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The World of Greyhawk TAGDQ Campaign
Chris Flood
United States
Oakland
California
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Amazed at the percentage of top-ranked adventure modules that came from Old School D&D, including Basic/Expert D&D and AD&D 1e, I decided to look into the cheapest way to string together a campaign that would take PCs all the way from 1st to 10th Level or more.
Although the top-ranked adventure modules span several different campaign worlds, it turns out the most cost-effective set of modules for a campaign is generally in the classic World of Greyhawk. In fact, most of these modules flow into each other to form a single overarching campaign, sometimes called the Greyhawk TAGDQ campaign.
While there are other modules that are a little cheaper or higher-rated than those listed here, it's tough to beat the continuity these classics offer. Altogether, they cost a little over $100, including shipping, and comprise what is arguably the greatest D&D campaign arc of all time.
Since all of these modules were written for AD&D 1e, OSRIC will be your most compatible choice for a system. For other options, check out the Cheapskate's Guide to Playing D&D for Free.
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Chris Flood
United States
Oakland
California
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The Temple of Elemental Evil is a super-module that includes four adventures originally published for AD&D 1e. Although the initial adventure, the Village of Hommlet, is designed for 1st-level PCs, it assumes the party is larger than you'll probably be able to muster. You might want to tweak the difficulty of the encounters or start PCs at a higher level.
The four adventures combined are probably enough to get PCs well into Level 8. At $30 plus shipping, you're paying a reasonable $8 per adventure. I've read about a conversion to D&D 3.5e but cannot actually find it online.
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Chris Flood
United States
Oakland
California
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The top-rated "super-module" of all time, Against the Giants is a collection of three AD&D classics into one book. At just $3 on Amazon.com, these three adventures essentially cost only $1 each, arguably making the collection the best value of any available old school adventure module.
Although Against the Giants is written to directly follow the Scourge of the Slave Lords series, I'd be surprised if you didn't need another adventure or two to beef up a small party's experience before tackling this challenging module.
For $12 on Amazon.com, you can get Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff, a reprint of G1-2-3 with some additional adventure seeds and higher production values. At essentially $4 per adventure, the value remains excellent.
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Chris Flood
United States
Oakland
California
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Descent to the Depths of the Earth makes an apt follow-up to Against the Giants in more ways than one. It not only follows Against the Giants as the second-highest ranked super-module but also provides nearly as excellent a value, with two adventures combined into one book for $7 on Amazon.com. More importantly, the adventures themselves follow the events previous module, making it an ideal continuation in an ongoing campaign.
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Chris Flood
United States
Oakland
California
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The sequel to Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Vault of the Drow is the highest-ranked D&D adventure module of all time, a fact that likely contributes to its $12 price tag, considerably higher than any of the other modules listed thus far. However, if your gaming group has made it this far, you can hardly find a more ideal follow-up to the previous pair of modules. Vault of the Drow is designed for 8 to 10 PCs averaging Level 10.
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Chris Flood
United States
Oakland
California
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Despite Queen of the Demonweb Pits ($7 on Amazon.com)'s designation as the climactic conclusion to the TAGDQ series, particularly the G and D adventure arc, I'm inclined to recommend concluding with D3 or coming up with your own final adventure. Q1 gives the DM a lot to work with, but is just too dissimilar in feel to the previous adventures. It would be better as a stand-alone or as a jumping off point for a high-level plane-jumping campaign. Given a different context, it would likely be held in higher esteem.
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Posted Wed Dec 16, 2009 7:30 am
Kansas City
Missouri
Montréal
Quebec
Oakland
California
I cannot personally attest to any successful conversion, but I remember a GM on the Microlite20 forums saying that he ran his players through these with ease. The characters leveled more rapidly than they would have under AD&D, but that's to be expected with the XP rules in Microlite20 and easily changed.
Lincoln
Rhode Island
I'll bet EN World has the conversions. 'Cept ya gotta pay for those on that site now.
Sad days.