Quote from: Madprofessor;956960Adventure modules are probably my favorite form of RPG product: short, condensed, cheap, and to the point of what characters do.  They cut out all the fluff.  You get more directly useful gaming content per page. They often give a bunch of interesting ideas that characters could interact with, but without much background or depth providing GMs with seeds to riff off of.  They were a far cry from today's glossy full-color 400 page setting/splat books that are often of marginal use at the table.

So many times "yes!"

CoC of course.

Savage Worlds has a lot by both PEG and third party publishers.

Pretty much none of these are within an order of magnitude of the catalogue of OSR modules. One that might be within a factor of 10 is tunnels and trolls, which had quite a few solo dungeons.

Quote from: Madprofessor;956883MERP

Edit: and they're pretty darn good too... and they have covers by Angus McBride!

Yes!

Also The One Ring is getting pretty extensive-ish

Agreed, in fact many of the adventures discussed here aren't really "modules" - not strictly speaking.  For example, I don't know of any SW "modules."  There are lots of SW adventures out there, but they don't use the module format.

MERP, probably had 50-60 modules and competed with TSR for a while on module output.  As you mentioned, T&T had quite a few as well.  Lots of games had some modules.  I can't think of any non-OSR game that is currently producing modules in any quantity - which is too bad.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;95701813th Age is another one I'm aware of with dozens.

Just looked at these, and shortest is 72 pages.  Most 180 page splatbooks that contain adventures. Maybe I am splitting hairs, but to me, these aren't really modules.

I guess nobody has mentioned Pathfinder.  Not really OSR, but certainly D&Dish so it may not qualify for the OP.  They have what seems like thousands.

Quote from: Madprofessor;957117Agreed, in fact many of the adventures discussed here aren't really "modules" - not strictly speaking.  For example, I don't know of any SW "modules."  There are lots of SW adventures out there, but they don't use the module format.

How do you define the module format, out of curiousity?

Quote from: Madprofessor;956960The more I think about it, it seems that modules were more popular/prevalent in the '80s and 90s than they are today - with the exception of Goodman.  I wonder why that is? Adventure modules are probably my favorite form of RPG product: short, condensed, cheap, and to the point of what characters do.  They cut out all the fluff.  You get more directly useful gaming content per page. They often give a bunch of interesting ideas that characters could interact with, but without much background or depth providing GMs with seeds to riff off of.  They were a far cry from today's glossy full-color 400 page setting/splat books that are often of marginal use at the table.

I never really liked running published adventures.  I usually only GMed if I had a story thread/setting working its way out of my head.  It was never a desire to run a game with someone else's story.

Plus, I really like adventures to be tailored to the characters (and players) playing...and not shoehorning the party into an established story.  Sure, you can tailor published adventures (and I do when I run them), but I'd rather build an adventure from the ground up with the party in mind.

That's why I seldom bought modules.  It wasn't until they started making campaign/splat-books, as you say, that I picked some up.  If the book offered more for the system and setting than just someone else's story, then I'd probably buy it.  After all, I just don't see a lot of value, personally speaking, to purchase a module that I'll likely run once (if ever) and never run again because I don't like repeat stories in gaming.

But again, that's just me and my style of gaming.

Quote from: Madprofessor;957117For example, I don't know of any SW "modules."  There are lots of SW adventures out there, but they don't use the module format.

In addition to all the Plot Point Books (which I agree are not like modules) PEG put out 19 Savage Tales which seem close enough to TSR module format and length to me. Not sure how many 3rd Party Savage Tales are out there, but there a fair few of those too.

Quote from: Madprofessor;956960I guess it kind of depends on how broad your definition of "module" is.

Hence why I note that I consider some to be hybrids. Theres quite a few straight up modules that I consider to be also setting books or sourcebooks because some have quite a bit of source material in them. And some sourcebooks read more like open ended modules.

Quote from: jhkim;957120How do you define the module format, out of curiousity?

Well, that's a damn good question.  I can't say that I could give a universal answer without sticking my foot in my mouth.

For me, I would say a module is a short (16-40 page) RPG supplement that is focused on a single adventure.  It may contain some setting info, or some game info like new monsters, spells, treasures, or even rules that may be useful to the GM in other contexts, but these are generally in designed in service of the adventure at hand.  

It could be defined more broadly or more narrowly, but that is what I think of when someone says "module."

In the mid to late '80s, you started to get "Campaign Modules" such as B10 (one of my favorites) or x10 that were more ambitious in scope and meant for multi-session play. I suppose I still consider these to be modules because they're focused on a single, albeit long, adventure.  On the other hand, a book like sundered skies for SW which contains new rules, new setting, chargen, but also contains a plot point campaign would not be the first thing that came to mind from the word "module" even though it contains an (long) adventure.  The WFRP 2e contains an adventure, but I don't think of it as a "module" - it's a rulebook.

I could be totally off here.

What I like about "modules" is they are generally very densely packed with usable table -top info, and though I rarely run them as is, they are full of ideas that can be stolen, converted, changed, riffed off of, etc, and they don't contain general info that gets in the way.

Quote from: Madprofessor;957175For me, I would say a module is a short (16-40 page) RPG supplement that is focused on a single adventure.
(...)
In the mid to late '80s, you started to get "Campaign Modules" (...) meant for multi-session play.
(...)
What I like about "modules" is they are generally very densely packed with usable table -top info,

But even those early short modules were so dense with locations and stuff that they were effectively multi-session adventures - B2 with its back and forth between the keep and the caves, and X1 with its hexcrawl are just two examples that come to mind immediately.
I don't know how long we played the desert of desolation series, or the Llendore modules.

There's a fuckton of games that had a lot of "modules". If you define "modules" as "adventures" and not sourcebooks, I think that without question Call of Cthulhu had the BEST modules.