Favourite published adventure was one that I had a very clear idea for back in 2014 when I first did this. I chose the Traveller adventure Twilight’s Peak. However, since then, there has been some great material published which I’ve had the privilege to run or play.
I mentioned I6 - Ravenloft in the previous answer as a runner-up. The D&D5e Curse of Strahd campaign took that and built upon it, and then I took two of the mods from the Curse of Strahd subreddit (please find your own link, I’m not using that site following the recent changes) and I layered them on top to get a 60 session campaign whose notes I’ve published here. That said, this still doesn’t make it my favourite because it was the material beyond the published book that really elevated it for me. Fantastic fun though.
I also discussed Pelgrane Press’ Eternal Lies campaign for Trail of Cthulhu as a possible challenger to Call of Cthulhu’s Masks of Nyarlathotep as a firm favourite for me. I’ve been playing in a campaign of this on and off for the last three years or so and it is absolutely fantastic. The atmosphere and plot feels very different (yet similar) to the traditional Call of Cthulhu story. This is a scenario that feels a mix or noir and pulp, yet your characters are fragile. However, I’m really invested in the relationship we have developed between the characters and want them to succeed. This is definitely a favourite for me, but it doesn’t make the final cut yet because I haven’t played it all the way through.
I was fortunate to play through the whole of The One Ring 1e campaign of Darkening of Mirkwood. I did sporadic notes when playing it, but it was a fantastic experience. Dr Mitch led a group of us on a long journey around and through the woods, across the Misty Mountains several times, into the remnants of Angmar, and into Eriador. We certainly had a tale to tell. It was a campaign with a great GM and players who all invested in it and you definitely had a feel of the epic. Definitely a favourite and now sadly permanently out of print thanks to licensing.
I also had the opportunity to play The Dracula Dossier at LongCon. Written for Pelgrane Presses’ Night’s Black Agents vampire conspiracy thriller game, this is the campaign frame were Ken Hite started his writing from the premise that the novel ‘Dracula’ was in fact a fictionalised after-action report from MI6’s predecessors. It was intense and wonderful and I enjoyed the story that Steve Ellis wove as a GM. Once again, the game succeeded because there were a lot of people heavily invested in it. Our table was a table of GMs who rarely got to play and who all liked spy and horror material. At some point I’d like to dare to run this.
So this brings me to the list of more recent published adventures which are vying for attention. Luka Rejec’s Ultra Violet Grasslands and the Black City is one I want to get to the table. A Dying Earth style Science Fantasy road trip, this looks fantastic and would be perfect for a short campaign. The Nights of Payne Town campaign book for City of Mist also looks epic fun with the right group, as does the campaign for Mutant Year Zero Elysium. However, the only recently published adventure which I think has the epic scope to challenge the games described above is Impossible Landscapes for Delta Green. This is planned to run when Eternal Lies comes to an end and I’m excited about visiting it.
So do any of these newcomers knock Twilight’s Peak from its place in my heart? The Darkening of Mirkwood comes very close, but not quite. I’ve always been a science-fiction fan at heart, and the epic feel of Twilight’s Peak wins out for me. It’s also strange, because you don’t really resolve the mystery of the Ancients in the campaign, but rather solve the mystery of some lost ships. It’s a meta-campaign, designed to overlay other adventures, but there’s something in it that reminds me of Asimov, Sir Arthur C Clarke and Andre Norton, the authors that built my love for science-fiction.
I remain, at heart, a Traveller fan.
19 August 2023
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