Over the Last 20 odd years of D&D as a perma DM I have mostly run my own adventures. I used to use Dungeon on occasion when it was in print but these days I am a lot more interested in prepublished adventures. This is mostly because for every hour I spend on designing something I could be using that hour to do something else like spend time with the wife or feed my Europa UnversalisIV/Crusader Kings II megalomania addiction. In general I like a sandbox type adventure over a dungeon hack or heavily railroaded adventure. During my years of exile using OGL product I discovered good adventures again along with WoTC putting up PDFs of classic adventures that I did not get to play in the 90’s or have not played in years. Generally I find the following to score well for me.
Interesting plot
Interesting NPCs
Well designed encounters
A selection of exploration/roleplaying/combat type encounters. Some adventures heavily focus on one of these pillars and that is fine on occasion.
Side quests
Minimal railroading (all published adventures are a little bit rail roady).
Clever placement of treasure/magic items.
Various factions to interact with.
Things I do not care about or rate that highly
Heavy plot
Minor typos
Epic plotline
Things I come down on harshly
Heavy rail roading
Typos on maps especially if the map and description maps no sense.
An evil wizard did it type adventure.
Overused tropes. You go into the underdark and find Drow…..
Megadungeon hacks or dungeon hacks with no real point.
A list of adventures I rate highly.
T1 Village of Hommlet (1E)
X1 Isle of Dread (E part of BECMI)
B3 The Lost City (B part of BECMI)
B5 Horror on the Hill (B part of BECMI)
B10 Nights Dark Terror (B part of BECMI)
The Savage Tide Adventure Path (3.5)
The Night Below Book 1 Evils of Haranshire (2E)
Lost Mines of Phandelver (5E) Modern classic IMHO.
Skull and Shackles AP (PF) Cleverly done and pirates.
Kingmaker AP (PF) Very big sandbox
Assault on Blacktooth Ridge (Castles and Crusades)
Bad Moon Rising (5E, Quests of Doom PDF, heavy roleplaying with a touch of investigation)
Adventures I have not been impressed with.
Hoard of the Dragon Queen 5E (badly edited, heavy rail roading, poor encounter design, boring story).
Tomb of Horrors 1E (trap infested death trap, dungeon hack with minimal plot)
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks 1E (cool idea you literally start outside the dungeon though)
Temple of Elemental Evil 1E (mega dungeon hack, mistakes with the map, to much of a dungeon hack for my tastes)
Wicked Cauldron (Castles and Crusades, uninspiring dungeon hack. Average rather than out right bad)
Forest Oracle 1E (legendary bad D&D adventure and I own it)
Lost Oasis 5E (Quests of Doom, badly designed encounters, CR 1/8th critters 2d6+4 auto damage 60’ cone).
Early 4E Dungeon adventures (poor cartography, bad plots, just bad)
Any D&D adventure in Dungeon with recycled Shakespeare plot. Yes they did this in AD&D several times. Macbeth was a Drow. King Lear was used as a Storm Giant.
A cool thread. What kind of adventures sell well these days? I mean, do they need to use the OGL from 3e? Is there a market for system-generic adventures?
I love heavy plot and epic plotlines. Always heavy plot, not always epic plotlines.
Zardnaar wrote:
I'm not sure what is minimal railroading vs heavy railroading?
Typically any amount of railroading requires an A to B to C set structure.
As much railroading is almost a binary - either it's there in force or it's not there at all.
All premade adventures have a bit of rail roading. Heavy railroading would be Hoard of the Dragon Queen where you have to follow the cults treasure to Waterdeep.Light rail roading is somehting like B2 Keep on the Borderlands or Kingmaker Adventure Path where it is up to you what order you do things in.
Noon wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I enjoy and have done all, but I do like a bit of focus.
I agree with you, Zardnaar, on most points there.
Heavier plot and plotlines do not bother me so long as they are tertiary. In other words, here's what's going on and why, but it's not incumbent on the players to become involved in it to justify the "adventure."
I actually have great fondness for Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Granted, that was ... gah, what... 30 years ago now? Long time ago, anyway, since I ran it, but it's one I plan on converting and taking family and friends through someday here in the not-too-distant future I hope. It was different, had a cool image book to it. Etc. Maybe I will find it outdated and not so interesting now, but I hope not.
One suggestion I would offer, though, is that you should really try to be a player again someday. I hadn't had a chance to be one for over 25 years until pretty recently. You'd be surprised what you might learn about what makes for a fun adventure by being on the other side of the table for a change.
One thing I look for are story hooks. Those things that happen before, to drag my PC into the adventure. I've played games where my PC was simply a wandering do-gooder, passing though, helping who he can, while he can. Reminds me of episodes of Incredible Hulk (which I enjoyed back in the day 
). But no, for games to carry on into an actual campaign, I really look for hooks.
I like clear cut goals in adventures, even if it's just save the princess or fetch this magical whatever.
Some of my favorite adventures: The Veiled Society (BECM), a murder mystery that ends in a big chase. Labyrinth of Madness (2e), it had one hell of a killer trap --in the very first room of the dungeon. Keep on the Shadowfell (believe it or not ) 'cause it was my intro to 4e. And, I've enjoyed Tyranny of Dragons --not my favorite but a fun run at 5e. Looking forward to Elemental Evil.
I've ran or played lots of adventures from the magazines over the years. Way too many to mention. One of the most memorable was 'Melody', about a harpy named Melody, who was magically disguised and raised by a friendly bard. She became a recurring NPC in our games. The story was that she was an eoshee, a 'faerie nighingale', with the lower body of a golden eagle and head and upper body of an elven-ish woman. We believed eoshee were an actual race til the full story was revealed. I've always loved this adventure because it taught me just how powerful a 'story' can be to the lore of a setting.
ShadeRaven wrote:
Story hooks, adventure design, and "railroading" to not have to be synonymous. I hate railroading, that is why every future session is built on the last (that's how I roll as a DM).
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I prefer:
Lots of roleplaying.
No rail roading, players steer the plot.
Exploration! I love being able to explore the world and discover new things.
Interesting encounters. Preferably where the terrain plays an important role, and mobs are diverse (not just a copy paste of the same enemy).
Interesting memorable npc's that you can get attached to.
SirAntoine wrote:
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
Player buy-in does not necessarily equal "railroading", IMO.
If I propose my campaign's overall plot involves thwarting the evil duke from seizing the crown, and the players buy in, is that railroading?
If so, maybe I just don't have as loosy goosy a definition of "railroading", perhaps.
What I can't stand are boring combat encounter trains. If you don't know what I mean, see any 4E module ever. (oh, did I say 4E? maybe I mean most any module ever.) I could really care less if any particular encounter is well thought out or balanced or whatever, because it won't be well thought out and balanced for my players, so I'll have to improvise anyway to make it work or be worthy of their time, so why bother. Just tell me if its supposed to be difficult or easy. What I want is plot and reasons why things are happening, motivations and likely consequences, and maybe some good maps of places and lairs and names of freaking commoners with personalities and goals and motivations that may have nothing at all to do with the plot, and while we are on it, lots of otherwise off plot side quests, and random tables that require me to fill in the blanks sometimes. And I want to know what the author was thinking, so when they goof up I know how to fix it. I don't want a railroad, but I do want to know if the author thinks it works better if path A is taken over path B, because even if they don't say it you know they are thinking it when they are writing the thing, so stop making it all a mystery to the DM that is supposed to run it.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Noon wrote:
I think we can all agree that railroading (if defined as taking away free will) is a poor way to design an adventure and/or DM.
I would like to defend, however, the use of plot hooks, active protagonists/antagonists, and forcing the action. It's great to present the world as an open sandbox where players make all the choices, but I don't think that's practical all the time.
Sometimes, you need to bring the adventure to them - at least in my experience.
I think it's important to judge the table you are at by the players you are sharing the roleplaying experience with, not by what you (individually) as a DM view as the appropriate way to present the world or material set before you. What one table might consider railroading, another might appreciate as direction and mission. Some groups want to go find the action while others appreciate having the excitement brought to them. Even with the same group, variance is important. It's okay to thrust the sandboxers into a scenario not of their choosing to remind them that sometimes events are not always under their control (though this, too, has to be judged by individual group because there are some players who enjoy thwarting DM's plan more than they do the adventure itself - though I personally shy away from those players as I find they don't view the RPG experience as a collective cooperative). Heck, I've had players who love hack-n-hoard adventures and I can enjoy that, too, as I present it to them in entertaining ways.
I don't worry about the cliche, trope, or forced nature of an adventure so much as I worry about whether or not the participants are enjoying themselves - and yes, that is cliche in and of itself, but no less true..