5 Adventures Every GM Should Run

I fully encourage you to jump into the comments and tell me I missed your fave off the list.

The Sunless Citadel

It’s a classic for a reason. The Sunless Citadel is an introductory dungeon crawl from 3rd edition D&D. It’s a classic dungeon crawl harkening back to the origins of the game, with enough meat for veteran players to sink their teeth into and plenty of hooks to open up the game for future adventures. If you want to see what good dungeons look like, you could do much worse than to start here.

Pick up The Sunless Citadel here.

The Village of Hommlet

Old school players talk about Keep On The Borderlands a lot but Hommlet comes up less often, and that’s a shame. It’s a really good starter sandbox. Lots of people will look at it and say “there’s no adventure here” and they’re both right and wrong. The adventure comes organically out of how the players interact with the world, from the threads they pull on and the NPCs they engage with. There’s enough here to keep you playing for years without ever leaving Hommlet.

Grab it here.

Sailors On The Starless Sea

Harley Stroh’s Sailors On The Starless Sea is a masterclass in dungeon design and the ur-funnel. Written for the DCC RPG but easily adaptable to any dungeon game, it’s a true classic that makes a real mess of low level characters in fun and hilarious ways. If you’ve never experienced the pure unbridled chaos of a good funnel, bring this to the table ASAP.

Buy it here

Witchburner

Witchburner is the kind of adventure that lingers in your mind long after you’ve moved on from it. There are no monsters to kill or dungeons to explore here. There’s just a community in peril, adventurers who refuse to fully grasp the situation, and reckoning with the consequences of your own actions. It’s about the things people will do for power and the decisions that players will make when they think they know everything.

Burn a witch here.

Wet Grandpa

Wet Grandpa is unlike any adventure you’ve ever seen. It’s dark and scary, delicate and tragic, and will entirely change the way you think about fantasy roleplaying games. It’s one of the weirdest adventures you will ever read or run in your life but there’s nothing like it. I don’t even want to tell you what it’s about because I don’t want to spoil it. Pick it up, read it, run it.

Get wet here.

If you liked the things on this list you should buy them and run them. And if you like me, consider leaving a tip on Ko-Fi.