Favorite T2K Adventure Module

[Raellus]

There are 26 canon adventure modules, by my count, but polls are limited to 20 options, so I've omitted the later modules and anything that could be more rightly considered a sourcebook (like Howling Wilderness). You can always choose "Other", if your favorite wasn't listed.

I'm partial to Pirates of the Vistula, mainly because I ran it as a PbP for over 6 years. This included an extended episode in Warsaw, using elements of the Ruins Of... module. This epic campaign also inspired me to create my own adventure module, set in northern Poland, Rook's Gambit.

[Adm.Lee]

I went with Krakow, but it's really close with Black Madonna.

Both are "Here's a McGuffin that's really valuable, but you're not able to use it. Here's all the people who can use it. Go."

Pirates and Warsaw are close behind.

[swaghauler]

Pirates of the Vistula struck a cord with me because I love sailing as much as I love guns. I never acquired Gateway to The Spanish Main or I might have to change my vote.

[Matt Wiser]

Went with King's Ransom-T2K with a still-functioning military chain of command and supply system, but also fond of Black Madonna.

[WallShadow]

FCoK for the first among equals, love the twisted Casablanca/Maltese Falcon motif going on throughout. And I had the whole "get the girl and her love into the helicopter" scene all planned out, with special-order ILLUM mortar rounds from Wojo to confuse the MANPADS....
BUT...
Ruins of Warsaw tickled my imagination as to how to most efficiently use the time and resources to wipe out the Black Baron. Homemade McCormick reapers made from the Krolova's bicycle cargo in her machine shop? Salvaging ordnance found in the rubble, or rigging it as command-detonated IEDs, Logistics, logistics, logistics...
AND...
Allegheny Uprising called to me from its multiple sites of hidden pre-whoops goodnesses, figuring out alternate uses for all those crates of tax forms, and salvaging the silver out of those Alaskan pipeline weld x-ray negatives. Plus, it's in my backyard--nothing like rooting for the hometeam.
AND, lastly....
Gateway to the Caribbean, again, teasing my brain on how to get the A.B. Buzko's armament cargo, enlist the aid of the mamaloi to brew up some fugu-fish paralytic dart venom to quietly save the Carriacou shipwrights without getting them blown up real good, and set up a sailing-vessel mercantile trade empire!

More fun than an human being should have without a marriage license! Or a bungee cord. Or proper prophylactic protection. Or all three....

[Raellus]

To those who have voted but didn't post in the thread, I'd really like to hear why you chose the module that you did. Please share.

[Draq]

Originally Posted by Raellus

To those who have voted but didn't post in the thread, I'd really like to hear why you chose the module that you did. Please share.

Free city. Because that's where it all starts, after kalisz. Your few survivors, with sparse supplies, worn out gear and vehicles, are roaming the Polish countryside behind enemy lines after full fledged nuclear war, with no ideas who or what is out there. And Krakow is the first decent thing these soldiers have seen in a long time, until they scratch the surface... It's the core of t2k

[Ewan]

I voted for Going Home as it gave details on the British and German armies as well as the French Zone. It came out just as i was finishing college.
If I had another choice it would have been Red Star/Lone Star.

[LVI]

I voted Free city of Krakow. Ive ran it twice over the past 7 years. The 1st time the guys i had really liked it as it gave us a sence of James Bond instead of open combat thruout Poland.

The 2nd time was last summer when my new group of PCs had a new campaign. I turned it into a more Mercanary mission where they spent a few months in Krakow serving a powerful nusinessman named Sasha. He was a large solar panel distributor pre war and used his power and panels to power OLD Krakow.

In both campaigns i created a new operation Reset and both ideas worked great. Somewhere thru the archives im sure if ppl are interested can find and read up on my 1st journey as i did document it. I havent documented this one, but we have made it back Stateside and are running and combined satellite down and Armies of the night homebrew.

My 2nd choice would be going home as both times the groups had so many options. They both ended up just driving the Breirhaven (sp?) But the 2nd time i also had them convinced to take the Train.

And of course escape from Kalisz was a great module to throw pc into.

[Olefin]

Actually Krakow is my favorite but we actually played Black Madonna first and then went to Krakow - and we showed up with a pretty big group as we had busted out both the POW's from the Escape scenario and the gentlemen who had been scooped up by the Silesians - and having the Madonna and Reset at the same time made us big time targets - we were very glad to get them both to the DIA

If we could pick our top two I would have to say it would be Krakow and then Red Star Lone Star- our GM changed the scenario to have us as the lead team for MilGov sending in forces to grab both the oil rig and get a foothold in Southern Texas - and we had one heck of a battle stopping the Soviets

[ArmySGT.]

Free City of Krakow. It is more rightfully a campaign sourcebook and could have been generously expanded over time with more NPCs, encounter groups, interesting locations, and minimaps.

Markets selling weapons, food, batteries, salt, etc. Taverns to lurk in and find work. Workshops repairing cars, bicycles, and generators. Small labs making gun powder, acids, lye soap, bleach. Neighborhood militias protecting their own. More criminal gangs like jews, russians, serbs, prussians, germans, and gypsies with their own corner of the market. Naive refugees fleeing into Krakow and getting fleeced or sent into forced labor. Rival soldiers still killing one another for NATO or the Pact. Polish Royalists, Constitutionalists, Republicans, and Communists trying to form Parties and wrest control.

Krakow is sort of the AD&D City of Lankmar for T2K.

[Olefin]

I agree about Krakow - plus its one of the few actual cities in the game where you can basically get just about anything you need as to weapons, medical supplies, food, etc.. - and the surrounding area literally could be played for months - one thing about GDW that I really didnt appreciate was how quickly they went to Going Home - i.e. I know they wanted to get players to the US for the games they were working on and have them bring the same ones all the way but wish they had done Omega much later - if you really try to stay to the timeline you have to basically force people to leave an area before they ever really explore all that there is to offer

[Adm.Lee]

Olefin, I was just reading some of the notes from my first T2k campaign, the one that we played as the modules were coming out, and I have to agree with you. I did a LOT of compression, the game lasted 14 months real time, just 4 months of game time.

They picked up some vehicles in the woods outside Kalisz, went to Krakow, almost immediately got on the boat-- left some vehicles and a few NPCs behind-- sailed downriver, fought only 2-3 battles, fought the big battle with the Baron, drove right back to Krakow in 1 day, did a little bit of scouting in Silesia and got the order to go home. I probably only spent 2-3 sessions on each book?

I had forgotten that during Pirates, nearly all of the group was badly wounded and a few killed in the river fight south of Warsaw. The rest of that mod was done with some new PCs, while the rest recovered in Gora Kalwaria.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm using Krakow as the basis for convention games, and I've got several more sessions that I can do.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Olefin, I was just reading some of the notes from my first T2k campaign, the one that we played as the modules were coming out, and I have to agree with you. I did a LOT of compression, the game lasted 14 months real time, just 4 months of game time.

They picked up some vehicles in the woods outside Kalisz, went to Krakow, almost immediately got on the boat-- left some vehicles and a few NPCs behind-- sailed downriver, fought only 2-3 battles, fought the big battle with the Baron, drove right back to Krakow in 1 day, did a little bit of scouting in Silesia and got the order to go home. I probably only spent 2-3 sessions on each book?

I had forgotten that during Pirates, nearly all of the group was badly wounded and a few killed in the river fight south of Warsaw. The rest of that mod was done with some new PCs, while the rest recovered in Gora Kalwaria.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm using Krakow as the basis for convention games, and I've got several more sessions that I can do.

I think the real shame is that the early modules especially had very richly developed areas for exploration with lots of detail that you could have spent ten or twenty sessions in some cases and still only scratched the surface - but the timeline was so damn compressed that was impossible - you basically had to do what you did and what my GM did - which is take a hell of a lot of short cuts

its the reason my GM has us find enough fuel to keep our vehicles on gas and diesel - he did the calculations and given the timing needed to brew fuel the only way to do the modules was to have us stay on conventional fuel or find ready made methanol or ethanol in large enough quantities that we didnt need to take the the enforced three day pauses for brewing fuel - there just wasnt enough time otherwise to actually play the modules right where you could take your time and do it realistically - i.e. not go into Krakow, find Reset and get it to the DIA in two or three days and off we go to the boat!

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I think the real shame is that the early modules especially had very richly developed areas for exploration with lots of detail that you could have spent ten or twenty sessions in some cases and still only scratched the surface - but the timeline was so damn compressed that was impossible - you basically had to do what you did and what my GM did - which is take a hell of a lot of short cuts

How much more fun could we have had, if OpOrd OMEGA had been given a sailing date of 1 May 01 instead?

[Raellus]

Based on the new responses on the Favorite APC/IFV thread, I thought a bit of thread necromancy might be in order.

[Rainbow Six]

Hmmm. Tricky. I went for Free City of Krakow in the end but I was torn between that, Going Home, and Pirates of the Vistula, probably because those three felt the most sand boxy. Krakow got my vote in the end because it’s more open than the other two, which tie you into a railway line or a river respectively.

I’d also give a shout out to Armies of the Night (and am surprised it got no votes). I mean, who doesn’t want to play T2K’s version of Escape From New York?

[shrike6]

Easy, first module I owned Going Home. Although Bear's Den and most Polish Adventures rank up there too.

[Raellus]

Going Home is cool but it feels a little more source-book than adventure module to me. IIRC, the Last Train to Clarkesville section is only a few pages long. The bulk of the book is dedicated to the location and status of various US, NATO, and Warsaw Pact units c. late summer 2000, with brief descriptions of a select locales. In other words, Going Home contains less story, more setting. IMHO, though, there's enough story to justify classifying it as an adventure module.

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[shrike6]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Going Home is cool but it feels a little more source-book than adventure module to me. IIRC, the Last Train to Clarkesville section is only a few pages long. The bulk of the book is dedicated to the location and status of various US, NATO, and Warsaw Pact units c. late summer 2000, with brief descriptions of a select locales. In other words, Going Home contains less story, more setting. IMHO, though, there's enough story to justify classifying it as an adventure module.

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True, it wasn't a traditional adventure book but it was one heck of a train ride.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by shrike6

True, it wasn't a traditional adventure book but it was one heck of a train ride.

and there was stuff besides the train if you missed the ships that could keep a campaign going - i.e. do you try to get into France and face the Dead Zone patrols, try to join up with any of the Americans trying to carve out their own little empires or find a way to instead get sent to the Middle East so at least you are going to be among friends

[Enfield]

Last Submarine for fleshing out the region of New England in such an interesting way, and the fact that you can easily blend in some Challenge articles to have a whole campaign centered around New England. I also love the idea of it.

Next would be the class Free City of Krakow, in part due to the tie in with the final battle for Kalisz and the interesting setting, intrigues and other situations surrounding it.

My third pick would be The Black Madonna. The adventure itself is very intriguing. The party can make a variety of choices as to what they feel they morally and practically align with, the NPCs are very interesting, the opponents are as well.

[ChalkLine]

Pirates.

Riverine action through a post apocalyptic wasteland with a doom-laden destination.

Everyone goes looking for Vasileks

[bash]

I went with Mediterranean Cruise because it's got an overall mission but every stop gives tons of options for the referee to have fun at every stop. The characters also have enough supplies where the players feel they have some agency rather than constantly scrabbling to survive.

I think it's hits a lot of good notes for an adventure module. If there's too nebulous a mission the players end up with choice paralysis. If there's too much "story" then it feels like just a railroad with no player agency.

[ToughOmbres]

Difficult to choose one favorite. For Europe, it would have to be Pirates of the Vistula followed by Going Home. In CONUS it would be Allegheny Uprising and Airlords of the Ozarks. Sorry, couldn't pick just one.