I was over at Half Price Books this morning, and I stumbled across the D&D 3e Kalamar module "Midnight's Terror" (which is a re-issue of their 2e adventure, "Secret Temple of Adajy"). Not really being into "modern" D&D, I don't have a good sense of which way the wind blows in modules, but I've been pretty disappointed leafing through the few of them that have caught my eye. I.e., story-plotted linear adventures, broken down into scenes.

But, by all appearances, this is nothing of the sort, nor is it a caricatured "retro throwback" of pure dungeoncrawling. Instead, there's a presentation of a city, culture, factions, random encounters, a "big event" that can be approached from multiple directions by the PCs, and an adventure location that ties into the event.

I didn't pick it up...it'd need a lot of conversion if I really wanted to use it directly; otherwise it'd just be a good model. But props to Kenzer; I remember reading things about Kalamar on this forum that already had me thinking it was worth a look, and this is a further indication of such.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;239795I was over at Half Price Books this morning, and I stumbled across the D&D 3e Kalamar module "Midnight's Terror" (which is a re-issue of their 2e adventure, "Secret Temple of Adajy"). Not really being into "modern" D&D, I don't have a good sense of which way the wind blows in modules, but I've been pretty disappointed leafing through the few of them that have caught my eye. I.e., story-plotted linear adventures, broken down into scenes.

But, by all appearances, this is nothing of the sort, nor is it a caricatured "retro throwback" of pure dungeoncrawling. Instead, there's a presentation of a city, culture, factions, random encounters, a "big event" that can be approached from multiple directions by the PCs, and an adventure location that ties into the event.

I didn't pick it up...it'd need a lot of conversion if I really wanted to use it directly; otherwise it'd just be a good model. But props to Kenzer; I remember reading things about Kalamar on this forum that already had me thinking it was worth a look, and this is a further indication of such.

I have only one Kenzer module, but that speaks only of my budget and says NOTHING of the quality of said module.  It's Little Keep on the Borderlands, and they took a module that was already a favorite of mine and made it a LOT better.  Oddly, I see a lot less of what Bob, Brian, and Dave would like and a WHOLE LOT more of what I love...places to roleplay, scenic wonders, and a whole lot of really incredibly good module!

Kenzer gets an A+ on every single thing I've ever bought from them (the majority of the Hackmaster books, a ton of comic books, Aces and Eights, and  the module of which I speak).

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Quote from: Elliot Wilen;239795I don't have a good sense of which way the wind blows in modules, but I've been pretty disappointed leafing through the few of them that have caught my eye. I.e., story-plotted linear adventures, broken down into scenes.

I don't know anything about this particular adventure but, in my limited reading, the majority of adventures tend to be as linear as ever, if not more so.
 
Back then, we had the whole giants -> demonweb arc.   The current adventure paths and such seem even more railroady.

My current-favorite blog, Grognardia, talks about the G-D modules: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/08/old-school-adventure-path.html

I never read or played them myself; the modules I remember best from the 80's were for Dragonquest, and although they were "compact" situations, they seemed to allow a lot of freedom once you allowed for the assumption that the PCs would engage them. The first "scene-based" module I remember noticing was included as an introductory adventure in GURPS, but it wasn't hideously railroady by virtue of using the travelogue conceit. I.e., the PCs are in a caravan (could just as easily be a ship but in this case it was a caravan), which to a certain extent justified a fixed sequence of episodes.

But reading more recent modules it's tended to be very highly scripted. I wish I could dig up the name of another one I came across at HPB--probably gone by now. It was a 3.x "anthology" of adventures, with the common theme of incorporating weather and climate. The first one involved cold and was just a sequence of scripted scenes as far as I could tell.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;239816I never read or played them myself;

It might be worth your while to pick up a pdf copy of Queen of the Spiders, which collects the GDQ series into one book. $5 at Paizo's webstore, I believe.

If you do pick up the GDQ compilation, note that it adds some "tie it all together" plot elements that make it more of a "story arc" than the originals.  Even so, I'd say that GDQ is less of a railroad than modern "adventure paths," especially in the D section.

Yeah, that's one of the things that's noted over in the Grognardia comments (look for grodog's post).

KenzerCo is good.  They just keep pushing out gaming goodness without making a big deal out of it.  I feel like they get dismissed sometimes, so thanks for that post, Eliot Wilen.  I picked up a bunch of their Hackmaster modules for super cheap when they had a big blow out sale to recognize the end of their D&D license.  They are so thick and chock full of stuff that they must take weeks to finish.  Plus, every cover has the adventuring party just getting absolutely and gorily housed.  You gotta love that.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;239871Yeah, that's one of the things that's noted over in the Grognardia comments (look for grodog's post).

That linking material is fairly easy to distinguish from the original modules. It's also pretty easy to ignore. Anyway, Queen of the Spiders is a relatively inexpensive way to see the original modules. They also sell the individual modules as pdfs, if you want to see them in their "pristine" state. Plus, I was wrong about the price; $4 a piece.

Normally I'm a bit biased toward Kenzer since I'm one of the two Admins of their forums, but I'm often vehemently against the Kalamar modules. But... but... I do like three or so of them, and 'Midnight's Terror' is one of them. Stand and Deliver is another good one. Lots of roleplaying instead of A-B-C style encounters with monsters.

Now the Hackmaster modules are a different creature altogether. i own four or five of them and I firkin' love 'em. Little Keep took my favorite module of all time and amped it up to 12.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: GrimJesta;240160Little Keep took my favorite module of all time and amped it up to 12.

-=Grim=-

So I'm not the only one, huh?  

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Quote from: Subjugator;240433So I'm not the only one, huh?  

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Heeeeeeeeell no. That's always the first module I run for new Hackmaster players.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;239795.... props to Kenzer; I remember reading things about Kalamar on this forum that already had me thinking it was worth a look, and this is a further indication of such.

Thanks, Elliot!  It's always nice to get props!  

If you spot the old "Deathright" adventure at HPB, you might want to check that one out too.  That's another good thicker adventure that's got a good non-linear path to the finale.  Although we do have both Midnight's Terror and Deathright for sale as PDFs, too...  

FYI, the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting will remain our default world for the next edition of HackMaster too, though we intend to keep the world books as rules-free as possible, so you'll still be able to use them for other game systems.