The string of adventures for early Third Edition is often called an adventure path of sorts, because they follow each other in level expectations, and you could play them in order without any additional content needed due to the leveling alone. However, they also aren't an adventure path, because there are no links at all between them, and they have no connection. They're all completely discrete, stand-alone adventures and the only thing connecting them is the trade dress, the release schedule, and the fact that they march forward by level.
The Forge of Fury (3-5)
The Speaker in Dreams (5-7)
The Standing Stone (7-9)
Heart of Nightfang Spire (10-13)
Deep Horizon (13-15)
Lord of the Iron Fortress (15-17)
Bastion of Broken Souls (18-20)
On my re-read, or first time read as the case might be (I can't remember; these are all about twenty-five years old now) I've hit up the first three of them, having finished The Speaker in Dreams last night. It's interesting to compare them to the Paizo adventure paths, both because some claim that this is an adventure path of sorts, or a proto-adventure path (I kind of disagree, but I see the point—if there's no interconnected "meta" story linking the adventures, it's not an adventure path, just a string of unrelated adventures of appropriately linked level expectation) but also because of the way that they're written.
I've said for some time now that Paizo and even WotC (now, at least) write products that are meant to be read at least as much as they're meant to be played. I think that they realize that if they can make engaging products that people want to read that they can sell many more products than if they make products for play. Because people's ability to play modules is much more limited than their ability to read them. Of course, many people just write this way because it comes natural to them too, and they personally enjoy engaging to read products, and write them because they enjoy them, without thinking overmuch about the perhaps perverse economic incentives of writing game modules that are really more to be read than to be played.
There's often a lot of backstory, context, description, etc. Stuff that makes it feel more like a script or screenplay than a toolkit to play with. The Speaker in Dreams, on the other hand, is not that product. It's very much a toolkit, and while my mind often wandered while reading it, because its written like an older product; all practical and useable rather than engaging, I could see that this would actually be a great product to play in most respects.
One interesting point of discussion in old school circles is when exactly did the game became "not old school" anymore. There isn't a single answer to this, of course, because there isn't even a single answer to what old school even is. Let me present a handful of potential answers, though, and my case for why that one works:
- Tim Kask actually made the case in an older blog post (he's passed away now) that the release of AD&D was the end of old school. Certainly there was a fundamental shift in how the game was expected to work at that point; it went from being pretty rules-lite and freewheeling, counting on the creativity of the players and the judgement of the referee or DM to one that was extensively codified and detailed. That said, I don't think that this cut-off has caught on. But in some way, maybe it should have. Ultimately, I think that that's the main distinction between different playstyles; how much rules do you need, and how seriously do you take them? On the other hand, in my experience hardly anyone actually played with all of the rules of AD&D. Most people probably did something like B/X but with AD&D races and classes, honestly, which is why "Advanced B/X" retro-clones are among the most popular.
- 2e is often seen as a potential cut-off, especially with the release of "2.5" with the players and DM's options books. While the rules still maintained a high degree of compatibility with every other version of D&D and AD&D floating around at the time, the focus and presentation was decidedly modern and heavily influenced by the success of games that were tradder than trad and heavily focused on story and stuff like that, like the success of White Wolf and others.
- 3e is the most commonly given cut-off, given that the system was extensively revised, no longer had high levels of compatibility (according to most) and power level was increased. That said... as noted in my review of the module above, much of how the game was presented was decidedly retro, more so than 2e had been in fact, and compatibility is in the eye of the beholder (no pun intended.) Professor DM often says, and I completely agree with him, that you can pretty much run any version of any module of D&D with any version of the system on the fly. If I wanted to run a 5e campaign using 3e rules (or vice versa) I can and have just done it. If I wanted to run a Goodman Games DCC module or a B/X module again, on the fly. But you have to have the right personality to think that that's doable. Lots of people shudder at the thought. To me, it's no big deal. In any case, one of 3e's big mottos was "back to the dungeon" and in spite of a lot of updates to the system, in many respects the presentation and tone of the game was much more similar to much earlier AD&D rather than where 2e had been for many years previously. At least early on in the editions' life cycle.
Although I doubt most people would call 3e old school. That's a hard case to make, but I'm offering it anyway. But I already know most people will reject that paradigm, and probably for good reason. But I was struck by how "old school" the writing and paradigm of these early 3e modules are compared to what came later. It was certainly deliberately more "old school" than modules like 2e's "Dead Gods" or something like that, in spite of the revisions to the system.
As an aside, I was pleasantly surprised by the Lovecraftian angle in this module too, without it being too "on the nose." Nicely done. I'm actually kind of excited about finding a venue to try and run this, honestly.
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