Old school dnd modules

Nov 12, 2019 8:14 pm
I'm asking for opinions here. I'm looking at trying to get into or run one of the old school dnd modules such as elemental evil, but the more I research these modules, the more it looks like they are not fun at all. It seems like gotcha dnd with the modules actively encouraging the DM to screw over the player in dickish ways that if happened in a real life dnd game, would lead to exlax getting mixed in with the DM bribe.

My question is, are there good ones that are fun to BOTH run and play? I wanted to give some of the classics a chance, because they're, you know, classic, but my gut is telling me not to touch them with a ten foot pole. (see what I did there?) Anyways, if there are good ones out there, let me know.
Nov 12, 2019 9:20 pm
I've run a few different old-school modules (Temple of Elemental Evil and Keep on the Borderlands) and they haven't seemed like an issue to me.
Nov 12, 2019 11:46 pm
White Plume Mountain and In Search of the Unknown seem also relatively okay. The only real "dickish" module that I'm aware of is Tombs of Horrors... Edit: No scratch that, Dungeonland and it's sequel (the Land Through the Looking Glass IIC?) are also dickish... As for good modules, the first Ravenloft module is also quite good. Ravenloft II: House on Gryphon Hill starts promising, but then the adventure sort of stop making sense when you realized that some people somehow managed to live in a manor infested with monsters without a) getting killed, and b) finding out all those monsters lived in the manor with them...
Last edited November 12, 2019 11:49 pm
Nov 13, 2019 3:05 am
I have been running the module In Search of the Unknown on GP since February and the players are still enjoying it. There's very few "gotcha's" that I wanted to remove or modify.
Last edited November 13, 2019 3:05 am

Len

Nov 13, 2019 5:12 am
Isle of Dread has few gotchas. I highly recommend it. You will drink your DM bribe with confidence that it has not been chemically tampered with.
Nov 13, 2019 5:29 am
The Lost City is good. I modded/ran it in a Pathfinder campaign a few years back.
Nov 13, 2019 5:44 am
Kay. This is honestly reassuring. The first ones that came up when I did my research were the tomb of horrors and and dungeon lands, which were the ones that were being cited as dickish.
Nov 13, 2019 4:34 pm
Are you able to adjust the modules so that you can have it both ways? Modify things to challenge the players, but keep it fun or at least not make it seem like you're trying to screw them over.
Nov 13, 2019 5:07 pm
Of course. But that kind of defeats the purpose of a module right? Its supposed to be less work
Nov 13, 2019 5:13 pm
If the one golden rule of an RPG is "it's your RPG, use what you want and ignore or change what you don't like", then it's not much of a stretch to think that the same applies to a module. If you can change the rules to suit your style of play, surely you can do the same to the modules. Honestly, I don't think I've ever played any module as-is...
Nov 13, 2019 5:17 pm
I think the exploration modules were good. Keep on the Borderlands, Lost City, Isle of Dread
Nov 13, 2019 8:30 pm
I know that Tomb of Horrors is specifically designed to fuck players over. It was never really meant to be part of an ongoing campaign anyway and was mostly used at D&D tournaments, I believe.

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