Background: I primarily run an RPG (GURPS) which doesn't have many pre-made adventures for it (and the ones it does have are often middling). Generally I don't run prefab adventures/modules, preferring to chisel my own sessions by hand, but sometimes it's really great to have an adventure or series of plot seeds to "plug-n-play" or use for inspiration, or simply add decoration and background to a new location I hadn't spent much time developing. This means that somewhat frequently, I grab adventures from other games and convert them (on-the-fly).
So with that being said, I'm curious how many of you folks do this as well as which adventures you have found to be excellent, whether you converted them or not. Did any stand out as particularly easy to convert? Are there any system-agnostic adventures you've enjoyed, such as "The Witch's Daughter"? What adventures are the easiest to plug into a homebrew setting without having to sand off the edges? This goes for any genre or system be it fantasy, sci-fi, post-apoc, horror, sword and sorcery, etc.
Some of the OSR and truly "classic" adventures I've read are really cool, but I'm largely ignorant of the majority. I'm on the lookout for more great stuff to run and shamelessly rip off, so hit me!
I'm currently running Red Hand of Doom, a war mega-adventure or campaign adventure written for 3e D&D, in 5e D&D, and it's just as good as everyone says. I would think it would work equally well in GURPS (with advanced starting points - it's written for 5th-10th level D&D PCs) or heroic-pulp games like Savage Worlds and d6 System. Oddly enough it only just works for 3e D&D, and only then by a narrow constraining of the normal 3e level range, so that there are pretty well no NPCs over 10th level either. It feels like it exists in a universe with a level 10 cap, perfect for "hero to big hero" type pulpy RPG systems, not so much for D&D.
The enemy in RHOD are hobgoblin dragon cultists, but if you don't want that it would work equally well with human barbarians sweeping down from the Highlands.
Quote from: S'mon;1100708I'm currently running Red Hand of Doom, a war mega-adventure or campaign adventure written for 3e D&D, in 5e D&D, and it's just as good as everyone says. I would think it would work equally well in GURPS (with advanced starting points - it's written for 5th-10th level D&D PCs) or heroic-pulp games like Savage Worlds and d6 System. Oddly enough it only just works for 3e D&D, and only then by a narrow constraining of the normal 3e level range, so that there are pretty well no NPCs over 10th level either. It feels like it exists in a universe with a level 10 cap, perfect for "hero to big hero" type pulpy RPG systems, not so much for D&D.
The enemy in RHOD are hobgoblin dragon cultists, but if you don't want that it would work equally well with human barbarians sweeping down from the Highlands.
I just read up on this, holy crap! 128 pages! :eek: Sounds great though, and it seems generic enough to slot in pretty easily to a preexisting campaign. The overall power level does sound just about right for some gussied-up GURPS adventurers, plus two of my players are HUGE fans of catalyzing change on larger scales such as conducting/preventing warfare and the like. Great recommendation, thanks!
On a semi-related note, I've heard good things about the Kingmaker adventure path for Pathfinder. Curious how easily that would be to plug in somewhere else...
I do a mix of these depending on the campaign. If we're just trying something out I'll generally use a published adventure, and mainly do my own thing for a long term game with the occasional published adventure sprinkled in.
Peril on the Purple Planet for DCC is a great adventure intended for fantasy but really it could be used for a lot of genres. It is a hex crawl full of weird monsters, environmental hazards, relics of lost technology, and two crazy factions with multiple ways for the characters to find their McGuffin and return home. Figuring out how to use the alien tech is well done as each item has the same 8 button control panel with different functions depending on the item and some similarities. The players get a handout where they can record what happens when different buttons are pressed on different items to lessen the chances of killing themselves, which mushroom does what when eaten, etc. I converted a few other DCC adventures and they went over well but this one was the best.
In the "found to be excellent" category there is Observer Effect for Delta Green. The scenario is constructed in such a way that it ratchets up the panic level of your players as it progresses in a way I hadn't yet experienced. DG is pretty rules light and there is (hopefully) minimal combat so this would be very easy to convert, but its a challenging adventure to run, with a pile of NPCs that all have their own personalities and other background systems that have to be managed. I don't want to get more specific as I'd hate to spoil something like this. Great adventure.
Hmm, I've used various adventures in games other than the one they were designed for (and I'm not going to count Pre D&D 3.x adventures, AD&D, Basic D&D, etc. modules are all trivial to interchange among those games). Some I can think of immediately are:
B10 Nights Dark Terror - I used the attack on the manor house in Cold Iron.
UK5 Eye of the Serpent - I used that in RuneQuest, I caught the PCs with giant eagles and dropped them on the top, placing the mountain as Tada's High Tumulus in Prax...
Various adventures from the early years of Dungeon Magazine - I have used these in RuneQuest and Cold Iron, as smaller adventures they are more easy to use in systems where combat is likely to leave the PCs needing to recuperate
Sometimes I will just use the map and some of the description, otherwise re-populating the adventure, other times I will populate it in the spirit of the original.
I ran some early to early-mid Dungeon magazine adventures in Fantasy Hero. Though with that kind of leap, "conversion" might be understating it a bit. I forget the exact titles, but I remember thinking at the time that some would have been fairly boring as D&D adventures, but the change in system made them work well. One with a floating castle sending raiders to the countryside below ended up being one of the most exciting FH games I every ran.
Quote from: Antiquation!;1100716I just read up on this, holy crap! 128 pages! :eek: Sounds great though, and it seems generic enough to slot in pretty easily to a preexisting campaign.
I just slotted it into Forgotten Realms, didn't change the names even - just said The Spellplague Did It.
I think it does depend pretty strongly on the wilderness map, you would need to draw your own map if not using theirs.
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I have all of the GURPS source books. I'm always using them to build initial sandboxes for other games like Mongoose Traveller or Serenity (Big Damn Heroes Handbook).
My fave Gamma World 1e campaign on Mars is very much a D&D/GW crossover so I mix both Traveller and Judges Guild maps of ruins, complexes and space ships and mash them up.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1100826My fave Gamma World 1e campaign on Mars is very much a D&D/GW crossover so I mix both Traveller and Judges Guild maps of ruins, complexes and space ships and mash them up.
You know, I saw that
Ghosts of Mars with Ice Cube, and always thought it would be great to run a GW campaign set on Mars in the Future!
That's EXACTLY the campaign!! It's Martian Chronicles gone post-apoc horror.
http://endzeitgeist.com/the-red-prophet-rises-osr/
I cannot say enough about 100 Bushels of Rye. I had it recommended to me a lot and never ran it until about 2015. I converted it to my own system. It is early in the morning so skinny on the details but I remember being hugely impressed by how it made simple things very interesting and engaging for the players.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1100902I cannot say enough about 100 Bushels of Rye. I had it recommended to me a lot and never ran it until about 2015. I converted it to my own system. It is early in the morning so skinny on the details but I remember being hugely impressed by how it made simple things very interesting and engaging for the players.
This looks really interesting and I hadn't heard of it before. Looked up a description but it didn't elaborate much... would you mind giving an example as far as how it made simple things engaging? Consider my interest piqued...
Quote from: GameDaddy;1100868Ghosts of Mars with Ice Cube
I've so often debated doing a one shot based around this premise.