Favorite adventures!

[Sornas]

Hey everyone. Here's a question for you:

What are your favorite self-contained adventures that you have run/played in/plan to run? (No matter what the length, if you want to talk about a whole campaign here, go for it!)

Personally, I love one that I read about a long time ago, I think on the Wizards boards, and I'm likely going to be using soon in my current game. (Which means, if any of you RPGS people have found your way over here, ignore the rest of this post :P)

The PCs, on their way to whatever destination, stop over for the night in a small town, where they just happen to be sharing an inn with a local official on a diplomatic mission.

Late in the night, an assassin, using a helm of teleportation or similar item, teleports in, and attempts to take out the official. They succeed, but not without a struggle, knocking their teleportation item into the room's fireplace, while the assassin makes their escape.

The PCs, likely not woken by the assassin, are likely instead awoken by screaming, not at the discovery of the body, but at the discovery of everything around the inn being gone, instead surrounded by an inky half-globe.

It's explained that one of the innkeepers tried to go out and see what it was, but upon touching it, simply vanished. The PCs now have to figure out what to do, but as soon as it looks like they are starting to be at ease with the concept of being "trapped," the globe begins to shrink. (Usually with the DM butting into their conversations, simply to say "50 feet.")

In reality, simply touching the globe teleports you outside of it, as the destruction of the item caused the formation of a small demi-plane, strong with teleportation magic, but you can't get back inside. So no one outside ever comes back, and can't tell the rest that there is nothing to worry about. Once the globe finishes shrinking (The demi-plane collapsing in on itself), everything will be just like it was, well, except for the official, which can be used as a further plot hook, as both the PCs and players are likely to be pissed at the guy that got them so stressed for nothing.

[Bellmaethorion]

I am very much going to yoink that

is this about self made adventures, or premade, or D) all of the above?

[Sornas]

All of the above. ^_^ Whatever your favorite adventures are!

[Bellmaethorion]

Well, one of my own, is to have the PC's in a remote place, an out camp, or something like that, they're cutoff from the "civilized world" and are low on supplies, and to make matter worse, an Orcwort(MMII, a tree that produces pods that,when mature, break open to release mobile fruits called
wortlings, which then go out to bring warmblooded food to the orcwort) shows up, which cownaps what little lifestock there is left.

now, they can just kill the orcwort, though this will be very difficult, as it's quite a strong creature (CR20, though I'll tone it down alot, I think, as I want to use it in a low level campaign)
what I /hope/ they will do (yeah, likely...)
is capture the orcwort, or even try and speak to it(via a druid, or ranger, or somesuch) and agree to feed it a cow or two, in exchange for a bunch of the wortlings, which are edible, sort of like a fruit, and the tree can produce 5-20 a night, the wortlings are small, but 20 halflings would be enough for a group of people, so I imagine the wortlings would be also

---
hm.. that's more an encounter than an adventure, I guess...
[diplomacy] but it was D [/diplomacy]

[RTGoodman]

I mostly play pre-published adventures, so that's where most of my experience is.

For low-level games, I know of several that I loved. A Dark and Stormy Knight from the Wizards website, designed as a 1st level adventure, is a fun and interesting way to get a new-ish group started, or just to start a campaign with more experienced players.

Also for 1st level is "Scourge of the Howling Horde." There are a lot of typos and mistakes and such (you can find a whole list of them by Googling "Scourge of the Howling Horde Unofficial Errata" or something like that), but I find in general it's well put together and a good "standard" beginning adventure. And hey, anything that lets a 1st-level party fight a Dragon as the BBEG is cool with me!

For slightly higher level play, I really liked "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil." I haven't DMed it, but we played through the first section of it a couple of years ago when I found a good gaming group, and despite my character dying, I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, it is 3.0, and it's kinda hard to find.

My absolute favorite adventure that I've ever been involved with is "Red Hand of Doom," published a couple of years ago. It's a pretty epic adventure (as far as style, not levels), and I think a lot of people agree. There are a lot of cool things in it (for instance, it manages to work in stuff from a lot of other supplements to make things unique, but doesn't make you have to buy those supplements), and the whole campaign is set up in such a way that the excitement builds the whole way through until the climax. For more info on it, check the Wizards forums - the Adventure sub-forum has like a billion Recaps from people playing through it.


Oh, one more I forgot about - "Something's Cooking," from the Wizards website. It's silly, but it's also really neat and I can see myself running it with a group of younger folks if I were teaching them D&D. I think it's designed for 2nd level characters.

[Da King]

I agree, "A Dark and Stormy Knight" is a fun adventure (ran it yesterday) and it served as a good way to start my campaign. "Kill Bargle" from the last print issue of Dragon magazine looks great as well, but unfortunately I haven't got an opportunity to run it yet.

[Sornas]

To keep this going, I'm gonna post another one here. ^_^

One of my favorite campaign-openers:

The PCs, who are in a large city of plot significance for their own reasons, (I like to use the Holy City of Sefal from my homebrew setting) are hired by a local church (Likely of the party cleric's faith) to retrieve an astrological reading from a seer that lives in the nearby mountains.

Making their way through the woods with far less time than should be allowed for something like this, (*Insert one or two encounters here, likely while camping for the night*) the PCs eventually make it to the Seer's home, which is built into the face of the mountains. (As a side note, when I started my current campaign, the look on the duskblade's face when he learned he had to CLIMB the mountain after walking all this way was priceless)

The seer invites the PCs to stay the night, a great chance for dramatic RP scenes and whatnot, as well as PCs asking the seer questions, with appropriately cryptic responses that foreshadow later adventures.

To help with their journey, the seer gives each PC a magical trinket (Something small, like a Chronocharm, nothing over 1000gp), and the report.

The PCs trek all the way back to the city, at which point one of the lesser members of the church thanks them for retrieving the weather reports for the next day's festival. Duck when the PCs throw their dice at you.

(Cue priceless Duskblade look again)

It's also great for leading into a festival-based adventure the next day. ^^

[Enguhl]

Well, I was running Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, and it was going pretty amazingly. But then the party got wiped by a hole . To be honest it was a trap, but only the first person fell in due to trappedness.

[Sornas]

Well, I was running Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, and it was going pretty amazingly. But then the party got wiped by a hole . To be honest it was a trap, but only the first person fell in due to trappedness.

Why do I get the feeling that this involves some sort of Head of Vecna level stuff? o.o;

[Shishnarfne]

Well, I greatly enjoyed playing Red Hand of Doom... it's a tough module, but a great epic campaign.

I've run Expedition to Castle Ravenloft multiple times. I think it's a fun, challenging module, if you like gothic horror. The players are often unsure of whether they will make it out...

Tomb of Horrors is a classic, but I only recommend using it for one-shots... Seriously, one reason to play is to boast to your friends that you got farther than they did...

I've seen some interesting RPGA Living Greyhawk modules, but those might be harder to find...

[Sornas]

I've seen some interesting RPGA Living Greyhawk modules, but those might be harder to find...

Yeah, the RPGA keeps a semi-tight lid on their stuff, you need clearance for everything you do with them, and they are very rules-heavy.

I'm actually a registered DM with them, but I haven't done anything for quite a while, because it's such a huge pain to deal with in order to get some modules, when my players prefer homebrew stuff anyway.

[Keld Denar]

Please post spoiler blocks for any content (especially traps or enemies, and especially specially end bosses!). Include the name of the adventure outside of the spoiler block.

Some of use haven't played there adventures, and might, and don't want to have the fun and suprise spoiled.

Thank you.

[Enguhl]

Why do I get the feeling that this involves some sort of Head of Vecna level stuff? o.o;

No, just a hole in a hallway. 20ft deep, 15ft long, and 5ft across... the party was level 9 with 6 members... it was sad.

[nepphi]

I think my favorite adventure I ran was actually on a chat once.

The game I took over from another (retired) Storyteller was running a bit slowly, so I decided to pick things up. I introduced a whole slate of NPCs, but ran them as PCs without telling the real players (this would only work in the nature of a chat setting). I let them get used to knowing these people, interacting, making plans, for about two months. I ran some other demi-adventures to keep things interesting, but this was my big focus.

Then, some serial killers started killing off all the newcomers one by one. Since everyone thought they were real PCs, everyone was terrified they were next. Nobody had a clue I never intended to kill one real PC unless they acted COMPLETELY stupid. They were using the buddy system, carrying guns, had a crisis phone tree...it was glorious.

When I finally explained everything to them (after they'd killed the baddies), they all screamed "Do it again!"

I knew I'd done well