl's Legend Lore column addresses this issue (obviously only including D&D adventures) this week. Its open content so anyone can view it regardless of your game of choice.
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"House of Cards" is by Randy Maxwell, one of the two or three best adventure writers of Dungeon's early days. I'm pretty sure he was comissioned specifically to write it. (It was the first year of 2E and they wanted something Wow.)
It is in Dungeon 19.
The dungeon was named as one of Dungeon's Top 10 greatest adventure sites ever.
It takes place in FR -- I think Waterdeep.
The novelty is that about half of the doors in the dungeon are actually Cards from the Deck of Many Things. Open a door = Flip a card. Add that chaos to the standard orc-n-pie dungeon room and "House of Cards" is pretty fun to play.
Mike Mearl's Legend Lore column addresses this issue (obviously only including D&D adventures) this week. Its open content so anyone can view it regardless of your game of choice.
Heh. I bet #9 on Mearls' list is a real fly in the ointment for the WotC web editors who've worked so hard to avoid any mention of Paizo products on their site. =]
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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The Iron Wind
No school like the old school!
I bought this ages ago by mail order from ICE, and I used a couple of sections out of it in a long-running 3.5 campaign. I think the main part I used was the Taurkytaal dungeon, and a few other bits as the lair of Cryonax, the elemental prince of evil cold.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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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).The Novels where based on the campaign - not the other way around. In fact some of the scenes in the novels actually come from the campaign - specifically the scene where Tasselhoff uses a wicker dragon to scare some Draconians and allow his friends to escape was cited as an inclusion into one of the novels because it had turned into such a fun scene during play testing.
All that said the Dragonlance Campaign was an insane railroad. Practically unrunnable it was so bad. On the other hand if you take the individual adventures in isolation there were a lot of them that where really pretty phenomenal for the era.
Almost all of them where designed to be unique with fantastic environments (A sunken city, the Ice Wall, The tomb of a Gold Dragon etc). They tend to have strong plots (help the slaves escape an ancient Dwarf Fortress, Race the enemy armies to the important location etc). Really for their time they where just ground breaking, most of them. I've used the environment and plots for around half of them in other campaigns, obviously reworked not to have Dragonlance references. Fairly easy until you get to the last handful of adventures. Most of the earlier ones are just a good adventure that happen to be part of a campaign. The last few are where this stops working.
Really the fundamental problem with the Dragonlance Campaign is you can't do a continent spanning campaign like this on a railroad and the links between adventures are often just unbelievably bad. The railroad itself was just aweful - as I recall actual player characters are expected to just leave the active game to lead armies of good and stuff like that. Really, really, does not work. In the end you have a lot of excellent adventures wrapped in a non-functional campaign.
Agreed. Some of the adventure locations are spectacular, and I've made good use out of Skullcap, Xak Tsaroth, the Tomb of Evenstar, Pax Tharkas, and a reskinned version of the Tomb of Huma. Neat dungeons.
Railroad city as a campaign.
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The Iron WindNo school like the old school!
I bought this ages ago by mail order from ICE, and I used a couple of sections out of it in a long-running 3.5 campaign. I think the main part I used was the Taurkytaal dungeon, and a few other bits as the lair of Cryonax, the elemental prince of evil cold.
It is a great sandbox. All of those old books were.
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In early February, I conducted an informal poll among my Twitter followers and people here in R&D. I asked them to list their three favorite D&D adventures. The results were fairly interesting, especially in looking at the top 10 adventures. Most impressive, though, was the sheer dominance of I6: Ravenloft. The gap between that adventure and the 2nd place finisher was as large as the gap between 2nd and 9th place. While there were clearly clusters of votes, Ravenloft stood out in a class by itself. No wonder TSR published an entire setting based around it. (my bold)
Ayup.
I didn't know about this until Jeremy McDonald provided the link earlier but I don't know how anyone, especially Mike Mearls, could feign suprise about how superior I6: Ravenloft is to all others.
As for the rest of the list on Mearl's article, solid.
Except for Red Hand of Doom which does nothing that hadn't been done 100 times before. Not that it isn't great, but...
My FAVORITE part of that WotC-site Top 10 list is that WotC doesn't have a single adventure on it!!!
That's AWESOME!
(RHoD, though published by WotC, is James Jacobs through-and-through.)
Wow, so many of my favorites have been listed many times now on the thread.... but there are a few I've got fond memories of that I didn't see as I skimmed through.
Dragonlance Mod- The Search for Dragons
Cult of the Reptile God 1rst Edition.... I think? (I've run this twice & both groups really dug it)
Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
I gotta say it for the memories- Challenge of Champions from Dungeon Mag
(All told I'm just about 1/4 way through Burnt Offerings & I gotta say once it's done it just might make my list.)
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many of my favorites have been listed .... but there are a few I've got fond memories of that I didn't see as I skimmed through.
Against the Cult of the Reptile God is on my "Honors List" for 1E adventures. It was a tough call for me whether it should be there or ranked #5 -- swapping with The Village of Hommlet.
Ultimately, Hommlet is better not just because it's first and therefore novel (They're incredibly similar adventures, almost identical), but also because it leads to the ToEE Campaign. DMs w/ Hommlet finished with a start into ToEE. DMs with Reptile God are done after the PCs kill Explictica Defilus.
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Saltmarsh made Mearl's list -- follow the link.
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The various "Challenge of Champions" could overwhelmingly be on my "Honors List" not just for 2E but also for 3E (#6 is the best of the series) and you gotta give mad props to Jonathon Richards for doing them. It's just hard to pick one from 2E that stands out; the first wasn't that excellent though the idea sure was. Others got better but by then it was no longer novel. Ultimately I decided not to put them on my list but I certainly agree that they are great.
I don't GM at all so I don't really know the names of individual adventures.
But, I found the entire AoW AP to be very enjoyable and STAP is shaping up to be a lot of fun.
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Love the Saltmarsh Series. I really enjoyed DMing that set with the revelations that came from the series later.
Also I really liked Temple of Elemental Evil 1st and the Return to it.
The whole Slaver series always brings up great memories when we ran through them.
As far as Pazio modules go really liked Entombed with the Pharaohs. As far as Pathfinder Adventure Paths ... well I would be hard pressed. I have not run anyone them yet ... but I have "borrowed many ideas from them.
Love the Saltmarsh Series. I really enjoyed DMing that set with the revelations that came from the series later.
I agree. I said ToEE earlier in the thread, but on reflection Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is almost a perfect 1st level adventure. The series always had a difficult finish for me, though.
One of the party's I DM'ed through it actually participated in a frontal assault on the sahaugin lair with the militia from Saltmarsh. It led to the infamous "sahaugin body-wall" that was erected on the dry level that is talked about even to this day.
But U1 and U2 are just great adventures.
Greg
Heh. I bet #9 on Mearls' list is a real fly in the ointment for the WotC web editors who've worked so hard to avoid any mention of Paizo products on their site. =]Mike Mearl's Legend Lore column addresses this issue (obviously only including D&D adventures) this week. Its open content so anyone can view it regardless of your game of choice.
No. Its in there intentionally though I'm unclear what specifically the motive is. If they did not want it then Mike Mearl's simply needed to rephrase his question so as to exclude it. Easy enough to do because it is the only non-WotC, non-TSR adventure on the list. He could have said something like "Of all the adventures published by Wizards and TSR Ravenloft is the favorite...blah, blah, blah".
If WotC did not want it on the list it wouldn't be. In statistics its all about the question you ask, change the question and you change the statistic.
no particular order:
AS PLAYER:
The secret of bone hill + the Assassins's Knot
because it was my first adventure ever
Ravenloft
Red Hand of Doom
Wildspace
Fighters Challenge 1
deadliest adventure in my gaming career, my noble-born high elf ranger is still held as a sex-slave by a wererat clan, i guess :-)
Tomb of horrors
when a star falls
haunted halls of eveningstar
AS DM:
Prison of the firebringer (dungeon mag.)
Burnt Offerings + the skinsaw massacre
Four from cormyr
no particular order:
AS PLAYER:
The secret of bone hill + the Assassins's Knot
because it was my first adventure ever
Assassin's Knot... man that made me remenisce - good call.
Fighters Challenge 1
deadliest adventure in my gaming career, my noble-born high elf ranger is still held as a sex-slave by a wererat clan, i guess :-)
THAT... made me choke on my coffee LOL...
no particular order:
Fighters Challenge 1
deadliest adventure in my gaming career, my noble-born high elf ranger is still held as a sex-slave by a wererat clan, i guess :-)THAT... made me choke on my coffee LOL...
we rolled percent for appearance score and social class score, he had social class 100% and appearance around 90% - the female wererats made sure that he was not killed with the rest of the TPK and kept him as one-elf-harem :-)