I am getting a group together to play a digital campaign via DDB (AboveVTT browser plugin for visuals), mainly consisting of (maybe fully consisting of) people who are relatively new and never played an official campaign.
Of all the campaigns for sale here on DDB, do any of you know of a thread (or external link) where they have all been ranked, and said ranking discussed?
I'd like to start lower down the ratings and work our way up over time.
Do you mean published adventures, eg Rime of the Frostmaiden, Descent into Avernus, etc?
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I know Dungeon Dudes, XP to Lvl 3, and Bob World Builder have all done ranking videos.
But I'm not sure why you would want to start lower down in the rankings; that would just make your life harder. Start with either the Dragon of Icespire Peak, or the free Lost Mine of Phandelver. Those are the best introductions to D&D.
Also, there are so many published adventures that you're unlikely to play even half of them. Dragon of Icespire Peak took my group 17 three-hour sessions to complete. And I've heard many groups spend 50+ sessions on Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden.
If you are starting with new players, why would you start with the bad campaigns? Wouldn't that just give them a bad experience playing D&D?
I would think you want to start with whatever sounds fun to run / that they are interested in playing in.
General consensus is that Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the worst and by a country mile.
Also, some of the things in the "adventures" sections are not full campaigns, like Saltmarsh and Radiant Citadel. They are standalone adventure anthologies.
I know Dungeon Dudes, XP to Lvl 3, and Bob World Builder have all done ranking videos.
But I'm not sure why you would want to start lower down in the rankings; that would just make your life harder. Start with either the Dragon of Icespire Peak, or the free Lost Mine of Phandelver. Those are the best introductions to D&D.
Also, there are so many published adventures that you're unlikely to play even half of them. Dragon of Icespire Peak took my group 17 three-hour sessions to complete. And I've heard many groups spend 50+ sessions on Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden.
Good luck!
Hi,
My reason for starting lower down the ranking (though it's gotta be good) is so I don't play all the best ones available here on DDB and then eventually have only campaigns which are worse than the ones i've played. It's not a science... just an notion I had :)
Thanks for the info though! Usefully to have an idea of how long the campaigns you mentioned might go on for
Personally, I'd go for some higher ranking ones first. Most of it should be fine to play as-is. You can do not so great ones later on with experienced players (and possibly a more experienced DM) who can help upgrade the adventure.
I say that because I did DoIP first and there were definite sections that if I had the confidence I do now, I'd have patched it up and improved it. Better to start with ones that don't need latching so you have confidence when you get to the ones that do.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If you are starting with new players, why would you start with the bad campaigns? Wouldn't that just give them a bad experience playing D&D?
I would think you want to start with whatever sounds fun to run / that they are interested in playing in.
General consensus is that Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the worst and by a country mile.
Also, some of the things in the "adventures" sections are not full campaigns, like Saltmarsh and Radiant Citadel. They are standalone adventure anthologies.
The "Campaigns":
Curse of Strahd
Hoard of the Dragon Queen / Rise of Tiamat
Out of the Abyss
Princes of the Apocalypse
Storm King's Thunder
Tomb of Annihilation
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Dragon of Icespire Peak
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden
Wild Beyond the Witchlight
Call of the Netherdeep
Hi,
I am not looking to start them off with bad campaigns. I am just looking for a rank of the campaigns and hopefully also to hear some opinions from people who have played them.
I want to get a shortlist to go back to the group with and then we all decide what tickles our fancy, as a group :)
Funny you mention Hoard of the Dragon Queen! I was just looking at that one and thinking it might be best to start out with this as a shorter campaign, and if they are enjoying D&D then we could move on to The Rise Of Tiamat.
So you wouldnt recommend this then?
Also, thanks for the list of campaigns! I did notice not all the items in the adventurers tab here on DDB were not full campaigns.
Personally, I'd go for some higher ranking ones first. Most of it should be fine to play as-is. You can do not so great ones later on with experienced players (and possibly a more experienced DM) who can help upgrade the adventure.
I say that because I did DoIP first and there were definite sections that if I had the confidence I do now, I'd have patched it up and improved it. Better to start with ones that don't need latching so you have confidence when you get to the ones that do.
That's actually a really good point... I didn't think of that.
My experience with the premade campaigns is fairly limited, having only played Icewind Dale and Avernus. I would recommend against both.
Icewind Dale is poorly written and requires a lot of homebrewing to make palatable. It is bad enough that D&D Beyond wrote an entire article that basically said “Wizards forgot to make the bad guy and plot interesting or fleshed out, here are things you can do to make Icewind a little more bearable.” If you are a new DM, it is a lot of work just to make it barely playable, then you are still left with a really bad plot with significant pacing issues.
Avernus is basically a glorified and rather linear fetch quest masquerading as a campaign.
My experience with the premade campaigns is fairly limited, having only played Icewind Dale and Avernus. I would recommend against both.
Icewind Dale is poorly written and requires a lot of homebrewing to make palatable. It is bad enough that D&D Beyond wrote an entire article that basically said “Wizards forgot to make the bad guy and plot interesting or fleshed out, here are things you can do to make Icewind a little more bearable.” If you are a new DM, it is a lot of work just to make it barely playable, then you are still left with a really bad plot with significant pacing issues.
Avernus is basically a glorified and rather linear fetch quest masquerading as a campaign.
Hi,
Thank you for the input. Very helpful.
I am aiming to get a DM with a few campaigns under their belt, but even with that, it sounds like the ones you mentioned should be avoid either way
Funny you mention Hoard of the Dragon Queen! I was just looking at that one and thinking it might be best to start out with this as a shorter campaign, and if they are enjoying D&D then we could move on to The Rise Of Tiamat.
So you wouldnt recommend this then?
I have not personally played or ran it, but I have heard the horror stories first-hand from my friend who ran it. There were SEVERE balance issues with the encounters. As in you could very easily TPK your level 3 party within the first few sessions.
My personal shortlist would be:
Descent into Avernus
Call of the Netherdeep
Rime of the Frostmaiden
Out of the Abyss
Wild Beyond the Witchlight
Ghost of Saltmarsh (while this is technically individual adventures they do have a mechanism to chain them together for the most part)
And I recommend staying away from Dragon Heist, or if you do run it, expect to need to do significant overhaul to it.
Interesting to see pro and con on here for Descent Into Avernus. I ran it as a DM. Very light possible spoiler, so just to be safe...
I found the first part of the adventure far more interesting and fun than the second (which is not what I expected). If I had it to do over again I would heavily alter the second part, as it really is, as mentioned above, a pretty basic fetch quest. I don't recommend starting with anything that needs a lot of editing/reworking.
Funny you mention Hoard of the Dragon Queen! I was just looking at that one and thinking it might be best to start out with this as a shorter campaign, and if they are enjoying D&D then we could move on to The Rise Of Tiamat.
So you wouldnt recommend this then?
I have not personally played or ran it, but I have heard the horror stories first-hand from my friend who ran it. There were SEVERE balance issues with the encounters. As in you could very easily TPK your level 3 party within the first few sessions.
My personal shortlist would be:
Descent into Avernus
Call of the Netherdeep
Rime of the Frostmaiden
Out of the Abyss
Wild Beyond the Witchlight
Ghost of Saltmarsh (while this is technically individual adventures they do have a mechanism to chain them together for the most part)
And I recommend staying away from Dragon Heist, or if you do run it, expect to need to do significant overhaul to it.
If you’re all new, start with Lost Mines of Phandelver. It’s on here, it’s designed for new players and new DMs, and it’s free.
Out of interest... If it wasn't Lost Mines of Phandelver, what would you recommend?
3 of us have already played a little, so we are familiar with D&D basics.
We are also looking for a DM with at least some experience (No new DM's for now - difficult experience with a new DM recently and I need time to get over it, lol ) - if this helps with what you might suggest.
Also, some of the things in the "adventures" sections are not full campaigns, like Saltmarsh and Radiant Citadel. They are standalone adventure anthologies.
I was just reading back over this thread and i'd like to ask you if standalone adventure anthologies are a bad thing?
How does it work, compared to a full campaign? And if you are feeling generous with your time, what are the pros/cons? :)
Also, some of the things in the "adventures" sections are not full campaigns, like Saltmarsh and Radiant Citadel. They are standalone adventure anthologies.
I was just reading back over this thread and i'd like to ask you if standalone adventure anthologies are a bad thing?
How does it work, compared to a full campaign? And if you are feeling generous with your time, what are the pros/cons? :)
Personally, I love the anthology books - and it is for that reason I would recommend against them for your stated purpose. Though these books can be played as a single campaign, they are more designed to add content to an existing campaign. Take, for example, a homebrew campaign where you have to go to a library to get information for the main quest - rather than just throw together a library encounter, you can make some modest edits to a Candlekeep Mystery, toss it in there, and have a really great little set of encounters that can be finished in a session, all for little work. Same goes for Radiant Citadel, which has cities you can just plop into any world to add a bit of multicultural discovery to an existing campaign.
I highly recommend getting both Candlekeep and Citadel, but getting them so you can keep the adventures in your back pocket, breaking out the mini adventures one at a time out when they add something to a larger campaign (or you are having a lazy DM day and just need to toss something together quickly).
There are a few I'd recommend, depending on what you're looking for.
I have had great success running Lost Mines of Phandelver combined with Dragon of Icespire Peak. They both share the same central location and many of the same NPCs. I just loosely followed the plot of LMoP and threw in parts of DoIP as side quests. I have not needed them yet, but Storm Lord's Wrath, Sleeping Dragon's Wake, and Divine Contention were all written to follow DoIP if you needed to extend that campaign.
I absolutely love Curse of Strahd and am currently running it again while using Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. It may be difficult for a first time DM though.
Wild Beyond the Witchlight has been a lot of fun to play. I'm not the DM in that but I am having a great time.
There's nothing wrong with playing short adventures if committing to a longer campaign is challenging. I ran a couple of adventures in Candlekeep Mysteries when I needed a one-shot. I haven't tried any from Journeys through the Radient Citidel yet, but I am reading it now and I like what I see.
The rest of the adventures are okay, but from my experience each one needs some effort to make them work.
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Hi all,
I am getting a group together to play a digital campaign via DDB (AboveVTT browser plugin for visuals), mainly consisting of (maybe fully consisting of) people who are relatively new and never played an official campaign.
Of all the campaigns for sale here on DDB, do any of you know of a thread (or external link) where they have all been ranked, and said ranking discussed?
I'd like to start lower down the ratings and work our way up over time.
Thanks in advance!
Do you mean published adventures, eg Rime of the Frostmaiden, Descent into Avernus, etc?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I know Dungeon Dudes, XP to Lvl 3, and Bob World Builder have all done ranking videos.
But I'm not sure why you would want to start lower down in the rankings; that would just make your life harder. Start with either the Dragon of Icespire Peak, or the free Lost Mine of Phandelver. Those are the best introductions to D&D.
Also, there are so many published adventures that you're unlikely to play even half of them. Dragon of Icespire Peak took my group 17 three-hour sessions to complete. And I've heard many groups spend 50+ sessions on Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden.
Good luck!
There have been a few threads over time, but none that I can remember recently that would include things like Netherdeep.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/39824-any-hardcover-campaigns-i-should-avoid
If you are starting with new players, why would you start with the bad campaigns? Wouldn't that just give them a bad experience playing D&D?
I would think you want to start with whatever sounds fun to run / that they are interested in playing in.
General consensus is that Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the worst and by a country mile.
Also, some of the things in the "adventures" sections are not full campaigns, like Saltmarsh and Radiant Citadel. They are standalone adventure anthologies.
The "Campaigns":
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Hi,
I just mean of all the ones I can purchase here on DDB.
I'm relatively new myself :)
Hi,
My reason for starting lower down the ranking (though it's gotta be good) is so I don't play all the best ones available here on DDB and then eventually have only campaigns which are worse than the ones i've played. It's not a science... just an notion I had :)
Thanks for the info though!
Usefully to have an idea of how long the campaigns you mentioned might go on for
Personally, I'd go for some higher ranking ones first. Most of it should be fine to play as-is. You can do not so great ones later on with experienced players (and possibly a more experienced DM) who can help upgrade the adventure.
I say that because I did DoIP first and there were definite sections that if I had the confidence I do now, I'd have patched it up and improved it. Better to start with ones that don't need latching so you have confidence when you get to the ones that do.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Hi,
I am not looking to start them off with bad campaigns.
I am just looking for a rank of the campaigns and hopefully also to hear some opinions from people who have played them.
I want to get a shortlist to go back to the group with and then we all decide what tickles our fancy, as a group :)
Funny you mention Hoard of the Dragon Queen!
I was just looking at that one and thinking it might be best to start out with this as a shorter campaign, and if they are enjoying D&D then we could move on to The Rise Of Tiamat.
So you wouldnt recommend this then?
Also, thanks for the list of campaigns!
I did notice not all the items in the adventurers tab here on DDB were not full campaigns.
That's actually a really good point...
I didn't think of that.
Good shout!
Thanks!
My experience with the premade campaigns is fairly limited, having only played Icewind Dale and Avernus. I would recommend against both.
Icewind Dale is poorly written and requires a lot of homebrewing to make palatable. It is bad enough that D&D Beyond wrote an entire article that basically said “Wizards forgot to make the bad guy and plot interesting or fleshed out, here are things you can do to make Icewind a little more bearable.” If you are a new DM, it is a lot of work just to make it barely playable, then you are still left with a really bad plot with significant pacing issues.
Avernus is basically a glorified and rather linear fetch quest masquerading as a campaign.
Hi,
Thank you for the input.
Very helpful.
I am aiming to get a DM with a few campaigns under their belt, but even with that, it sounds like the ones you mentioned should be avoid either way
If you’re all new, start with Lost Mines of Phandelver. It’s on here, it’s designed for new players and new DMs, and it’s free.
Cheers mate!
I have not personally played or ran it, but I have heard the horror stories first-hand from my friend who ran it. There were SEVERE balance issues with the encounters. As in you could very easily TPK your level 3 party within the first few sessions.
My personal shortlist would be:
And I recommend staying away from Dragon Heist, or if you do run it, expect to need to do significant overhaul to it.
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Interesting to see pro and con on here for Descent Into Avernus. I ran it as a DM. Very light possible spoiler, so just to be safe...
I found the first part of the adventure far more interesting and fun than the second (which is not what I expected). If I had it to do over again I would heavily alter the second part, as it really is, as mentioned above, a pretty basic fetch quest. I don't recommend starting with anything that needs a lot of editing/reworking.
Oh wow!
Lol, that would suck!
None of the newbies would ever play again, haha
Thanks for your suggestions too!
Out of interest...
If it wasn't Lost Mines of Phandelver, what would you recommend?
3 of us have already played a little, so we are familiar with D&D basics.
We are also looking for a DM with at least some experience (No new DM's for now - difficult experience with a new DM recently and I need time to get over it, lol ) - if this helps with what you might suggest.
I was just reading back over this thread and i'd like to ask you if standalone adventure anthologies are a bad thing?
How does it work, compared to a full campaign?
And if you are feeling generous with your time, what are the pros/cons? :)
Personally, I love the anthology books - and it is for that reason I would recommend against them for your stated purpose. Though these books can be played as a single campaign, they are more designed to add content to an existing campaign. Take, for example, a homebrew campaign where you have to go to a library to get information for the main quest - rather than just throw together a library encounter, you can make some modest edits to a Candlekeep Mystery, toss it in there, and have a really great little set of encounters that can be finished in a session, all for little work. Same goes for Radiant Citadel, which has cities you can just plop into any world to add a bit of multicultural discovery to an existing campaign.
I highly recommend getting both Candlekeep and Citadel, but getting them so you can keep the adventures in your back pocket, breaking out the mini adventures one at a time out when they add something to a larger campaign (or you are having a lazy DM day and just need to toss something together quickly).
There are a few I'd recommend, depending on what you're looking for.
I have had great success running Lost Mines of Phandelver combined with Dragon of Icespire Peak. They both share the same central location and many of the same NPCs. I just loosely followed the plot of LMoP and threw in parts of DoIP as side quests. I have not needed them yet, but Storm Lord's Wrath, Sleeping Dragon's Wake, and Divine Contention were all written to follow DoIP if you needed to extend that campaign.
I absolutely love Curse of Strahd and am currently running it again while using Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. It may be difficult for a first time DM though.
Wild Beyond the Witchlight has been a lot of fun to play. I'm not the DM in that but I am having a great time.
There's nothing wrong with playing short adventures if committing to a longer campaign is challenging. I ran a couple of adventures in Candlekeep Mysteries when I needed a one-shot. I haven't tried any from Journeys through the Radient Citidel yet, but I am reading it now and I like what I see.
The rest of the adventures are okay, but from my experience each one needs some effort to make them work.