It's fun to play, perfect for beginner in Dark sun. They discover the brutality of that world. Since the first time I Dmed Freedom and Little knowledge, my new player always start as slaves.
Freedom - I think as a group, my players probably enjoyed this module the most. We certainly had our fun with it.
Road to Urik - This adventure almost fizzled out at several points, but we did finally make it through to the end...and dang, was it ever worth it. We had such a blast in that final battle, that to this day, it remains THE highlight of the entire campaign.
Arcane Shadows - The shear "setup" value of this adventure, to me at least, made it worth it to play through. The number of npc's that would become important to all the various character's stories was just amazing.
Asticlian Gambit - This adventure ended up being rather surprising to me, in regards to the level of enjoyment it lended itself to. I was very close to skipping this adventure entirely, and still can't remember what made me change my mind. If I was to know how much fun my player's would find in it, I would've never hesitated.
Dragon Crown (thus far) - this ones actually been rather disappointing thus far. Don't get me wrong, however. This is a GREAT!! adventure. It's just that so much has gotten in the way of an enjoyable time, that it's rather saddening. Plus it doesn't help that far too much real life has prevented us, as a group, from getting together as much as we'd like.
Our party was an Elan Kineticist, an Elven Rogue/Monk and a Mul Soulknife.
We go into Tyr.. We see two elves beating on the half elf (a hook to be heroic). The Elf spits and says "good, give him one for me!" The Elan and Mul pay no attention, having more important things to do.
We get rounded up by the group. We go along quietly (for our own motives), until the Elf didn't want to give up her bow, so we attacked, wiped out four half giants and two templars before surrendering (and ensuring the Templar didn't say what happened. Do YOU want to tell your superior or lord Kalak that you HAD a bunch of slaves, but then three guys took you all out before surrendering peacefully? Nope, you say you could only find the three of them)
It all went this way. In the end we even freed the slaves, but it was because it was expedient and useful for us to do so and little else.
We've since started growing more heroic, but we all had chosen to start with characters apathetic and accepting of the world, not young heroes to be. Made the world all the more real to begin with (is making our characters more heroic now) and was a lot of fun watching the DM try to adjust for athasians instead of Torilians..
Mmm, Arcane Shadows is cool too.
The sheer terror on the players faces at the end was well worth it
I have to break slightly from the topic and say that I have really enjoyed Whispers in the Storm and Tryian Conspiracy. In Whispers the PCs burnt down the Rain Temple- because they got into a fight with the clerics and then a group of 8 low level templars who came up on the sceane.
Then in TC, when the assassin throws in the flaming oil into their room, they just got out and went outside- not trying to put out the fire or nothing, and then in Urik (the group was split at this time as they tried to make their way out of the city seperatly), I ran both sets of people through the elven scam with the mirror and they both ended up cutting down the two theives- a real bunch of heros I run- yeah right ;) .
A mere two days ago I ran my 3.5 modification of Freedom (based off of winging it heavily), and so, though I've read pretty much all the source material (collecting all the 2ed books was a dream of mine for a while, and one that's only recently been realized), I haven't had the chance to test it out in a playing environment. In fact, Freedom's the first D&D adventure I've ever DMed (it's been premade Shadowrun material until now), so I was terrified - however, I'd say it deserves a spot at or near the top for two main reasons.
First, it's a perfect introduction to the DS 'feel.' My players (including a pesky munchkin) came in expecting more whimsical adventure (despite my repeated attempts to describe the world), but everything - the enslavement, the pettiness of life in the slave pens, resorting to theft just to get enough water to survive - really kicked them into an almost feral survivor mode. By the end of the session (we had to stop before the great games began) they had already assembled a little slave gang, and were big fish in a small pond.
Second, a lot of the design behind it is really superb. I've seen (and been in) a number of adventures that involve enslavement or imprisonment for a long period of time, and this was often the nadir of the whole adventure - it's real hard to make living in bondage work right. However, the encounters, the allies and enemies, and the scenes were something my PCs really enjoyed (and I must admit, I loved RPing Urrgos, learning about the power of the rain from my good, though insane evangelist rain cleric). The enemies and allies give more opportunities for me to make custom plot hooks and adventures after the adventure is over, and the players (most of whom have never really played anything vaguely RP-centric, which is what I'm trying to do with this campaign) are learning that they're part (and not necessarily a big part... yet) of a living, breathing world and that there are real "people" all around them. Splendid!
Dark Sun's a superb setting for D&D, and I was thrilled when I found out so many people (including athas.org and contributors to Dungeon) were still working to keep it alive. All the other adventures are, from what I've read, great, but Freedom just gets people into the mindset, and in a harsh way, but one that's still fun for everyone. It gets my vote, certainly, though I'm sure if you ask me again in a month or two I'll be clamoring about Road to Urik and Arcane Shadows, and who knows what else?