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Author Topic: What Is Your Favorite Module?  (Read 2031 times)

mightybrain

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #15 on: April 27, 2021, 06:16:13 AM »
As time has gone on I find myself less and less of a module guy, though. These days, even when I use a module I tend to heavily modify it. It's often easier to just "roll my own" in the first place.

I know what you mean. When I picked up D&D again I started with modules because I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. But in practice I've found that the prep is usually longer for a published module than making your own.

Reckall

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #16 on: April 27, 2021, 07:49:09 AM »
My overall favorite adventure of all time is probably "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" or "Deep Shit" or "Grace Under Pressure".
"Grace Under Pressure" is great. I ran it with two of the players (husband and wife) who were absolute nuts about James Cameron's "The Abyss". I always thought that the movie was great until the final revelation: optimism ruined it. Just imagine "The Abyss" but with Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio actually dying and the crew discovering that the light and water creatures are servants of an Elder God...

Anyway, I ran "Grace Under Pressure", and I was unusually cruel. I seldom saw a group of players so scared...  ;D
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Steven Mitchell

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #17 on: April 27, 2021, 08:33:07 AM »
As time has gone on I find myself less and less of a module guy, though. These days, even when I use a module I tend to heavily modify it. It's often easier to just "roll my own" in the first place.

I know what you mean. When I picked up D&D again I started with modules because I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. But in practice I've found that the prep is usually longer for a published module than making your own.

Same.  This becomes more true for me the longer I run, too.  It's pretty clear from reading Barrow Maze and Stone Hell that I'm never going to use either as written.  I'll probably pluck pieces out to use, changing them considerably in the process.  I've read both twice and some sections multiple times. 

I started putting together an adventure of my own this week and had the outline done in 30 minutes while eating lunch.  It should provide about 8 hours of play.  Another 30 minutes at the PC to do a custom monster and custom spell.  I suspect the fleshed out notes will take me an hour or two. To support comparable play in either Barrow Maze or Stone Hell will take me similar time making notes after all that time reading.

The main value in reading modules seems to be getting ideas, not using them as written.

oggsmash

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #18 on: April 27, 2021, 08:41:06 AM »
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City.   I also liked the whole series from G1 all the way to the queen of the demonweb pits. 

grodog

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #19 on: May 16, 2021, 12:11:39 AM »
My overall favorite adventure of all time is probably "Treasure of the Dragon Queen" or "Deep Shit" or "Grace Under Pressure".
"Grace Under Pressure" is great. I ran it with two of the players (husband and wife) who were absolute nuts about James Cameron's "The Abyss". I always thought that the movie was great until the final revelation: optimism ruined it. Just imagine "The Abyss" but with Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio actually dying and the crew discovering that the light and water creatures are servants of an Elder God...

Anyway, I ran "Grace Under Pressure", and I was unusually cruel. I seldom saw a group of players so scared...  ;D

Now that's a story worth hearing more about! :D

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The Thing
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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #20 on: May 16, 2021, 05:35:28 AM »
never been into D&D so the only "modules" I had in the sense of a contained adventure were the star frontiers ones i inherited as a kid.

I really liked 'bugs in the system" mostly.

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Brad

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2021, 07:45:04 PM »
I honestly hate running modules because as others have stated the prep time is far above and beyond what I have to do to make my own stuff. Still, in my own sandbox world I’ve used for years B1 and B2 exist and serve as “fuck I totally have no idea what is going on this session” ass-saver locations, albeit cut down a bit.

If I have to actually pick one, again it’s going to be a toss-up between B1 and B2 simply because the first one showed me how to key a dungeon properly (along with help from the Mentzer red box DMs Guide dungeon) and B2 which laid the groundwork for a small sandbox campaign. A lot of the other TSR modules are easy to use for one-shots because most of them are from actual tournament games and have a definitive start->end. Many, many more modern adventures seem to gloss over this to some degree and expect you to either include the module as part of some overarching metaplot or as a cog in the “adventure path” you’re running. Makes it Not Easy to run without shoehorning a lot of crap in, and at that point why not make up your own shit?
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Karmarainbow

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Module?
« Reply #22 on: May 17, 2021, 04:09:51 PM »

I normally DM. D&D wise I really enjoyed running When a Star Falls and Dark Clouds Gather. Both UK series modules. Both have fun locations and some good set piece battles. Also lovely Paul Ruiz maps.