Those of you who were gaming back in the late 80's and early 90's might remember a couple of modules/supplements/whatevers called The Book Of Lairs and Wonders Of Lankhmar. These two books had a bunch of vary short adventure outlines in them, each about 1-3 pages long (Tales Of Lankhmar had a similar setup, but the adventures were slightly longer, around 4-9 pages each). Anyways, I was wondering if TSR put out any other products like this for 1st or 2nd ed AD&D (or BD&D, for that matter), as this is the sort of thing I can use for a hopefully-upcoming Castles & Crusades campaign I'm working on.
i'll go look. ;) one that comes to the top of my head is OP1 Tales From the Outer Planes.
speaking of the planes, the campaign setting box and each of the "Planes of" boxed sets for Planescape had booklets with very short adventures.
ok, a longer list of short adventure anthologies (many sourcebooks have very short adventures in them, but i tried to focus on the products where the adventures were the main focus):
OD&D
AC10 Bestiary of Dragons and Giants
1E:
REF3 Book of Lairs
REF4 Book of Lairs II
REF5 Lords of Darkness
2E:
Dragonlance Book of Lairs
Forgotten Realms Book of Lairs
WG8 Fate of Istus
Planescape had Well of Worlds, and Doors to the Unknown, but those tended to be longer and more in-depth than perhaps what you are looking for.
Basic D&D (shortly before joining 2E as Mystara) had a series of Adventure Packs (Dragon's Den, Goblin's Lair, Haunted Tower) which are also on the longish side.
Likewise, Ravenloft had RR2 Book of Crypts, and Spelljammer had the book Space Lairs. of course, those settings may be very far off from what you're trying to do...
well, undoubtedly there are more anthologies out there, but this should keep you going for awhile. :)
In the Dark Sun adventure "Dragon's Crown", half of one of the three books was dedicated to small side adventures to fill in the travel time (since the main adventure takes you from one side of the map to the other side of the map and then some, and then back again). But like Boz said, it might be a little too setting-specific for your taste.
There was a Birthright adventure anthology as well.
3125 BC2 Legends of the Hero Kings
Highly recommend it.
Quote from: BOZAC10 Bestiary of Dragons and Giants
REF4 Book of Lairs II
REF5 Lords of Darkness
Forgotten Realms Book of Lairs
These look like the sort of stuff I'm looking for (I already own Fate Of Istus, but those adventures are a little tied in to the overall storyline of that module - I'm basically looking for stuff that I can spend a few minutes reading and then run on short notice with little to no prep time).
How campaign-specific is the Forgotten Realms book? How much of it can I lift and use for my homebrew campaign?
Oh, and thanks to everybody for the responses! Very informative.
you will need the two Monstrous Compendiums produced for FR to run it effectively (and/or conversions; see the link in my sig). otherwise, IIRC, you should be good to go.
Space Lairs for the spelljammer setting was fun too!
Weapons of legacy. Each of the described weapons has a short adventure scenario, small map and at least one antagonist. Most are about 1 page long. Some are campaign specific to FR or Eberron.
Deck of Encounters should keep you occupied for a few evenings. :)
Free on-line at Wizards.com...
http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b
http://wizards.com/dnd/files/GR3-1.zip
http://wizards.com/dnd/files/GR3-2.zip
http://wizards.com/dnd/files/GR3-3.zip
http://wizards.com/dnd/files/GR3-4.zip
I'm not sure if this is what you have in mind, and it's not an actual D&D "product," but have you checked out the Iron DM archives?
http://www.aquerra.com/IRON_DM/index.htm
In case you are unfamililar, Iron DM is a contest run on messageboards. It's been run on ENworld and the Rat Bastard Forums. I think one of them might have been run on NTL/NKL in the past, but I really don't remember.
Each round of the competition consists of two DMs competing against each other. They're given a set of six random "ingredients" and told to craft an adventure out of them. They're judged on how well the ingredients are used, how much sense it makes, how well written it is, etc.
Some truely stupendous scenarios have come out of this contest.
Reading the archives might be just the sort of thing you're looking for - a collection of scenarios intended for D&D adventures, each quite different and unique. Some are, of course, better than others. But they're all quite fun to read.
Imagine, if you will, some truly creative people trying to come up with a coherent and interesting adventure given the ingredients "Divine Butterfly, Coral Grotto, Mounted Fiendish Kobolds, Mourning, Grell, and Former Druid Black Guard."
Almost makes the imagination start coming up with a scenario just reading them, doesn't it?
I'm sorry, I just love reading the Archives. It's a fun way to spend an afternoon or three. :)
However... nice pimp but it is not a D&D product :ponder:
Ehh, they don't have to be D&D products (after all, I'll be adapting them to Castles & Crusades anyways) as long as it's something that can easily be adapted to a D&D-like game.
Quote from: Phantom StrangerHowever... nice pimp but it is not a D&D product :ponder:
Why you repeat my first sentence? :confused:
Atlas Games released a series of books called En Route, En Route II, and En Route III. Each contained a bunch of short adventures that you could drop in between the major adventures in your campaign. Like most Atlas stuff, it's pretty interesting. A number of the adventures are unusably weird for the typical D&D campaign, but there's enough good stuff in there to make them a good investment.
You can find them pretty cheap (along with a lot of Atlas d20 stuff) at Half Price books, if you have one local to you. I also believe that Atlas sells dinged up copies and package deals via Warehouse 23.
Quote from: Name LipsWhy you repeat my first sentence? :confused:
well, fucking come on then!
Quote from: mearlsAtlas Games released a series of books called En Route, En Route II, and En Route III. Each contained a bunch of short adventures that you could drop in between the major adventures in your campaign. Like most Atlas stuff, it's pretty interesting. A number of the adventures are unusably weird for the typical D&D campaign, but there's enough good stuff in there to make them a good investment.
You can find them pretty cheap (along with a lot of Atlas d20 stuff) at Half Price books, if you have one local to you. I also believe that Atlas sells dinged up copies and package deals via Warehouse 23.
These are for 3.x I'm guessing?
I'll keep an eye our for them (no Half Price Books in Atlanta, as far as I know).
"Unusably weird"? That sounds like a challenge...
The City of Greyhawk boxed set had a slew of single page adventures printed on cardstock. I didn't like the city as depicted in the product (too Forgotten Realmsy for me) but those card were great. One adventure featured fighting a mexican standoff with hobgoblins at a farm. Another featured a goat that was running for mayor of greyhawk. There were several others.
Quote from: KnightskyThese are for 3.x I'm guessing?
I'll keep an eye our for them (no Half Price Books in Atlanta, as far as I know).
"Unusably weird"? That sounds like a challenge...
The weirder ones could kick off interesting story arcs in games, or at least radically change your game. For instance, there's on adventure that takes place in a UFO filled with greys that has landed near a farm, grabbed a few cattle, and done experiments on them.
Warehouse 23 is probably your best bet to track them down. The newest one came out 2 years ago, IIRC.
Quote from: jrientsThe City of Greyhawk boxed set had a slew of single page adventures printed on cardstock. I didn't like the city as depicted in the product (too Forgotten Realmsy for me) but those card were great. One adventure featured fighting a mexican standoff with hobgoblins at a farm. Another featured a goat that was running for mayor of greyhawk. There were several others.
Those adventures were really cool, probably the high point of that product.
The From the Ashes boxed set also has adventures like that, though both fetch $40+ on eBay.