D&D Supplements, Modules, Adventures, and Products: What Has Inspired You?

[Mulsiphix]

Dungeons and Dragons has been around for a very long time. During its long life and many incarnations there have been numerous official and third party products produced for the many flavors of D&D. Some have inspired us to create our greatest masterpieces and/or most detailed settings. Others were so great you find yourself converting them to the latest D&D rule set to be enjoyed time and time again. Please share with us those modules and memories that have inspired you as a player, GM, or both.


PLEASE NOTE
This thread deals with D&D directly, not D20. Official settings like Greyhawk, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer are included; Magazines, articles, newsletters, fanzines, and other TSR/WOTC and third party literature is not. If it wasn't an actual product created for Dungeons and Dragons, then please do not mentioned it in this thread. This is for true D&D and D&D spin-offs only.

[tesral]

Inspired me, not so much as inspired me. Little "i". Ideas are were I find them. I can't say I have built entire worlds around any single product, but that my world has a good many of the products imbedded in it over the years.

Traces of the old Judge's Guild can be found in the shape of my world. I used their wilderness maps all over the place.

Countless D&D modules have made an impact, either as a whole, or parts placed here and there.

[MortonStromgal]

I don't know that all of these count as D&D but this is where I get inspiration for D&D adventures (I left out 3rd party stuff, which frankly is where 90%+ of my inspiration for D&D comes from)

Monsterous Manual for AD&D 2nd Edition.
Forgotten Realms Box Set AD&D (to a lesser extent the 3.0 and AD&D book versions to)
Waterdeep Box Set AD&D
Free Maps & Art off of WOTC web site
Whatever the name is of the deity book is for 3.5 Forgotten Realms (The AD&D ones are good to)
All the Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale/Neverwinter Nights computer rpgs (walkthroughs are great source material)

[gdmcbride]

By limiting this to straight TSR/WOTC releases you cut out some of the most influential products in my gaming history.

But still ...

The PHB, DMG and MM 1st Edition are of course bewilderingly influential. As a kid, I devoured these books.

The first Dark Sun box set and the Planescape box set opened my eyes to the idea that D&D can be something quite different.

Keep on the Borderlands, Isle of Dread, Ravenloft, Vault of the Drow, The Desert of Desolation series, Red Hand of Doom -- these are quintessential lessons in adventure design for me.

Paizo's Shackled City is an official D&D release and a great campaign (though it needs a little work particularly with the ending). If you want to see a good D&D campaign can look like ... it's all inside that book.

Lost Tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali by Kenzer was also released under an official D&D license (as opposed to d20 or the OGL). That is a great adventure.

I could probably think of more but that's enough for now.

Gary

[nijineko]

i have read through or at least skimmed nearly every adventure supplement d&d has ever put out. plus others. there are lots and lots of ideas to draw from there. i retool old adventures with minor to major changes, even going so far as mixing and matching parts of adventures from time to time. that 16th level adventure of mine in the campaign invitations section is a good example of a mix of various adventures in a potluck fashion. =D

[Drohem]

The Forgotten Realms module N5 Under Illfarn. I used this to create an all dwarven campaign where Korin Ironaxe attempted to re-create a dwarven kingdom in the north and reclaim dwarven glory.

[rabkala]

There are so many, I don't know where to start. Just about all of those I have contacted have influenced or inspired in some way. It might be easier to list those that didn't. I find more inspiration when A interacts with B or C. You get brief moments when you say, "Whoa dude, awesome." You mash stuff together with ideas from movies and novels to find something unique or more than a sum of its parts.

[Mulsiphix]

rabkala please regale us with just a few of your many favorites

[Maelstrom]

Eberron!

I really like this setting. When one talks about D&D being high magic, wait until you set foot in Stormreach, where sentient constructs join quests, elementals are bound to ships, Artificers dream up wonderful items, and Dragonshards capture the essense and enhance magic.

I also like how they took they took D&D stereotypes and twisted them. A band of Orc barbarians keep the Demons from returning, halflings roam the plains on dinosaur mounts, and dragons are aloof and uninterested in the dealings of humans, content to read the future on their lost continent.

[Mulsiphix]

That is a D&D setting I wish I could take part in. Kinda hard to find an online (or local that allows for online players via skype or something similar), super newb friendly, eberron campaign though. Alright I haven't looked but it sounds unlikely.

[nijineko]

what? and with you here and all. =P start looking. ;D

[Maelstrom]

I'd recommend looking through the RPGA with their current Eberron ongoing campaign, but unfortunately its ending in June.

[Mulsiphix]

You guys think Eberron will be continued under 4E?

[DrAwkward]

You guys think Eberron will be continued under 4E?

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach is set in Ebberon. I recall, however that you have issues with using keyboard/mouse combos for long periods of time, and DDO online is a very twitch-style play.

My current campaign is inspired by Ebberon, but from the perspective of what it would have looked like right at the beginning of the "magical revolution".

[InfoStorm]

What really opened my eyes and gave me ideas for D&D were all of the novels that came out, starting (for me) with the Dragonlance Chronicles. Until then, D&D was all hack-n-slash to me. When I ready the books, I realized how much the plot line could define the adventure, as opposed to a serias of miss-matched encounters.