There are many ways to tackle the overarching story of a tabletop role-playing game, and Dungeon Masters in theDungeons & Dragonsuniverse should always consider their players' goals as a party and for individual character progression. They have to consider what would be fun for everyone involved, including the DM themselves.
Dungeons and Dragonsis all about a great story, so DMs should move forward at their own pace, and are free to use the modules for homebrew inspiration or in their entirety as a full adventure. For those feeling more ambitious, some adventure modules in theD&Dlibrary are bigger, longer, and more epic than others.
Updated October 6th, 2024, by Kristy Ambrose:DMs have quite a lot of fresh content to draw inspiration from these days, especially with the new D&D One rules now available. With so many new enemies, items, and rules, there are countless ways to freshen up an existing campaign or create a new one from scratch. Even a DM that likes a simple, even boring campaign can put together something epic and creative for the characters involved.
15A Daring Heist
Jailbreaks And Thievery From The Keys From The Golden Vault
The theme ofThe Keys From The Golden Vaultanthology is break-ins, which can mean daring burglaries, valuable artifacts, or dangerous prison breaks. There’s a total of 13 adventures here, which covers a wide range of levels, meaning that a DM can keep characters busy for some time.
This setting is just a museum or oversized safe. It contains everything from ghostly musical instruments to a mysterious town of Deep Gnomes. It’s also the lore of the Golden Vault that makes this adventure an epic choice. The title of the module isn’t only the name of the vault itself, it’s an organization dedicated to finding, acquiring, and hiding all kinds of precious secrets.
14Adventures In Space
Brave The Ships of Spelljammer
There are many different ways to frame a sea-based adventure, and most of them can land extremely well. From pirate-hunting to pirate-turning, few things give players more freedom than taking control of a vessel and taking itanywherethey please, and taking a ship through the ethereal plane means anywhere.
A journey to the edge of life, the universe and everything can handle whatever the DM and the players can come up with, from mystical islands, to sunken treasure, to giant underwater monsters. Both the DM and the players might need to read up on seafaring rules and lore when it comes to character creation, but the experience is worth it.
12Shutting Down Fanatics
Fight Against the Cult of the Reptile God
From liches to dark deitiesto cunning monstrosities. Unraveling a cult can make for a great adventure, filled with mystery, intrigue, and even horror.Against The Cult Of the Reptile Godis rated as one of the best D&D adventures of all time, making it an ideal place to start fighting cults.
The DM has a lot of freedom when it comes to fleshing out the cult’s goals, methods, and members. From secret societies to outright wars, cults can be extremely dangerous, and it will be up to the players to find a way to defeat them.
See What’s Underneath In Tales From The Yawning Portal
Written By:Wizards RPG Team
What if the BBEG is someone who has free access to planar travel? Moving from city to city, plane to plane, they can wreak havoc on different dimensions, leaving utter chaos behind them. The players will need to find clues as to where the enemy went next, as they deal with the aftermath of their atrocities.
There are also many ways that players could follow such an enemy. If they don’t have access to the necessary spells yet, they might have to look for a particular scroll or a natural gateway to the next plane of existence.
10Solving A Political Crisis
Destiny Of Kings Is Fraught With Intrigue
While not for everyone, politically oriented games can be a lot of fun, and this module starts with an assassination to get the ball rolling. In aGame of Thronesfashion, the players will need to unravel the many mysteries that a castle might hold, as they try to distinguish friend from foe, and the connections and gossip between various characters.
Players might find themselves in the middle of an unfolding crisis, perhaps possessing the key to a war, and it would be up to them to stop or start it. There are many directions such a game might go, but if everyone is on board with such a style it can lead to many great sessions.
9Epic War Of The Gods
Wrath Of Olympus Is An Obvious Choice
A clash between deities canaffect the material plane in a myriad of ways, from sudden elemental calamities, to randomly opening rifts in the fabric of space, or strangely behaving magic. Going from there, DMs can consider how exactly that would affect the players, and what could their ultimate goal be. They could try and bring peace between the deities, perhaps solving an old grievance of theirs, like returning a stolen artifact.
Wrath of Olympustakes another view of this and is designed to be used for characters that have been leveling using a fairly new Immortal system that provides godlike powers and immortality. In this case, the players are the gods, and instead of the fear of dying, it’s up to the DM to provide a unique challenge instead.
8The Quest for Secrets
Venture Into Castle Amber
The Philosopher’s Stone, the Fountain of Youth, the Lazarus Pit. Stories of objects granting eternal life have been present since the dawn of time. It’s only natural to try and bring them into the beloved tabletop game and hide them in creative locations, and one possibility could beCastle Amber,which has been rated the 15th bestD&Dadventure module of all time.
The actual centerpiece object can be whatever the DM can come up with. On top of that, there is also the matter of other interested parties to consider. If rumors of such a thing begin to spread, kings and evil mages alike will be engaged in a deadly race to whoever can get there first.
7World Reclamation
Discover The Apocalypse Stone
In the world of the Forgotten Realms, someone is constantly plotting to take over the world. Perhaps one of them succeeded. What if the relatively peaceful lands have been completely overtaken by goblins? What could players evendoto try and usurp evil overlords?The Apocolypse Stoneis one module that explores those possibilities, and since it’s only for higher-level characters it has to be epic.
Or perhaps, inThe Last of Usfashion, the world is devastated by a strange disease that turns everyone into mindless husks. Theplayers could be the ones to find the cure, as they travel through the desolated lands, meeting those who have survived in such a post-apocalyptic world.
