Im so glad that a lot of these older great models have been brought to 5e. I’m a AD&D player, but as a brand new 5e DM Im thrilled that I can still run these more dungeon crawly adventures!
Keep on the Borderlands didn't 'redefine' adventure making - it arguably defined it. At least in the style that Gygax and crew envisioned the game, before 'narrative' style play came into vogue. It was a setting based scenario with a secure homebase, no laid out plot, and capable of sustaining play for multiple overlapping groups - West Marches style before the term 'West Marches' had been coined. That one book can keep your group occupied for months. I do recommend it with OSR games, but if you're doing 5e check out Goodman Games' Into the Borderlands update.
I really agree with you here. This was the adventure that taught me and many, many, Dungeon Masters how to play - what this was all about. This started the process. I was hugely influenced by Dragon Lance (even while coming to the conclusion that it was actually unrunnable so far as I could tell) and the Hickman style of adventures that proliferated Dungeon Magazine after Ravenloft and Dragonlance but it all started with Keep on the Borderlands.
@@JeremyMacDonald1973 very important to recognise how much of how to dm was learnt from that modules and others in the B series. Not just the DM instructions but also the structure and content
@@JeremyMacDonald1973 I had a few false starts as a newbie DM, but eventually we filled the holes of the (bad rules writing) gray areas and soldiered on.
Ran Tomb of Horrors years ago for my 2e AD&D players. fortunately for them, 'Groundhog Day' had come out the year before, so I ran it as a 'time loop' dungeon, where the game reset on the death of all the characters, allowing them to restart their session replete with the knowledge of their previous attempts. Played that way, my players were free to experiment and 'enjoy' the experience.
It's a great example of how to run a persistent location for multiple parties. The base is close to a dungeon so the GM can run a real time game of competing teams spelunking deeper and deeper.
Goodman Games has a great reprint. I've been running it with some newbie teenage boys. They're having a blast and it isn't too complicated which is perfect.
It's sort of similar to the first D&D computer game Pool of Radiance. The premise is very simple and straightforward. You have a base of operations and the bad guy is over there down the block.
Way back in the 80's, we ran thru Barrier Peaks for the 1st time. The guy being the DM was great at explaining visualizations. The whole thing was theater of the mind and we were far into it before someone realized we were in a spaceship. If I remember right he said "F...! We're on the Enterprise".
Same here, I still remember the fantastic picture booklet in that module, it absolutely blew my mind as a kid. Fell in love with D&D, and when I look at those classic modules it always brings me such positive vibes.
I think we went overly Mappy on this module and ended up going through what turned out to be dozens and dozens and dozens of empty stainless steel rooms on this space ship. Ran into similar problems with Dwellers of the Forbidden City and the non-fleshed out abandoned city. So many Empty Buildings. Theater of the mind would have worked better for this part of the adventure.
I wonder if it's impossible to spring this surprise on players exploring OSR, who probably have already heard of this module? Is it the "I am your father" of RPG plot twists?
The Keep on the Borderlands was the first adventure that had a home base (the Keep) for the players to return to in between forays into the caves. It became the basis for "the players meet in a tavern" that got adopted by the other D&D co-designers for so many written adventures to follow. It is such a common concept now that even you fail to realize this is the adventure that invented it. It is also the model for the Sandbox campaign.
@@IAmAlgolei Love this one and the Elf or Dwarven wanderer and the Cleric with his two mute assistants and the various generic F1 hirelings all to be found in the bar in the Keep.
Another aspect is the fact that your first level players could walk into a level that was designed for higher level pcs Had to be very careful on this one
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Definitely the first module we owned. And I love meeting characters in a tavern. Im always a little disappointed now when there isn't something going on in the bar. There was a one shot bar brawl scenario in one of the White Dwarf magazines where everyone in the bar had something against everyone else. I think the main protagonist was a ranger without the cover charge who had been tracking a wererat to the bar. The Half Ogre(orc?) bouncer was keeping him out. There is a CE fighter in the bar who hates demi humans. There is a couple of dwarves dancing . They have a small yappy dog. Another lady has a pet panther curled up under her table. There is a cat familiar wandering about and a druid talking to a rat. There is a monk brawler at the bar and a gladiator with two admirers . Also an assassin thief who is attempting to feed people at the bar a mickey a rob them. Oh and a LG cleric who feels compelled to defend women. Someone else who hates animals. One of the waitresses is trying to entice characters upstairs where her partner can cosh and rob them. And the bartender has a big iron club behind the bar. And a rake looking for a willing partner. You play about three rounds of encounters and there is a bar room brawl. Great fun. Everyone has a story.
The reason that Keep on the Borderlands, is so high on the list is because it's where almost every player, and I mean almost 100% of players in the late 70s started playing.
I started playing earlier, when the boxed set had B1, In Search of the Unknown. It had a modular design, and allowed a new DM to plug and play with monsters and treasure in each room, rather than go with preset ones.
Keep on the Borderlands is my favorite module. I've probably run it two dozen times now. I just think the way it sets up the central hub town, with an open world and a bunch of dungeons to crawl is the heart of what I love about D&D. I have a lot of fun with the NPC's especially the evil cleric and his two acolytes. Leading a 1st level party into that ambush is way too much fun. I also love the factions. On the surface it seems like humans vs caves of chaos, but you learn that the chaos cultists are in town too, and in the caves, there is infighting or alliances between the monster tribes that allow for tons of creative roleplaying and strategy for the players. Make them fight each other.
I remember buying the basic and expert d&d. Then came advanced d&d. mind was blown. New character classes, combat was more developed, more spells, etc. thanks again for your show.
Keep on the Borderlands is iconic. It defined the "small town surrounded by wilderness and a dungeon complex nearby" structure that works so good in D&D even to this day.
Queen of the Spiders combines arguably the best set of modules that create a cohesive story. Against the Giants starts hinting at the drow influence and then as you realize they’re behind thing, you go to Decent in the Depths of the Earth to chase them. This leads you to the Vault of the Drow to confront them and then the Queen of the Demon Web Pits to confront their god. Having gone through it, I can see why it was placed at number one.
@@starcrafter13terran These 1st Ed. modules were all a series that started with the Slavers series (A1-A4), continued onto the Giant Series (G1-G3), which in turn led into the Drow series (D1-D3). It all wrapped up with Queen of the Demon Web Pits (Q1). It sounds like "Queen of the Spiders" combines the D series with Q1. Many of the staples for the game were introduced in these modules, including the drow and the Underdark. I believe that the Saltmarsh series (U1-U3) might also have been considered the start of the entire series, but I never played U2-U3. If so, it would give players a wonderful story arc that starts at level 1 and takes them up into the high levels.
B2 is so high up because it's ultimately a sandbox and teaches players old school concepts such as agency, piting factions against one another, and more! Also it's the only adventure where the title describes the town rather than the dungeon (Or maybe it still does describe the dungeon depending on your group.)
Yes, absolutely. The value of B2 was as an instructional module. It was meant to give new DMs a way to understand how the rules were meant to fit together. It's not going to blow your socks off, but it was very important in its time.
Ravenloft is the greatest in my opinion. It forces the group to really rely on each other and work as a team. It drew my group of friends even closer back in the late 80’s
My group is starting Curse of Strahd in the new year. We're looking forward to it but my hopes aren't very high for the survival of my basic bitch human wizard at level 1 with 14hp lol
Ravenloft spawned a box set, because gothic was popular, and its different from tolkien. that's it. that's why it was popular. Strahd is just a dracula proxy.
A few additions I would make: the U series (U 1, 2, & 3 also known as the Saltmarsh series), because it marks the first time I'm aware of that the players are SUCKERED into fighting the wrong enemy altogether (a nasty surprise for players who just hack and slash their way across every dungeon). The other would be L2 The Assassin's Knot, which is the first time I know of that the NPC actions in an urban intrigue setting follow a timeline regardless of player inactivity. If the PCs don't investigate quickly enough, they could miss their chance.
The Slavers series A1-4 was my go to short notice series to run when friends wanted to play. It introduced the Thri-Kreen into D&D. But yes, the Against the Giants series leading into the Demonweb series was such a great arc for higher level characters.
@@DanielEastland One of my current DMs is actually doing this with us. Half the group had never even seen 1st Edition AD&D before. As a 40+ year gamer, I've played all of these except Barrier Peaks
4:26 honestly keep on the borderland is amazing. Maybe the best adventure ever written. Really worth running to see what people were playing back then. it's the whole 'concept' of the adventure that is so good.
Keep on the Borderlands is such an iconic adventure it really encapsulates what DND started out as, a dungeon delver in search of loot and perils. It’s narrative may not be extremely complex but it’s got everything else down as a 1st intro adventure to what DND is at its core. On a side note I’d love to see the Demonweb Pits trilogy come to 5e
I can see why "Queen of Spiders" is #1 it was the first campaign module set (G1-3, D1-3, Q1) and should be considered the precursor to todays 5e module/books. "Temple of Elemental Evil"(T1-4) recast as "Princes of the Apocalypse", "Ghosts of Saltmash" is U1-3 plus extras, but< as I knew them, the GDQ series is what started the idea of publishing campaigns instead of just one off adventures.
Thanks for remembering it better than I did ! It was the climax of TWO, not one, three-module sets which preceded it. It took us forever, but DAMN what a ride.
It took an entire college year to complete the massive campaign. I even had my art major roomie making Drow and Kua-Toan paper stand up figures for minis for encounters.
Nice summary of the 2004 lists! Thank you! My personal adventure favourites of all time are both from the early "White Dwarf" magazine, and both by Albie Fiore, "The Halls of Tizun Thane" and "The Lichway". Fiore was a fascinating person and had a background in architecture, so the layouts for both those adventures were a totally new level of floorplan to us at the time. Another neat "first" (I think, and certainly as far as our adventures went back in the day) was in one of those adventures, there is another adventuring NPC party, that the player party can come across and work with or against. Fond memories of running both of those when they came out!
Red Hand of Doom should be in the top 50. Amazing adventure. My absolute favorite has always been The Ruins of Undermountain though. Ever since I bought it as a kid and opened the box to see those wonderful maps.
I played "Queen of the Spiders" before it was called that. It used to be separate modules. I can't count how often I DMed "Descent to the Depths of the Earth," "Shrine of the Kua-Toa", and all the rest. Definitely my favorite set of modules ever.
Hello There ! This vid popped up in my feed today, i was kinda chuckling. I've played D&D since the 1st basic edition. Keep is nice, it teaches alot. I still own That set, the Expert set, and the 1st edition Advanced set ,players handbook, DM guide, MM1 and 2 , Fiend Folio, Unearthed arcana, Deities and Demigods , think i have the immortal rule set still around as well. Some Modules that were not on this list, that you may want to check out ( in my opinion ) are : All that Glitters , the Pharoah series , The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (series U1-3) , and a couple of my favs, The assassins Knot, and Needle. So many other good ones as well. Enjoy !!!
My parents ran in a desert of desolation game when it came out and when my group of friends got to the appropriate level my dad adapted it to 5E and we ran it for that group, still using the same beat up book with the maps and hand outs. Hands down my favorite module
The Keep on the Borderlands was simply a classic. Was really my introduction into d&d and still enjoy playing this one to this day, there are so many twists and turns that can make each play through unique
In the day we played most of those top 30, with a still active group since 1980 playing AD&D, though I missed some that were played just before I joined, Temple of Elemental Evil, Dark Tower, and Ravenloft and the Dragon Lance series along the way. I have been through the original Tomb of Horrors twice, with the second time being an inset in a homebrew assassin's lair. The group had even played ToH before but, it was a truncated session where the party mounted a flying carpet and flew into the horned visage's mouth! I say all this to agree that today all play seems to be homebrews unless you are a new DM in 5E. So this triple video evoked a lot of nostalgia for those old adventures, some exciting times and others missed. Barrier Peaks was a big deal!! Loved so many of those listed, too many to recount. The best magazine adventures we played were City Beyond the Gate, which was a lot of hijinks in London, and Baba Yaga's Hut with extensive in-filling from the DM to make the place a magic item museum and monster bestiary from the Dragon magazine articles. All such good fun!
I ran a host of players through Return to the Tomb of Horrors back in 2000. The characters were in the 15th level range using AD&D 2nd Edition using the Player's Option books. All in all, fourteen (14) characters (and players) went through this module. Only six (6) made it to the final encounter, and then only four (4) emerged victorious from the module overall. I made it a high-end campaign for the characters that joined with their established toons. The rest were made using the experience required to make a 15th level Paladin half way to level 16. This was one of my best moments as a DM, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. The challenge was made clear before people entered the campaign, and they agreed that if they lost the character in that game, they would retire them permanently. The final battle against Acererak included a female half-elf Druid/Ranger of Meilikki (now deceased beyond even a wish), A human Paladin of Tyr (made it to the end victoriously, responsible for the killing blow), an elven Spellfilcher (Mage/Thief) who made it out alive, a human specialty priest of Lathander (dual classed from being a fighter early on) who emerged victorious, an elven War Wizard (Fighter/Mage) who also lived to tell the tale, and a Human fighter who bit the eternal dust. I recommend it to anyone who has a high level character. Just bring your courage with you, because if the DM runs it properly, people are gonna get salty when they take a hard fall from time to time. I absolutely loved some of the awesome traps in this module.
As others have said about Borderlands, it offers a cave system where the different monsters make sense. They interact with each other and have their own relationships/hierarchies with each other. Missing from the top 30 list are Journey to the Rock and Saga of the Shadowlord.
Keep On the Borderlands was also the first module played by a lot of people picking up the game for the first time back in the early 80s. Including me. You never forget your first time. By which I mean the first time your level 1 Dwarf gets hit by a level-draining undead...
Absolutely. “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” was the apotheosis of my AD&D. Was it module Q1, and was sort of the epilogue to a three-module series which preceded it? Long time ago. Still, I’ll NEVER forget that dungeon crawl. What a grinder! And Drow, and Duergar, and Svitfneblin, OH MY! Great, GREAT adventure. None else could’ve been Number One.
At the time, early 80's, they were all awesome if you had a good GM. Some I remember that weren't on your list, Keep on the Borderlands, Lost City, Castle Amber, Vault of the Drow, The Isle of Dread, The Assassins Knot. I specifically remember not ever getting Black Razor from the White Plume Mountain, most of my DnD mates were older than me and I usually ended up with Wave.
Keep on the Borderlands was the most thrilling, but only because I understood the game by the time I played it, and I was still a kid. Now I'm fond of the long adventures involving many books. The Skull and Shackles adventure path was pretty awesome.
I graduated HS in 84, played a bunch of those old modules, Tomb of Horrors was not a fun time (party wipe fairy quickly at the SoA portal), Barrier Peaks and White Plume Mountain were a blast, we also loved Temple of Elemental Evil (our GM was pretty good for back in the day pre-internet, handled it like a boss), but queen of the Spiders was EPIC. We even did one of the battlesystem battles in the demonweb pits (Maldev I think), and the big fight against the lieutenants was insane, soooo close to a TPK. I also personally loved the Ghost Tower of Inverness, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and Castle Greyhawk.
I have played several of these over the years, Queen of Spiders, Temple of Elemental Evil, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Keep on the Borderlands. Mostly when I was in high school (back in the 80s) and not much of a player or DM. I have mixed feelings about some of them. A 3.5 player myself, I do enjoy revamping old AD&D modules and running them. I'd love to take a new look at these once I finish my current DragonLance run (we're in our 11th DragonLance module right now out of 13). I did try a 3.5 Temple run online during the pandemic. Online certainly did not help the game, but once we got past the Village of Hommlet, it just bogged into a painful dungeon crawl and I abandoned it. Not sure if I'll get to any of these though. My players are eager for me to keep running additional DragonLance adventures, including the new 5e one (ack, going to have to actually learn the 5e rules). One old module they are eager for me to convert and run, not on this list, is Vecna Lives!
I can't argue with this list, but I was hoping U1 "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" would be in there. We played mostly homemade adventures; published modules were a bit of a treat. But even so we played U1 a ridiculous number if times (same group, varying DM). Maybe we played more of the gritty lowlife settings than epic heros - the bar-room brawl was always popular (up to 20 players!) - and so the main setting of a confined, cluttered, and detailed "haunted house" was a fresh change from the usual castles and dungeons. I don't recall anyone getting U2+ though - but these are all in the Tales book for 5E.
I've ran and played Against the Giants/Queen of Spiders in the 80's but we only got as far as the Drow City, which is far enough for any surface dweller. The possible stories and intrigues and plot threads that could be had from these interlacing modules is immense. The amount of DM creation possibilities were endless.
I've run Temple of Elemental Evil many times over the years. It's such a beast but a highly great time for folks who like classic dungeon crawls. I'm finding that running it as a VTT game is really helpful. The dungeons are MASSIVE, so players can get bogged down with trying to map everything. I built a 5e conversion in FoundryVTT, and I'm loving it.
B2: Keep on the Borderlands is the ideal adventure in my opinion and the one that any aspiring DM should read and run first. Definitely generic fantasy, but opens the world to making and shaping as if you, the DM, see fits. No arguments with Queen of the Spiders being number 1 though, it is the original and iconic adventure path campaign.
Loved the NPC record keeper in the back pages of the Keep on the Borderlands. I believe it also contained a shorthand way to make your own Quicky NPS (either that or the NPS Quicklist was just highly compatible with quick creation guides I have found elsewhere).
I ran White Plume Mountain as a DM, and it was a blast! I played through the giant/drow modules as a player and loved them! I've used the giant modules in my own campaign world, and they were very easy to adapt and enjoyed by my players.
Queen of Spiders is also Against the Giant series of modules, and the D1 and D2 modules which feature other Underdark type races, before you get to Q1 and sure you get Drow before that, but it is a climax module and really the precursor to the later Drow inspired modules which there are a few good examples, and that is among the reasons why it is number 1.
My favorite of all time, which I unfortunately did not get to play just read, was the Rod of Seven Parts. I am fascinated by numbered objects, and the "hiding in plain sight" nature of these rod parts and the various ways to combine them was just fun.
The Full Queen of Spiders (G1-3/D1-2/Q1) and Temple of Elemental Evil are pretty much tied in my mind for greatest Quests of D&D history. Nothing else even comes close. There were other great modules to be sure, and many of the best are listed here, but Questing in D&D, that is still best defined by these epic adventure series.
Loved the list, at some point or other since I started playing in 1981 I've either DM'd or went through as a player most of these. Every one was special in some way, and they all just made me want to game that much more. If you unfamiliar with Rappan Athuk, you should check it out. Talk about a "module" that has never been completed. It is a vicious beast of a campaign. And if you like them, it's the mother of all dungeon crawls.
Keep on the Borderlands was also the first adventure a lot of people ran and played. I still stands up today, and was involved in the 5e playtest (DnD Next). I've probably run it a dozen times over the years.
I'd include B5 Horror on the Hill in a best of list. Classic basic adventure with interesting groups of adversaries and locations and it ends with a dragon fight. At least as good I feel as Keep on the Borderlands for use as a starter/low level adventure.
Great list over the past few videos. Always enjoy seeing a history of the game since I only started in 5e a couple years ago. So much inspiration to be had.
I played D&D And AD&D from like 1979 to 1985 mainly.The most fun module i played and ran was The Castle Amber module.The dungeon i would start any new people with was a dungeon from Dragon magazine #55 called "The creature of Rhyll".It was a dungeon sent in by a fan of the game and i found it was so perfect and easy to understand for beginning players
1. Keep on the Borderlands - I ran this in the 80s as a DM. 2. Spider Queen - I read these modules after getting to know the Giant series and loved every minute of their detail and story. 3. Tomb of Horrors - have played the 5e version with a brilliant and fun DM. 4. White Plume Mountain - flogged to death by the DDAL community. 5. Ravenloft - I am running this now, and it's hard to prepare for, but it's the most rewarding campaign I've ever been involved in. So much fun and roleplaying. Potentially the best module/adventure in D&D.
Keep on the Borderland innovated adventure design by giving us the first true sandbox module. By that I mean it gave you a detailed home base of the Keep, various wilderness encounters around the home base, and the iconic Caves of Chaos. Most people on first blush misunderstand what the caves are, sometimes describing it as a random monster condo. What's really going on is only implied. The power behind Cave K is drawing armies of chaotic humanoids together to push back on the encroachment of the forces of law. There is also some nuance with potential for intrigue within the Keep as well as Gygax testing players' morals by including helpless young of the different monster groups. Not to mention, there might be more treasure and magic items inside the Keep than in all of the caves. It's one of my favorite modules. You wouldn't have Lost Mines of Phandelver without it. Speaking of which, to me, Phandelver is the best official 5e adventure by a long ways. The other good ones (in my opinion) are all rehashes of older adventures: Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, Ghosts of Salt Marsh, and Yawning Portal. And even those are pretty overwritten and bloated with long read-aloud text and important details obscured in paragraphs. I think the best adventures for 5e are all third-party publishers or individual creators, like Kelsey Dionne or Joseph Robert Lewis. Finally, Queen of the Spiders is better broken up into its individual modules, published between 78 - 80. The three giant modules (G1-3) are among the very best. D1-D3 was great too, particularly Vault of the Drow. Q1 is underwhelming and okay at best.
We had a lot of fun playing the first Ravenloft setting adventure Feast of Goblyns. Has a lot of the classic gothic tropes (werewolves, vampires, etc.). Plus it came with a poster of the cover art.
The great thing about Keep on the Borderlands is that it was kind of a mini-campaign rather than simply being a dungeon to explore. You were given a base of operations as well as a hostile environment, and that environment wasn't a single monolithic group under one leader but the lairs of different tribes of humanoids, against whom it was assumed the players would make numerous sallies. I think the thing that sets it out even among early modules was that it contained notes about the kind of events that would take place between forays by the party: whether humanoid reinforcements were available, what kind of traps and fortifications would be set up, whether they would ally with other humanoid tribes/factions (one, for example, would hire the ogre to help them _in extremis._ So the Caves of Chaos were treated as an evolving location which would change in reaction to the players' actions rather than a static set of explorable locations. And, it must be remembered, this was the module that came packed in with the Basic Set, so even while running it as their first adventure, both DMs and players are absorbing lessons about how campaigns work as living things. And on top of that, the Caves of Chaos also include two encounter locations that are unconnected to the humanoid factions: the minotaur labyrinth (which itself was a much different kind of play experience) and the actual Chaotic temple.that served as kind of a "final dungeon" that ended the campaign and probably left the characters ready to leave the Keep and set out on the wilderness/travel adventures that were the hallmark of early Expert-level play. That said, the absence of B7, _Rahasia,_ from the top-30 list makes me sad. The return of the Wizard of Wines in _Curse of Strahd_ gave me the biggest nostalgia-fueled grin...
I think H1 Bloodstone Pass and WG6 Isle of the Ape stand out also. Bloodstone Pass introduced Battle system which gave characters the chance to be "generals" in an army. Considering that D&D grew out of Chainmail, which was a wargame fought with miniatures, it was nice to have a way to simulate high level characters and their underlings fighting a large scale battle. Isle of the Ape was another high level setting which challenged the players with trying to survive in a hostile environment in which attrition is a problem and an excellent challenge for those who thought they were so high level that they were "invincible".
I loved running Bloodstone Pass. It was challenging for the high level groups, especially when they visit the Duergar caves. Then of course there is the trip to hell to play through. Very entertaining.
Been playing since 78 or 79 and still run my table with modules, trying to find a way to pull them into a coherent story. So many people more creative than me. FWIW, I have played or DM'd all of these but Elemental Evil
Again Tomb of Horrors -- led to my 20th level Mage -- AD&D -- survived -- lost legs - permanently -- and only 2 of the 7 players survived. AGAIN awesome -- AD&D rules RULE
My friend at the time insisted on playing his Gamma World character in original The Tomb of Horrors mod claiming that his character was super awesome. His character: An android (like Data from Star Trek) was composed of both organic and inorganic components. Lets just say, parts of him went one place and parts of him went to another when he went through the misty portal at the beginning.
I am fortunate to have owned, played, or GMed a fair number of adventures on this list. For a new list, I would add Red Hand of Doom (3e). It shifted my thinking about so many things in an adventure (dungeon size, front-loaded magic items, world events, ...). I have run it several times, and it remains one of my favorite adventures.
The Slaver's series should be in the top 10 Also, if by "adventures" you mean "module" then this list is perfectly fine. If you use "adventure" in its wider application then the BEST adventure of all time is the The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb by Mike Shel from Dungeon Magazine #37.
White Plume Mountain was a whack of fun. Too much fun with Keep on the Borderlands and ran it with my nieces and nephews maybe 6 years ago. I could run this module in my sleep. Had a Minotaur maze. Had a Medusa. Had Skeletons. Jason and the Argonauts would pray to have this adventure . My best friend had his first character ripped to shreds by an Owl Bear. One character became doomed to guard the ewers of the Evil Temple forever. I upgraded the big bad in the Temple of the Unknown as evil leaders who had assembled all the creatures in the Caves and were using them as commerce raiders , as they worked to convert various captives to evil. Good times. Egyptian
You did not mention that Amber Castle's mist/fog idea predates Ravenloft and is the source/inspiration for the Bavarian Fog, so that Amber Castle is not 'like' Ravenloft which I think you stated in your other video, rather Ravenloft is like Amber Castle module, and the concept of a 'demi-plane', and the idea of a land removed, with a tortured master or 'dark lord' which in the case of Castle Amber is the Amber family itself.
B1 was, for most groups of the time, their first sandbox adventure - where there was adventure both inside of and outside of the dungeon. I have run B1... gods, I have forgotten how many times, with at least five entirely different 'Beyond the Borderlands' campaigns. Maybe not my favorite, but certainly the adventure that I have run most often
I must admit my favourites are pretty much the staples of every list going, Keep on the borderlands, White plume, Ravenloft etc, what I will say the main reason they were good was our DM at the time, he was so good without being over the top or cringe as well as managing the pace of the game, he convinced me to play so many other games I wouldn't normally play as I was an AD&D fascist and nothing else was good enough when I was young.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is my favorite on this top 10. I’ve never played or DMd it but have the original release print and intend to run it along my run of Dwellers of the Forbidden City. I’ve even incorporated a Froghemoth into Dwellers as a connection between the two. I’m giving honorable mention to Tomb of the Lizard King (might be the deadliest module for the levels of the PCs of any module) and Baltron’s Beacon (a slog through a swamp and a ruined keep filled with tricks, traps, treasure and some very nasty baddies).
I've ran Tomb of Horrors every year for probably the past 7 years as a one-shot adventure. I ran it in 5e once and it was definitely a lot easier, though they ironically did not survive. I did have one group, well 2 members out of 10, survive it in 1e though!
The Tomb of Horrors was a challenge to the early concept of metagaming rules lawyering and fluffmastering. Basically you started having certain people that would either think "but my backstory..." playing characters with Cha dump stats, but the player being very good at talking believing they could BS their characters way out of anything. Other players found out the best numeric options for play. Both became horrors at the table. Tomb of Horrors was a literal FU to those types. It didn't really test any unspoken rules, as the game actually naturally punished characters for wasting too much time in a warzone, trying to bypasse things like traps with a skill check or spell, or wanting to just fight. It forced people to really, really pay attention, and tricked them multiple times to believe they had actually won.
Absolutely. The Secret of Bone Hill was one of my staples for low-level parties not overly obsessed with plot and just wanting to explore as it had a nice balance between town-based, wilderness and dungeon encounters.
@@rcant3241 IIRC the L modules were a rarity at the time for presenting a "complete" setting, not just a dungeon crawl which most modules of the time were. A town, residents with details, rumors, wilderness events... fun stuff. I had fun fleshing out the major NPCs and motivations of the area, so the setting also had political powerplays going on, it wasn't just hack and slash.
@@Aeroldoth3 I didn't get so much into the politics at first (must have been around 1983-4) as our first group was just starting out, I had been lumbered with the DM role and my players were very much into the hack and slash/loot everything playstyle (they eventually tried breaking into the keep and had to be run out of town). Also, I was never able to get hold of L2 at the time, so had no idea about the eventual plotline. I loved Restenford as a base of operations, though, and focused on spinning together some of the interesting minor NPCs and the rumours table into enough level 1-2 encounters to prepare them for the main content. Over the years I fleshed it out a bit more to incorporate some Imagine and Dungeon magazine mini-modules. When I came back to it in the early 2000s with a younger (than me), RP-hungry 3Ed group completely unfamiliar with those older-edition modules we moved the setting to Ruathym in the Forgotten Realms and developed the bait dealer/spy NPC into a hook to segué into The Curse of Xanathon, an Expert 4-7 module coincidentally involving an evil high priest attempting to seize power. I dug Bone Hill out again recently with a bunch of other 1st/2nd Ed stuff to help a newbie group of my high school kids get started, so it will be interesting to see what, if anything, their DM makes of it.
I actually took the last two chapters of Return to the Tomb of Horrors and grafted that onto Tomb of Annihilation to make an epic finale for that game. It turned out awesome, Moil and the Fortress of Conclusion are phenomenal content for players!
Just recently I bought a book that has the 5E versions of in search of the unknown and keep on the borderlands. It also contains the original versions of modules b1 and b2.
Many of these are Greyhawk adventures, which is awesome! Keep on the Borderlands was the, or one of the, first adventure module(s) to have a home base to radiate out from...
Another thing to consider is that the 1e AD&D Monster Manual entry for Drow was literally just a paragraph in the general Elf entry that said "They're only a legend. They don't exist." Their appearance at the end of the Against the Giants trilogy (part of Queen of the Spiders) was the first time they had ever appeared. Players going through the original adventures would have never seen Drow before.
A pretty classic list, however a few too many 'return to's for my liking, which really limits the list. Missing out on the excellent late-era BECMI modules like B10 "Night's Dark Terror" is a crime - that module packs so much of a life and adventure into a few pages it's now the gold standard for the second module I run in most campaigns. Just so much there, and a lot to build on later on too. Creepy tone, danger, variety. Excellent. Also the Saltmarsh series for AD&D, etc. etc.
I've got the desert of desolation in a box in my closet. I didn't have anyone to play it with back then but I spent lots of time reading it and wishing I had a d&d group, lol
If I where adding an adventure to this list it would definitely be Erik Mona's "The Whispering Cairn". That might top my list as the greatest pre-made adventure I ever ran. It is just brilliant.
Keep on the Borderlands didn't have to redifine anything. It was included in the original boxed set that we all bought in about 1981, and therefore was common, highly played, and for most uf us, our first adventure. That is why it is so popular
Thank you so much for the videos. There was a great feeling of nostalgia seeing a lot of old school modules that I ran, both back in the 80's and a couple that I used as side quests during a homebrew campaign that I ran for a few years back in the late 90's-early 2000's. It's nice to see there are 5e versions of some of them, so I know where I will be leaning for extra content if I start running a game again.
Loved the list, I remember by dwarf fighter Hakignm Strongarm lost 2 levels from draining and it was so intense to get clear of Strahd. I also remember my human fighter Jordan Ironwolf delivering the killing blow to Lloth! Great times, thanks for sharing!
My DM is running Goodmans 5e Temple of Elemental Evil, but it's coming to quick end because the 2 30 year olds are not happy playing it. It's too unforgiving to them. The Temple is a horror house and they want bouncyhouse DnD.
There was another series from the late 70s/early 80s, Giants of the Steading (I think that was the series) Three modules with increasing difficulty leading to a follow up module against the Drow.
A lot of the old modules were created for tournament play, random groups of players using pre-generated characters, and running an adventure against a time limit trying to score as many points as possible. And the tournaments amounted to early D&D play-testing as well, since many of them were released to the public and became classics. It's pretty amazing when you think about it, a real credit to the designers.
I haven't played or run Tomb of Horrors, but I kind of want to. I think it would be an interesting one to do as a dream sequence, and once everyone inevitably dies, they all wake up, and maybe like some of the Critical Role one shots, the person who made it the furthest gets a little, non game altering, bump or item. That could be interesting, I think.
I love tomb of horrors. As a test and romp through classic dungeon. Also queen of the spiders is good. It's the last part of that book that is disaster
This series demonstrates how 5E drew From and revamped the most iconic adventures from D&D history into their release schedule: Tyranny of Dragons (Tiamat) Princes of the Apocalypse (Temple of Elemental Evil) Out of the Abyss (Queen of Spiders) Storm King’s Thunder (Against the Giants) Tomb of Annihilation (Isle of Dread/Tomb of Horrors) Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal just add to that sense.
I definitely see the value of these and the potential fun. there's just so much to play and so little time - how am I going to be able to play a written module and yet get to all these wacky ideas in my own head and yet also have a normal life? that and somehow have others commit to all these DnD games too. so much DnD goodness, so little time.
Im so glad that a lot of these older great models have been brought to 5e. I’m a AD&D player, but as a brand new 5e DM Im thrilled that I can still run these more dungeon crawly adventures!
Keep on the Borderlands didn't 'redefine' adventure making - it arguably defined it. At least in the style that Gygax and crew envisioned the game, before 'narrative' style play came into vogue. It was a setting based scenario with a secure homebase, no laid out plot, and capable of sustaining play for multiple overlapping groups - West Marches style before the term 'West Marches' had been coined. That one book can keep your group occupied for months. I do recommend it with OSR games, but if you're doing 5e check out Goodman Games' Into the Borderlands update.
I really agree with you here. This was the adventure that taught me and many, many, Dungeon Masters how to play - what this was all about. This started the process. I was hugely influenced by Dragon Lance (even while coming to the conclusion that it was actually unrunnable so far as I could tell) and the Hickman style of adventures that proliferated Dungeon Magazine after Ravenloft and Dragonlance but it all started with Keep on the Borderlands.
@@JeremyMacDonald1973 very important to recognise how much of how to dm was learnt from that modules and others in the B series. Not just the DM instructions but also the structure and content
I concur.
@@JeremyMacDonald1973 I had a few false starts as a newbie DM, but eventually we filled the holes of the (bad rules writing) gray areas and soldiered on.
Ran Tomb of Horrors years ago for my 2e AD&D players. fortunately for them, 'Groundhog Day' had come out the year before, so I ran it as a 'time loop' dungeon, where the game reset on the death of all the characters, allowing them to restart their session replete with the knowledge of their previous attempts. Played that way, my players were free to experiment and 'enjoy' the experience.
That's a great idea!
That is a great idea.
Love this idea! Definitely gotta give this a shot
That's genius, my hats off to you good sir.
That is an amazing idea! Not that I'm going to steal it but....okay, I'm going to steal it.
I believe "Keep on the Borderlands" is actually the most played adventure of all time.
It's a great example of how to run a persistent location for multiple parties. The base is close to a dungeon so the GM can run a real time game of competing teams spelunking deeper and deeper.
It came with the D&D Basic set, in glorious hot pink, so that's probably a given.
Goodman Games has a great reprint. I've been running it with some newbie teenage boys. They're having a blast and it isn't too complicated which is perfect.
It's sort of similar to the first D&D computer game Pool of Radiance. The premise is very simple and straightforward. You have a base of operations and the bad guy is over there down the block.
Either this or the Village of Homlet.
Way back in the 80's, we ran thru Barrier Peaks for the 1st time. The guy being the DM was great at explaining visualizations. The whole thing was theater of the mind and we were far into it before someone realized we were in a spaceship. If I remember right he said "F...! We're on the Enterprise".
That sounds great
Same here, I still remember the fantastic picture booklet in that module, it absolutely blew my mind as a kid. Fell in love with D&D, and when I look at those classic modules it always brings me such positive vibes.
It had a Gamma World crossover that rocked. Playing it that way was very awesome!
I think we went overly Mappy on this module and ended up going through what turned out to be dozens and dozens and dozens of empty stainless steel rooms on this space ship. Ran into similar problems with Dwellers of the Forbidden City and the non-fleshed out abandoned city. So many Empty Buildings.
Theater of the mind would have worked better for this part of the adventure.
I wonder if it's impossible to spring this surprise on players exploring OSR, who probably have already heard of this module? Is it the "I am your father" of RPG plot twists?
The Keep on the Borderlands was the first adventure that had a home base (the Keep) for the players to return to in between forays into the caves. It became the basis for "the players meet in a tavern" that got adopted by the other D&D co-designers for so many written adventures to follow. It is such a common concept now that even you fail to realize this is the adventure that invented it. It is also the model for the Sandbox campaign.
I would put this one at the top of my list.
@@IAmAlgolei Love this one and the Elf or Dwarven wanderer and the Cleric with his two mute assistants and the various generic F1 hirelings all to be found in the bar in the Keep.
Another aspect is the fact that your first level players could walk into a level that was designed for higher level pcs Had to be very careful on this one
It was also included with the Basic D&D box sets for years, so it became the model adventure for many a young DM.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Definitely the first module we owned. And I love meeting characters in a tavern. Im always a little disappointed now when there isn't something going on in the bar. There was a one shot bar brawl scenario in one of the White Dwarf magazines where everyone in the bar had something against everyone else. I think the main protagonist was a ranger without the cover charge who had been tracking a wererat to the bar. The Half Ogre(orc?) bouncer was keeping him out. There is a CE fighter in the bar who hates demi humans. There is a couple of dwarves dancing . They have a small yappy dog. Another lady has a pet panther curled up under her table. There is a cat familiar wandering about and a druid talking to a rat. There is a monk brawler at the bar and a gladiator with two admirers . Also an assassin thief who is attempting to feed people at the bar a mickey a rob them. Oh and a LG cleric who feels compelled to defend women. Someone else who hates animals. One of the waitresses is trying to entice characters upstairs where her partner can cosh and rob them. And the bartender has a big iron club behind the bar.
And a rake looking for a willing partner. You play about three rounds of encounters and there is a bar room brawl. Great fun. Everyone has a story.
The reason that Keep on the Borderlands, is so high on the list is because it's where almost every player, and I mean almost 100% of players in the late 70s started playing.
I started playing earlier, when the boxed set had B1, In Search of the Unknown. It had a modular design, and allowed a new DM to plug and play with monsters and treasure in each room, rather than go with preset ones.
Keep on the Borderlands is my favorite module. I've probably run it two dozen times now. I just think the way it sets up the central hub town, with an open world and a bunch of dungeons to crawl is the heart of what I love about D&D. I have a lot of fun with the NPC's especially the evil cleric and his two acolytes. Leading a 1st level party into that ambush is way too much fun. I also love the factions. On the surface it seems like humans vs caves of chaos, but you learn that the chaos cultists are in town too, and in the caves, there is infighting or alliances between the monster tribes that allow for tons of creative roleplaying and strategy for the players. Make them fight each other.
I remember buying the basic and expert d&d. Then came advanced d&d. mind was blown. New character classes, combat was more developed, more spells, etc. thanks again for your show.
Keep on the Borderlands is iconic. It defined the "small town surrounded by wilderness and a dungeon complex nearby" structure that works so good in D&D even to this day.
Keep On The Borderlands is the first module I played and got me hooked on D&D. Ravenloft is the best setting in my opinion. Great video series!
Jorphdan, your comparison of Tomb of Horror to the Kobayashi Maru is surprisingly accurate. Kudos.
Queen of the Spiders combines arguably the best set of modules that create a cohesive story. Against the Giants starts hinting at the drow influence and then as you realize they’re behind thing, you go to Decent in the Depths of the Earth to chase them. This leads you to the Vault of the Drow to confront them and then the Queen of the Demon Web Pits to confront their god. Having gone through it, I can see why it was placed at number one.
Probably one of the best module arcs of AD&D
I am unsure if g1 and g2 were actually part of the series, but they were precursors to g3.
@@starcrafter13terran These 1st Ed. modules were all a series that started with the Slavers series (A1-A4), continued onto the Giant Series (G1-G3), which in turn led into the Drow series (D1-D3). It all wrapped up with Queen of the Demon Web Pits (Q1). It sounds like "Queen of the Spiders" combines the D series with Q1. Many of the staples for the game were introduced in these modules, including the drow and the Underdark. I believe that the Saltmarsh series (U1-U3) might also have been considered the start of the entire series, but I never played U2-U3. If so, it would give players a wonderful story arc that starts at level 1 and takes them up into the high levels.
@@starcrafter13terran they were
I have a special spot in my heart for B7, “Rhasia”, since it was the first module I owned.
B2 is so high up because it's ultimately a sandbox and teaches players old school concepts such as agency, piting factions against one another, and more! Also it's the only adventure where the title describes the town rather than the dungeon (Or maybe it still does describe the dungeon depending on your group.)
Yes, absolutely. The value of B2 was as an instructional module. It was meant to give new DMs a way to understand how the rules were meant to fit together. It's not going to blow your socks off, but it was very important in its time.
Don't forget Village of Hommlet (for a title describing the town)
Ravenloft is the greatest in my opinion. It forces the group to really rely on each other and work as a team. It drew my group of friends even closer back in the late 80’s
It's my favorite overall adventure. Strahd is just awesome.
My group is starting Curse of Strahd in the new year. We're looking forward to it but my hopes aren't very high for the survival of my basic bitch human wizard at level 1 with 14hp lol
Played tomb of horror : simply epic !!
Also played Labyrinth of madness (great adventure)
Ravenloft spawned a box set, because gothic was popular, and its different from tolkien. that's it. that's why it was popular. Strahd is just a dracula proxy.
A few additions I would make: the U series (U 1, 2, & 3 also known as the Saltmarsh series), because it marks the first time I'm aware of that the players are SUCKERED into fighting the wrong enemy altogether (a nasty surprise for players who just hack and slash their way across every dungeon). The other would be L2 The Assassin's Knot, which is the first time I know of that the NPC actions in an urban intrigue setting follow a timeline regardless of player inactivity. If the PCs don't investigate quickly enough, they could miss their chance.
The Slavers series A1-4 was my go to short notice series to run when friends wanted to play. It introduced the Thri-Kreen into D&D.
But yes, the Against the Giants series leading into the Demonweb series was such a great arc for higher level characters.
Iirc, if you were running the "full hat trick" then you started with A 1-4, then went on to GDQ.
@@DanielEastland YES.
SOOOOOOOOOOO SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@DanielEastland
One of my current DMs is actually doing this with us.
Half the group had never even seen 1st Edition AD&D before.
As a 40+ year gamer, I've played all of these except Barrier Peaks
Nope, it introduced the aspis which have not been used since
I always liked Castle Amber. It had a Lovecraftian feel not experienced in other modules.
I’d have Castle Amber, and at least one of the UK modules in my top ten. Probably Lost City too.
Castle Amber was a good one!
Absolutely loved that module. A classic, especially with the boxing match!
4:26 honestly keep on the borderland is amazing. Maybe the best adventure ever written.
Really worth running to see what people were playing back then.
it's the whole 'concept' of the adventure that is so good.
Keep on the Borderlands is such an iconic adventure it really encapsulates what DND started out as, a dungeon delver in search of loot and perils. It’s narrative may not be extremely complex but it’s got everything else down as a 1st intro adventure to what DND is at its core. On a side note I’d love to see the Demonweb Pits trilogy come to 5e
Queen of spiders is a collection of the earlier adventures of against the giants and drow series. Very good.
I can see why "Queen of Spiders" is #1 it was the first campaign module set (G1-3, D1-3, Q1) and should be considered the precursor to todays 5e module/books.
"Temple of Elemental Evil"(T1-4) recast as "Princes of the Apocalypse", "Ghosts of Saltmash" is U1-3 plus extras, but< as I knew them, the GDQ series is what started the idea of publishing campaigns instead of just one off adventures.
Thanks for remembering it better than I did ! It was the climax of TWO, not one, three-module sets which preceded it. It took us forever, but DAMN what a ride.
Which in many ways, led to the creation of the "Ravenloft" campaign setting, due to it's immense popularity.
It took an entire college year to complete the massive campaign. I even had my art major roomie making Drow and Kua-Toan paper stand up figures for minis for encounters.
Nice summary of the 2004 lists! Thank you! My personal adventure favourites of all time are both from the early "White Dwarf" magazine, and both by Albie Fiore, "The Halls of Tizun Thane" and "The Lichway". Fiore was a fascinating person and had a background in architecture, so the layouts for both those adventures were a totally new level of floorplan to us at the time. Another neat "first" (I think, and certainly as far as our adventures went back in the day) was in one of those adventures, there is another adventuring NPC party, that the player party can come across and work with or against. Fond memories of running both of those when they came out!
Red Hand of Doom should be in the top 50. Amazing adventure. My absolute favorite has always been The Ruins of Undermountain though. Ever since I bought it as a kid and opened the box to see those wonderful maps.
I played "Queen of the Spiders" before it was called that. It used to be separate modules. I can't count how often I DMed "Descent to the Depths of the Earth," "Shrine of the Kua-Toa", and all the rest. Definitely my favorite set of modules ever.
My D&D Group started playing together in 1994 in the Temple of Elemental Evil (Which we finished). We still play (almost) every Monday night.
Hello There ! This vid popped up in my feed today, i was kinda chuckling. I've played D&D since the 1st basic edition. Keep is nice, it teaches alot. I still own That set, the Expert set, and the 1st edition Advanced set ,players handbook, DM guide, MM1 and 2 , Fiend Folio, Unearthed arcana, Deities and Demigods , think i have the immortal rule set still around as well. Some Modules that were not on this list, that you may want to check out ( in my opinion ) are : All that Glitters , the Pharoah series , The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (series U1-3) , and a couple of my favs, The assassins Knot, and Needle. So many other good ones as well. Enjoy !!!
My parents ran in a desert of desolation game when it came out and when my group of friends got to the appropriate level my dad adapted it to 5E and we ran it for that group, still using the same beat up book with the maps and hand outs. Hands down my favorite module
Oh man, as a veteran since 1982 this was a walk down memory lane as I played all 10 Adventures, great times. Thank you.
The Keep on the Borderlands was simply a classic. Was really my introduction into d&d and still enjoy playing this one to this day, there are so many twists and turns that can make each play through unique
In the day we played most of those top 30, with a still active group since 1980 playing AD&D, though I missed some that were played just before I joined, Temple of Elemental Evil, Dark Tower, and Ravenloft and the Dragon Lance series along the way. I have been through the original Tomb of Horrors twice, with the second time being an inset in a homebrew assassin's lair. The group had even played ToH before but, it was a truncated session where the party mounted a flying carpet and flew into the horned visage's mouth! I say all this to agree that today all play seems to be homebrews unless you are a new DM in 5E. So this triple video evoked a lot of nostalgia for those old adventures, some exciting times and others missed. Barrier Peaks was a big deal!! Loved so many of those listed, too many to recount. The best magazine adventures we played were City Beyond the Gate, which was a lot of hijinks in London, and Baba Yaga's Hut with extensive in-filling from the DM to make the place a magic item museum and monster bestiary from the Dragon magazine articles. All such good fun!
I ran a host of players through Return to the Tomb of Horrors back in 2000. The characters were in the 15th level range using AD&D 2nd Edition using the Player's Option books. All in all, fourteen (14) characters (and players) went through this module. Only six (6) made it to the final encounter, and then only four (4) emerged victorious from the module overall.
I made it a high-end campaign for the characters that joined with their established toons. The rest were made using the experience required to make a 15th level Paladin half way to level 16.
This was one of my best moments as a DM, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. The challenge was made clear before people entered the campaign, and they agreed that if they lost the character in that game, they would retire them permanently.
The final battle against Acererak included a female half-elf Druid/Ranger of Meilikki (now deceased beyond even a wish), A human Paladin of Tyr (made it to the end victoriously, responsible for the killing blow), an elven Spellfilcher (Mage/Thief) who made it out alive, a human specialty priest of Lathander (dual classed from being a fighter early on) who emerged victorious, an elven War Wizard (Fighter/Mage) who also lived to tell the tale, and a Human fighter who bit the eternal dust.
I recommend it to anyone who has a high level character. Just bring your courage with you, because if the DM runs it properly, people are gonna get salty when they take a hard fall from time to time.
I absolutely loved some of the awesome traps in this module.
As others have said about Borderlands, it offers a cave system where the different monsters make sense. They interact with each other and have their own relationships/hierarchies with each other. Missing from the top 30 list are Journey to the Rock and Saga of the Shadowlord.
Keep On the Borderlands was also the first module played by a lot of people picking up the game for the first time back in the early 80s. Including me. You never forget your first time.
By which I mean the first time your level 1 Dwarf gets hit by a level-draining undead...
Nice to see some of the old modules I ran through with friends way back in the day. Thanks for the nostalgic look back.
Absolutely. “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” was the apotheosis of my AD&D. Was it module Q1, and was sort of the epilogue to a three-module series which preceded it? Long time ago. Still, I’ll NEVER forget that dungeon crawl. What a grinder! And Drow, and Duergar, and Svitfneblin, OH MY!
Great, GREAT adventure. None else could’ve been Number One.
At the time, early 80's, they were all awesome if you had a good GM. Some I remember that weren't on your list, Keep on the Borderlands, Lost City, Castle Amber, Vault of the Drow, The Isle of Dread, The Assassins Knot. I specifically remember not ever getting Black Razor from the White Plume Mountain, most of my DnD mates were older than me and I usually ended up with Wave.
Keep on the Borderlands was the most thrilling, but only because I understood the game by the time I played it, and I was still a kid. Now I'm fond of the long adventures involving many books. The Skull and Shackles adventure path was pretty awesome.
I graduated HS in 84, played a bunch of those old modules, Tomb of Horrors was not a fun time (party wipe fairy quickly at the SoA portal), Barrier Peaks and White Plume Mountain were a blast, we also loved Temple of Elemental Evil (our GM was pretty good for back in the day pre-internet, handled it like a boss), but queen of the Spiders was EPIC. We even did one of the battlesystem battles in the demonweb pits (Maldev I think), and the big fight against the lieutenants was insane, soooo close to a TPK.
I also personally loved the Ghost Tower of Inverness, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and Castle Greyhawk.
This series is so nice I watched it twice! Thanks Jorphadan 😊
I have played several of these over the years, Queen of Spiders, Temple of Elemental Evil, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Keep on the Borderlands. Mostly when I was in high school (back in the 80s) and not much of a player or DM. I have mixed feelings about some of them. A 3.5 player myself, I do enjoy revamping old AD&D modules and running them. I'd love to take a new look at these once I finish my current DragonLance run (we're in our 11th DragonLance module right now out of 13). I did try a 3.5 Temple run online during the pandemic. Online certainly did not help the game, but once we got past the Village of Hommlet, it just bogged into a painful dungeon crawl and I abandoned it. Not sure if I'll get to any of these though. My players are eager for me to keep running additional DragonLance adventures, including the new 5e one (ack, going to have to actually learn the 5e rules). One old module they are eager for me to convert and run, not on this list, is Vecna Lives!
I can't argue with this list, but I was hoping U1 "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" would be in there.
We played mostly homemade adventures; published modules were a bit of a treat. But even so we played U1 a ridiculous number if times (same group, varying DM).
Maybe we played more of the gritty lowlife settings than epic heros - the bar-room brawl was always popular (up to 20 players!) - and so the main setting of a confined, cluttered, and detailed "haunted house" was a fresh change from the usual castles and dungeons. I don't recall anyone getting U2+ though - but these are all in the Tales book for 5E.
I've ran and played Against the Giants/Queen of Spiders in the 80's but we only got as far as the Drow City, which is far enough for any surface dweller. The possible stories and intrigues and plot threads that could be had from these interlacing modules is immense. The amount of DM creation possibilities were endless.
Very good list. I would have added "The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth", "Ravager of Time" and of course, the DragonLance Saga.
I've run Temple of Elemental Evil many times over the years. It's such a beast but a highly great time for folks who like classic dungeon crawls.
I'm finding that running it as a VTT game is really helpful. The dungeons are MASSIVE, so players can get bogged down with trying to map everything. I built a 5e conversion in FoundryVTT, and I'm loving it.
As a player we died in TOEE. As a DM a few times we just kind of petered out. But we've also had a few TPKs.
B2: Keep on the Borderlands is the ideal adventure in my opinion and the one that any aspiring DM should read and run first. Definitely generic fantasy, but opens the world to making and shaping as if you, the DM, see fits. No arguments with Queen of the Spiders being number 1 though, it is the original and iconic adventure path campaign.
Loved the NPC record keeper in the back pages of the Keep on the Borderlands. I believe it also contained a shorthand way to make your own Quicky NPS (either that or the NPS Quicklist was just highly compatible with quick creation guides I have found elsewhere).
I ran White Plume Mountain as a DM, and it was a blast! I played through the giant/drow modules as a player and loved them! I've used the giant modules in my own campaign world, and they were very easy to adapt and enjoyed by my players.
Queen of Spiders is also Against the Giant series of modules, and the D1 and D2 modules which feature other Underdark type races, before you get to Q1 and sure you get Drow before that, but it is a climax module and really the precursor to the later Drow inspired modules which there are a few good examples, and that is among the reasons why it is number 1.
My favorite of all time, which I unfortunately did not get to play just read, was the Rod of Seven Parts. I am fascinated by numbered objects, and the "hiding in plain sight" nature of these rod parts and the various ways to combine them was just fun.
The Full Queen of Spiders (G1-3/D1-2/Q1) and Temple of Elemental Evil are pretty much tied in my mind for greatest Quests of D&D history. Nothing else even comes close. There were other great modules to be sure, and many of the best are listed here, but Questing in D&D, that is still best defined by these epic adventure series.
Loved the list, at some point or other since I started playing in 1981 I've either DM'd or went through as a player most of these. Every one was special in some way, and they all just made me want to game that much more. If you unfamiliar with Rappan Athuk, you should check it out. Talk about a "module" that has never been completed. It is a vicious beast of a campaign. And if you like them, it's the mother of all dungeon crawls.
Keep on the Borderlands was also the first adventure a lot of people ran and played. I still stands up today, and was involved in the 5e playtest (DnD Next). I've probably run it a dozen times over the years.
I'd include B5 Horror on the Hill in a best of list. Classic basic adventure with interesting groups of adversaries and locations and it ends with a dragon fight. At least as good I feel as Keep on the Borderlands for use as a starter/low level adventure.
Great list over the past few videos.
Always enjoy seeing a history of the game since I only started in 5e a couple years ago.
So much inspiration to be had.
I played D&D And AD&D from like 1979 to 1985 mainly.The most fun module i played and ran was The Castle Amber module.The dungeon i would start any new people with was a dungeon from Dragon magazine #55 called "The creature of Rhyll".It was a dungeon sent in by a fan of the game and i found it was so perfect and easy to understand for beginning players
1. Keep on the Borderlands - I ran this in the 80s as a DM.
2. Spider Queen - I read these modules after getting to know the Giant series and loved every minute of their detail and story.
3. Tomb of Horrors - have played the 5e version with a brilliant and fun DM.
4. White Plume Mountain - flogged to death by the DDAL community.
5. Ravenloft - I am running this now, and it's hard to prepare for, but it's the most rewarding campaign I've ever been involved in. So much fun and roleplaying. Potentially the best module/adventure in D&D.
Keep on the Borderland innovated adventure design by giving us the first true sandbox module. By that I mean it gave you a detailed home base of the Keep, various wilderness encounters around the home base, and the iconic Caves of Chaos. Most people on first blush misunderstand what the caves are, sometimes describing it as a random monster condo. What's really going on is only implied. The power behind Cave K is drawing armies of chaotic humanoids together to push back on the encroachment of the forces of law. There is also some nuance with potential for intrigue within the Keep as well as Gygax testing players' morals by including helpless young of the different monster groups. Not to mention, there might be more treasure and magic items inside the Keep than in all of the caves. It's one of my favorite modules. You wouldn't have Lost Mines of Phandelver without it.
Speaking of which, to me, Phandelver is the best official 5e adventure by a long ways. The other good ones (in my opinion) are all rehashes of older adventures: Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, Ghosts of Salt Marsh, and Yawning Portal. And even those are pretty overwritten and bloated with long read-aloud text and important details obscured in paragraphs. I think the best adventures for 5e are all third-party publishers or individual creators, like Kelsey Dionne or Joseph Robert Lewis.
Finally, Queen of the Spiders is better broken up into its individual modules, published between 78 - 80. The three giant modules (G1-3) are among the very best. D1-D3 was great too, particularly Vault of the Drow. Q1 is underwhelming and okay at best.
We had a lot of fun playing the first Ravenloft setting adventure Feast of Goblyns. Has a lot of the classic gothic tropes (werewolves, vampires, etc.). Plus it came with a poster of the cover art.
The great thing about Keep on the Borderlands is that it was kind of a mini-campaign rather than simply being a dungeon to explore. You were given a base of operations as well as a hostile environment, and that environment wasn't a single monolithic group under one leader but the lairs of different tribes of humanoids, against whom it was assumed the players would make numerous sallies. I think the thing that sets it out even among early modules was that it contained notes about the kind of events that would take place between forays by the party: whether humanoid reinforcements were available, what kind of traps and fortifications would be set up, whether they would ally with other humanoid tribes/factions (one, for example, would hire the ogre to help them _in extremis._ So the Caves of Chaos were treated as an evolving location which would change in reaction to the players' actions rather than a static set of explorable locations. And, it must be remembered, this was the module that came packed in with the Basic Set, so even while running it as their first adventure, both DMs and players are absorbing lessons about how campaigns work as living things. And on top of that, the Caves of Chaos also include two encounter locations that are unconnected to the humanoid factions: the minotaur labyrinth (which itself was a much different kind of play experience) and the actual Chaotic temple.that served as kind of a "final dungeon" that ended the campaign and probably left the characters ready to leave the Keep and set out on the wilderness/travel adventures that were the hallmark of early Expert-level play.
That said, the absence of B7, _Rahasia,_ from the top-30 list makes me sad. The return of the Wizard of Wines in _Curse of Strahd_ gave me the biggest nostalgia-fueled grin...
I Love how this channel slowly evolved from a Realmslore video to an OSR channel. Pretty much accompanying my own Journey.
We've all come full circle.
I think H1 Bloodstone Pass and WG6 Isle of the Ape stand out also. Bloodstone Pass introduced Battle system which gave characters the chance to be "generals" in an army. Considering that D&D grew out of Chainmail, which was a wargame fought with miniatures, it was nice to have a way to simulate high level characters and their underlings fighting a large scale battle. Isle of the Ape was another high level setting which challenged the players with trying to survive in a hostile environment in which attrition is a problem and an excellent challenge for those who thought they were so high level that they were "invincible".
I loved running Bloodstone Pass. It was challenging for the high level groups, especially when they visit the Duergar caves. Then of course there is the trip to hell to play through. Very entertaining.
Been playing since 78 or 79 and still run my table with modules, trying to find a way to pull them into a coherent story. So many people more creative than me.
FWIW, I have played or DM'd all of these but Elemental Evil
Again Tomb of Horrors -- led to my 20th level Mage -- AD&D -- survived -- lost legs - permanently -- and only 2 of the 7 players survived. AGAIN awesome -- AD&D rules RULE
My friend at the time insisted on playing his Gamma World character in original The Tomb of Horrors mod claiming that his character was super awesome. His character: An android (like Data from Star Trek) was composed of both organic and inorganic components. Lets just say, parts of him went one place and parts of him went to another when he went through the misty portal at the beginning.
I am fortunate to have owned, played, or GMed a fair number of adventures on this list.
For a new list, I would add Red Hand of Doom (3e). It shifted my thinking about so many things in an adventure (dungeon size, front-loaded magic items, world events, ...). I have run it several times, and it remains one of my favorite adventures.
The Slaver's series should be in the top 10
Also, if by "adventures" you mean "module" then this list is perfectly fine. If you use "adventure" in its wider application then the BEST adventure of all time is the The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb by Mike Shel from Dungeon Magazine #37.
I appreciate your work, Jorphdan. Thank you!
Thanks!
Thank you for the top 30 series ! It was a great trip down memory lane :)
White Plume Mountain was a whack of fun.
Too much fun with Keep on the Borderlands and ran it with my nieces and nephews maybe 6 years ago. I could run this module in my sleep. Had a Minotaur maze. Had a Medusa. Had Skeletons. Jason and the Argonauts would pray to have this adventure . My best friend had his first character ripped to shreds by an Owl Bear. One character became doomed to guard the ewers of the Evil Temple forever.
I upgraded the big bad in the Temple of the Unknown as evil leaders who had assembled all the creatures in the Caves and were using them as commerce raiders , as they worked to convert various captives to evil. Good times.
Egyptian
Keep on the Borderlands was awesome at its time. I ran through that so many times I started memorizing the layout.
You did not mention that Amber Castle's mist/fog idea predates Ravenloft and is the source/inspiration for the Bavarian Fog, so that Amber Castle is not 'like' Ravenloft which I think you stated in your other video, rather Ravenloft is like Amber Castle module, and the concept of a 'demi-plane', and the idea of a land removed, with a tortured master or 'dark lord' which in the case of Castle Amber is the Amber family itself.
B1 was, for most groups of the time, their first sandbox adventure - where there was adventure both inside of and outside of the dungeon.
I have run B1... gods, I have forgotten how many times, with at least five entirely different 'Beyond the Borderlands' campaigns.
Maybe not my favorite, but certainly the adventure that I have run most often
I must admit my favourites are pretty much the staples of every list going, Keep on the borderlands, White plume, Ravenloft etc, what I will say the main reason they were good was our DM at the time, he was so good without being over the top or cringe as well as managing the pace of the game, he convinced me to play so many other games I wouldn't normally play as I was an AD&D fascist and nothing else was good enough when I was young.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is my favorite on this top 10. I’ve never played or DMd it but have the original release print and intend to run it along my run of Dwellers of the Forbidden City. I’ve even incorporated a Froghemoth into Dwellers as a connection between the two.
I’m giving honorable mention to Tomb of the Lizard King (might be the deadliest module for the levels of the PCs of any module) and Baltron’s Beacon (a slog through a swamp and a ruined keep filled with tricks, traps, treasure and some very nasty baddies).
I've ran Tomb of Horrors every year for probably the past 7 years as a one-shot adventure. I ran it in 5e once and it was definitely a lot easier, though they ironically did not survive. I did have one group, well 2 members out of 10, survive it in 1e though!
The Tomb of Horrors was a challenge to the early concept of metagaming rules lawyering and fluffmastering. Basically you started having certain people that would either think "but my backstory..." playing characters with Cha dump stats, but the player being very good at talking believing they could BS their characters way out of anything. Other players found out the best numeric options for play. Both became horrors at the table.
Tomb of Horrors was a literal FU to those types. It didn't really test any unspoken rules, as the game actually naturally punished characters for wasting too much time in a warzone, trying to bypasse things like traps with a skill check or spell, or wanting to just fight.
It forced people to really, really pay attention, and tricked them multiple times to believe they had actually won.
I played through Tomb of Horrors at a convention in the early 90s, great times!
I loved the L1-2 modules of the Lendore isles !
Absolutely. The Secret of Bone Hill was one of my staples for low-level parties not overly obsessed with plot and just wanting to explore as it had a nice balance between town-based, wilderness and dungeon encounters.
@@rcant3241 IIRC the L modules were a rarity at the time for presenting a "complete" setting, not just a dungeon crawl which most modules of the time were. A town, residents with details, rumors, wilderness events... fun stuff.
I had fun fleshing out the major NPCs and motivations of the area, so the setting also had political powerplays going on, it wasn't just hack and slash.
@@Aeroldoth3 I didn't get so much into the politics at first (must have been around 1983-4) as our first group was just starting out, I had been lumbered with the DM role and my players were very much into the hack and slash/loot everything playstyle (they eventually tried breaking into the keep and had to be run out of town). Also, I was never able to get hold of L2 at the time, so had no idea about the eventual plotline. I loved Restenford as a base of operations, though, and focused on spinning together some of the interesting minor NPCs and the rumours table into enough level 1-2 encounters to prepare them for the main content. Over the years I fleshed it out a bit more to incorporate some Imagine and Dungeon magazine mini-modules. When I came back to it in the early 2000s with a younger (than me), RP-hungry 3Ed group completely unfamiliar with those older-edition modules we moved the setting to Ruathym in the Forgotten Realms and developed the bait dealer/spy NPC into a hook to segué into The Curse of Xanathon, an Expert 4-7 module coincidentally involving an evil high priest attempting to seize power. I dug Bone Hill out again recently with a bunch of other 1st/2nd Ed stuff to help a newbie group of my high school kids get started, so it will be interesting to see what, if anything, their DM makes of it.
@@rcant3241 Ooh, xanathon... that was a fun module. City detail was rather skimpy, but the intrigue was great.
I actually took the last two chapters of Return to the Tomb of Horrors and grafted that onto Tomb of Annihilation to make an epic finale for that game. It turned out awesome, Moil and the Fortress of Conclusion are phenomenal content for players!
Just recently I bought a book that has the 5E versions of in search of the unknown and keep on the borderlands. It also contains the original versions of modules b1 and b2.
I was so excited when I clicked on this. Great video idea. Happy holidays and the best to you and yours!
Many of these are Greyhawk adventures, which is awesome! Keep on the Borderlands was the, or one of the, first adventure module(s) to have a home base to radiate out from...
Another thing to consider is that the 1e AD&D Monster Manual entry for Drow was literally just a paragraph in the general Elf entry that said "They're only a legend. They don't exist." Their appearance at the end of the Against the Giants trilogy (part of Queen of the Spiders) was the first time they had ever appeared. Players going through the original adventures would have never seen Drow before.
A pretty classic list, however a few too many 'return to's for my liking, which really limits the list. Missing out on the excellent late-era BECMI modules like B10 "Night's Dark Terror" is a crime - that module packs so much of a life and adventure into a few pages it's now the gold standard for the second module I run in most campaigns. Just so much there, and a lot to build on later on too. Creepy tone, danger, variety. Excellent. Also the Saltmarsh series for AD&D, etc. etc.
if I remember correctly tomb of horrors was a convention game and the designer was channeled to bring it,
I've got the desert of desolation in a box in my closet. I didn't have anyone to play it with back then but I spent lots of time reading it and wishing I had a d&d group, lol
If I where adding an adventure to this list it would definitely be Erik Mona's "The Whispering Cairn". That might top my list as the greatest pre-made adventure I ever ran. It is just brilliant.
Keep on the Borderlands didn't have to redifine anything. It was included in the original boxed set that we all bought in about 1981, and therefore was common, highly played, and for most uf us, our first adventure. That is why it is so popular
Thank you so much for the videos. There was a great feeling of nostalgia seeing a lot of old school modules that I ran, both back in the 80's and a couple that I used as side quests during a homebrew campaign that I ran for a few years back in the late 90's-early 2000's. It's nice to see there are 5e versions of some of them, so I know where I will be leaning for extra content if I start running a game again.
Loved the list, I remember by dwarf fighter Hakignm Strongarm lost 2 levels from draining and it was so intense to get clear of Strahd. I also remember my human fighter Jordan Ironwolf delivering the killing blow to Lloth! Great times, thanks for sharing!
My DM is running Goodmans 5e Temple of Elemental Evil, but it's coming to quick end because the 2 30 year olds are not happy playing it. It's too unforgiving to them. The Temple is a horror house and they want bouncyhouse DnD.
There was another series from the late 70s/early 80s, Giants of the Steading (I think that was the series) Three modules with increasing difficulty leading to a follow up module against the Drow.
A lot of the old modules were created for tournament play, random groups of players using pre-generated characters, and running an adventure against a time limit trying to score as many points as possible. And the tournaments amounted to early D&D play-testing as well, since many of them were released to the public and became classics. It's pretty amazing when you think about it, a real credit to the designers.
Against The Giants was my favorite module.
I haven't played or run Tomb of Horrors, but I kind of want to. I think it would be an interesting one to do as a dream sequence, and once everyone inevitably dies, they all wake up, and maybe like some of the Critical Role one shots, the person who made it the furthest gets a little, non game altering, bump or item. That could be interesting, I think.
I love tomb of horrors. As a test and romp through classic dungeon.
Also queen of the spiders is good.
It's the last part of that book that is disaster
This series demonstrates how 5E drew From and revamped the most iconic adventures from D&D history into their release schedule:
Tyranny of Dragons (Tiamat)
Princes of the Apocalypse (Temple of Elemental Evil)
Out of the Abyss (Queen of Spiders)
Storm King’s Thunder (Against the Giants)
Tomb of Annihilation (Isle of Dread/Tomb of Horrors)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal just add to that sense.
I definitely see the value of these and the potential fun. there's just so much to play and so little time - how am I going to be able to play a written module and yet get to all these wacky ideas in my own head and yet also have a normal life? that and somehow have others commit to all these DnD games too. so much DnD goodness, so little time.