Castle Amber remains my favorite D&D adventure of all time. I recently updated it for high level 5e (and elaborated the story elements somewhat) and ran it for patrons over 7 sessions and I think it's now a favorite of many of them as well.
It's one of my favorites as well. Played adn DM's this more that any other Expert (4-15 lvl) module back in the day. Isle of Dread was a slog compared to this. Just dug out all my BECMI D&D books and found this (as well as 25 other modules). Just need to convince my 5E group to play BECMI :-) now
Oh Yeah, I LOVED this one! I didn't matter that we did poorly, almost lost the entire party & barely got to the end by our fingertips. (Thankfully, we got all our PCs and some of our NPCs back when Charles Amber used his ring of wishes to Resurrect them at the end.) It was STILL great! The coolest part was that this was one of the FEW modules back then that had PERMEMENT alterations your characters could gain! (I remember ending up with a winged elf afterwards in our party, converted from a regular elf) I even remember compiling ALL the benefits you could conceivably gain in that module. It's quite impressive.
I mean there is a point in "it's good because Dinosaurs". I homebrewed this whole world a whole cosmology, everything and a player went and did a : "i'm a Halfling from Dinosaur land". I was like, we can't escape Dinosaurs. Nerds love their dinosaurs.
My 2E Players back in the 80s/90s used to agonize over every decision so I ran Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan with an egg timer for the poison gas... I love that module.
I loved Isle of Dread, because it my first experience with a Hex Crawl style game, it stood out against all of the dungeon crawls i had spent years doing. And, Dinosaurs.
N1: Cult of the Reptile God should be higher on that list (I know it's not your list) as it's a great one. Though I would say it's probably not scaled quite right, levels 1-3 is a little on the low side, but it's fleshed out beautifully with intrigue and some fun surprises. Definitely recommended it!
I loved the illustrations of Cult of the Reptile Gods, Timothy Truman really raised the bar on the illustrations, the cover art etc for Modules, He and his son are amazing artists
The reason Cult isn't more loved is the fact as written you have to get an NPC to join the party or you pretty much can't get through it. I just sent a group that was 4-5 lvl and they almost died when the boss threw their fireball spell in the final battle. The module has the NPC have a spell that allows the party to defeat that spell. I like the story but the idea an NPC is critical to victory is a pretty big weakness.
I have used "Lost Shrine of Tamoachan" a couple time while playing the "Tomb of Annihilation" campaign and I loved it, the fact you start at the bottom of a dungeon and have to escape because of poison gas it great.
Being an old bastard I remember playing some of these as a kid. A few that stick out in my mind from back in the day would be Tomb of Horrors, Expedtion to the Barrier Peaks, The Village of Hommlet, The Sentinel and The Gauntlet, and Decent into the Depths of the Earth. Those were good days👍🏻
Castle Amber was always a favorite of mine. And I finally recently got around to reading Clark Ashton Smith, Chronicles of Averoigne. It's dark, weird, and otherworldly, and completely worth a read. And the adventure itself is great for anyone who hasn't played it.
I remember when Isle of Dread came out. It really did expand upon what D&D could be. Buying ships, taking care of the crew and ocean travel were campaigns all there own, without ever setting foot on land or going into a "dungeon." It was epic and deserves to be much higher on this list.
Against the Cult of the Reptile God was the first adventure I bought when I was a kid. I've ran it many times. My current group is just wrapping up Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and then they will go through the 5e version. I'm using a hag rather than a Naga because Nagas come back and the hag fits with the overall campaign.
Jorphdan - I am currently running an entire campaign based on / around Dwellers of the Forbidden City (1/2e DnD) with Horan the Wizard as the BBEG. I have an original ‘81 print (as you’d shown) and didn’t start running it until ‘18. Great list. My runner up on here is Against the Cult of the Reptile God. I went thru that one as a player and then later ran it with my group (same ones I’m DMing thru DotFC, just 25yrs apart). It’s a real gem and a perfect balance of intrigue / mystery and combat.
Castle Amber was the very first module that I ever played, way back in 1983. It holds a special place in my heart. IMHO it should be ranked higher as it's a mini campaign/sandbox all in itself as the party gets transported to Avernge (fantasy medieval France) and there's a huge sandbox for them to explore before they finish the story. The only drawback is the final segment but that can be easily fix by a well prepared DM. I've only played it once but DM'D it 4 times each time being a success as all the players got into the vibe of it. It's also good to run as a one shot Halloween adventure as the setting is a "haunted" house dungeon that you can really go deep with. It's a module that you can just run "out of the box" but if you put in that little bit of extra work into it, you and your players will have enormous fun! Ilse of Dread is another great example of how D&D could be about almost any setting. Again, had lots of fun with this one back in the day but we never finished it.
N1 Cult of the Reptile God is he module I used to start my current campaign. From there we went into A1, 2 & 3 Slaver Lords series. Next was I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City. My group has run most of these. Cool!
Castle Amber was one of my favorite early modules that I ran as a DM. It was the first one that I customized and changed a lot of the encounters. It has a lot of great maps and flavor text that makes for a fun, easy game for younger players
The compilation of the Slave Lords is a little awkward, but the Slave Lords collection is utterly epic and iconic for those of us who played them when they came out. These and the Giants-Drow-Demonweb sequence are AD&D classics and worth converting to 5e as an epic mega campaign.
That's the course my friends and I played, Slavers to Giants, to Decent. AD&D was adventure focused while requiring more adlib creativity. It would take a long time to recuperate from injury requiring more depth to decision and consequence. 5e, sit for an hour (5 minutes real time short rest) everyone's healthy and you don't get the grittiness that made AD&D fun. New D&D is cool though, cartoony.
@@nigelbennington4565 true, but Slavers + Giants/Drow/Demonweb would make an epic 5e campaign if they could convert to Forgotten Realms as they did to Temple of Elemental Evil as Princes of the Apocalypse. I suppose slavery is a bit too controversial for WOTC to use as a campaign theme but some other form of organized crime could work just as well.
@@shanemartin2215 Agreed. AD&D had grown more story-based than classic OG Gygaxian 0th Edition by the time Slavers/Giants/Descent and I9 Ravenloft were originally published. We never did all the 10' pole jazz that OSR fans swoon over, but we also didn't have the "plot armor" that 5e characters generally have. We just had backup characters rolled up. Definitely grittier but still fun in its own quasi-murder-hobo way. Roleplaying was implied and happened sometimes, but roll-playing as Rastan-style hack & slash was just as fun as sharing banter with a barkeep or trying to interrogate a captured adversary.
The Slave Lords (A Series) was originally a tournament. You *begin* the adventure imprisoned with no gear (a trope later used by Bethesda in Oblivion, Skyrim, etc.). It's a great trope for tournaments because it forces each competing group to figure out how to get equipment.
The Forge of Fury was my very first module in 3.x and because of that it will always have a sweetspot in my heart. That roper damn near caused a TPK. But hey, the wizard saved the day and was rewarded for his efforts.
This one caused a TPK for my players. They reached the bottom and then the dragon ambushed them from the lake and damn near one shot them with its breath weapon.
Castle Amber imo is number one..precedes Ravenloft and with a good backstory connection (had some of my players related to the Amber family) it motivates players in solving the mystery of the curse. Love this one!
I've run about half of the adventures 11 thru 30, most many times, and the biggest hits are always B3 The Lost City and X1 The Isle of Dread, and biggest swings in enjoyment by far comes from X2 Castle Amber (Chateau Amberville). Amberville requires a DM with fairly strong skills though or it can just turn into a comedy (not necessarily a bad thing). I've had this adventure go amazingly well, and stunningly badly. I do NOT recommend it for novice role-players. For moderately experience role-players, I'd still recommend running it with an Insanity mechanic such as Sanity ability score, or Sanity points, and keep forcing checks for all of the batshit crazy stuff that the party keeps coming across. Veteran RPers will see the madness and use it and turn it into something truly wonderful. The last time I ran it, it was expanded into several levels of a campaign, with nearly 20 sessions spent there. The world beyond the castle is rich and begging to be built upon.
I love this list. Thank you! I played in Castle Amber as a kid and just bought the Goodman Games version in hopes of running it someday. I've actually heard of most of the 11-20 list, but that's the only one I've played in or run. I'll definitely add some of these to my to-do list as a DM.
Against the Cult of the Reptile God is my all-time favorite D&D module. The only thing that ticks me off about it is its title, which I believe is a straight-up giveaway. The title "Terror by Night" would have been more suitable. Orlane ranks on par with Hommlet as the finest example of a fully detailed and fleshed out starting town D&D has ever offered. Kudos to Douglas Niles for this masterpiece.
Man I loved the Isle of Dread. Ran some great sessions with their magic ship I gave them and a ton of hand crafted dinosaurs. Only ones I never played back in the day were Dead Gods and The Gates of Firestorm Peak.
I remember running the original Ravenloft for the first time, and when we finished multiple players at my table said it was the best pre-published adventure they'd ever played.
There’s one adventure in Ravenloft called Hour of the Knife, located in the domain city of Paridon, in which in specific situations the heroes can be substituted by Dopplegangers, but the DM don’t tell them.
I love your videos, and I DM all homebrew, but I like hearing about these modules and what was best about them. I think it would be cool if you did individual videos on each of the top five after you finish the list. If those do well, do five more in the list. I would like to hear a breakdown on what the adventure entails.
You made me venture into my storage room to find my old copies of dragon and dungeon magazines to fine this to i could look up the top 10... It is interesting to look over the list. From the adventures on the list I've either read or played, I actually find the ones on the 11-20 and 21-30 to have better adventures to play in general, while 1-10 is more iconic/influential adventures Spoilers for what is not on the list below :) From this era of D&D, my 2 favorite adventures (series of adventures?) would be both from Al-Qadim - Golden Voyages and A Dozen & one adventures. I know that the setting is not everybody's cup of tea for a variety of reasons, but I think both of these are critically under rated - with Golden voyages being (IMHO) the best written adventure of all time. It is the only adventure I know of which can be played at any level (you could have fun with this at level 1 or 20 with relatively minimal adjustments, although I think someplace around 10-12 is probably best), and the DM doesn't even know what the next part is going to be, because when one section is completed, you randomly select what happens next and where the party heads off to, or if that was the final stop. A A dozen and one is is just one of the best "many adventures played as a single adventure" that was put together. Also I think that more from the planescape line should have made the list. Dead gods is amazing, but there are others that I think could have made this list, especially since how they influenced the game was clearly such a high consideration in the ranking. Like them or not, Die Vecna Die, Vecna Lives and Faction War were all very influential adventures Are you going to do a list (maybe top 10) adventures from 4th and 5th Editions that you think should make the list?
I ran a heavily modified Against the Cult of the Reptile God and it was quite fun! I have Castle Amber and though I don’t know if I’d run it as written, it has a lot of amazing ideas.
#20 I loved the concept of this adventure series. Four different experienced DMs and writers are approached to each write one of the four adventures that will be used for the four rounds of a convention tournament. They each know, vaguely, what the outline is for the overall and are given some basic instructions, and then they each write their adventure. It was a great double-blind mechanism for ensuring that the overall story was a surprise. And the ending of the series had a hook that easily tied this in to the Giants series to make it a lead in to the pre-existing G, D, and Q modules that had been crafted into a long adventure chain the same year. But tying the T series onto the front end of it all was a mistake since it didn't connect and didn't flow at all. AGDQ is its own chain and T belongs on its own, with maybe an eventual tie in to WG4. #19 isn't a good first adventure for a group as the lack of a place to rest and recuperate makes it extra difficult and the dungeon was challenging to the third level group I took through the adventure. But it was a great concept adventure as AD&D continued its move away from the game show feeling (kill the monster, loot its stuff, repeat until dead) firmly into the far superior storyline feeling. #18 was a convention module with a great mechanic: a time limit. The air in the tomb was poisonous, so the party only had a limited amount of time to make their escape while still picking up the maximum possible tourney points for exploration. I loved the Meso-American atmosphere of this module and reused both the atmosphere (and I loved learning about these cultures even before I found AD&D) and the time limit mechanic in occasional adventures since. #16, aka the Harryhausen adventure. :-D I also grew up on Harryhausen's extremely excellent stop-motion animations mixed in with live actors, and so visiting this location was a dream come true. It and the aptly named "Isle of the Ape" module are both good for this feel of a game. #15 was the first of the adventures to use the "a choking fog outside will kill you if you try to escape" mechanic, though another adventure that is likely much higher on this list is better known for it. This was a great conceptual adventure and one that I may have run once, in part, but that I used as lots and lots of adventure seed for my own adventures. #13 this module was an earlier version of a module where expanding the adventures on the map was set up within the module itself. While not as expansive as the levels beneath the ziggurat, this still was easily turned in to a campaign setting by DMs willing to make the effort, as I did. My groups were so ready to leave once they found the tunnel out. :-D Looking forward to the last 10!
Of these, "Scourge of the Slavelords". Robust challenging adventures that utilizes all three pillars of play - the way the mods are written the locations are *alive* because the residents move about and react when prodded. If the players are willing to see the tactical situatations as puzzles in themselves, they will do better than just rying to brute force the adventure.
My fav? Ruins of Undermountain. It's probably my most read module I have, though I used it more as a setting than an adventure. Even did an attempt to bring it into 5th, but I was on booklet 2 when WotC announced W:DotMM.
Jorphdan - OLDskool Dungeon Master here. I ran 90% of the 70's and 80's modules on your Top30 list. Trust me, when you say you're "surprised" by Scourge of the Slavelords being on the list at all, you're missing out. My players had some of the BEST times escaping from the slavelords, and the coming back for revenge against them. AND HOLY CRAP... Where is the Against the Giants series!?!?!? How is that not in the top 10!??? Take the sage advice of an old DM and go get these adventures and run them. You'll thank me later!
My players always hated Castle Amber because it couldn't ever be run as part of a setting properly. They always fight against any GM prodding, so they did everything they could not to adventure the ruins.
Everyone should read or listen to stories by Clark Ashton Smith. Friend/Contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and some of the best horror fantasy ever written.
Remember folks the Isle of Dread has been canonically moved to the Plane of Water in 5E so if your players get shipwrecked by a magical storm-portal they can wash up on the shores of the Isle of Dread.
Indy 5 would have worked if they simply had him chased by Nazis to the Forgotten world where he found the Lost Legion hiding the Lantern of Diogenes and the Spear of Longinus and he got to punch a dinosaur in the Eye. Best Sequel Ever. Love Isle of Dread. Have reworked and rerun this several times with a plane travelling Island a Monstrous Ape and sophisticated High tech Copru Smiths working to rejuvenate their race and return to the Prime material Plane. Good Times, Good Times. Have Firestorm Gate and Forge of Fury. Love the read through of Forge of Fury. Always felt the Slavers modules were some of the most over-rated modules of all time. I enjoyed the fight out of the dungeon naked though the subsequent TPK was kind of a disappointment. Never had as much fun with this milieu. It was always a little like losing a game of Secret Hitler , it felt a little too consequences ridden when you lost. I felt guilty as a player for not successfully taking out the slavers and there seemed to be plot armour in place for some of them early on. Not dragon lance plot armour but still. Against the Cult of The Reptile God is one of my all-time favourites. I have Dmed it twice and played it twice (second time as a mute character) and had a blast all four times. I always bring a party into this module after they have had one preliminary adventure. And I always tune down Ramne. My version he is completely blind and can only see through his weasel familiar as well as incredibly old and frail and desperate for someone he can trust to come along and help him with this scourge. I think the first time encountered he has a begging bowl outside the Slumbering serpent. Also use an NPC from the first adventure as the hook. The party has come to collect them for their second adventure and gasp his mother reports him suddenly vanished from town. Shrine of Tamochan is very fun . I played it as a one shot and ran it as a one shot. Great art. I have seen a mirror of opposition set up so whichever character survives can still be run by the player, Castle Amber was a load of fun too. I have read the Clark Ashton Smith Averoigne Chronicles to help inform the actual realm of Averoigne that you end up in.
Am I alone in wishing the WotC would just sell D&D to Goodman Games? I mean, seriously, those folks know what the best parts of D&D were and care about keeping those elements alive. It would be a new golden age for D&D.
I have read the article but did so when it first came out in 2004 so I don't actually remember what #1 was. That said I would agree with you both because it was a truely fantastic adventure and also because it is maybe the single most influential adventure in D&D. Before Ravenloft we played something that might be called Gygaxian D&D and after Ravenloft we played something that might be called Hickman D&D though I don't think that was truly realized until after Dragonlance was released. Nonetheless there was a clear shift in the style of adventures being published by Dungeon after this period, pretty much tail end of 1st edition right through until about the middle of 2nd edition after which we began to see another shift of "back to the Dungeon!" which was prevalent even as we began to shift to 3rd edition - though I think it did not long survive. Certainly by 3.5 came along that movement had faded.
@@Jorphdan Oh! I think I get it now. I got confused about what this video was about. I did watch the one before this it just didnt fully sink in that this is from dragon magazine.
!["สนธิ" ห่วงมีขบวนการปกป้อง "ทนายตั้ม" : [THE MESSAGE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2GQNp3EoMc0/mqdefault.jpg)
Castle Amber remains my favorite D&D adventure of all time. I recently updated it for high level 5e (and elaborated the story elements somewhat) and ran it for patrons over 7 sessions and I think it's now a favorite of many of them as well.
I love that one. Ran it when I was in my teens. So fun.
It's one of my favorites as well. Played adn DM's this more that any other Expert (4-15 lvl) module back in the day. Isle of Dread was a slog compared to this. Just dug out all my BECMI D&D books and found this (as well as 25 other modules). Just need to convince my 5E group to play BECMI :-) now
It has just a great tone throughout the whole adventure, and in my head captures the feeling of a dungeon crawl and the craziness that entails.
Oh Yeah, I LOVED this one!
I didn't matter that we did poorly, almost lost the entire party & barely got to the end by our fingertips. (Thankfully, we got all our PCs and some of our NPCs back when Charles Amber used his ring of wishes to Resurrect them at the end.) It was STILL great!
The coolest part was that this was one of the FEW modules back then that had PERMEMENT alterations your characters could gain! (I remember ending up with a winged elf afterwards in our party, converted from a regular elf)
I even remember compiling ALL the benefits you could conceivably gain in that module. It's quite impressive.
Castle Amber was released for 5e by Goodman Games
I mean there is a point in "it's good because Dinosaurs". I homebrewed this whole world a whole cosmology, everything and a player went and did a : "i'm a Halfling from Dinosaur land". I was like, we can't escape Dinosaurs. Nerds love their dinosaurs.
Ark: Survival Evolved proved that a while ago. Lol.
I mean... can you blame us? Dinosaurs are intrinsically awesome. Charging them on horseback with a lance is even better!
I remember playing Scourge of The Slave Lords with my dad. He taught me DnD with that back in like 2012. I’ve been playing ever since.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks in my top 10, for sure. That module absolutely blew my mind as a kid :)
My 2E Players back in the 80s/90s used to agonize over every decision so I ran Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan with an egg timer for the poison gas... I love that module.
I loved Isle of Dread, because it my first experience with a Hex Crawl style game, it stood out against all of the dungeon crawls i had spent years doing.
And, Dinosaurs.
N1: Cult of the Reptile God should be higher on that list (I know it's not your list) as it's a great one. Though I would say it's probably not scaled quite right, levels 1-3 is a little on the low side, but it's fleshed out beautifully with intrigue and some fun surprises. Definitely recommended it!
I agree with you. I generally bring them in at 3rd or so for this one. During the preceding adventure they start hearing about Orlane.
I loved the illustrations of Cult of the Reptile Gods, Timothy Truman really raised the bar on the illustrations, the cover art etc for Modules, He and his son are amazing artists
Hehe. “Scaled.”
The reason Cult isn't more loved is the fact as written you have to get an NPC to join the party or you pretty much can't get through it. I just sent a group that was 4-5 lvl and they almost died when the boss threw their fireball spell in the final battle. The module has the NPC have a spell that allows the party to defeat that spell. I like the story but the idea an NPC is critical to victory is a pretty big weakness.
I have used "Lost Shrine of Tamoachan" a couple time while playing the "Tomb of Annihilation" campaign and I loved it, the fact you start at the bottom of a dungeon and have to escape because of poison gas it great.
@jorphdan looks like we have a scam bot!
Being an old bastard I remember playing some of these as a kid. A few that stick out in my mind from back in the day would be Tomb of Horrors, Expedtion to the Barrier Peaks, The Village of Hommlet, The Sentinel and The Gauntlet, and Decent into the Depths of the Earth. Those were good days👍🏻
Good vid I love talking old modules. Mr Welch from the "welcome to Mystara. " channel has some great deep dives into a lot of these old modules.
Castle Amber was always a favorite of mine. And I finally recently got around to reading Clark Ashton Smith, Chronicles of Averoigne. It's dark, weird, and otherworldly, and completely worth a read. And the adventure itself is great for anyone who hasn't played it.
I remember when Isle of Dread came out. It really did expand upon what D&D could be. Buying ships, taking care of the crew and ocean travel were campaigns all there own, without ever setting foot on land or going into a "dungeon." It was epic and deserves to be much higher on this list.
I cant wait to see the top 10!
Against the Cult of the Reptile God was the first adventure I bought when I was a kid. I've ran it many times. My current group is just wrapping up Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and then they will go through the 5e version. I'm using a hag rather than a Naga because Nagas come back and the hag fits with the overall campaign.
Jorphdan - I am currently running an entire campaign based on / around Dwellers of the Forbidden City (1/2e DnD) with Horan the Wizard as the BBEG. I have an original ‘81 print (as you’d shown) and didn’t start running it until ‘18. Great list. My runner up on here is Against the Cult of the Reptile God. I went thru that one as a player and then later ran it with my group (same ones I’m DMing thru DotFC, just 25yrs apart). It’s a real gem and a perfect balance of intrigue / mystery and combat.
Loved the Scourge of the slave Lords, we used it as a springboard or inspiration for so many adventures
Cult of the Reptile God was a good adventure
Castle Amber was the very first module that I ever played, way back in 1983. It holds a special place in my heart. IMHO it should be ranked higher as it's a mini campaign/sandbox all in itself as the party gets transported to Avernge (fantasy medieval France) and there's a huge sandbox for them to explore before they finish the story. The only drawback is the final segment but that can be easily fix by a well prepared DM.
I've only played it once but DM'D it 4 times each time being a success as all the players got into the vibe of it.
It's also good to run as a one shot Halloween adventure as the setting is a "haunted" house dungeon that you can really go deep with.
It's a module that you can just run "out of the box" but if you put in that little bit of extra work into it, you and your players will have enormous fun!
Ilse of Dread is another great example of how D&D could be about almost any setting. Again, had lots of fun with this one back in the day but we never finished it.
Isle of Dread was the first campaign I ever played. Great variety, and a whole lot of fun.
That was the first that I played as well!
N1 Cult of the Reptile God is he module I used to start my current campaign. From there we went into A1, 2 & 3 Slaver Lords series. Next was I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City. My group has run most of these. Cool!
Castle Amber was one of my favorite early modules that I ran as a DM. It was the first one that I customized and changed a lot of the encounters. It has a lot of great maps and flavor text that makes for a fun, easy game for younger players
The compilation of the Slave Lords is a little awkward, but the Slave Lords collection is utterly epic and iconic for those of us who played them when they came out. These and the Giants-Drow-Demonweb sequence are AD&D classics and worth converting to 5e as an epic mega campaign.
Against the Giants is in Tales from the Yawning Portal. Enjoy :)
@@nigelbennington4565 Wish they covered the Drow modules as well instead of Tomb of Horrors tbh
That's the course my friends and I played, Slavers to Giants, to Decent. AD&D was adventure focused while requiring more adlib creativity. It would take a long time to recuperate from injury requiring more depth to decision and consequence. 5e, sit for an hour (5 minutes real time short rest) everyone's healthy and you don't get the grittiness that made AD&D fun. New D&D is cool though, cartoony.
@@nigelbennington4565 true, but Slavers + Giants/Drow/Demonweb would make an epic 5e campaign if they could convert to Forgotten Realms as they did to Temple of Elemental Evil as Princes of the Apocalypse.
I suppose slavery is a bit too controversial for WOTC to use as a campaign theme but some other form of organized crime could work just as well.
@@shanemartin2215 Agreed. AD&D had grown more story-based than classic OG Gygaxian 0th Edition by the time Slavers/Giants/Descent and I9 Ravenloft were originally published.
We never did all the 10' pole jazz that OSR fans swoon over, but we also didn't have the "plot armor" that 5e characters generally have. We just had backup characters rolled up. Definitely grittier but still fun in its own quasi-murder-hobo way.
Roleplaying was implied and happened sometimes, but roll-playing as Rastan-style hack & slash was just as fun as sharing banter with a barkeep or trying to interrogate a captured adversary.
Loved the slavers module. A lot of fun.
Against the Cult is THE best adventure I've ever read. Absolutely amazing.
Oh DEAD GODS, how I love thee! I absolutely love this multiverse-spanning adventure!
Love your series! Just a word here; for Gringos like us, C1 is called the Hidden Shrine of "Tom-wah-KAHN".
Loved Cult of the Reptile God and Castle Amber.
The Slave Lords (A Series) was originally a tournament. You *begin* the adventure imprisoned with no gear (a trope later used by Bethesda in Oblivion, Skyrim, etc.). It's a great trope for tournaments because it forces each competing group to figure out how to get equipment.
Old D&D adventures!❤
The Forge of Fury was my very first module in 3.x and because of that it will always have a sweetspot in my heart. That roper damn near caused a TPK. But hey, the wizard saved the day and was rewarded for his efforts.
This one caused a TPK for my players. They reached the bottom and then the dragon ambushed them from the lake and damn near one shot them with its breath weapon.
Castle Amber imo is number one..precedes Ravenloft and with a good backstory connection (had some of my players related to the Amber family) it motivates players in solving the mystery of the curse. Love this one!
I've run about half of the adventures 11 thru 30, most many times, and the biggest hits are always B3 The Lost City and X1 The Isle of Dread, and biggest swings in enjoyment by far comes from X2 Castle Amber (Chateau Amberville). Amberville requires a DM with fairly strong skills though or it can just turn into a comedy (not necessarily a bad thing). I've had this adventure go amazingly well, and stunningly badly. I do NOT recommend it for novice role-players. For moderately experience role-players, I'd still recommend running it with an Insanity mechanic such as Sanity ability score, or Sanity points, and keep forcing checks for all of the batshit crazy stuff that the party keeps coming across. Veteran RPers will see the madness and use it and turn it into something truly wonderful.
The last time I ran it, it was expanded into several levels of a campaign, with nearly 20 sessions spent there. The world beyond the castle is rich and begging to be built upon.
I definitely remember getting The Isle of Dread as a kid and it was 100% because of the Dinosaur on the cover. Also loved that Island Map
Definitely play the doppleganger. Someone has to take down the rest of the party.
I love this list. Thank you! I played in Castle Amber as a kid and just bought the Goodman Games version in hopes of running it someday. I've actually heard of most of the 11-20 list, but that's the only one I've played in or run. I'll definitely add some of these to my to-do list as a DM.
Against the Cult of the Reptile God is my all-time favorite D&D module. The only thing that ticks me off about it is its title, which I believe is a straight-up giveaway. The title "Terror by Night" would have been more suitable. Orlane ranks on par with Hommlet as the finest example of a fully detailed and fleshed out starting town D&D has ever offered. Kudos to Douglas Niles for this masterpiece.
Man I loved the Isle of Dread. Ran some great sessions with their magic ship I gave them and a ton of hand crafted dinosaurs. Only ones I never played back in the day were Dead Gods and The Gates of Firestorm Peak.
I remember running the original Ravenloft for the first time, and when we finished multiple players at my table said it was the best pre-published adventure they'd ever played.
There’s one adventure in Ravenloft called Hour of the Knife, located in the domain city of Paridon, in which in specific situations the heroes can be substituted by Dopplegangers, but the DM don’t tell them.
I ran the Slavers series so many times when I was younger.
ho man, Forge of Fury was one of my favorites back in the day.
I am hoping Sunless Citadel will be on top 10
I love your videos, and I DM all homebrew, but I like hearing about these modules and what was best about them. I think it would be cool if you did individual videos on each of the top five after you finish the list. If those do well, do five more in the list. I would like to hear a breakdown on what the adventure entails.
You made me venture into my storage room to find my old copies of dragon and dungeon magazines to fine this to i could look up the top 10...
It is interesting to look over the list. From the adventures on the list I've either read or played, I actually find the ones on the 11-20 and 21-30 to have better adventures to play in general, while 1-10 is more iconic/influential adventures
Spoilers for what is not on the list below :)
From this era of D&D, my 2 favorite adventures (series of adventures?) would be both from Al-Qadim - Golden Voyages and A Dozen & one adventures. I know that the setting is not everybody's cup of tea for a variety of reasons, but I think both of these are critically under rated - with Golden voyages being (IMHO) the best written adventure of all time. It is the only adventure I know of which can be played at any level (you could have fun with this at level 1 or 20 with relatively minimal adjustments, although I think someplace around 10-12 is probably best), and the DM doesn't even know what the next part is going to be, because when one section is completed, you randomly select what happens next and where the party heads off to, or if that was the final stop. A A dozen and one is is just one of the best "many adventures played as a single adventure" that was put together.
Also I think that more from the planescape line should have made the list. Dead gods is amazing, but there are others that I think could have made this list, especially since how they influenced the game was clearly such a high consideration in the ranking. Like them or not, Die Vecna Die, Vecna Lives and Faction War were all very influential adventures
Are you going to do a list (maybe top 10) adventures from 4th and 5th Editions that you think should make the list?
A lot of good ones on this one: Undermountain, Isle of Dread, Castle Amber. Couple others look good to, but never read them.
Assassins mountain is one of my favourites from 2nd ed. Its so good ive mined it for like 7 different campaigns
I ran a heavily modified Against the Cult of the Reptile God and it was quite fun!
I have Castle Amber and though I don’t know if I’d run it as written, it has a lot of amazing ideas.
#20 I loved the concept of this adventure series. Four different experienced DMs and writers are approached to each write one of the four adventures that will be used for the four rounds of a convention tournament. They each know, vaguely, what the outline is for the overall and are given some basic instructions, and then they each write their adventure. It was a great double-blind mechanism for ensuring that the overall story was a surprise. And the ending of the series had a hook that easily tied this in to the Giants series to make it a lead in to the pre-existing G, D, and Q modules that had been crafted into a long adventure chain the same year. But tying the T series onto the front end of it all was a mistake since it didn't connect and didn't flow at all. AGDQ is its own chain and T belongs on its own, with maybe an eventual tie in to WG4.
#19 isn't a good first adventure for a group as the lack of a place to rest and recuperate makes it extra difficult and the dungeon was challenging to the third level group I took through the adventure. But it was a great concept adventure as AD&D continued its move away from the game show feeling (kill the monster, loot its stuff, repeat until dead) firmly into the far superior storyline feeling.
#18 was a convention module with a great mechanic: a time limit. The air in the tomb was poisonous, so the party only had a limited amount of time to make their escape while still picking up the maximum possible tourney points for exploration. I loved the Meso-American atmosphere of this module and reused both the atmosphere (and I loved learning about these cultures even before I found AD&D) and the time limit mechanic in occasional adventures since.
#16, aka the Harryhausen adventure. :-D I also grew up on Harryhausen's extremely excellent stop-motion animations mixed in with live actors, and so visiting this location was a dream come true. It and the aptly named "Isle of the Ape" module are both good for this feel of a game.
#15 was the first of the adventures to use the "a choking fog outside will kill you if you try to escape" mechanic, though another adventure that is likely much higher on this list is better known for it. This was a great conceptual adventure and one that I may have run once, in part, but that I used as lots and lots of adventure seed for my own adventures.
#13 this module was an earlier version of a module where expanding the adventures on the map was set up within the module itself. While not as expansive as the levels beneath the ziggurat, this still was easily turned in to a campaign setting by DMs willing to make the effort, as I did. My groups were so ready to leave once they found the tunnel out. :-D
Looking forward to the last 10!
Of these, "Scourge of the Slavelords".
Robust challenging adventures that utilizes all three pillars of play - the way the mods are written the locations are *alive* because the residents move about and react when prodded. If the players are willing to see the tactical situatations as puzzles in themselves, they will do better than just rying to brute force the adventure.
Throne of Bloodstone. Only adventure for up to Level 100!!!
LOVE the hidden shrine! But, I have never understood why Castle Amber is so revered.
My fav? Ruins of Undermountain. It's probably my most read module I have, though I used it more as a setting than an adventure. Even did an attempt to bring it into 5th, but I was on booklet 2 when WotC announced W:DotMM.
Also shout out to Firestorm Peak. The module that gave us (well me at least) the Far Realm.
Jorphdan - OLDskool Dungeon Master here. I ran 90% of the 70's and 80's modules on your Top30 list. Trust me, when you say you're "surprised" by Scourge of the Slavelords being on the list at all, you're missing out. My players had some of the BEST times escaping from the slavelords, and the coming back for revenge against them. AND HOLY CRAP... Where is the Against the Giants series!?!?!? How is that not in the top 10!??? Take the sage advice of an old DM and go get these adventures and run them. You'll thank me later!
Oooo I'm so going to run some of these!
Idk if you recorded it already but i hope for 10-1 its a bit longer to take time for each one!
my favourite campaign in this list is isle of dread and i would have liked if vecna lives was here because of the fear and atmosphere it creates
Forge of fury was a lot of fun in 5e , tamoachan was a massive pain ....but I like the idea of it.
Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is a very fun dungeon to drop on your players.
I loved running hidden shrine of Tamoachan. I had to add a Vampire T Rex to the end of it for … reasons
My players always hated Castle Amber because it couldn't ever be run as part of a setting properly. They always fight against any GM prodding, so they did everything they could not to adventure the ruins.
The original basic/ expert/ advanced/ master D&D series was confusing ( Isle of Dread) came with the expert set. Elf and dwarf were classes not races.
Everyone should read or listen to stories by Clark Ashton Smith. Friend/Contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and some of the best horror fantasy ever written.
Remember folks the Isle of Dread has been canonically moved to the Plane of Water in 5E so if your players get shipwrecked by a magical storm-portal they can wash up on the shores of the Isle of Dread.
I have run Isle of Dread and Castle Amber multiple times
Great video series. When will we get to see the top 10 adventures video?
It's live now!
OLD. I have that on my shelf. It ain’t old.
TAKE IT BACK.
Curse of strahd and LmoP are the only two well
.. maybe radiant citidel but those are my 5e adventures
I wish my buddy jordan would mention the Dinosaurs in DnD.....OH SHIT! :D
What about Night Below. I loved running this campaign.
Should i get - the tales of the yawning portal?
Is it possible that Ruins under the Mountain is a copy of the city of GreyHawk, which also has the tombs of a mad wizard?
I have spent the last ten years fleshing out the City in The Forbidden City. Still not done.
Indy 5 would have worked if they simply had him chased by Nazis to the Forgotten world where he found the Lost Legion hiding the Lantern of Diogenes and the Spear of Longinus and he got to punch a dinosaur in the Eye.
Best Sequel Ever.
Love Isle of Dread.
Have reworked and rerun this several times with a plane travelling Island a Monstrous Ape and sophisticated High tech Copru Smiths working to rejuvenate their race and return to the Prime material Plane. Good Times, Good Times.
Have Firestorm Gate and Forge of Fury. Love the read through of Forge of Fury.
Always felt the Slavers modules were some of the most over-rated modules of all time. I enjoyed the fight out of the dungeon naked though the subsequent TPK was kind of a disappointment. Never had as much fun with this milieu. It was always a little like losing a game of Secret Hitler , it felt a little too consequences ridden when you lost. I felt guilty as a player for not successfully taking out the slavers and there seemed to be plot armour in place for some of them early on. Not dragon lance plot armour but still.
Against the Cult of The Reptile God is one of my all-time favourites. I have Dmed it twice and played it twice (second time as a mute character) and had a blast all four times. I always bring a party into this module after they have had one preliminary adventure. And I always tune down Ramne. My version he is completely blind and can only see through his weasel familiar as well as incredibly old and frail and desperate for someone he can trust to come along and help him with this scourge. I think the first time encountered he has a begging bowl outside the Slumbering serpent. Also use an NPC from the first adventure as the hook. The party has come to collect them for their second adventure and gasp his mother reports him suddenly vanished from town.
Shrine of Tamochan is very fun . I played it as a one shot and ran it as a one shot. Great art. I have seen a mirror of opposition set up so whichever character survives can still be run by the player,
Castle Amber was a load of fun too. I have read the Clark Ashton Smith Averoigne Chronicles to help inform the actual realm of Averoigne that you end up in.
Am I alone in wishing the WotC would just sell D&D to Goodman Games? I mean, seriously, those folks know what the best parts of D&D were and care about keeping those elements alive. It would be a new golden age for D&D.
N1 should be higher. It's easily in my top 5.
Can you make a video about the Saurials from Forgotten Realms?
8:20 … snake … breasts? … do they lactate? 😂
Does anyone have a pdf collection of the dnd magazine adventures. items equipment ect
I think you can search the internet wayback machine and find some copies!
So I've not read this article that I can remember, but prediction now: #1 will be Ravenloft.
#2 after GDQ1-7 Giants/Drow/Lolth.
I have read the article but did so when it first came out in 2004 so I don't actually remember what #1 was. That said I would agree with you both because it was a truely fantastic adventure and also because it is maybe the single most influential adventure in D&D. Before Ravenloft we played something that might be called Gygaxian D&D and after Ravenloft we played something that might be called Hickman D&D though I don't think that was truly realized until after Dragonlance was released. Nonetheless there was a clear shift in the style of adventures being published by Dungeon after this period, pretty much tail end of 1st edition right through until about the middle of 2nd edition after which we began to see another shift of "back to the Dungeon!" which was prevalent even as we began to shift to 3rd edition - though I think it did not long survive. Certainly by 3.5 came along that movement had faded.
God, I wonder if Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde is on this list. Lol.
We got stomped the Forge of Fury.
Wait wait wait... are the boxes in the video th "doobleedoo"?!?!
I thought this was the video description.
Was my life a lie?!
👍 for goodest boy Oskar
He's such a good boy-o!
4:46 i am starting to draw maps like that.. but i need more practice..
Ah good- i actually just got that 5E game! DOTMM !
Now your making me me feel old!!.stop it.;)
Jorphdan, would you change this list in any way?
Probably, I might make a list of personal favorites. Like Rod of Seven Parts wasn't on the list and I love that adventure!
300xp
I take it at this point that no 5e adventures made the list? Why not?
The list was made in 2004, 5e hadn't been written yet
@@Jorphdan Oh! I think I get it now. I got confused about what this video was about. I did watch the one before this it just didnt fully sink in that this is from dragon magazine.