I am a new D&D player. I play the Dragon of the Icespire peak with a group of friends but I wanted to try DMing with another group.
I searched online for the best starter campaign and there are a lot of people suggesting Lost mine of Phandelver.
However as far as I can tell both these campaigns take place in the same places more or less so I didn't want to get a campaign that when I read the book would spoil the one I am playing in.
Can anyone suggest a campaign that does not take place in the same places as Dragon of the Icespire peak? Or if I got the wrong impression about Lost mines of Phandelver, can anyone confirm this.
My main concern is to not read stuff that would spoil what I dont know in the campaign that I play as a player in.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist may be worth a look. I have not played it but it is for level 1-5 and I think it is laid out to be relatively straightforward for both new players and new DMs.
Hopefully someone who has DMed it can comment further.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The best campaign is one that you're excited to run, whether it's a published campaign or something you come up with yourself. I haven't run any of the 5e published adventures so far and so can't directly comment, but I suspect if you want advice on published material to run, it might help folks answer if you said a bit more about what themes, types of settings, and so on you find appealing.
It’s the same location, but there are no spoilers. A couple of the NPCs are the same, that’s the extent of it. If you really prefer something else, Tomb of Annihilation (fun Indiana Jones type romp in the jungle) or Curse of Strahd (horror campaign with a fantastic antagonist) are both good. They’ll cover levels 1 through 10-11 though, so they do take a lot more work to prepare. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is a collection of 7 small-scale adventures with a nautical theme, should be more comparable to Dragon of Icespire Peak. I’ve been told it’s pretty good, but I have neither played nor DMed it myself - no guarantees.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (GS) and Tales from the Yawning Portal (TYP) are both collections of shorter adventures that can be run as a campaign, or you can pick and choose. All of the TYP modules/adventures are remakes of modules from earlier versions of D&D, and the first few at least are modules that were designed as "starter" modules for the editions they were from. I've run part of the Forge of Fury from TYP, and in my opinion it lays things out pretty well for a new/newish DM. I have not read any of the GS modules, partially because my son is hoping to start a Saltmarsh Campaign and has invited me to join. But I just asked him and he said that might be a good option as well; he has only run one of the modules (for 4th level PCs), but has read all the adventures, and has studied the lower level ones and has said they look fairly simple to run.
Ghosts is good. Loving playing it. Wish I got to run it.
I had issues with Dragon Heist as my players were very reactive (what do you want to do with the tavern got me nothing. Do you want beds - that got a response.)
Loved running ToA, but does need a little tweaking. Still you can just run from the book until you get a feel for it and then shake a few things up. That is what I did. Go to facebook and join the ToA DMs group - great bunch of people and a lot of files etc to help you. Should also by my 50 pages of session recaps there so you can see how things ran for my group.
Hey there, if you are both a new player and a new DM (or about to start), I would still recommend Lost Mine of Phandelver. Even though the town of Phandolin is common a lot else is different. Also, in your game, your Phandolin will probably be different than the one that you are playing in.
I recommend LMoP because it does a very good job describing the role of the DM as well as helping any DM build "muscles" in terms of how to manage encounters, side stories, and main storylines. I don't really recommend any of the large book modules (aside from stealing small pieces from here and there) as they do a much worse job of presenting the info the DM "needs" and require a lot of adaptation.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
If you're confident with your ability to keep a big world of options in your head, and maybe kill two birds with one stone (that is, start this new group with it, and maybe have the other group play in the same domain so to speak), I'd suggest Storm King's Thunder. Out of the Abyss and Descent into Avernus also have enough room for similar sandbox/multi-parties possibly overlapping in the same setting play.
If you're looking more for a set of adventures that may or may not be strung into a campaign, and are also looking for something to develop you DM skills, I'd recommend the adventures in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (plus you get to check out all that optional Wildemount/Exandria content).
I'm currently running Descent into Avernus with one group, I'm finishing up another group with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount's Frozen Sick, which will then jump off into either Descent into Avernus, Rime of the Frostmaiden, or Storm King's Thunder, or make the leap into my own campaign world which is already showing up on the periphery of the two groups campaigns, not that anyone realizes that yet.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Lost Mine of Phandelver is your blue ribbon starter adventure. Don't worry about overlap. Faerun and its cities and major figures are common throughout all adventures in the FR setting. It's perfectly fine if your players have some familiarity with the setting their characters live in. In fact, that familiarity makes the adventures more meaningful. Besides, each adventure is different so running one won't spoil another.
Since you're new to D&D, I would put Dragon Heist, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Curse of Strahd, etc etc on the shelf until you get the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure under your belt. Yes, there is low-level content in many other adventures but "low-level" does not necessarily mean "tailored for beginners". There are many great adventures so you can come back to them after you and your players are a bit more savvy with the game.
I have heard Tyranny of Dragons described as "railroady" which might be why it never makes it onto anyones' favorites lists. But it might be an okay idea for a new DM and new players to have some guardrails on the plot as well. So if "railroady" is its only problem, maybe you can turn that into a strength.
Since I have DM'd Lost Mines, but not Dragon of Icespire peak, I took a quick look at Dragon of Ice Spire Peak. If you have already visited and explored the town of Phandalin in the game where you are a player, there is only really one minor spoiler in Ice Spire Peak that I found: it involves one of the NPCs in town. But there is nothing in the town description in Ice Spire peak that reveals anything about the major or plot or side quests from LMOP, and outside of Phandalin itself, none of the quests in Dragon of Ice Spire Peak happen in locations that appear in LMOP.
In terms of Tyranny of Dragons, I've not run it but I have read through the first book of that two parter (Hoard of the Dragon Queen), with an eye to running it, and I would NOT recommend it for first time DMs. The lead-in is deadly for first level characters, there are some plot issues, and other issues. When it was republished as one book instead of two, some of that was supposed to be addressed, but I glanced at the rewrite a while back and I was not convinced that enough had been changed.
The absolute best thing you can do is run LMoP its beginner friendly, and easy to run. There's no real spoilers for DoIP in there aside from knowing locations but you can always just try and make sure that you only use "character knowledge" and avoid meta gaming locations. Although i cant see that being an issue in DoIP.
Thank you all for your suggestions here. It seems that running Lost mine of Phandelver won't have a major impact on my experience as a player on Dragon of the Icespire peak.
Since this is the case I will most probably be running that. This is also helpful for me since I mostly know the locations as a player which will probably make it easier to run it as a DM.
I'll see how this goes and maybe I'll run some of the others as well if I like DMing.
Hey there, if you are both a new player and a new DM (or about to start), I would still recommend Lost Mine of Phandelver. Even though the town of Phandolin is common a lot else is different. Also, in your game, your Phandolin will probably be different than the one that you are playing in.
I recommend LMoP because it does a very good job describing the role of the DM as well as helping any DM build "muscles" in terms of how to manage encounters, side stories, and main storylines. I don't really recommend any of the large book modules (aside from stealing small pieces from here and there) as they do a much worse job of presenting the info the DM "needs" and require a lot of adaptation.
I am a new D&D player. I play the Dragon of the Icespire peak with a group of friends but I wanted to try DMing with another group.
I searched online for the best starter campaign and there are a lot of people suggesting Lost mine of Phandelver.
However as far as I can tell both these campaigns take place in the same places more or less so I didn't want to get a campaign that when I read the book would spoil the one I am playing in.
Can anyone suggest a campaign that does not take place in the same places as Dragon of the Icespire peak? Or if I got the wrong impression about Lost mines of Phandelver, can anyone confirm this.
My main concern is to not read stuff that would spoil what I dont know in the campaign that I play as a player in.
Thank you for your advice.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist may be worth a look. I have not played it but it is for level 1-5 and I think it is laid out to be relatively straightforward for both new players and new DMs.
Hopefully someone who has DMed it can comment further.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The best campaign is one that you're excited to run, whether it's a published campaign or something you come up with yourself. I haven't run any of the 5e published adventures so far and so can't directly comment, but I suspect if you want advice on published material to run, it might help folks answer if you said a bit more about what themes, types of settings, and so on you find appealing.
It’s the same location, but there are no spoilers. A couple of the NPCs are the same, that’s the extent of it. If you really prefer something else, Tomb of Annihilation (fun Indiana Jones type romp in the jungle) or Curse of Strahd (horror campaign with a fantastic antagonist) are both good. They’ll cover levels 1 through 10-11 though, so they do take a lot more work to prepare. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is a collection of 7 small-scale adventures with a nautical theme, should be more comparable to Dragon of Icespire Peak. I’ve been told it’s pretty good, but I have neither played nor DMed it myself - no guarantees.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (GS) and Tales from the Yawning Portal (TYP) are both collections of shorter adventures that can be run as a campaign, or you can pick and choose. All of the TYP modules/adventures are remakes of modules from earlier versions of D&D, and the first few at least are modules that were designed as "starter" modules for the editions they were from. I've run part of the Forge of Fury from TYP, and in my opinion it lays things out pretty well for a new/newish DM. I have not read any of the GS modules, partially because my son is hoping to start a Saltmarsh Campaign and has invited me to join. But I just asked him and he said that might be a good option as well; he has only run one of the modules (for 4th level PCs), but has read all the adventures, and has studied the lower level ones and has said they look fairly simple to run.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
Ghosts is good. Loving playing it. Wish I got to run it.
I had issues with Dragon Heist as my players were very reactive (what do you want to do with the tavern got me nothing. Do you want beds - that got a response.)
Loved running ToA, but does need a little tweaking. Still you can just run from the book until you get a feel for it and then shake a few things up. That is what I did. Go to facebook and join the ToA DMs group - great bunch of people and a lot of files etc to help you. Should also by my 50 pages of session recaps there so you can see how things ran for my group.
Good luck. Have fun.
Hey there,
if you are both a new player and a new DM (or about to start), I would still recommend Lost Mine of Phandelver. Even though the town of Phandolin is common a lot else is different. Also, in your game, your Phandolin will probably be different than the one that you are playing in.
I recommend LMoP because it does a very good job describing the role of the DM as well as helping any DM build "muscles" in terms of how to manage encounters, side stories, and main storylines. I don't really recommend any of the large book modules (aside from stealing small pieces from here and there) as they do a much worse job of presenting the info the DM "needs" and require a lot of adaptation.
I'm surprised Bio didn't mention it :) but you may also want to take a glance at this youtube series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
If you're confident with your ability to keep a big world of options in your head, and maybe kill two birds with one stone (that is, start this new group with it, and maybe have the other group play in the same domain so to speak), I'd suggest Storm King's Thunder. Out of the Abyss and Descent into Avernus also have enough room for similar sandbox/multi-parties possibly overlapping in the same setting play.
If you're looking more for a set of adventures that may or may not be strung into a campaign, and are also looking for something to develop you DM skills, I'd recommend the adventures in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (plus you get to check out all that optional Wildemount/Exandria content).
I'm currently running Descent into Avernus with one group, I'm finishing up another group with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount's Frozen Sick, which will then jump off into either Descent into Avernus, Rime of the Frostmaiden, or Storm King's Thunder, or make the leap into my own campaign world which is already showing up on the periphery of the two groups campaigns, not that anyone realizes that yet.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Lost Mine of Phandelver is your blue ribbon starter adventure. Don't worry about overlap. Faerun and its cities and major figures are common throughout all adventures in the FR setting. It's perfectly fine if your players have some familiarity with the setting their characters live in. In fact, that familiarity makes the adventures more meaningful. Besides, each adventure is different so running one won't spoil another.
Since you're new to D&D, I would put Dragon Heist, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Curse of Strahd, etc etc on the shelf until you get the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure under your belt. Yes, there is low-level content in many other adventures but "low-level" does not necessarily mean "tailored for beginners". There are many great adventures so you can come back to them after you and your players are a bit more savvy with the game.
I have heard Tyranny of Dragons described as "railroady" which might be why it never makes it onto anyones' favorites lists. But it might be an okay idea for a new DM and new players to have some guardrails on the plot as well. So if "railroady" is its only problem, maybe you can turn that into a strength.
Since I have DM'd Lost Mines, but not Dragon of Icespire peak, I took a quick look at Dragon of Ice Spire Peak. If you have already visited and explored the town of Phandalin in the game where you are a player, there is only really one minor spoiler in Ice Spire Peak that I found: it involves one of the NPCs in town. But there is nothing in the town description in Ice Spire peak that reveals anything about the major or plot or side quests from LMOP, and outside of Phandalin itself, none of the quests in Dragon of Ice Spire Peak happen in locations that appear in LMOP.
In terms of Tyranny of Dragons, I've not run it but I have read through the first book of that two parter (Hoard of the Dragon Queen), with an eye to running it, and I would NOT recommend it for first time DMs. The lead-in is deadly for first level characters, there are some plot issues, and other issues. When it was republished as one book instead of two, some of that was supposed to be addressed, but I glanced at the rewrite a while back and I was not convinced that enough had been changed.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
The absolute best thing you can do is run LMoP its beginner friendly, and easy to run. There's no real spoilers for DoIP in there aside from knowing locations but you can always just try and make sure that you only use "character knowledge" and avoid meta gaming locations. Although i cant see that being an issue in DoIP.
|| Sol Night-Arrow, Tabaxi Ranger ||
||Currently DMing a Homebrew Campaign ||
Guides or Important Threads of Mine ----- || List of ALL Official Familiars || My Homebrew Monsters ||
Level 3 One Shot Character Concepts ----- || Fist of the Gods || Triple Tap Hunter || Bullseye Dartmaster || Captain America ||
^^^Those are Links BTW^^^
Hey guys/gals
Thank you all for your suggestions here. It seems that running Lost mine of Phandelver won't have a major impact on my experience as a player on Dragon of the Icespire peak.
Since this is the case I will most probably be running that. This is also helpful for me since I mostly know the locations as a player which will probably make it easier to run it as a DM.
I'll see how this goes and maybe I'll run some of the others as well if I like DMing.
Thank you for the suggestion on the Youtube series, it seems I have things to watch :P