Best published campaigns

[Imperator]

Every time I go back and read that again, I am baffled that it wasn't more imitated in the '80s. It is such a friendly sandbox design, giving not just a big map to explore, but interesting NPCs that seek to use the PCs in their own intrigues.

Absolutely. It changed how I prepare my games. And your reference to Elder Scrolls is spot on.

There was a lot to like about that book, but part of it was the fact that the NPCs all had identities that were rooted in their pre-undead lives. The longer Vampire went on, the more the characters were defined entirely in terms of imaginary vampire society.

Absolutely. Actually, is one of the biggest tonal differences between editions, getting to its worst extreme in Revised.

Has anyone managed to do it twice?

- raises hand -

I have heard that Griffin Mountain is the bomb! How does it compare to Monster Island?

AS far as I know, Monster Island is heavily influenced by Griffin Island, but I haven't read yet the first. Griffin Island is amazing, even if they had to leave out a lot of material from Griffin Mountain for being too gloranthan.

Though I think the campaign has some shortcomings, I have very fond memories of playing the Giovanni Chronicles. I don’t think it matches many (any?) of the already mentioned campaigns in terms of quality, but the concept of following the same characters across centuries in a storyline central to the VtM, was fun (and even the switch in book 4 was ok, since our old characters were obviously working in the background). It also has its share of horror, and I have memories of it dealing with the loss of humanity in a more substantial way. My impression might be a bit skewed by playing with a great group and I believe the campaign itself demands some serious investment from both GM and players.

We're now in the midst of the book 4, and we're having a blast despite its shortcomings. The 4th book is certainly the best. Only 3 players.

 

[thedungeondelver]

G/D/Q (I'm going to find you and set you on fire, Tommy) and the "A" series for AD&D are simply amazing. Especially D1-D3. I more-or-less divorce the Slavers and Giants series, although there's a paper-thin connection (drow show up in both, that's about it).

S4 and WG4 together make a GREAT campaign: lots of details about the wild areas of Greyhawk (specifically the Lortmils, etc.), lots of empty hexes to detail, a base of operations for the players etc.

I consider B2 to be a campaign: huge wilderness area, lots of encounters around the keep, the Caves of Chaos themselves and the Cave of the Unknown for the DM to fill out. There's no way that's a once-thru module...

What else...oh! The Volturnus campaign for Star Frontiers - great stuff! You've got a world-map, alien races, etc. etc. Starts off a bit railroady (the players have to be marooned for it to "work"), but really comes in to its own as both a hex- and dungeon-crawl.

 

[Ronnie Sanford]

Awesome analysis Bilharzia! Helpful too!
Thanks!

 

[Baulderstone]

I've been waiting for a chance to sit down with Monster Island and analyze why it doesn't feel like Griffin Mountain to me, and you just saved me the trouble, Bilharzia. That is a perfect analysis.

 

[Imperator]

Folks, there is no Lunar incursion in Griffin Island, or Balazaring tribes. That is Griffin Mountain, that is Glorantha. Griffin Island is not set in any world, and the Gloranthan elements were changed or removed.

 

[TristramEvans]

Hopefully it does have griffins, though?

 

[Imperator]

Hopefully it does have griffins, though?

More than you can shake a stick at

 

[Mankcam]

I greatly prefer RQ2 Griffin Mountain to RQ3 Griffin Island. I just find the Gloranthan flavour much better, and I get the sense that the Orlanthi in the urban citadels are much more a Mycenaean Age (Thracian?) influenced people than the Saxon-like portrayals of Orlanthi from the late RQ3 era onward.

Chaosium has returned to some of this flavour with their more recent depictions of Orlanthi in The Guide To Glorantha and The Coming Storm. I’m pretty happy with that, primarily due to the original impression I got of Orlanthi from RQ2 Griffin Mountain.

 

[K_Peterson]

I'm fond of Griffin Island, as a great sandbox environment / wildlands - to explore. Stripping out the Gloranthan elements, IMO, didn't affect the quality of the product. And I really liked the player's map, that hinted at areas to explore, and contained some cryptic notes left by the former owner of the map.

(Foreign-language version, but the largest image I could find with a Google Image search).

 

[Imperator]

That is my version, the Spanish one <3

 

[S'mon]

Rise of the Runelords is a good mostly-plotted D&D/Pathfinder campaign. It feels a lot less static than most Paizo campaigns.

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

Rise of the Runelords is a good mostly-plotted D&D/Pathfinder campaign. It feels a lot less static than most Paizo campaigns.

I played the first part and the guys enjoyed everything except the end dungeon which was grind heavy and character unfriendly (in the sense it wore them down and killed them).

 

[CRKrueger]

Well, I'll simply throw in a "Hell Yeah" for the already mentioned:
Enemy Within, Masks of Nyarlathotep, Griffin Mountain & Island, GDQ, A series, Temple of Elemental Evil, Darkening of Mirkwood, Monster Island, Great Pendragon Campaign, & Doomstones (different, but my players really liked it, although I remember running it more open than written).

One book thats gets overlooked a lot for WFRP is Lichemaster. It's definitely a plot-based campaign centered around a prophecy of the Dead Rising, but holy Sigmar did my group play the hell out of that thing. Dealing with all the various factions, organizing the townsfolk for defense, even bargaining with Skaven, they loved it and still talk about that campaign. What events happen are scripted to a degree, sure, but how the players respond and deal with it is what makes the campaign.

Harlequin's Back, for Shadowrun, is a rough campaign to run, but very rewarding. Basically, your characters get recruited to go on an Astral Quest to save the world.

Spoiler

Harlequin, an Immortal Elf from the Earthdawn Age and the Last Knight of the Crying Spire, gets chosen by Fate for one last great quest. It follows along very nicely after Harlequin, another campaign where the characters first meet him.

If you don't know about Shadowrun, it's basically similar to a Dream Quest/HeroQuest. A series of adventures, each in a different mystical realm with it's own metaphors and rules representing the past and future, revealing hints and clues about the history of the Earthdawn/Shadowrun setting. I admit, I went over it heavily and expanded it, but the results were amazing.

 

[Mankcam]

Well, I'll simply throw in a "Hell Yeah" for the already mentioned: Enemy Within, Masks of Nyarlathotep, Griffin Mountain & Island, GDQ, A series, Temple of Elemental Evil, Darkening of Mirkwood, Monster Island, Great Pendragon Campaign, & Doomstones.

All these, plus two more classic Call of Cthulhu campaigns (Horror On The Orient Express, Beyond The Mountains Of Madness). That's pretty much the rpg campaign bucket list!

 

[Stevethulhu]

I do have a soft spot for Land of the Free, a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign. It's railroady as hell, bu really does a solid job of showing the screwed up mess that 2020s America has become.

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

All these, plus two more classic Call of Cthulhu campaigns (Horror On The Orient Express, Beyond The Mountains Of Madness). That's pretty much the rpg campaign bucket list!

I’d love to convince my group to get in on those.

 

[Baulderstone]

I do have a soft spot for Land of the Free, a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign. It's railroady as hell, but really does a solid job of showing the screwed up mess that 2020s America has become.

It's my opinion that a lot of railroady campaigns may be terrible to actually play, but they serve a useful purpose by showing what the game is supposed to look like through a series of encounters. A railroady campaign book can be more useful to me in getting a handle on a setting than a fat setting supplement full of fluff.

 

[Simlasa]

Is Horror On The Orient Express really that good?
I own the original but remember being underwhelmed after reading it (never tried to run it) and I don't recall it having a great reputation, just that it was hard to find a copy at a decent price.
The new version got a facelift, some added features, and a lot of hype... but I read reviews saying it was still a bit "meh."

 

[The Butcher]

Is Horror On The Orient Express really that good?

I hear it's a horrific railroad.

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

Is Horror On The Orient Express really that good?
I own the original but remember being underwhelmed after reading it (never tried to run it) and I don't recall it having a great reputation, just that it was hard to find a copy at a decent price.
The new version got a facelift, some added features, and a lot of hype... but I read reviews saying it was still a bit "meh."

I think for me it would be the flavour. From what I understand if need to do a bit of work as GM but the backdrop and adventure ideas are sound. Caveat there is I haven’t read it myself.

 

[Baulderstone]

I haven't read Horror on the Orient Express since the early '90s, so my memories of it are vague. I do remember it having obvious issues, but that it had an interesting, somewhat Barkeresque flavor. With Chaosium fully behind CoC and Pagan Publishing just getting started, there was so much good material around that time that I never got around to putting HotOE up on blocks to fix it. I pulled some scenes and descriptions from it for use in my games, so it was a worthwhile purchase for me.

This might be a good candidate for the flawed gems thread if someone hasn't already put it in there.

 

[Imperator]

Is Horror On The Orient Express really that good?
I own the original but remember being underwhelmed after reading it (never tried to run it) and I don't recall it having a great reputation, just that it was hard to find a copy at a decent price.
The new version got a facelift, some added features, and a lot of hype... but I read reviews saying it was still a bit "meh."

I have run it 3 times, successfully all of them. The last one was 3 years ago. It is a campaign your players will remember fondly.

It certainly has some issues, but I would say they're minor. Anyway, feel free to ask anything you want to know.

 

[Sosthenes]

A small digression (or not?), what would you guys nominate for:

Best published campaign for newbies to a setting (i.e. both introduction and great adventure)?

Best published campaign for 7+ players?

Best published campaign for 2 players (+GM)?

 

[Imperator]

A small digression (or not?), what would you guys nominate for:

Best published campaign for newbies to a setting (i.e. both introduction and great adventure)?

Best published campaign for 7+ players?

Best published campaign for 2 players (+GM)?

- Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu, or Flight from Innsmouth.
- Probably any big sandbox. like Griffin Island.
- Chicago by Night 1st edition.

 

[Baulderstone]

I like all of Imperator's answers. I'll add one more to the category of "Best for Newbies to a Setting" though.
While I spent a lot of time here griping about its final volumes, I have to mention The Enemy Within. There is a lot of implied setting in the 1st edition core book for WFRP, but this campaign really brings the setting to life. On top of that, the first half of the first volume is a sourcebook on The Empire. When I think of a campaign that defines a setting, this is the one I think of.

 

[K_Peterson]

Best published campaign for newbies to a setting (i.e. both introduction and great adventure)?

A favorite of mine is Heavy Gear's Paxton Gambit - here's a good summary of it. Political maneuvering, terrorism, diplomacy, detective work all set against the richness that is the campaign backdrop of Heavy Gear's Terra Nova.

Best published campaign for 7+ players?

Tough one. Probably a campaign using a rather simple version of D&D that easily allows for the management of large parties. Keep on the Borderlands, if the DM fleshes out the wilderness that surrounds the keep and the Caves of Chaos?

Best published campaign for 2 players (+GM)?

Lots of Call of Cthulhu campaigns work well for a smaller group of players. Masks of Nyarlathotep might be a little large in scope for a small group of investigators. I would use something a little more personal, like Coming Full Circle or maybe Day of the Beast. Or perhaps the purist Trail of Cthulhu adventures (that I think can be linked together into a campaign).

 

[Baulderstone]

Tough one. Probably a campaign using a rather simple version of D&D that easily allows for the management of large parties. Keep on the Borderlands, if the DM fleshes out the wilderness that surrounds the keep and the Caves of Chaos?

That lines up well with Imperator's advice about going with something sandboxy. A campaign where the players can make a new foray every week and not worry about who has shown up would be best. Once you get about seven players, requiring everyone to be there every week is a nightmare.

Lots of Call of Cthulhu campaigns work well for a smaller group of players. Masks of Nyarlathotep might be a little large in scope for a small group of investigators. I would use something a little more personal, like Coming Full Circle or maybe Day of the Beast. Or perhaps the purist Trail of Cthulhu adventures (that I think can be linked together into a campaign).

Along the lines of the ToC purist adventures, The early '90s Lovecraft Country books that Keith Herber worked on are easy to link together and would work well for small groups.

To run Masks with a small group, you need to do two things. In the New York chapter, there is the publisher, Kensington. He offers to hire a PC to finish Jackson Elias' book. This is a great save game mechanic. You assume that player is regularly sending notes back to Kensington. If you get a TPK, Kensington assembles a new team with access to almost everything the previous group knew.

The campaign is also sprinkled with potential NPC allies that also double as replacement PCs. Make it as easy as possible for a small group to team up with those characters. It is still going to be a challenge for a small group under any circumstances.

 

[K_Peterson]

To run Masks with a small group, you need to do two things.

I'm not even factoring in survivability and investigator-replacability into running Masks with a small group. I'm just thinking scope.

Often with these CoC globe-trotting campaigns, and especially in the case of Masks, there is so much to potentially investigate that it would be quite a workload for a couple of players. Many of Masks' locales dump a load of clues and incorporate a number of tangential side-mysteries / red herrings into the mix. With 3+ players you could have multiple investigations occurring at the same time (split the party!) to help more easily process and uncover the mysteries. With two players, the pace of investigation will slow, and if there's a timeline to avoid certain doom, like in Masks, there's another challenge.

 

[TristramEvans]

That reminds me, the original Tribe 8 campaign was quite good. Not too raildroady, chances for the PCs to epically change the world, vast amounts of potential sub-plots, all of the setting's secrets revealed, etc.

 

[Voros]

A small digression (or not?), what would you guys nominate for:

Best published campaign for newbies to a setting (i.e. both introduction and great adventure)?

Under Ilefarn by Steve Perrin

Night's Dark Terror by Morris and Bambra

Treasure Hunt by Aaron Allston

 

[Akrasia]

I'm a bit of a broken record because I bought and re-read it recently but the high point of my youth playing D&D was the mini-campaign of Night's Dark Terror. Starts with goblins and ends with a Cthulhuish horror!

I love that module/campaign! And I regret that I've never had a chance to run it. *sigh*

 

[Akrasia]

Of the published campaigns I've run, I quite liked Palantir Quest for MERP (if I were to run it today, I'd use Adventures in Middle-earth).

I've run a fair amount of CoC, but never a big campaign like Masks. Usually I just stitch together various shorter adventures (coming up with the necessary connections as I go along). I would love to run Masks someday...

I was a player for part of Mythic Britain (for RQ6/Mythras). That was pretty great, and I regret that I could only participate in parts of it (as I was in another city for chunks of time).

 

[Ragr]

(Very mild spoilers for Curse Of Nineveh/The Zalozhniy Quartet/Dead Rock Seven.)

Masks Of Nyarlathotep is on my second phase of "what to run next" list although I'll be waiting for the updated version from Chaosium before running in the hope that some modernisation makes it a little less fragmented by investigator death. I may even opt to go Pulp to give those rules a run out as, of all the campaigns, MoN lends itself to Pulp most obviously.

We are currently about three sessions from concluding Curse Of Nineveh, which has been very good. In a direct contrast to MoN we are still on the original investigators, apart from one SAN casualty, which has given the campaign a sense of continuity that is hard to grasp with multiple deaths; the supernatural encounters have been slowly fed into the campaign with a commensurate creep in investigator challenge that has been really cool. There are some issues with the sections of the campaign being written by different authors and it could have done with tighter oversight of the whole package, although this might have been done deliberately to enable playing the scenarios alone. I recommend this campaign if you're looking for a slower paced, long-term Mythos fix. I hope we'll use surviving characters for further GB based scenarios as the players have excelled themselves with their characterisations.

The Zalozhniy Quartet was concluded by my group recently and it delivered on everything it promised in terms of techno-thriller with vampires. The four parts all featured a slightly different aspect of the genre and the conclusion on the final two-hour session was absolutely superb, featuring the most surprising turnaround I think I've witnessed in an rpg; on the morning of the last session, as I read through my notes, I concluded that a valiant tpk was a dead cert. However, the guys snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a well marshalled (read; hidden from me, the poker faced buggers) set of Pool Points and emerged victorious, and mercilessly gloating, over all their enemies both vampiric and human. A great campaign, but beware the macguffin element which can require some careful Director handling to avoid appearing railroady; one of my players was a little miffed with how I handled this on one occasion but the payoff at the end was worth it it in my view and in light of the quality of the finale. NBA needs buy-in from players in order to sing at its best and genre fans will like it more than those that are ho-hum with Bourne etc..

Finally, we're one session away from completing Dead Rock Seven for Ashen Stars. This is, strictly speaking, not a campaign but more an episodic series with recurring elements in both background and adversaries. The four scenarios are all uniformly excellent with episode themes revolving around a sordid pleasure planet (know your players to know how far to push this), a decommisioned asteroid with shaky labour relations and a lurking threat, a neo-fascist developing world with a link to the broader setting, and finally a cooking contest aboard a space station that inevitably grows into a series closer that ties things together. Gareth Hanrahan deserves maximum praise for bringing this all together in a really satisfactory way. All of this coupled with the evolving story arcs from the players themselves and it's been a brilliant space opera series that never was. We'll be returning to this with The Justice Trade.

This kind of makes you approach your next campaign with a degree of trepidation.

 

[Baulderstone]

(Very mild spoilers for Curse Of Nineveh/The Zalozhniy Quartet/Dead Rock Seven.)

Masks Of Nyarlathotep is on my second phase of "what to run next" list although I'll be waiting for the updated version from Chaosium before running in the hope that some modernisation makes it a little less fragmented by investigator death. I may even opt to go Pulp to give those rules a run out as, of all the campaigns, MoN lends itself to Pulp most obviously.

I've run MoN a few times, and one of those times I substituted the Savage Worlds rules went full pulp. It went very well. The Shanghai chapter really sings when you have all the pulp dials turned up. I enjoy a good purist game, but I think MoN might actually better when you lean into the pulp.

We are currently about three sessions from concluding Curse Of Nineveh, which has been very good. In a direct contrast to MoN we are still on the original investigators, apart from one SAN casualty, which has given the campaign a sense of continuity that is hard to grasp with multiple deaths; the supernatural encounters have been slowly fed into the campaign with a commensurate creep in investigator challenge that has been really cool. There are some issues with the sections of the campaign being written by different authors and it could have done with tighter oversight of the whole package, although this might have been done deliberately to enable playing the scenarios alone. I recommend this campaign if you're looking for a slower paced, long-term Mythos fix. I hope we'll use surviving characters for further GB based scenarios as the players have excelled themselves with their characterisations.

I really need to buy some recent CoC adventures. Since the turn of the century, I don't think I have bought anything for Call of Cthulhu outside of Delta Green stuff. I've bought a good amount of Trail of Cthulhu material as well. I need to give the Cthulhu Britannica line a look.

The Zalozhniy Quartet was concluded by my group recently and it delivered on everything it promised in terms of techno-thriller with vampires. The four parts all featured a slightly different aspect of the genre and the conclusion on the final two-hour session was absolutely superb, featuring the most surprising turnaround I think I've witnessed in an rpg; on the morning of the last session, as I read through my notes, I concluded that a valiant tpk was a dead cert. However, the guys snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a well marshalled (read; hidden from me, the poker faced buggers) set of Pool Points and emerged victorious, and mercilessly gloating, over all their enemies both vampiric and human. A great campaign, but beware the macguffin element which can require some careful Director handling to avoid appearing railroady; one of my players was a little miffed with how I handled this on one occasion but the payoff at the end was worth it it in my view and in light of the quality of the finale. NBA needs buy-in from players in order to sing at its best and genre fans will like it more than those that are ho-hum with Bourne etc..

Sounds fantastic. That is a truly earned victory.

Finally, we're one session away from completing Dead Rock Seven for Ashen Stars. This is, strictly speaking, not a campaign but more an episodic series with recurring elements in both background and adversaries. The four scenarios are all uniformly excellent with episode themes revolving around a sordid pleasure planet (know your players to know how far to push this), a decommisioned asteroid with shaky labour relations and a lurking threat, a neo-fascist developing world with a link to the broader setting, and finally a cooking contest aboard a space station that inevitably grows into a series closer that ties things together. Gareth Hanrahan deserves maximum praise for bringing this all together in a really satisfactory way. All of this coupled with the evolving story arcs from the players themselves and it's been a brilliant space opera series that never was. We'll be returning to this with The Justice Trade.

I really want to run Ashen Stars at some point. It's a game where the published adventures are so good, I am wary of my ability to match them. On top of that, the planet-of-the-week structure makes it hard to just keep riffing of the settings and characters in those adventures. I guess I should just follow your lead and run the actual adventures rather than worry about what will happen when I run out. I suppose the players personal arcs will suggest future adventures anyway.

It's funny, I just threw out some random praise of Hanrahan over in this thread, and I come over here and you are praising him as well. I guess it isn't that surprising. His talent isn't exactly a controversial opinion.

 

[Baulderstone]

Ragr Oh, I forgot to add, welcome to the forum!

 

[Ragr]

One of my players has just come back from The Kraken convention in Germany and the Chaosium folks were heavily pushing the Pulp rules for the re-written MoN due next year, so I think that's definitely the way to go.

With Ashen Stars I'd say just go with it. If the players know exactly what the sub-genre of sci-fi is then they should be able to support the realisation at the table and make your life easier; it's pretty much all about the investigative "away" team without the support of a huge, densely populated mother ship. You're on your own, team. We had some minor objections about some descriptive points from one of my players who is a science guy (if you know what I mean) but we all pretty much ganged up and said "hello, space opera." He still grumbles occasionally but it's become a thing of light amusement for all of us now and doesn't effect the game.

 

[Baulderstone]

One of my players has just come back from The Kraken convention in Germany and the Chaosium folks were heavily pushing the Pulp rules for the re-written MoN due next year, so I think that's definitely the way to go.

Going to The Kraken is an ambition of mine.

I've heard good things about the CoC Pulp rules as well. It would certainly be less conversion work than using SW. I ran this back in 2006, so SW was the best choice for my group at the time.

With Ashen Stars I'd say just go with it. If the players know exactly what the sub-genre of sci-fi is then they should be able to support the realisation at the table and make your life easier; it's pretty much all about the investigative "away" team without the support of a huge, densely populated mother ship.

I really like the way it merges the Star Trek model with a standard party of PCs. You are right. I am overthinking it, but that is a topic for the gaming paralysis thread...

 

[K_Peterson]

We are currently about three sessions from concluding Curse Of Nineveh, which has been very good.

I picked up CoN a few months ago, and was impressed with it. The first few scenarios lay out a good foundation, and I liked the interaction between the rival groups. (to not spoiler too much...). I'm a little torn between running CoN, Realms of Shadows, or maybe even Walker in the Wastes for my next CoC campaign.

There are some issues with the sections of the campaign being written by different authors and it could have done with tighter oversight of the whole package, although this might have been done deliberately to enable playing the scenarios alone.

Most of the criticisms I've seen have been with the last one or two scenarios in the campaign. Nothing that seemed that egregious to me. Fixable stuff.

 

[K_Peterson]

I really need to buy some recent CoC adventures. Since the turn of the century, I don't think I have bought anything for Call of Cthulhu outside of Delta Green stuff. [...] . I need to give the Cthulhu Britannica line a look.

Most of the CoC material I've bought over the past year has been from Cubicle 7. A few pieces of the Cthulhu Britannica line (like the boxed set, Curse of Nineveh, Shadows over Scotland) and some of the World War Cthulhu line. I'm a fan of their original Cthulhu Britannica book, and used one of its scenarios in my recent Cthulhu by Gaslight campaign. C7 is definitely one of the best CoC 3PP in my mind - high quality material.

 

[Baulderstone]

Most of the CoC material I've bought over the past year has been from Cubicle 7. A few pieces of the Cthulhu Britannica line (like the boxed set, Curse of Nineveh, Shadows over Scotland) and some of the World War Cthulhu line. I'm a fan of their original Cthulhu Britannica book, and used one of its scenarios in my recent Cthulhu by Gaslight campaign. C7 is definitely one of the best CoC 3PP in my mind - high quality material.

Thanks for recommendation. I'll take a look.