starting to collect all of the DnD books and all that’s left are the pre con adventure books. I’ve boufbt curse of strahd and the newest waterdeep one. I’ve seen mixed reviews on some of them on amazon so I decided to come here to get some more inputs. Which ones should I avoid being rather lack luster. Obviously everyone has a different opinion on what makes a good story and some of these pre cons will be better than others.
just wanna get some more feedback on ones I should get. Thanks for your input :)
People really seem to like The Lost Mines of Phandelver, but my best advice would be to thumb through a few of them at your local game store. The best adventures are the ones the spark your imagination. Any pre-constructed adventure is really more of a guide than a "The story must only go this way!" So go with what inspires you.
Many of the Pregen books can make a great campaign, however, in my opinion they still require work to make it your own. If nothing else they are great for the DM who might want a little backup before creating their own campaign. I’ve included my opinions of the books that I personally own.
I really liked Lost Mines. It has a great story for an intro box adventure. Much more dungeon delve than RPG, but enough room that if the new players want to Roleplay they can.
Hoard of the Dragon Queen and the Rise of Tiamat are connected adventures (with Horde beginning the players at 1st and Tiamat ending the campaign at level 20). These two adventures are riddled with errors due to the creators having an imcomplete version of the rules during its creation (they were released around the same time as 5e). The campaign also struggles from a tonal shift that occurs when the campaign shifts from one book to the other. The story is interesting, but (as someone who ran them) I would recommend reading both books and seeing where you can make change to smooth out the rough edges and help make it your own prior to getting a group together.
Out of the Abyss has a lot of things that the DM needs keep track of that is supposed to be occurring outside of the player’s view. There are also a LOT of NPCs that will take up your time. The adventure also suffers from a lack of underdark maps. That being said, I really liked the premise and story of this adventure. It takes place almost entirely in the Underdark.
Tales from the Yawning Portal is several individual adventures from older editions updated and put in one book. As such it is easier for you to add one or two of them into your own home brew if you want. However, they do not have a lot of roleplay (most of the early modules didn’t) so you need to put some effort on that part of the game. Also, the dungeons are in the book in pc’s recommended level order. So if you really wanted to you could attempt to build a massive campaign of interconnected dungeon delves out of it.
Curse of Strahd: I am planning on running this in the near future so I dont know how everything flows during gameplay, but I can say that I really enjoy how the book is designed. This one is more like an open world instead of a straight linear path. As such, there are areas that you should know about, but the players might never see.
I’m right in the middle of reading Waterdeep, but I’m already chomping at the bit to run it. I find it to be one of the best written pregen books so far. But then again, I like the stories that don’t have one way for the players to do things.
I am running a campaign using the Storm King's Thunder. There is a lot of great information in there, but the adventure as written seems to be a sprint to the finish.
I have encouraged the PCs to go off track, and have bought about a dozen adventures from the DMsGuild Website to supplement SKT. Browsing through that site has almost become a full time hobby! :D
My second group is playing in the Princes of the Apocalypse, and tackling it much closer to "how it is meant to be." If you and your group are action junkies, then this is a great adventure! (There are still a lot of roleplaying opportunities, but none are essential.) It may seem quite linear, but don't be fooled - you'll need to read and absorb the whole adventure to avoid getting caught flat-footed. And there are a lot of relatively high level spellcasters, so brush up on your spell knowledge.)
I gave up on running OOTA for several reasons, but the main reason was that I felt I had to know so much right off the bat. A dozen NPCs to adventure with! I will go back to it, but not this year.
As others have said, even an official adventure is much more a set of ideas and situations rather than hard and fast "this must happen!"
Running official adventures is not much less work than starting from scratch!
Edit: For completeness, my reasons for not choosing the others:
Tomb Of Annihilation : I really love the whole idea of this, but after what was realistically a ten year D&D break, I wanted a practice first! :D Jungles, Zombies, Dinosaurs! Yes Please!
Those Dragon Ones : Meh, they seemed a bit too political...I am probably way off the mark here.
Tales of the Yawning Portal: Too old school, and wanted something less "dungeony." Less 1980s.
Strahd: I think this needs a certain type of player base - my usual group are not them!
Alright, def staying away from OOTA then and the Tiamat one. I would love to eventually make my own adventure but I just get overwhelmed at having to create a big world for my party to traverse in my thoughts just go haywire @-@.
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starting to collect all of the DnD books and all that’s left are the pre con adventure books. I’ve boufbt curse of strahd and the newest waterdeep one. I’ve seen mixed reviews on some of them on amazon so I decided to come here to get some more inputs. Which ones should I avoid being rather lack luster. Obviously everyone has a different opinion on what makes a good story and some of these pre cons will be better than others.
just wanna get some more feedback on ones I should get. Thanks for your input :)
People really seem to like The Lost Mines of Phandelver, but my best advice would be to thumb through a few of them at your local game store. The best adventures are the ones the spark your imagination. Any pre-constructed adventure is really more of a guide than a "The story must only go this way!" So go with what inspires you.
Many of the Pregen books can make a great campaign, however, in my opinion they still require work to make it your own. If nothing else they are great for the DM who might want a little backup before creating their own campaign. I’ve included my opinions of the books that I personally own.
I really liked Lost Mines. It has a great story for an intro box adventure. Much more dungeon delve than RPG, but enough room that if the new players want to Roleplay they can.
Hoard of the Dragon Queen and the Rise of Tiamat are connected adventures (with Horde beginning the players at 1st and Tiamat ending the campaign at level 20). These two adventures are riddled with errors due to the creators having an imcomplete version of the rules during its creation (they were released around the same time as 5e). The campaign also struggles from a tonal shift that occurs when the campaign shifts from one book to the other. The story is interesting, but (as someone who ran them) I would recommend reading both books and seeing where you can make change to smooth out the rough edges and help make it your own prior to getting a group together.
Out of the Abyss has a lot of things that the DM needs keep track of that is supposed to be occurring outside of the player’s view. There are also a LOT of NPCs that will take up your time. The adventure also suffers from a lack of underdark maps. That being said, I really liked the premise and story of this adventure. It takes place almost entirely in the Underdark.
Tales from the Yawning Portal is several individual adventures from older editions updated and put in one book. As such it is easier for you to add one or two of them into your own home brew if you want. However, they do not have a lot of roleplay (most of the early modules didn’t) so you need to put some effort on that part of the game. Also, the dungeons are in the book in pc’s recommended level order. So if you really wanted to you could attempt to build a massive campaign of interconnected dungeon delves out of it.
Curse of Strahd: I am planning on running this in the near future so I dont know how everything flows during gameplay, but I can say that I really enjoy how the book is designed. This one is more like an open world instead of a straight linear path. As such, there are areas that you should know about, but the players might never see.
I’m right in the middle of reading Waterdeep, but I’m already chomping at the bit to run it. I find it to be one of the best written pregen books so far. But then again, I like the stories that don’t have one way for the players to do things.
I am running a campaign using the Storm King's Thunder. There is a lot of great information in there, but the adventure as written seems to be a sprint to the finish.
I have encouraged the PCs to go off track, and have bought about a dozen adventures from the DMsGuild Website to supplement SKT. Browsing through that site has almost become a full time hobby! :D
My second group is playing in the Princes of the Apocalypse, and tackling it much closer to "how it is meant to be." If you and your group are action junkies, then this is a great adventure! (There are still a lot of roleplaying opportunities, but none are essential.) It may seem quite linear, but don't be fooled - you'll need to read and absorb the whole adventure to avoid getting caught flat-footed. And there are a lot of relatively high level spellcasters, so brush up on your spell knowledge.)
I gave up on running OOTA for several reasons, but the main reason was that I felt I had to know so much right off the bat. A dozen NPCs to adventure with! I will go back to it, but not this year.
As others have said, even an official adventure is much more a set of ideas and situations rather than hard and fast "this must happen!"
Running official adventures is not much less work than starting from scratch!
Edit: For completeness, my reasons for not choosing the others:
Tomb Of Annihilation : I really love the whole idea of this, but after what was realistically a ten year D&D break, I wanted a practice first! :D Jungles, Zombies, Dinosaurs! Yes Please!
Those Dragon Ones : Meh, they seemed a bit too political...I am probably way off the mark here.
Tales of the Yawning Portal: Too old school, and wanted something less "dungeony." Less 1980s.
Strahd: I think this needs a certain type of player base - my usual group are not them!
Roleplaying since Runequest.
Alright, def staying away from OOTA then and the Tiamat one. I would love to eventually make my own adventure but I just get overwhelmed at having to create a big world for my party to traverse in my thoughts just go haywire @-@.