Keep on the Boarderlands was great. I read it but never ran it. To this day, I think that was the module someone was showing off in school. I wondered how the "playing pieces" would fit on such a small board. I didn't see the cover, just the inside with the blue printing.
Lost City was I believe the first actual module I ran. So many noob mistakes. :D
I also liked Castle Amber. I photocopied the labels of the wine and stuck it to bottles of soda. Love the prop potential of those older modules.
Mike Mearls has a scathing and surprisingly superficial 'review' of B2 on rpg.net which amounts to a dismissal of the whole design strategy of including basic information and encounters as a spur to DM creativity. The vast number of people who've had so much fun from that adventure gives the obvious lie to it.
I love I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City for giving the game the Yuan-ti!
I love C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan for the great map and illustration booklet.
I never owned S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth but I'll have to keep an eye out for it based on your recommendation. I heard that WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun has ties to Tsojcanth. Is it also good?
WG4 is a follow-up to S4 in that it's also set in the Yatil Mountains and features the same clan of gnomes. It's good, but not as well-rounded. Wilderness areas, big battle to get into the Temple, then some very spooky and atmospheric encounters as the PCs descend to the Undertemple, and then...
came with my 2edD&D boxed set... Holmes edition.. not the 3edD&D Holmes revised edition which i bought later too.
was the first module i used in OD&D that i didn't make myself.
White Plume Mountain was good too.
Oggie
I6 - Ravenloft....
Ah I'm glad someone else loves that module too....
Of all my old stuff, I6 is proberly the best, it's got character, it's got moody setings, it's got potental for really nasty roleplaying sneakyness....
Hell it gave birth to an entire Setting...
I loved the story and the depth of the plot. Although I think I had more fun reading it, looking at the art, and thinking about it than actually running it ;)
I photocopied the labels of the wine and stuck it to bottles of soda
Ha! I did the same with Rahasia! I agree, setting up props for the game was always a fun concept.
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
B4 The Lost City
B5 Horror on the Hill
D1-2 Vault of the Drow
L1 Secret of Bone Hill
S1 Tomb of Horror
S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
T1 Village of Hommlet
WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
X2 Castle Amber
If the naming format is "adjective noun of proper name" I probably like it.
R.A.
A great intro of modules that were not origionally intended to be part of the string were the Slaver modules. Those lead perfectly into the Giant modules.
Ravensloft was a classic as well.
Palace of the Silver Princess
Tomb of the Lizard King
Slave Pits of the Undercity
also Dark side of the Moon (Star Frontiers)
and I still own them
B1 In Search of the Unknown (Played once/DM'd over 10 times - incl. once from memory!)
S2 White Plume Mountain
X2 Castle Amber
S1 Tomb of Horrors
I6 Ravenloft
T1 Village of Hommlet
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness
U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
G1-3/D1-3/Q1 Giants Series/Drow Series/Queen of the Demonweb Pits
...Better make that top 11 ;)
Leptar, a humanoid immortal.
Arik of the hundred eyes, an immortal beholder.
Orcus (the demon idol in the highpriests bed chamber of the caves of chaos),
Chaos (worshiped as a philosophy by the Black heart monastics in B5 Horror on the Hill)
With Arik in Haven by the Lake of lost dreams, Leptar in Elwyns Keep (I put it in the pass where the river high reach flows into Karameikos from Thyatis), The Monastary of Chaos where castellan river meets the high reach, and the caves of chaos near Castellan keep, you could draw a front down the inside of the River Castellan to the Highreach and once Guido's fort fell, a line down to Haven. The humanoids drive out the settlers from the region and everything inside becomes known as the Dark Theocracy.
If adventurers failed to stop them, they would have pushed west into central Karameikos with an army of assorted Humanoid Warbands. As Forts Castellan and Dukes Road fall they are left with a guard of Undead troops. Once the Trade route with Selenica is cut the Warbands push south along the Dukes Road Laying Siege to Penhaligon and then Kelvin. While all this is happening, the Dark theocracy is filling with Humanoids and clerics of Chaos from the Mountains of Thyatis.
That way, when the adventurers come through, they begin in Haven, Pass through Elwyns Keep, Hobgoblin Hill, and then to the Caves of Chaos. A year in the wilderness laying siege and building up a small army of released slaves to fight their way out. They dont get the presteige that "the royals" get in their seige of Kelvin and Penhaligon, but if the Party hadnt broken the supply lines, Kelvin would have fallen exposing the West to invasion.
Leptar, a humanoid immortal.
Arik of the hundred eyes, an immortal beholder.
Orcus (the demon idol in the highpriests bed chamber of the caves of chaos),
Chaos (worshiped as a philosophy by the Black heart monastics in B5 Horror on the Hill)
Interesting yelllowdingo! Although I didnt run most of these actual modules (Except for B3), I used the modules you mention plus B10, B11, B12 and DDA3 & 4 as background material for my own Karameikos campaign.
I did something similar to what you did, although I didn't use the name Dark Theocracy (Which I like BTW), but the Unholy Trinity. I made the Black Heart Monastics worshippers of Demogorgon. The Clerics from B11-12, also described as worshippers of Chaos also became Clerics of either Demogorgon, Orcus or Arik. These were the original Unholy Trinity, though I have later revised it to be Demogorgon, Orcus and Leptar. Arik is not really part of the Trinity, but he is someone the Trinity is working to free from his dimensional prison.
The sworn enemies of the Unholy Trinity is ofcourse the Traladaran Three (Halav, Petra and Zirchev), traditional protectors of the lands the Unholy Ones are trying to destroy.
My stuff on the Vaults (link below) explore this in further detail.
Håvard
Ruins of Undermountain
Labyrinth of Madness
City of Skulls
Temple of Elemental Evil
Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
I think these are the best done modules and adventures of all time!
Many that I played in: Ghost Tower of Inverness
Also ran the Pharaoh series, that was good
I also liked some of the TSR Top Secret & Gamma World adventures!
The only one that looked good & I never ran (except as a player in 3.0 version) was the Slavers "A" Series.
Also a huge fan of Len Lakofka's Secret of Bone Hill.
Invisible Chickens, who can resist?
this module I slightly modified and set in the Raurin Desert "a place it might have supposed to be set in anyways" I just updated and expanded the surronding region and my players all agree it was by far the best module they ever played second to none...
the supplement "old empires" really helps add a lot of flavor to this module, the biggest thing my players said that was awesome was the added thri-kreen of Athis to this area....
Ed Greenwood once claimed this area was Torils most inhospitable region, this is the area that is the closetr thing to a realms version of a Dark Sun like region...
every DM needs to get the Desert of Desolation super module and update and flush it out for a campaign in the Raurin Desert, the supplement Old Empires is a great help in this for added ideas, items, npc's, monster and so on
Modules I3-I5 get honorable mention as well. True classics, no doubt.
I have played or DM'ed most of the above, and each one has a special place and can bring great stories that will endure in my memory. The one that I have some very fond memories of as a player was S3-Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (the spaceship). Our DM was masterful at desribing the strange items that we found. He was able to descibe them to us in a manner that, we as players couldn't say "oh, its a laser gun guys" and it bruoght the role playing to a level that we had not been to. I have tried to DM this on a couble of occations, but did not have nearly the sucess.
As for a well written Hack-n-slash- B2-The keep and the caves-still use it to introduce new gruops to the game.
Best Epic-Giant series-(With a few minor additions) Start the players in T1, (now that the rest of the t series is out use them, then use the A series, G series, D1 & 2, finish off with Q1!
Best death trap/horror- no doubt- Tomb of Horrors, it's a good way to eliminate the characters that have completed the above epic and ragain some balance in you game
As for misdiredction/intrugue- U1.
That being said, I'll choose X1- Chateu De Amber (That's what it says on the cover of my copy). As being the one module that stands out from the rest for it's unique qualities.
Of course there really is no better adventure than one that has been carefully crafted by a taleted DM, expressly for his/her own group of players.
I was rather dissapointed that TSR failed to combine Keep on the Borderlands, Palace of the Silver Princess, Horror on the Hill (from B9), and the fourth with Elwyn and the big black dragon keep(B9 Castle Caldwell and Beyond) In all four cases it involved evil clerics setting themselves up with a chain of small fortress (if you put them on the map it all slotted in as the cruth lowlands being fenced off from Karameikos)
In fact they are all combine in B1-9 In Search of Adventure
ZolDarklock
Ed Greenwood once claimed this area was Torils most inhospitable region, this is the area that is the closetr thing to a realms version of a Dark Sun like region...
The Supermodule actually takes place in the realms (see the back cover) if they would update this to include some of the Sandstorm info it would be most killer...
In the B series my favorite (trying to remember the name) is actually the one where you go into a pyramid and it is sinking in the sand with you in it...
I actually have a B4 in French!!! wish I could actually read it but its a nice collectable...
The Sunless Citadel
White Plume Mountain
The Tomb of Horrors
Against the Giants
Thats my top five.
I really liked the HWA-trilogy as well...
Håvard
smoker
1. S1 Tomb of Horrors
2. D1-D3 Descent into the depths - vault of the drow
3. S4 Lost caverns of Tsojacanth
4. L1 The secret of Bone Hill
5. WG4 The Lost Temple of Tharizdun
6. T1 The Village of Hommlet
7. N1 Against the cult of the reptile god
8. The Slavers Stockade
9. S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
10. C1 hidden Shrine of the Tomoachan.
I Dm'd all of these plus many others. There was nothing quite like S1!
U1 Saltmarsh, H4 where you take on Orcus, I6 Ravenloft, X2 chateau d'amber were also ones i remember well.
The party has to take refuge in an old pyramid to wait out a sand storm. If your party was anything like any of mine, they passed the time by:
* wandering through the pyramid
* meeting weird, seemingly-high natives
* killing lots of creatures
* getting a load of treasure
* eventually returning to the entrance after a few pc's died (hopefully npc henchmen ;) )
I Dm'ed an expanded version of the module once where the party went all the way to the underground cities, fought some cultists, and killed their monstrous leader (Zargon I think)
- Mobius
My favourite module as a youngster was B4 The Lost City.
The party has to take refuge in an old pyramid to wait out a sand storm. If your party was anything like any of mine, they passed the time by:
* wandering through the pyramid
* meeting weird, seemingly-high natives
* killing lots of creatures
* getting a load of treasure
* eventually returning to the entrance after a few pc's died (hopefully npc henchmen ;) )
I Dm'ed an expanded version of the module once where the party went all the way to the underground cities, fought some cultists, and killed their monstrous leader (Zargon I think)
- Mobius
Yeah, that is a great module! If I was to run it again, I would put a much stronger emphasis on the Cthulhuic elements in it. The half-crazy natives, and in the end Zargon is pretty much a Cthulhu-type creature as well.
My only objection to the module was how silly the natives were. But I think making them more into psychotic maniacs (dropping the masks) would make it a better module...
Just a thought...
Hmmm...maybe I will use it again...
Håvard
I have to go with the original T1 The Village of Hommlett. But not the Temple...I love to create a new evil temple every time I use Hommlett. it makes for variety. :D
B2 is up on the list. As are many others.
Hard call, though.
Tony
Town
Dungeon
Wilderness
and the maze at the end BRILL !!!!
it was made by Judges Guild and is copyrighted to 1980 which i think was the year i plyed it or 1981
Temple of Elemental Evil. It was the first module I ever ran for my group that became an entire campaign. The moathouse is still a great way to start the adventure. :D
Good friend of mine that I still game with did the same thing - turned ToEE into a whole campaign. It was awesome.
Also really liked Egg of the Phoenix and The Secret of Bone Hill...
I loved playing Ravenloft. That was fun, but frustrating (Strahd was a bad dude).
After talking to my wife, she apparently liked playing through the Grand Conjunction series quite a bit, as well as the Desert of Desolation. I didn't particularly care for running either of them though.
My Top Four
1. Dragon Mountain [this had it all, kobolds, a psionic assassin, a dragon...]
2. The Temple of Elemental Evil [best pure dungeon crawl ever]
3. Thoughts of Darkness [Illithids, lightning storms, tension, this was scary]
4. The Labyrinth of Madness [Soo tough, but really cool]
The modules I remember most
B2 keep on the borderlands because I was brand new to the game and my friends voted me to be DM and run it. Boy I got the rules wrong but no one seemed to care as we all had fun.
Undermountain when this came out I had a blast shoe horning players into FR and running them through the upper levels. Later I moved waterdeep to irongate in GH (the terrains kinda match up and I didn't have an irongate and wanted to play WoG again) put undermountain beneath it and we all had fun again.
X1 Isle of dread... was my first big outdoorsy adventure and sea adventure I dm'ed all rolled into one.
T1-4 was a blast to dm.
I actually got to be a player in... think it was called silver key? We had to avoid orc points... or were suposed to we seemed to enjoy getting orc points
too much to avoid em
Tomb of horrors in which I got to be a player. There were two party wipes... except for my character who somehow managed to stay alive both times thanks to my hormunculus. After the second wipe the DM had us meet in a nearby town and didn't run it again. The two wipes occured almost back to back with an hour or rolling up new characters in between...just to have em die in about 15 minutes of playing time
But back to t1-4, what a wide open world of possibilities, and virtually every foe is available as a miniature (D&D) or easily procured. Lots of personalities and lots of improvisation as the party has to leave and come back, leave and come back.....
B5 Horror on the Hill is one of my all time favorites and might be the one I've run the most times. I always wondered what those berserkers down below had for food - did the goblins drop them munchies down the hatch?
The Desert of Desolation series of adventures were great to play in. I especially loved Pharoah.
Strahd is my all time favorite D&D villain and the original Ravenloft is definitely near the top of my list. I can't wait to see the latest revision of this one that is due in October.
I've run Quest for the Heartstone several times, not long ago with 3.0 and that was a blast.
Isle of Dread is just a classic. I can still remember when that hurricane whipped up and wrecked our ship there.
Keep on the Borderlands is a classic, loved it. This is one I haven't had a chance to run yet as a 3.x adventure but I think it would play very well.
Tomb of the Lizard King is a lot of fun. The last time I ran this one back in AD&D2 the party consisted of a minotaur, a wemic and a gnome.
Dragon Mountain was fun to play in but it just drug on a little long, and way too many kobolds. Of course, it might have been the DM's style.
B4 The Lost City - I just remember our party practically burning down the pyramid. I'd love to play this again some day with a little more logic for those cultists and the updated 3.x stats for Zargon from Dragon.
Feast of Goblyns - this was a lot of fun. Interesting locations like the Kartakan Inn and the caves. Too bad my paranoid players suspected everyone of being a werewolf or a vampire.
Greyhawk Ruins - this is a cool dungeon, too large for my current tastes.
Of the newer ones, Forge of Fury is a top notch adventure.
every DM needs to get the Desert of Desolation super module and update and flush it out for a campaign in the Raurin Desert, the supplement Old Empires is a great help in this for added ideas, items, npc's, monster and so on
Ok, but where do we find it??
"Lost City" was a great experience! My cousins PCs fell down the slope to the "Otygh" monster, and they were real nasty back then! He had to sacrifice his little Halfling Thief so the others could escape through the secret back door. My cousin almost had tears in his eyes...He liked that little halfling!
"The Savage Coast" was another fantastic experience. You had to map an entire coastal region and my cousin found a ring of animal control, which he used later to control a huge dinosaur. i think it was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
"Horror on the Hill" was a favorite as well! I remember my cousin meeting ogres or something like that, getting a real pounding and fleeing down the trail with the surviving PCs.
"Silverprincess Palace" was a pleasure with many cool details! Especially the battle with the cultists was fun! My cousin cracjed this one, and we actually re-played it 2-3 years ago with the same good result!
I also have to mention later adventure modules such as "Return to the Keep on the Broderland", "Return to the Tomb of Horrors", "Die Vecna Die", "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords", "Labyrinth of Madness", and "Rod of Seven Parts". They are all great and should be played again using the 3.5 rules.
However, quality-wise I think "City of the Spiderqueen" is the best adventure ever made for any D&D edition. The story, the plot, the illustrations, the maps, the NPCs, the action, and the finale are all awesome! A must buy for any D&D player and DM!
Also I don't know if you guys remember the Monty Haul Dungeon it was from the gamelords I think, it was awesome!
I know that it was dragged through the "Faerunian mud" one time too many but ignore all that feather-hatted leather weirdness that it spawned and take a hard look at it again.
Look at the drow as "super orcs" instead of the "wilted roses" they've been reinterpreted into and you'll see what I mean.
;)
They aren't my favorites, though. I just thought they deserved a mention.
Favorite dungeons I ever went through: Ravenloft and Castle Amber - because we survived by the skin of our teeth.
Favorite dungeons I ever DMed: Temple of Elemental Evil, Vecna Lives (yeah that's a newer one, but can be intense if refereed right and with the right players)
Return to the Keep on the Borderlands - it restored the glee we had for the game when it came out (besides, we were older and could afford modules on our own).
Destiny of Kings
Return to the Tomb of Horrors
Wow, what else? Some of the old Dungeon adventures were great - Sleepless Night, Pipes of Doom, Thiondar's Legacy. . .
I remember playing a UK set of modules entitled The Sentinel and The Gauntlet. The Gauntlet had a clever little section where the players had to operate the defenses of a keep against attackers. It was an interesting campaign, and I think back on it fondly.
I remember those, Had them once, great fun they were!
you know I regret getting rid of them now, the one's featuring a seige are always good fun when played right, like Queen's Harvest...