I normally design my own adventures but sometimes when time is an issue I find myself browsing the dozens if not hundreds of published Adventure Modules, many available free if you know where to look. Especially if you consider any edition can easily be adapted to any others the list is almost endless... and yet...
I can look through them for hours and seldom to any seem to really ... I dont know that the word is... "NOT SUCK" maybe? Now if you have played some and enjoyed them great but in 35 years of gaming I think I found maybe 3 that I could use without a huge amount of work altering it to fit my view of a fantasy setting and adventure.
Typically the opening description sounds pretty good for a half a page or so and then... there it is... the rediculous element that kills its chances of ever finding its way to your table. I wont go into details, it would take forever but Im sure most you know what I mean. The renegade cleric in the tower has a Trog butler that defends the entry with his 4 pet spiders, or the weird ritual the cultists are performing is supposed to bring back the dreaded Penguin God or something. It makes one wonder what the hell the authors are thinking? Monsters with no rhyme or reason appear nilly-willy all over the dungeon map or the plot lines are so difficult to follow its like reading an Agatha Christie novel or something.
What happened to a good ole fashion dungeon delve for treasure or exploration of an abandoned castle or something. I literally looked through ever module and adventure path available for Pathfinder (* I dont play PF, but they do have a bunch of adventures available, really cheap) and they were junk, every one in my opinion.
Makes you wonder what kind of games your gaming buddies abroad have been playing. I like to think our games over the years flowed fairly logically and with reason. Think along the lines of the LOTR saga if you get the drift. Things happen for a reason, monsters exist in a sort of logical way and behave, well the way you kind of think they would. Actions have fairly realistic consequences etc.
Am I the only one really annoyed with a Gnome shopkeeper keeping pet Displacer Beasts in his barn and offering magic wands to anyone willing to chase off or kill the Goblin Zombies that have infested his wine cellar?
Did you actually read these PF modules?
I never played PF and haven't looked at their modules but there lots of classic D&D and OSR modules.
Even though I have bought most of the DnD 5e campaign scenario books, which are often quite nice.
I mostly use either one of these 2 sources for use in DnD 5e sessions I run.
1: Dragon Warriors Scenario books..
These are just really good. They have a great balance of pure RP content (such as interacting with NPCs, investigations etc) and then good old fashioned adventures with pretty high risk and decent rewards.
They're really easy to convert to DnD, as they're pretty similar systems anyway.
I quite like gritty style settings/scenarios anyway, which Dragon Warriors scenarios definitely fall into that category.
2: The "One Page adventure/Dungeon" contest PDFs.
For some years now there's been this yearly contest of making "One page adventures".
It's not specific to DnD, although they often are for a DnD type game.
They're great for a "Pick up and play" type session, where you need to find something at the last minute.
Or if you just need ideas to seed a new area in your world. I've used these lots of times and sometimes it really grows into something much bigger than the original "One page dungeon".
Quote from: rgrove0172;1000948Am I the only one really annoyed with a Gnome shopkeeper keeping pet Displacer Beasts in his barn and offering magic wands to anyone willing to chase off or kill the Goblin Zombies that have infested his wine cellar?
Re Paizo stuff, I think this is a problem that got worse over time. Rise of the Runelords (2007) mostly isn't too bad IME, the monsters make reasonable sense, but running it mixed with Shattered Star (2012) I definitely see a difference; SS is full of random monsters that seem plonked down just to sell the latest Bestiary. Alternating adventures between the two; the first two books of SS were fairly reasonable & themed, but #3 and #4 just seemed to be menagerie style, and it felt weird moving from RotRL's well-designed setups with a living world feel, to SS's randomness with static critter-in-room. Looks like we're finishing up campaign with RotRL Book 4 after SS Book 4 as too many players have left; in hindsight just running the RoTRL hardback might have been better & that'd be my recommendation for a Paizo campaign.
My favourite D&D adventure currently is Dyson's Delve https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/dysons-delve-deluxe.pdf - it has reasonably sensible monster distribution across an 11-level mini-megadungeon; thought is given to placement.
Quote from: danskmacabre;10009542: The "One Page adventure/Dungeon" contest PDFs.
For some years now there's been this yearly contest of making "One page adventures".
It's not specific to DnD, although they often are for a DnD type game.
They're great for a "Pick up and play" type session, where you need to find something at the last minute.
Or if you just need ideas to seed a new area in your world. I've used these lots of times and sometimes it really grows into something much bigger than the original "One page dungeon".
I agree, the ones that are actual dungeons and not just gimmicks are often great, and I've used several, notably Goblin Gulley https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/onepagedungeon-goblin-gully.pdf (several times!) and The Ancient Academy - http://www.lulu.com/shop/robertson-games/the-ancient-academy/ebook/product-4860255.html - which is big enough to support numerous expeditions and become a permanent fixture in my campaign; IMC it lies on a trade route & bandits, cultists, goblins etc like to lair there.
I've only ever owned/played whichever one came free in the Basic boxed set; I can't recall whether it was B-1 or B-2. Pretty sure after looking at the cover art I think it must have been B-2. That one seems pretty good.
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D&D has a shit ton of published adventures, ranging from the floridly gonzo stuff you seem to hate to things more grounded in reality. Village of Homlet has a dungeon in it, but is mostly filled with plausible people and places. But if you want a fantasy game that is consistently non-gonzo, Dragonwarriors is a good suggestion, as is Runequest.
Anything with Gnomes annoys me.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1001478Anything with Gnomes annoys me.
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Quote from: rgrove0172;1000948Typically the opening description sounds pretty good for a half a page or so and then... there it is... the rediculous element that kills its chances of ever finding its way to your table. I wont go into details, it would take forever but Im sure most you know what I mean. The renegade cleric in the tower has a Trog butler that defends the entry with his 4 pet spiders, or the weird ritual the cultists are performing is supposed to bring back the dreaded Penguin God or something. It makes one wonder what the hell the authors are thinking? Monsters with no rhyme or reason appear nilly-willy all over the dungeon map or the plot lines are so difficult to follow its like reading an Agatha Christie novel or something.
I don't know that I've ever run a D&D adventure. I have run scenarios for CoC, Runequest, Pendragon, and WEG's D6 Star Wars. The companies that published those adventures were looking creating in a consistent known setting e.g. the real world with Lovecraftian nasties, Glorantha, Arthurian (Mallory version) England, or Star Wars. By and large those were well written scenarios or adventures. Despite that I found some adjustment was often necessary. Though I found nothing quite so jarring as the dreaded Penguin God. (Though with Gloranthan Ducks YMMV.)
D&D settings tend to be much more of a kitchen sink than any of the settings I mentioned and generally that is a big part of its appeal. From your posts you prefer a setting that is consistent and fairly meticulously created and maintained and not at all gonzo. So I'm not surprised you would find a D&D adventure jarring. To avoid that you will either need to modify the adventures to fit your gaming tastes or use the adventure solely as source of inspiration, maps and floor plans to rip off, plots to steal, etc. Perhaps the suggestions given by others will minimize the amount of adjustment you will need to do to fit a published adventure to your setting.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1000948I normally design my own adventures but sometimes when time is an issue I find myself browsing the dozens if not hundreds of published Adventure Modules, many available free if you know where to look. Especially if you consider any edition can easily be adapted to any others the list is almost endless... and yet...
I can look through them for hours and seldom to any seem to really ... I dont know that the word is... "NOT SUCK" maybe? Now if you have played some and enjoyed them great but in 35 years of gaming I think I found maybe 3 that I could use without a huge amount of work altering it to fit my view of a fantasy setting and adventure.
Typically the opening description sounds pretty good for a half a page or so and then... there it is... the rediculous element that kills its chances of ever finding its way to your table. I wont go into details, it would take forever but Im sure most you know what I mean. The renegade cleric in the tower has a Trog butler that defends the entry with his 4 pet spiders, or the weird ritual the cultists are performing is supposed to bring back the dreaded Penguin God or something. It makes one wonder what the hell the authors are thinking? Monsters with no rhyme or reason appear nilly-willy all over the dungeon map or the plot lines are so difficult to follow its like reading an Agatha Christie novel or something.
What happened to a good ole fashion dungeon delve for treasure or exploration of an abandoned castle or something. I literally looked through ever module and adventure path available for Pathfinder (* I dont play PF, but they do have a bunch of adventures available, really cheap) and they were junk, every one in my opinion.
Makes you wonder what kind of games your gaming buddies abroad have been playing. I like to think our games over the years flowed fairly logically and with reason. Think along the lines of the LOTR saga if you get the drift. Things happen for a reason, monsters exist in a sort of logical way and behave, well the way you kind of think they would. Actions have fairly realistic consequences etc.
Am I the only one really annoyed with a Gnome shopkeeper keeping pet Displacer Beasts in his barn and offering magic wands to anyone willing to chase off or kill the Goblin Zombies that have infested his wine cellar?
I found the first portion of the Savage Tides adventure path (all the stuff prior to arriving at the island) works pretty well and is not full of silly crap.
I found the first two original 3e adventures (Sunken Citadel and Forge of Fury) were darn good and not full of silly crap.
I have heard the starter set adventure for 5e is darn good and not full of silly crap, but I have not played it or run it so I cannot confirm that.
There were these 3 books lying on this rock columns. After the first one nearly sucked me into a vortex and the second one flew around and bit me, I acquired the 3rd book, which was...
...okay, I got nuthin'...:-)
Quote from: cranebump;1001675There were these 3 books lying on this rock columns. After the first one nearly sucked me into a vortex and the second one flew around and bit me, I acquired the 3rd book, which was...
...okay, I got nuthin'...:-)
????
Quote from: rgrove0172;1001707????
Sorry. Wrong thread. But...Army of Darkness ref
Quote from: Mistwell;1001615I found the first two original 3e adventures (Sunken Citadel and Forge of Fury) were darn good and not full of silly crap.
They are good - in the 5e Tales From reprint the maps are way too small, but the adventures are solid. They are much less linear than later WoTC efforts, though they could stand to have more alternate routes.