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| Aberzanzorax |
 Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:12 am Post subject: Question for Wolfgang (inside perspective) on best writers. |
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As my favorite designer and writer (blend of the two) of adventures, I wonder who your favorites writers/designers of adventures are (I'm not asking about novels, as that's an entirely different animal)?
The question goes out to everyone else as well, but I wanted to be sure to capture Wolfgang's attention, as I think it is especially interesting to get a writer's take on other writers (and a designer's take on other designers for that matter).
If you care to share more details on some individuals, that would be welcome as well (such as Steve Martin is one of my favorite comedians, but I would recommend his early works over his more recent material).
Thanks for your thoughts Wolfgang and everyone else. |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
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The game designers whose adventures I enjoy most is a tough list.
Willie Walsh (all those Dungeon adventures)
Larry Ditillio and Lynn Willis (Masks of Nyarlathotep)
Tracy Hickman (I6 Ravenloft)
David "Zeb" Cook (Isle of Dread, the Dwellers of the Forbidden City, Planescape, etc).
Man, this could be a long, long list. But what I value in those adventures is sometimes things I don't do well, such as Walsh's mastery of humor while retaining a sense of respect and plausibility for the players, rather than just goofiness.
Hickman reinvented the way D&D modules were written and (finally!) brought horror back to fantasy.
Cook invented some of my favorite monsters and locales, and has a sense of the exotic that is hard to beat. Plus there's a wahoo factor that I wish I could pull off.
There's another dozen I could name, but we'd be here all day. Some designers I just prefer for rules rather than adventures. Others write adventures that just never clicked for me. Monte Cook should probably be on this list as well, and so should Nicolas Logue, Greg Vaughn, and many more.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Aberzanzorax |
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Wolfgang! Interesting list.
What about the rest of you? Whose adventures do you enjoy running? |
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| Dan Voyce |
| Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 4:49 am Post subject: |
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I honestly don't run that many published adventures, but Mr Logue is a name I've become aware of recently and found synonimous with good things.
Gary's work on Against the Giants are also a personal favourite, as is Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, but this is probably down to play experience rather than writting ability - although they are good, especially when you look at the format these days.
And, much as it makes me a kiss-ass, <b>Kingdom of the Ghouls</b> is truly awesome - my favourite Dungeon adventure bar none. |
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:37 am Post subject: |
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Rich Pett's "The Styes" is one of my all-time favorite adventures. The whole locale is just dripping with creepy flavor. I'm generally not a fan of horror adventures - I think they're really hard to pull off in D&D - but this adventure showed me that it was entirely possible.
Tim Hitchcock does a great job of taking the weird (flumphs, anyone?) and making a damn good adventure about it.
Tim & Eileen Connors do a fantastic job of making adventures that are really fun.
Greg Vaughan does a wonderful job of capturing epic stories in his adventures, even when the adventure is for lower level characters.
Nick Logue is a master of breathing life into NPCs. That makes the scenes with those NPCs jump off the page.
And, of course, I like to think my own published adventures kick ass and take names too. 
(and full disclosure: I know all the writers mentioned above. That doesn't change the fact, though, that they're stuff is awesome.)
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| jonroberts |
| Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:05 am Post subject: |
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I have to agree about Rich Pett and the Styes. That was one of the best adventures I ever ran - he managed to fit the feeling of an entire city into one adventure. Unfortunately my players were royally whipped by Sgoth'gah so now I have to write the sequel, three months further down the line!
As for other writers, I have a soft spot for Dave Browne and Jon Turnbull for the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and Len Lakofka fror the Assassin's Knot but that's going back quite a way. |
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| hedgeknight |
| Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:24 am Post subject: |
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I compare all the new designers to Tracy and Laura Hickman. Their Desert of Desolation series is phenomenal and Ravenloft is a STAPLE of gaming - every gamer should play it at least once.
I've been buying up inexpensive d20 products lately on eBay - stealing them actually based on what they retail for and what I actually paid for them - and I found a little gem titled The Gryphon's Legacy by Wolfgang - looking forward to running it in an online forum or email campaign this summer. '
Remember that one, Wolfgang? |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:33 am Post subject: |
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The Gryphon's Legacy is one of the best adventures I've ever written (if an author is allowed to brag for a moment).
If it had been distributed by a larger company, I think it would be better known. But the amount of fanmail I've gotten on it is amazing given the small print run.
It is also a forerunner of elements of Zobeck: the Margreve Forest and the Principality of Morgau and Doresh are both elements that mesh perfectly with Gryphon's Legacy and with the (unreleased) follow-up, the Zombie Wood.
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| Neal |
| Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject: |
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This isn't D&D or even fantasy-themed, but the absolute best pre-written adventures I've ever run are all by some combination of Greg Stoltze and John Tynes for Unknown Armies. Everything I've run or played in from One Shots and Weep has been absolutely unreal in quality and ease of play.
Gaming bliss for my regular group was the night our GM decided to try out an adventure called "Trailer Park at the End of the World." First time roleplayers that I introduce to the hobby seem to always enjoy giving "Jailbreak" a try.
They're the high water mark for me. As a player I really enjoyed the 3e modules my last long-term D&D campaign, with "The Lost Tomb of Kurk-Ma-Kali" being my favorite of the bunch. I played a lot of 3e for a number of years, and the single most memorable combat was the mirror match encounter where the PCs fought evil versions of themselves, only hobgoblinized; Nothing matched the look on my DM's face when I led a player revolt at the start of that combat and informed him that he could not look at my character sheet to run my evil hobgoblin clone because there was no way he would be as ruthless playing the clone as I would. He beamed like a child with a candybar for the 45 minutes after the rest of the players followed my lead and we began ruthlessly attacking each other.
That being said, I know this is Wolfgang's house - so I'm kind of embarassed to say I've never run or played in an adventure he wrote!
-neal |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 8:03 am Post subject: |
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It's really tough to top Stolze and Tynes. They haven't done much (if any) fantasy, but it was totally lax of me not to include them in my list.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Neal |
| Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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Didn't Tynes do a 3e D&D adventure where the PCs are being paid to find a way to prevent an evil cleric and a necromancer from meeting. I vaguely remember it being for low level PCs, and the only tools they're given to break it up were a ring of darkvision (nightvision goggles), flare stones (flash grenades), arrow of sleep (tranquilizer dart) and a wand of fireball with one charge (rocket launcher). The inspiration was a Tom Clancy novel.
I never got to play it or run it, but the concept sounded incredible.
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| hedgeknight |
| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Wolfgang wrote: |
The Gryphon's Legacy is one of the best adventures I've ever written (if an author is allowed to brag for a moment).
If it had been distributed by a larger company, I think it would be better known. But the amount of fanmail I've gotten on it is amazing given the small print run.
It is also a forerunner of elements of Zobeck: the Margreve Forest and the Principality of Morgau and Doresh are both elements that mesh perfectly with Gryphon's Legacy and with the (unreleased) follow-up, the Zombie Wood. |
I've read (skimmed more like it) through it once and am going to give it a thorough reading and highlighting probably in April and what I've read is very good. And the artwork is great - I didn't expect it would be that good for a, dare I say, low budget project. Very well done. I've been looking for other adventures in the same campaign but can't find them anywhere. You're saying the follow-up was never released? That stinks.
I love the setting and would like to see more of it. But...if it meshes with Zobeck, that'll work. |
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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Who's the publisher?
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:51 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, I would set it northwest of Zobeck, beyond the Margreve.
Zherog, the publisher was Gaslight Press.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 9:10 am Post subject: |
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Thanks. Their site looks to be quite old -- the most recent news is from '02. Still, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it.
Any idea on the quality of their other products? Is it worth watching auction sites and such for them? And judging by the dates, all this stuff is 3.0, correct?
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