Tuesday, August 19, 2014

RPGaDay - Day 19 - Favorite Published Adventure

So ... many ... choices ...

I have run a lot of published adventures over the years. In fact, if there is a published adventure for a game system that I have run, odds are I have run a published adventure for it. I know some people won;t even consider running one but I like them. I like the role they play in creating that shared experience between different groups, that ability to swap stories when you meet a new player and know exactly what they are talking about.

D&D


I've run this adventure is Basic, AD&D, AD&D 2E, 3E, and Next and I think I ran it in GURPS one time (don't judge, I was in college and it was an experimental time). It's just a nice package of base area, countryside, and concentrated lair of evil broken into small chunks. With newer systems you an add in more social encounters and skill challenges (heck, skill checks period) as needed. I've played through it a few times too.

Runner-Up


I've played through it and run it and it's just a lot of fun. With this one some of the old save-or-die stuff felt like it truly fit the adventure. I'm hoping that new Iron Gods adventure path helps recapture some of that blaze of excitement when we first realized our D&D characters could encounter technological opposition.

What I probably should have chosen


I've played and run this set of adventures multiple times. 1st edition, 2nd edition, 3rd edition plus there's a conversion for 4th that I am sure will work nicely and I'd bet 5th can handle it just fine too. The prototype for a monster-specific lair type dungeon with some personality and interesting encounters. It's also the start of an epic series for more powerful characters.

Other games:

  • Shadowrun: Food Fight - it's how I always start my campaigns. It's small, but it gets things started nicely without a lot of setup.
  • Champions: Viper's Nest - the "Keep on the Borderlands" of the early Champions boxed sets. The fight in a construction yard is always a good one.
  • Savage Worlds: Neccessary Evil - OK it's a whole campaign but if you look at it as one big adventure it is epic and memorable
  • Mutants and Masterminds: Time of Crisis - I think it's the best published superhero adventure period. 
  • Gamma World: Legion of Gold - hands down. It's sort of Keep on the Borderlands-ish but it's even better in some ways in that the big lair of evil has to be tracked down and located first and is actively attacking settlements in the area.
  • Star Trek (FASA): Denial of Destiny - The first part especially feels like a very true-to-trek scenario, then the second part shifts focus a bit but is still true in a different kind of way. 
  • Traveller: Nomads of the World Ocean - It's not usually on a list of the "big" Traveller adventures but it felt more sci-fi to me than some of the others. It has nothing to do with Ancients or any military invasions but it has a solid focus on some different cultures and corporate stuff on a single planet.
  • Star Wars (d6): Tattooine Manhunt - a familiar location, an interesting turn of events, and I am probably giving it more weight because it was the first of the line, but having both played and run it I liked it a lot. 

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