D&D scenario recommends

In answer to Mick Red’s question ( Adventures for the OSR ) over at UKroleplayers.com.

From the current OSR releases I can heartily recommend

The Cursed Chateau(Rogue Games )by James Maliszewski. A big old haunted house scenario, oozing with atmosphere, marvellously presented and explained.

The Grinding Gear (Lamentations of the Flame Princess) by James Raggi. Yes it’s a Death Trap dungeon, but its small and logical and very very well designed and written.

The Nameless City( Mythmere Games ). Inspired by an HP Lovecraft short story of the same name, a small city of the Serpent People dripping with S&S goodness.

Weird New World( Lamentations of the Flame Princess ) by James Raggi. Imagine the American North East as a vast unexplored fantasy wilderness. Put your characters in a boat and hit go.

From the good old days…..

The Gauntlet & The Sentinel (TSR ). The first part is truly creepy and full of nice twists. The principal of which carries through to the second part that really ramps up the Epic in a believable way.

All that Glitters.(TSR ) One of my all time favourite adventure modules. The characters are going up the river following an old partial treasure map. At the end of their journey which takes them through an old magical tunnel that goes through the impassable mountains, through a post-apocalyptic desert leads them to a conclusion they will not be expecting.

Worth noting that the authors of the above would go on to be part of the team that did the WHFRP 1st Ed Enemy within Campaign.

Irillian from Best of White Dwarf Scenarios III . A city adventure in which the characters take part in an epic crusade against evil. There’s a great twist in the underlying premise that stops it being cliché and predictable. While the party is hunting down the source of the ills that inflict the city they get a guided tour of the city itself, which has seen much better days (think Italian Renaissance city, much down on its luck and gone to seed).

And as an out of the box setting, that would work with all the above scenarios, I can not recommend enough ‘Pelinore’ which was Imagine magazine’s D&D campaign setting, which carried on into Games Master Magazine.

7 thoughts on “D&D scenario recommends

  1. I remember Irillian chiefly for its excessive use of Olde Englishe, but if you can get past that, then it’s a very useful plug and play city for your OSR campaign. Now that I think of it, it’s probably the first place I saw the dwarves = medieval Jews idea as well, though I don’t suppose it was original even then.

  2. Fully agree with your list, especially the Pelinore stuff. Those articles really opened my eyes to how complex, dynamic and morally ambiguous a D&D setting could be. Much missed.

    I’d also add Night’s Dark Terror and When A Star Falls — two superlative examples from the TSR UK team. If we’re successful organising the con then Bambra, Gallagher and Davis would be my most sought after luminaries.

  3. “Imagine the American North East as a vast unexplored fantasy wilderness.”

    Newt, do you mean the states of New Hampshire and Maine?

    Or do you mean, um, Canada?

  4. I’d also add The Lichway and The Halls of Tizun Thane from early White Dwarfs. Outstanding scenario locations with a ton of atmosphere. The Lichway is very similar to Raggi’s Death Frost Doom in many ways, although I doubt he has ever read it. The Halls of Tizun Thane is magnificent. I recently converted it to MRQII and ran it as the Blind King’s Palace in Pavis. My players escaped alive but only cleared about two-thirds of the palace, and have left the Shadow Dancers as a problem to be solved later…

  5. There’s also Starstone, by Paul Vernon, which may be the best RPG scenario pack ever, but good luck getting hold of a copy. It’s rarer than Condor eggs. Having said that, what a great opportunity for d101 to reprint it…

    White Dwarf published an introductory scenario for it, Trouble at Embertrees, which gives a flavor of how good it is.

  6. Trouble at Embertrees

    Oh yeah, I remember running that for AD&D decades ago! A very fine adventure.

    I also remember wanting to pick up Starstone, but not being able to find it anywhere.

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