Published Adventures - Recommendations, Thoughts, Best Of

[EccentricOwl]

Hey there. Let me be honest - I love published adventures. You can call them canned, call them premade, call them 'the easy way out', but I love them and to be honest, I run them all the time.

Hell, I'll admit that my GMing skills have suffered because of it. But that doesn't change how much fun I have.

In a way, they teach you how to play the game, and give you a good feel for the setting, flavor, and rulesets. I've become very reactionary as far as GMing goes, and I'm always ready to adjust the adventure to meet the choices of the PCs.


Regardless, what do you think of published adventures?

More importantly, do you have any personal favorites or recommendations? Which ones do you own, and which ones do you regret ever running?


I could tell you that my all-time favorite was Red Hand of Doom.

[ninjaneer003]

i've never played it but i read through some of the Pathfinder Adventure Path #1-6 Rise of the Rune Lords and it looked really good! Pathfinder Adventure Path #19-24 Legacy of Fire also looks really good i think it has to do with a big Genie war and what's better than a was a war of people with UNLIMITED COSMIC POWER! little bitty living space

[Infernum]

Best pre-made adventure of all time, in my opinion anyway is the AD&D 2nd edition Temple Of Elemental Evil. A truly fantastic adventure and so full of wonderful plot. I played through it, had characters who died but i still continued on and the ending is so worth it. Afterwords i worked on locating and buying myself a copy, plan to run it one day.

As far as published adventures go, i like the ones from the old days, that gave you room to tweak them to fit you setting and world along with tons of ideas for plot hooks. Then new ones are so so, with the best of the 3rd edition modules being the Shattered Gates of Slaughterguard. Haven't read the new 4th edition stuff as my group doesn't play it.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

The Dungeon Crawl Classics series from Goodman Games is full of easily applied adventures. It doesn't take much to tweak them here and there to drop into your own setting and campaign arc.
In particular, look out for Interludes - it's got mini adventures for levels 1 to 14, all making a longer storyline.

Dungeon B2 The Keep on the Borderlands.
There's a 3.5 conversion out there. You'll still need to do a little work to pad out the keep and inject some character into the NPCs, but it's a solid set of short dungeon bashes strung together with a common theme. A defining work.

[Satyr]

Prefabricated adventure modules are good to teach how to run a plot and all. I think they are an invaluable mean to introduce new GMs to the game, even though it is also necessary that one learns to act independantly from the script from time to time, or the adventures can become heavily railroaded.

In settings with a strong metaplot (or any relevant metaplot at all), they also offer a chance to include the group into the bigger picture and let them participate in the greater events or even influence them.

Unfortunately, good adventure modules are rare, and as a German player one is kind of spoiled in this regard: The most important German RPG, the dark eye, is heavily focused on its adventure modules (the setting is good, but the rules are just plain terrible), and the sheer volume of adventures makes it quite easy to find a few truly outstanding ones (even though there are also many mediocre ones and some which are truly terrible).
The best Dark Eye adventures are way better than anything I have ever seen for D&D (I have to admit though that I don't know that many D&D adventures), especially the earlier campaigns.

And then there is Jenseits des Lichts (Beyond the Light) which is just the best adventure ever written, I guess:

The beginning of the adventure is pure comedy: the PCs are in one big city, get involved with the local star actress of the local theatre, meet the gang of heirs of the great local merchant dynasties and get involved in loads of slapstick moments, like the epic battle between traditional "dark" artists and the new "rebel" artists who dare to paint optimistic, colorful pictures in grisly colours like spring green and pink.
Then they met one merchant (called the hamster behind his back) who has lost his fortune due to a war - and who had hidden most of his gold before he had to flee. Unfortunately in a city far away which is now occupied by a military dictatorship of demon worshippers.
The prospect of wealth lures the PCs to try and find that treasure which leads to the first major mood whiplash in the adventure - the funny introduction is then replaced with a paranoid horror atmosphere where you can't trust anybody, and the local rulers are a quite sadistic occupation force.
The whole thing ends with a riot, with the PCs and a centner of gold in the middle.
They can escape - and get the possibility to travel to a safe haven to return from the occupied lands, but before they have to sneak through the occupied lands. And for this, they need a disguise, namely as a travelling theatre troupe.
The next part of the overland travel is basically a lesson in improved theatre, which is just fun - until they meet another theatre group which challenges them to a "battle of the art" - and the PCs are suddenly trapped in a pocket dimension which effectively is a theatre play and follows the logic of one - including that all people think in loud, clearly spoken monologues, which nobody but the PCs can hear. The PCs than have to survive the play, manipulate it again and again (which is actually quite easy, because the world adapts to the needs of the play - if you are convincing enough, you can turn any sheet of paper into a letter, or any green fluid into deadly poison).
It is one of the most creative adventures I have ever seen, and the whole structure also requires and encourages the players to be as creative as they can be, coming up with weird solutions and effectively bend the world around their will. While they are in the middle of something that resembles a Shakespearean drama, only much more bloodthirsty.
The adventure relies strongly on the wits of the characters, in the first part mostly for fun and in situations which are embarrassing at best, in the second part to safe their lifes and very souls.
It is very hard to combine humor and horror, as these are two quite complementary emotions. This adventure manages to do just that.

[AslanCross]

I agree that Red Hand of Doom is one of the best published adventures ever. It's not heavy on railroading (Note: I define railroading as the lack of relevant choices, not the presence of any plot whatsoever.), has interesting NPCs and villains, and paints a very vivid picture of the region it's set in.

My only complaints about it are that it's written for rather low optimization levels , has a rather anticlimactic final chapter, and has a few rather silly out-of-place details (The night hag cook in the final chapter and the Devil Beard Tea, to name a couple).

I own RHOD, Eyes of the Lich Queen, and Lord of the Iron Fortress.

EOTLQ is a quintessential Eberron adventure. It takes you all over the setting, has recurring Nazi Emerald Claw villains, and has a good mix of combat and interaction. The encounters have a lot of attention to detail, with a great deal of interactivity with the environment. As such, the dungeons aren't boring sequences of corridor after corridor; they're short, sweet and quite interesting.

Only downsides are:
1.Poor editing: There's one encounter that's almost unusable since the map and the key don't really match.
2. At some points it's a bit railroaded, but that's not really felt.
3. The last boss is a bit out of place.

Lord of the Iron Fortress is a 3.0 book. It's a high-level planar adventure that takes the PCs across Acheron. While the setting is interesting, the "Iron Fortress" seems surprisingly puny. I've never played it, but I'm not sure I want to. I find the old "wall of text" statblocks from 3.0 close to unusable.

I think premade adventures are great for both new and experienced DMs. For new DMs it gives them the feel of how to construct interactive experiences for players; for experienced DMs it gives them the opportunity to give the story their own twist.

[ghost_warlock]

I usually rely on published adventures as campaign filler when I DM (thankfully rarely these days).

A few old AD&D 2e adventures from Dungeon Magazine will always have a special place in my heart: Felkovic's Cat, Melody, and the Bandits of Bunglewood. Felkovic's cat pits the party up against a minor dark lord in Ravenloft with the aid of a semi-sentient magical item. Melody involves rescuing a good-aligned harpy (raised by a human bard) from a ettin, who's been using her song to lure travelers to their doom. The Bandits of Bunglewood sends the PCs to investigate wildly discrepant rumors about a group of bandits preying on a major road; the PCs discover the bandits are a actually a handful of kobolds trained equipped with an assortment of magic items by a former adventurer - none of the people robbed want to admit they were bested by kobolds.

Pretty much whenever I'm being forced to DM at short notice I end up relying on an improvised adaption of the AD&D 2e Cleric's Challenge module.

For 3.5 D&D, the Shackled City Adventure Path from Dungeon magazine is highly recommended. I own the hardcover compiled version that I tried running once but the game died. Looks like I might get to play through it as a PC here soon, though.

[Powerfamiliar]

Rise of the Runelord by Paizo. It's a 6 module adventure path, and the whole tihng is great.

I also have to echo the reccomendation of Red Hand of Doom. The last chapter is a bit lacking after the one that preceeded it, but still a very good module.

I'm currently in the planning stages of a Kingmaker campaign, also by Paizo, and from reading the first 2 modules it seems awesome, but we'll see how it plays. First session next week!

[Hendel]

I would have to agree with some of the opinions presented in this thread.

My all time favorite is probably T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil. I can't tell you how many campaigns I had where I started the PC's off in the village of Homlett. I even took the time to convert aspects of the entire module over to 3.5 to allow a new generation of players the opportunity to adventure in the Temple.

The video game version also helped to bring the Temple to life and it felt strangely familiar as I played the game years ago like, "I know what is going to be behind that door" etc.

Other adventures that I liked include
Tomb of Horrors
White Plume Mountain
Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
The Giants/Drow/Queen of the Demonweb Pits (individual and super module)
Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
Isle of the Ape
Forge of Fury (3.5)
Bastion of Broken Souls (3.5)

[Harperfan7]

I've heard bastion of broken souls is a great high level adventure.

[Ruinix]

1- Red Hand of Doom. easy going, a lot of fun, a lot of party planing and the dead line time limit add a lot to the strategie.

2- Black Rose, dragonlance campaing. a lot of epic (not in level, just in flavor) plots. awesome final.

[EccentricOwl]

[QUOTE=Infernum;8508593]Best pre-made adventure of all time, in my opinion anyway is the AD&D 2nd edition Temple Of Elemental Evil. A truly fantastic adventure and so full of wonderful plot. I played through it, had characters who died but i still continued on and the ending is so worth it. Afterwords i worked on locating and buying myself a copy, plan to run it one day.

QUOTE]

I was unaware that Temple of Elemntal Evil had, well, plot. I thought it was mostly a grind-fest.

[EccentricOwl]

I would have to agree with some of the opinions presented in this thread.

My all time favorite is probably T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil. I can't tell you how many campaigns I had where I started the PC's off in the village of Homlett. I even took the time to convert aspects of the entire module over to 3.5 to allow a new generation of players the opportunity to adventure in the Temple.

The video game version also helped to bring the Temple to life and it felt strangely familiar as I played the game years ago like, "I know what is going to be behind that door" etc.

Other adventures that I liked include
Tomb of Horrors
White Plume Mountain
Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
The Giants/Drow/Queen of the Demonweb Pits (individual and super module)
Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
Isle of the Ape
Forge of Fury (3.5)
Bastion of Broken Souls (3.5)

You still have that Temple of Elemental Evil conversion? =P

All I can seem to find is "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil." Does anyone know if it's any good?

[EccentricOwl]

Rise of the Runelord by Paizo. It's a 6 module adventure path, and the whole tihng is great.

I also have to echo the reccomendation of Red Hand of Doom. The last chapter is a bit lacking after the one that preceeded it, but still a very good module.

I'm currently in the planning stages of a Kingmaker campaign, also by Paizo, and from reading the first 2 modules it seems awesome, but we'll see how it plays. First session next week!

What is "Kingmaker?"

[balistafreak]

In before Calzone Golem.

[Powerfamiliar]

What is "Kingmaker?"

Current Paizo adventure path. Sandoxy-ish kingdom building campaign.

[Vilyathas]

+1 for the Red Hand of Doom.

But most of my love is reserved for the Planescape campaigns. The Great Modron March, Dead Gods, Faction War, the Deva Spark, and Die Vecna Die.

[Hendel]

You still have that Temple of Elemental Evil conversion? =P

All I can seem to find is "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil." Does anyone know if it's any good?

I might have to look around but just stat up some of the clerics and the goons and the rest you can use monsters from the Monster Manual, etc.

I started to run Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil but that group sort of disbanded while they were somewhere in the big circular dungeon. It is good, but I still liked the original. Their plot lines did not have much to do with each other.

As for it just being a grind and not having much plot, it depends on how you run the adventure. I ran it on its own before and once as the first of the triliogy of super modules, including Scourge of the Slave Lords (the A series slave modules), and the Queen of Spiders (the GDQ Giants, Drow, Queen of the Demonweb Pit series). If you do that and link them all together, you can have a series that will take you from 1st level to the high teens and your adventures really feel like they have saved the world from a great plot that continues to get bigger and more global in scale.

[Raging Gene Ray]

+1 for the Red Hand of Doom.

But most of my love is reserved for the Planescape campaigns. The Great Modron March, Dead Gods, Faction War, the Deva Spark, and Die Vecna Die.

You left out Harbinger House.

[DarkEternal]

I'm currently playing Shadowdale:Scouring of the land and the continuation to that module, but am also interested in higher level premade adventures, from level 16 onwards. Not so much on the published material there, especially for longer campaigns....

Red Hand of Doom was excellent by the way. They sodded up some encounters by making them too easy(Hravek and Azar Kull, hell the Tiamat manifestation as well) but overall very enjoyable.

[Amphetryon]

White Plume Mountain

+1. One of the few published adventures I'll happily go through multiple times.

[hamlet]

You left out Harbinger House.

And the Eternal Boundary. A great low level adventure equal parts investigation and role playing and bloody carnage.

I also recommend Harvest of Horror from the Dungeon Magazine back in the 90's I think. Great adventure.

[JohnnyCancer]

Most of the Pathfinder adventure paths and modules are good. The Apocalypse Stone and Die Vecna Die! which I think were the last second edition modules were good. A Paladin in Hell is good if you like a lot of challenging combat, also for second edition. Five Coins for a Kingdom is an old Master edition adventure, it started off kind of sucky but has a spectacular finish. That's all I can think of at the moment.

[EccentricOwl]

Ah, okay. I should make a list of all these fantastic adventures.. =P

Anyway, there seem to be quite a few utterly fantastic fantasy adventures.

Does anyone have any favorites for other systems or settings? A particularly enjoyable Traveller adventure, for example?

[Callos_DeTerran]

My favorite adventure of all time...alright, it's actually like...twelve adventures put together, but that's not the point. My favorite adventure is undoubtedly the Savage Tide adventure path published by Paizo. It's full of exotic locales, an enemy/enemies(?) you'll love to hate and kill, and there's no way you can claim you haven't had a MAJOR impact on the multiverse itself if you succeed in your epic struggle.

[Volos]

what's better than a was a war of people with UNLIMITED COSMIC POWER! little bitty living space

Great quote, I have to give you kudos for that one.

I love published adventures, even though I'm starting to use them less and less. They are a great learning tool and they can help new DMs with the akwardness of figuring out how to play the game. And they are a great help when an experienced DM has either run out of creative flow for the moment or has more pressing issues (Real life for example) and cannot custom make his adventures for the moment. I'm starting to go more and more completely custom but I still write out my notes in the style of a published adventure, just because it's what I'm used to.

Oh, and Red Hand of Doom is my favorite as well. My players just barely kept the advancing hordes from destroying everything... and they weren't quite able to keep Tiamat from... umm... rampaging... yeah. Akward.

[EccentricOwl]

The consensus seems to be that the old "Temple of Elemental Evil / Giants/ Demonweb" series for 2nd ed was amazing and worth it.

Players also really seem to have enjoyed, well, ALL of Paizo Publishing's adventure paths.

[cZak]

+1 RHoD.

Barrow of the Forgotten King: I like the premise, but seemed a little implausible.

I'm a sucker for the classics: pre 3.x... Plus you can probably find free pdf's online (WoTC) or cheap (Amazon, ebay, etc...)
They take a bit of retooling to adapt it for 3.x, but I generally use published adventures as a very lose background for games.


I really liked the Slave Lords 'A' series. Very good plot premise with potential for some real deep character interactions besides just 'kill it'. Except the last (A4). Capturing the PC's, stripping them naked and dumping them in a hole is the start of the adventure. Fun for some, not so much others...

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun (WG4) had a great mix in that the first part was a big 'storm the castle' kind of grind, but the latter part was the puzzle/ trap set up. Who can gaze upon the body of an entombed god...

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil was pretty good, having played/ ran both original and return.
There are a lot of plot arcs and potential RP interactions in the RttToEE if the DM wants to develop/ pursue them.

Keep on the Borderlands (B2) was a pretty good intro, but did not make much sense to me. This huge warren of monsters in close proximity to each other and civilization...

The 'L' series: Secret of Bone Hill (L1), Assasins Knot (L2) & Danger at Dunwater (L3) were a good set. Although you could probably develop/ play by ear the L2. Just read the premise online... how's your google-foo, grasshopper?

[Akal Saris]

UNLIMITED COSMIC POWER! little bitty living space

Oi! Ten thousand years will give you SUCH a crick in the neck!

In before Calzone Golem.

So far my players have sworn that was the best published adventure I've ever ran for them. Granted, I added in ninjas, Thayan necromancers, and zombies, but the Calzone golem pretty much was the highlight of the whole thing.

My favorite published adventures:

D&D 2E
-The Undermountain series was a lot of fun for me, it was the first module that I ran

D&D 3.5
-What's Cookin? (Calzone Golem!) and the Frost Giant Fortress are 2 free short adventures from WoTC's website that I ran and had a blast with.
-Tome of Horrors v3.5 was a lot of fun for me as the DM at least
-So far the Rise of the Runelords and the Curse of the Crimson Throne module series have both been excellent games to run, very well-written. My main quibble is that there is WAY too much backstory on the villains' motivations that the PCs will never learn about and is kind of extraneous to the adventure. I'm only in the 1st module of each of them, but the 2nd module for each looks like it will be amazing.

[Zombimode]

White Plume Mountain

I will give it a go within the next two months.
Ruleswise I will have to make a conversion to my own "2.5" rules, but from the style I plan to leave it as original as possible.

Maybe I will post a campaign journal here then, if there is interesst :-)