D&D 5E Which was the most recent Wizards adventure you consider a classic?

plot is original
It’s generic fantasy in a traditional location (the jungle). Nothing original about it.
It's more original than Curse of Strahd in that respect
I agree that CoS isn’t original (nor do I think it’s any good). The original module “Dracula in D&D” was original, it’s a shame it’s now eclipsed by the second rate 5e knockoff.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Can you say that there are good adventures? Absolutely, you can.

You can also recognise that there are adventures that while you like them, they are flawed and did not appeal to the wider gaming public.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin fulfils one basic requirement of an adventure: it is playable. You can go from the beginning to the end with the adventure as written, and complete it. This is not true of every adventure. Some adventures are so horribly broken that you can't go from the beginning to the ending.

The trouble Eve of Ruin has, much like Descent into Avernus, is that the path through the adventure doesn't really make logical sense. The links are there, but if you start thinking about them, they don't really hold together very well. At least in Eve of Ruin, once you get on the quest for the Rod, it sustains itself. You're not continually wondering why you're following a forgetful hollyphant who keeps giving you bad advice. The hook in Eve of Ruin that gets you on the path to the Rod? Argh!

And, of course, the actual content of each of Eve of Ruin's chapters is typically designed to enrage anyone familiar with those settings. (Not true of every chapter, but enough of them).

What makes a great adventure? It really helps if it has a really brilliant concept. And then the execution matters as well.

I still regard Gygax's Giant/Drow series as a classic. It leaves a lot up to the DM - especially when you hit D3 - but there is huge creativity there. Revelation after revelation after revelation. Each of the giant strongholds ups the complexity and difficulty, and then - all of a sudden - the great reveal of the drow. And that wasn't it, because through D1-3 we get to see what lies beneath the surface of the world, and the cultures that exist there.

Ravenloft, the original Tracy and Laura Hickman creation, is a damn fine dungeon, but it's elevated in its use of Strahd as a foe, and in the reading of the deck which means each time through it's a different experience.

The amazing thing is that Curse of Strahd doesn't come off as inferior. Instead, I - and quite a few others - prefer it to the original. But you need to know that it isn't the same as the original. Where Ravenloft was a dungeon crawl, Curse of Strahd becomes far more of the exploration of the effects that Strahd's rule and darkness has had on the people of his land. I know some run it as horror, but for me, the horror is that of seeing these broken people. (Honestly, I prefer running it as a heroic tale where the darkness will be broken forever by the party's actions - which is the original Ravenloft's concept as well. Not the later reenvisioning where everything resets and the party's actions mean nothing).

Is Curse of Strahd challenging to run? Absolutely - as is Vault of the Drow. Not all DMs will get it. But what I can say is that a lot of DMs get it and love the adventure.

It's always worth remembering that most DMs don't use published adventures - and don't connect with them in any meaningful way.
 

Can you say that there are good adventures? Absolutely, you can.

You can also recognise that there are adventures that while you like them, they are flawed and did not appeal to the wider gaming public.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin fulfils one basic requirement of an adventure: it is playable. You can go from the beginning to the end with the adventure as written, and complete it. This is not true of every adventure. Some adventures are so horribly broken that you can't go from the beginning to the ending.

The trouble Eve of Ruin has, much like Descent into Avernus, is that the path through the adventure doesn't really make logical sense. The links are there, but if you start thinking about them, they don't really hold together very well. At least in Eve of Ruin, once you get on the quest for the Rod, it sustains itself. You're not continually wondering why you're following a forgetful hollyphant who keeps giving you bad advice. The hook in Eve of Ruin that gets you on the path to the Rod? Argh!

And, of course, the actual content of each of Eve of Ruin's chapters is typically designed to enrage anyone familiar with those settings. (Not true of every chapter, but enough of them).

What makes a great adventure? It really helps if it has a really brilliant concept. And then the execution matters as well.

I still regard Gygax's Giant/Drow series as a classic. It leaves a lot up to the DM - especially when you hit D3 - but there is huge creativity there. Revelation after revelation after revelation. Each of the giant strongholds ups the complexity and difficulty, and then - all of a sudden - the great reveal of the drow. And that wasn't it, because through D1-3 we get to see what lies beneath the surface of the world, and the cultures that exist there.

Ravenloft, the original Tracy and Laura Hickman creation, is a damn fine dungeon, but it's elevated in its use of Strahd as a foe, and in the reading of the deck which means each time through it's a different experience.

The amazing thing is that Curse of Strahd doesn't come off as inferior. Instead, I - and quite a few others - prefer it to the original. But you need to know that it isn't the same as the original. Where Ravenloft was a dungeon crawl, Curse of Strahd becomes far more of the exploration of the effects that Strahd's rule and darkness has had on the people of his land. I know some run it as horror, but for me, the horror is that of seeing these broken people. (Honestly, I prefer running it as a heroic tale where the darkness will be broken forever by the party's actions - which is the original Ravenloft's concept as well. Not the later reenvisioning where everything resets and the party's actions mean nothing).

Is Curse of Strahd challenging to run? Absolutely - as is Vault of the Drow. Not all DMs will get it. But what I can say is that a lot of DMs get it and love the adventure.

It's always worth remembering that most DMs don't use published adventures - and don't connect with them in any meaningful way.
That's true as far as I know. I've never run a published adventure start to finish. It's always grist for the homebrew.
 

And Dwellers of the Forbidden City (as in, the whole city of Omu). There's also some elements of Return to the Tomb of Horrors thrown in as well - mostly ideas.

Actually, to me, most of the 5E big books are remixes/reimagining of old classics:

  • Storm King's Thunder as a remix of the G1-G3 Against the Giants
  • Princes of the Apocalypse as a remix of T1-T4 Temple of Elemental Evil
  • Out of the Abyss as a remix of D1-D3 Descent into the Depths/Vault of the Drow & Q1 - Queen of the Demonweb Pits
  • Curse of Strahd as a remix of I6 - Ravenloft and the Ravenloft campaign set (post Grim Harvest)
  • Descent into Avernus as a remix/upgrade of A Paladin In Hell
    [*]Dungeons of the Mad Mage

as remix of the Undermountain series

Of course, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Tales of the Yawning Portal and Quests from the Inifinite Staircase are straight up reprints.

Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a weird one, as it is a sort of companion to the Dragonlance series, happening during the War of the Lance - but your in a completely different location, and not using the old premade characters of the Heroes of the Lance.
I'd be hesitant in calling Quests from the Infinite staiircase a straight up reprint. Yawning portal - definitely, but Infinite Staircase is following the more recent WoTC practice of changing quite a significant amount of things in their reprints. They added in antagonist in the Barrier Peaks adventure, and significantly changed the meat of it, for instance.

I don't really see much of the Ravenloft campaign setting in Curse of Strahd, and plenty that's straight up antithetical to it. (By Domains of Dread Ravenloft had matured into quite a different campaign from "weekend in hell") Black Box, maybe, what with Van Richten's anachronistic appearance, but a lot of the elements in there are actually from Perkins' non-Ravenloft D&D work. There's even a map reprinted as-is from Red Hand of Doom!
 

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is an awesome collection of adventures in a beautiful fantasy utopian setting, and so it gets my vote. It’s not perfectly executed by any means, but a campaign of fantasy Star Trek away teams from a post-scarcity society descended from refugees now travelling to their old worlds to help however they can is both an incredible departure for D&D and the best kind of hopepunk.

Some of the adventures are less interesting but the writing from those cultures - I really like the Korean adventure, as a Korean-English guy - is heartfelt and genuine. I think the core setting could use more explanation and expansion and have my own notes on how the society on the Citadel actually works.
I appreciated the flavour of a lot of those adventures (and that really is the strength of the collection) but some of those adventures are plain bad.
 

They actually did pull back. The teams are a lot smaller after that one and Rime. (Not counting anthology products, of course).

Descent into Avernus: 11 story creators, 2 story consultants, 15 writers. (some overlap).
Rime of the Frostmaiden: 1 story creator & lead writer, 11 writers
Wild Beyond the Witchlight: 1 project lead, 4 writers, 5 additional writing
Shadow of the Dragon Queen: 1 project lead, 10 writers
The Shattered Obelisk: 1 project lead, 6 writers (but 2 were only on the original Lost Mine).
Vecna: Eve of Ruin: 1 lead designer, 3 designers

(And Eve of Ruin is substantially longer than Descent).


It's inspired by Isle of Dread and Tomb of Horrors, certainly. But that's not a bad idea at all - as long as executed well.

I like Tomb of Annihilation a lot less than many of my friends, but I do think it has enough of the "right stuff".
Who on earth thought an adventure needed a dozen people writing it! Astounding.
 

Merric I've read your reviews for years and you are very tolerant of modules. Of the 5e era I would call Curse of Strahd a classic. My run of it was all time. Perfect size for a contained campaign. I'd run that again. I'd also include Storm Kings Thunder but as a campaign product. The plot itself is pretty flimsy but it sets up an open ended campaign of exploring the Sword Coast North that is classic by itself.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage disappointed me. None of the charm of the og product. It highlighted how 5e isn't that conducive to big dungeon play. There's a dozen megadungeons I'd run before Mad Mage. I played ToA as a player. The final dungeon and the canyon around it was cool but the jungle hexcrawl part was whatever. Every thing since has seemed terrible. Modules written by committee. Ridiculous.
 


Who on earth thought an adventure needed a dozen people writing it! Astounding.
When you see that amount of writers on an adventure, either something has gone horribly wrong or (more likely) it is done in distinct parts. For example, Rime of the Frostmaiden is, as I understand it, a sandbox where you sled around in Icewind Dale and explore various places in order to find a way to break Auril's curse (I'm a player myself in the campaign so I don't have the details, but that seems to be the basic structure). But each individual place in the sandbox can be written by a different writer, with an overall lead who says something like "This should be a dwarven crypt and you need to include X and Y in it."
 

When you see that amount of writers on an adventure, either something has gone horribly wrong or (more likely) it is done in distinct parts. For example, Rime of the Frostmaiden is, as I understand it, a sandbox where you sled around in Icewind Dale and explore various places in order to find a way to break Auril's curse (I'm a player myself in the campaign so I don't have the details, but that seems to be the basic structure). But each individual place in the sandbox can be written by a different writer, with an overall lead who says something like "This should be a dwarven crypt and you need to include X and Y in it."
Yes. Having a team of writers isn't a bad thing - but it requires good leadership and co-ordination, something that isn't always present.

It's worth noting how few big adventures have been published over the lifetime of D&D. The current era is notable for the number of such. (And likewise, the Paizo era of Adventure Paths... which are not written by single authors).

Look at TV series - how many of those are written by a single writer compared to a team? We can find good and bad examples of both!

Cheers!
 

Remove ads

Top