[D&D] What's the most iconic/famous Adventure from each edition?

Piestrio · January 15, 2017, 09:14:43 PM

The newest 5e book has me thinking about it.

My stabs-

oD&D - no clue.
Holmes D&D - B1
B/X D&D - B2
BECMI D&D - ??
1e - Tomb of Horrors
2e - Undermountain?
3e - Freeport Trilogy
4e - no clue
5e - too early to tell.

What do you think?

Omega · January 15, 2017, 11:16:10 PM

OD&D = Village of Homlet. That one gets lots of mention even today.(Or is it a AD&D module too? Could have swore it predated AD&D?)
B/BX = Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread.
AD&D = Expedition to the Barrier Peaks or the Against the Giants or Drow series. I do not think Tomb is iconic. It just gets lots of mention as infamous. (often by people who didnt even bother to actually read the damn thing.)
2e = No clue. Dead Gods seems to get alot of mention.
3e = Freeport I've heard mentioned more than once but never seen.
4e = Who cares.
5e = Oddly alot of people really like the Phandelver module that comes with the Starter boxed set.

JeremyR · January 16, 2017, 12:10:21 AM

OD&D - Caverns of Thracia (TSR didn't publish any OD&D modules AFAIK, save Temple of the Frog in Blackmoor and I believe they distributed the Wee Warriors stuff but that wasn't very good)
1e - Tomb of Horrors (for better or for worse)
Holmes - Keep on the Borderlands
B/X - Isle of Dread
BECMi - Test of the Warlords
2e - Undermountain is the most famous, but it was really almost more a set of blank maps than actual adventure.
3e - Shackled City (I believe this started the whole "adventure path" thing)
4e - Red Hand of Doom (No idea, but I've heard of it, so...)
5e - No idea, haven't been too impressed with the ones I've got.

Christopher Brady · January 16, 2017, 01:18:31 PM

Quote from: JeremyR;9408062e - Undermountain is the most famous, but it was really almost more a set of blank maps than actual adventure.

The boxed set's first book has some random events in the dungeon, like at least 60 (I don't have the book on me any more) separate rooms detailed with encounters in them. But it covers only the first two maps, if I remember correctly.

RunningLaser · January 16, 2017, 01:29:14 PM

Time to reveal the ultra-special kind of dipshit I am. Absolute favorite was Quest for the Heartstone using Peralay! Warduke was a close second. I loved those pregens...

Larsdangly · January 16, 2017, 02:40:57 PM

OD&D: City State of the Invincible Overlord. Everyone had some part of it. Everyone played it.
1E: Tomb of Horrors. Obviously not the 'best' material made for 1E. But it is impossible to play 1E without having to confront this one.
Basic: Keep on the Borderlands. It is essentially required playing.
2E: Definitely something Forgotten Realms. I'll buy Undermountain if people who were really into 2E say it was popular. I certainly own and like it. But I don't know what kind of impact it had.
3E: Don't care
4E: Don't care
5E: Phandelver. By default: it is the only new official 5E dungeon published to date that lots of people have and people mostly like.

mAcular Chaotic · January 16, 2017, 02:51:28 PM

5e: Phandelver. I like it the most out of all the adventures they published so far too.

Teodrik · January 16, 2017, 02:56:13 PM

Basic/B/X/BECMI/Classic - Nigts Dark Terror. I have seen many praise it as the best adventure for classic D&D. I like it. Never finished it. But I guess most would say Keep on the Borderlands or Isle of Dread.

4e - Reavers of Harkenwold. Came in the DM's Kit in the Essentials line. It was pretty good. It was a low level adventure about dealing with an invasion of the Nentir Vale and not a pure dungeon crawl ( but had small dungeons). But many people missed it since it was part of the 4e Essentials. It is the one 4e adventure I see getting most praise.

Teodrik · January 16, 2017, 03:07:45 PM

Quote from: JeremyR;9408064e - Red Hand of Doom

Pretty sure that was 3.5. But there was some kind of sequal campaign featuring Tiamat as big bad in Dungeon for 4e.

Skywalker · January 16, 2017, 03:32:41 PM

My picks:
Basic - In Search of the Unknown
B/X - Keep on the Borderland
BECMI - Nights Dark Terror
1e - Village of Hommlet
2e - Ruins of Undermountain (though I much prefer In the Abyss)
3e - Red Hand of Doom (though Sunless Citadel would likely be the popular choice)
4e - Madness at Gardmore Abbey (or maybe Reavers on the Harkenwold)
5e - Lost Mine of Phandelver

RPGPundit · January 21, 2017, 02:25:07 AM

1e is obviously the tough one here, because it had more famous adventures than any other edition. However, I think Tomb of Horrors wasn't nearly as famous as the modern OSR (with its shitty 'negadungeon' obsession) makes it out to be.
When I was a kid playing D&D in the 1e era, we knew about Tomb of Horrors, of course, but back then if anyone I knew was asked what the most famous AD&D adventure was, we'd probably have said the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Armchair Gamer · January 21, 2017, 11:33:31 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;9417051e is obviously the tough one here, because it had more famous adventures than any other edition. However, I think Tomb of Horrors wasn't nearly as famous as the modern OSR (with its shitty 'negadungeon' obsession) makes it out to be.
When I was a kid playing D&D in the 1e era, we knew about Tomb of Horrors, of course, but back then if anyone I knew was asked what the most famous AD&D adventure was, we'd probably have said the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Sounds about right, although I think you might be able to make a case for GDQ, and "Castle Greyhawk" would have been the mythical 'if only it were published' dungeon ...

2nd Edition is almost as tricky, though, because so much of its support was setting-specific. However, I think Night Below wound up with considerably more cachet than would be expected for a relatively late (1995) publication, kind of like Red Hand of Doom in 3.5.