Which modules are the best story/best designed?

[Quietus]

As in title - I had been writing a module with a friend, it's kind of fallen by the wayside but I'm thinking about getting started on it again. I feel like it's missing something, probably because I haven't used a lot of modules personally. Which modules have you played in which had the best story? For the GMs out there, which ones were laid out in a way that made them easy to work with? Anything you've specifically liked, or would specifically like to see, in terms of layout/assets?

[guachi]

B10 Night's Dark Terror is the best D&D module I've played all the way through.

[Arvin Natsuko]

I just finished DMing a Red Hand of Doom Campaign, and it was awesome. I had to convert to 5e, but it was a fun work. A couple treads here in the Forum can help with that. I recommend.

[Foxhound438]

Yawning portal is pretty good, though it's really a compilation of shorter adventures. But I honestly think that's one of the strengths, since longer campaigns start to get exhausting in my opinion, and character fatigue is a pretty common thing. Portal's modularity makes it so a player has decent points where they can easily change into a new character without disrupting the plot or committing sodoku.

Out of the abyss seemed like it could be good if handled properly. A big upside there is that depending on your class/build, starting in a group without gear can be a whole new sort of challenge for some people. Downside is that some people just don't like that sort of starting point and feel it's unfair, even though it's designed to work around that start.

I've not tried storm king, tomb of annihilation, curse of strahd, or elemental evil, so no opinions on those

Hoarde and Tyrrany of dragons is one that we tried to have fun with but couldn't, although I feel it was horribly mishandled when we tried it.

[GlassGolem]

A personal favourite was The Doom of Daggerdale from 2e; I'm sure if I looked back it won't have aged well, but it had interesting NPCs, locations and politics. I ended up setting a campaign there.

If we're counting campaigns as modules, I've heard very good things about Red Hand of Doom, and (for 5e) Strand. We're currently playing Storm King's Thunder, which I can't recommend; it has a very vague plot and requires a ton of work. If you have the prep time there is some good stuff in there, but since I chose to run a published campaign precisely to cut down on prep time this has been a major annoyance.

[SiCK_Boy]

I'm rarely looking at a module (from a DM's perspective) for it's "story". I doubt anyone can come up with a super original story, and if you were able to anyway, I would suggest you just write a novel.

What I'd like to see in a module is interesting encounters (combat or other), and enough material to help me develop a "feel" for a given area/region. That feel comes from well developed NPC, providing sufficient context for the adventure (geopolitical situation, power groups, etc.), while still leaving room for PCs to develop and grow without needing to "break" that context.

Being a huge Forgotten Realms fan, I'd like to have a module harkening back to the old days of protecting the Dales versus the Zhentarim depredation (minus the "why don't Elminster just kill them all" question).

In terms of layout, I am still looking for an encounter format that works for me.

Tactical maps (in 5' scale) for likely combat encounters are a must for me. If you intend to include random encounters as well, provide a number of "random" encounter maps to use. If you use custom-made monsters, it would be nice to have "token-sized" images included.

I like my encounters to include likely starting point for monsters, as well as basic tactical instructions. This includes: which spell to prioritize or special power to use, which opponent to target (I hate it when a DM just randomly decides which player gets attacked; monsters should have a logic for attacking who they choose to - you never see players rolling a dice to randomly decide which enemy they'll attack!), change in attitude as the group of monsters gets decimated (when do they decide to run, do they surrender or fight to death, etc.), and known information / reaction if captured (always assume a monster can be captured by the PCs).

I also like to have fully described treasures, included art objects and gem names (and descriptions) with values. No "random treasure include 5 100-gp gems"). Minor/unusual magic items are also cool (like the shield with the apple in the first adventure in Tales of the Yawning Portal).

Illustrations of key locations is always great (4th edition adventures sometimes included these), as it both helps the DM understand how things look like and better convey it, and they can sometime be shown directly to the players (don't use illustrations showing the secret monster right in the middle of the boss fight room; just show the empty room itself, and have the monster in a separate one). Obviously, this is assuming you have access to a talented artist.

Finally, I don't think it's necessary to build a "huge" campaign (like most of the 5th edition books). I think focusing on a smaller level range allows you to prepare a tighter adventure. I'm running a group through The Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I like how I don't need to worry too far ahead in the story. The whole "campaign" can be done in a month or two of in-game time, while still touching a lot of the points I mentioned above.

[Angelalex242]

I played through Hoard/Rise of Tiamat.

Hoard has some messed up descriptions, and forgets to stat the intelligent sword Harziwan.
Tiamat is a little better, but my GM didn't play it straight. We still won though.

[Legendairy]

Out of the Abyss (with a few adjustments) was pretty fantastic. I have run some 3.5 Eberron modules, the Victor St-Demain chronicles, again needs a bit added to it for the story to be good, but some great role play was had in those.

I ran the first part of Red Hand of Doom and it seemed great until schedules ruined it.

I think I am going to convert Dragon Mountain from AD&D to a high level one, but some parts have to be completed re-written and story needs to be made for it to work.

[Laserlight]

We're just finishing SKT and at several points seems to require either amazing leaps of logic or deus ex machina telling the players what to do next. More importantly, I think it's too long. We have sessions 2-3 times per month and as a player I've been pushing hard for us to stick to the main storyline and not go haring off on tangents, and it's still taken us a year.

[Cespenar]

I think Murder in Baldur's Gate has one of the best plotlines between the 5e campaigns that I've played, and also presents the players with the most meaningful choices by being a semi-sandbox city game. Admittedly, MiBG is not purely a 5e campaign but a "Sundering" one, which may be one of the reasons it's often overlooked, but it has statblocks for both 3.5, 4e and 5e, so it's pretty versatile.

It's also pretty focused on investigation and social encounters, any has only maybe a handful of combats in the whole adventure, so that might be another reason why it's ignored. Still, the most fun campaign I had in 5e.

[BeefGood]

For the GMs out there, which ones were laid out in a way that made them easy to work with? Anything you've specifically liked, or would specifically like to see, in terms of layout/assets?

PoTA might be useful as a counter example for good layout. For a given topic, information is presented in various places throughout the book. It’s difficult to look stuff up because you don’t know in which of several places to look.
Also they Should have spent a little more money on pagecount, and begun dungeons on a new page, rather than on the ending page of the previous dungeon. Once again difficult to look stuff up because you have to look carefully at page to know what dungeon is being discussed.

Edit: PoTA is Princes of the Apocalypse. One more layout related issue with PoTA is that it needs a one-page sketch of the relative positions of the dungeons, and their connections. The reader eventually figures this out from reading the book, but such a sketch would significantly cut down initial comprehension time.
You may need some familiarity with PoTA to appreciate this. A brief justification is that there are many dungeons, fairly close together, and with some connections.

[Quietus]

Thank you, everyone! Definitely some great stuff here - I will absolutely have to look into Red Hand of Doom, I've always heard that it was good but it had slipped my mind. And it seems I should look into Storm King's Thunder as well, if only for a counterexample. Hoard I've run through, so I've seen some of its shortcomings, but SKT I haven't even cracked.

SiCK_Boy in particular - thank you! That is a very thorough breakdown, and is very useful to me. Lots to think about, things like custom tokens are a fantastic idea, and hadn't even occurred to me.

Cespenar - I'm definitely going to look into Murder in Baldur's Gate, that sounds relevant to what we're trying to do. I personally am not great at DMing things with lots of interplay between politics, NPCs, etc - I'm more of an encounter GM - but my partner is far better at that sort of thing, and we do want to at least include elements of local, and eventually regional, politics.

Guachi - Thank you, I have B10 open in a new tab for when I have some time to read, but not enough time to go to the store.

Legendairy, Foxhound438 - I might have to check out Out of the Abyss. Though I'll probably look at others first, I think the adventure being run for my group right now is heavily leaning on that. Chucked into Carceri with two items each from a very limited list, and a wish of "Good luck!"?

Beefgood - which adventure is PoTA? I don't recognize that one.

Thank you, everyone - if I haven't called you out specifically here it's because I'm sick and half asleep this morning, but this is all fantastic stuff to give me a few points to look at. I greatly appreciate it.

[Laserlight]

Beefgood - which adventure is PoTA? I don't recognize that one.


Princes of the Apocalypse. We did that one up to L10, a couple of years ago. Not bad, although again it got to be a bit lengthy.

[GlenSmash!]

Best story can often come at odds with most choices/flexability/sandbox.

Curse of Strahd is great on story, but leads to the same final confrontation no matter what. Still players get to make a lot of choices on the way.

The Lost Mines of Phandelver is still my favorite 5e adventure, though.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I am playing through SKT currently, and from the player side there have been one or two moments where I've been a bit lost as to how certain tasks are supposed to be accomplished. It's enjoyable, but it's certainly got some weak points, like the transition between the prologue and the first actual chapter.

[RevelationMD]

Loved Temple of Elemental Evil & Queen of the Spiders back in Ad&d days. Would love to see both of them updated for 5e.

If I had to choose one, I'd go ToEE - can never get bored with levelling Hommlet as an evil party :)

[Bubzors]

For campaign sized modules, Red hand of doom. Hands down. Loved that module. Ran it as a side thing between our "main" campaigns with a rotating cast of players. Also it's well loved on the interwebs so plenty of helpful hints for running it. I did run it back in the day on 3.5 but I have seen some conversion threads out there for 5e

Also ran SKT more recently. I actually really enjoyed it, but required a lot of work in the background to make it work and "make sense." More work than should be expected for a module

As for what I look in a smaller module, I guess is a novel idea. I usually end up changing most of them. Basically I love using them for spring boards for my own adventures. Steal a plot hook here, a dungeon map there, sprinkle in that cool combat encouter and layer on that neat trap. Also something generic enough to be tossed into almost any persisting world

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Also ran SKT more recently. I actually really enjoyed it, but required a lot of work in the background to make it work and "make sense." More work than should be expected for a module

"Hey, I know you don't know any of these people. Could you travel to a town that's a month or more away to deliver the news of someone's death to someone else you don't know or care about? Don't worry, a giant wizard is going to appear to give you a ride in a flying castle for no reason."