I've been browsing a lot of modules/campaigns for something I might want to run, and one thing I've noticed is that when it comes to published adventures and modules, D&D and it's related games absolutely body the competition, both in quality and quantity. The only game line that comes even close to the D&D/Pathfinder/OSR sphere for adventure support appears to be Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying, with perhaps Dragon Warriors running a very distant third.

The thing is that real life circumstances are going to force me to run published materials for the foreseeable future (I just don't have time to homebrew), and my group is coming off of two consecutive rustic medieval fantasy campaigns. I'd like to do something different before running another one.

But hey, the RPG world is a big one, and there's almost certainly something important out there I'm missing. So I'm asking the question, what are considered the great published campaigns or adventure sequences that aren't medieval/dungeon fantasy?  I know Pirates of Drinax and Masks of Nyarlathotep are both well regarded. Is there a hidden CoC gem I'm not aware of? What about the other old standbys of the RPG world? Does Cyberpunk have a famous campaign in its back-catalog? Shadowrun? Runequest? Deadlands or L5R? You get the idea. I'm looking for something that can be a change of pace for my group while still being pretty feature complete and ready to plug-and-play. System doesn't matter much to me. I pretty much always convert games to their rules-lite equivalents anyway.

Chaosium has a number of them.
Runequest is not Medieval/Dungeon Fantasy so: Griffin Mountain, Borderlands, Pavis & Big Rubble.
Also Call 0f Cthulu has a lot of them.

Other famous CoC include Beyond the Mountains of Madness, which is very well regarded.

https://www.chaosium.com/beyond-the-mountains-of-madness-hardcover/

For Pendragon, there's "The Great Pendragon Campaign".

https://www.chaosium.com/the-great-pendragon-campaign-pdf/

I haven't played through either of them, but I've had them personally recommended and have looked them over for running.

If it's just urban you need, maybe you could adapt Lankhmar stuff.  TSR and other companies have put out material for it.  There are no outright campaigns that I'm aware of, but you could probably cobble one together from published materials by linking the adventures together somehow.  TSR alone produced a lot of support material for this, and did a good job IMO.

Extraplanar adventures might also be the answer.  Stormbringer had a couple of campaigns published -- Rogue Mistress and White Wolf/Black Sword (a campaign spread across two books).

And Runequest's Borderlands, Pavis and Big Rubble all get a hearty endorsement from me.

And while Warhammer's "The Enemy Within" is sort of rural and medieval, a lot of it's pretty different, too.  River adventures, city adventures, even a foray into Kislev, Warhammer's analogue for Russia.

Thanks for the recommendation, folks.

Quote from: jhkim on April 28, 2025, 09:16:18 PMOther famous CoC include Beyond the Mountains of Madness, which is very well regarded.

https://www.chaosium.com/beyond-the-mountains-of-madness-hardcover/

I'll have to give Beyond the Mountains of Madness a deeper look. The problem I've encountered with a lot of Call of Cthulhu scenarios is that they're heavy on walls of text and light on game material. Because I play on VTT, maps and character portraits are a bit of a premium concern for me, since those are the most time-consuming things to generate myself. Doubly so for modern games since finding or making those kinds of assets myself is much more difficult for those than it is for generic fantasy or sci fi games.

Quote from: jhkim on April 28, 2025, 09:16:18 PMFor Pendragon, there's "The Great Pendragon Campaign".

https://www.chaosium.com/the-great-pendragon-campaign-pdf/

Pendragon is a bit too close in tone to the last couple things I ran, but more importantly, I'm holding off running The Grand Campaign in the probably vain hope of getting to play in it someday

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 28, 2025, 09:14:41 PMChaosium has a number of them.
Runequest is not Medieval/Dungeon Fantasy so: Griffin Mountain, Borderlands, Pavis & Big Rubble.

Quote from: I on April 28, 2025, 09:33:38 PMAnd Runequest's Borderlands, Pavis and Big Rubble all get a hearty endorsement from me.

Runequest's bronze/iron age fantasy is a bit close to medieval, but worth still worth a look. Glancing at them online, they look well put together. Runequest is one of the games I have the least direct experience of, It seems like something that would not lend itself well to being ported into another system. Is there a generally acknowledged best edition of it?

Quote from: I on April 28, 2025, 09:33:38 PMIf it's just urban you need, maybe you could adapt Lankhmar stuff.  TSR and other companies have put out material for it.  There are no outright campaigns that I'm aware of, but you could probably cobble one together from published materials by linking the adventures together somehow.  TSR alone produced a lot of support material for this, and did a good job IMO.

Lankhmar is one of my dream campaigns, but it's something I'd want to do when I have the time to extensively  homebrew. Nehwon is one of my favorite fantasy settings, so I don't think I could live with myself if I couldn't give it 110%.

Quote from: I on April 28, 2025, 09:33:38 PMExtraplanar adventures might also be the answer.  Stormbringer had a couple of campaigns published -- Rogue Mistress and White Wolf/Black Sword (a campaign spread across two books).

That's an interesting thought. Elric generally I would class as "medieval fantasy", but that psychedelic plane-hopping flavor would be something very different. Thanks, I'll look for those. I suppose it's probably too much to ask that there be a published Hawkmoon Campaign... That'd be really different.

Quote from: I on April 28, 2025, 09:33:38 PMAnd while Warhammer's "The Enemy Within" is sort of rural and medieval, a lot of it's pretty different, too.  River adventures, city adventures, even a foray into Kislev, Warhammer's analogue for Russia.

Running either The Enemy Within or Paths of the Damned is something I definitely intend to do down the road. While I'm usually the first person to argue that Warhammer is much more than medieval fantasy, I'd still like to range farther afield at the moment. One thing I wonder about Enemy Within is whether I'd run into the problem that it's so famous that anyone interested in it has already played it. 

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 28, 2025, 11:03:11 PMThanks for the recommendation, folks.

Quote from: jhkim on April 28, 2025, 09:16:18 PMOther famous CoC include Beyond the Mountains of Madness, which is very well regarded.

https://www.chaosium.com/beyond-the-mountains-of-madness-hardcover/

I'll have to give Beyond the Mountains of Madness a deeper look. The problem I've encountered with a lot of Call of Cthulhu scenarios is that they're heavy on walls of text and light on game material. Because I play on VTT, maps and character portraits are a bit of a premium concern for me, since those are the most time-consuming things to generate myself. Doubly so for modern games since finding or making those kinds of assets myself is much more difficult for those than it is for generic fantasy or sci fi games.

To warn in advance, there is a lot of text to read. This isn't something that you can just open and play. That said, my paper copy of BtMoM has headshots of all the NPCs and tons of maps, along with lots of in-character documents for the players to read. So there's a lot of ready-to-use material. (The maps and floorplans aren't laid out with a grid, just scale drawings.)

I played Masks of Nyarlathotep online five years ago, and our GM mostly hand-drew the maps - but options may have improved since then.

For Call of Cthulhu, Chaosium published a Dreamlands campaign titled "The Dreaming Stone."  I like it a lot, but it's out of print, pricey, and may not work well outside of the Dreamlands.

Also, "The Fungi from Yuggoth"/"Brotherhood of the Beast" is another big CoC campaign.  Like with "Masks of Nyarlathotep," the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society published a huge amount of first-class props for this campaign so you could probably incorporate those maps, clippings, brochures, etc.

"Beyond the Mountains of Madness" is so good, it's worth owning just to read and savor, even if you never get to play it.  While I've never gotten to run it, I've also never once regretted buying it.

Pirate Borg's The Dark Caribbean is a mixture of Disney's Pirates movies, Call of Cthulhu, and a Zombie Apocalypse. 

Sounds goofy but it is a lot of fun, and very easy to play since the rulebook gives a GM lots of charts for inspiration. Low time investment.

I detail it more at Geek Native, but you can combine all of the Mutant: Year Zero campaign books/adventures into one long sprawling campaign that eventually ends up in space. It would be ambitious but would make for an amazing extended campaign.