I only have a few months available to run a campaign, so ideally a pre-written campaign that can be completed in 5-10 sessions would be best. I have previously run Dragon of Icespire Peak and Lost Mine of Phandelver, so I'm looking for something new to run. Thanks!
Any starting level is suitable, and each session will run approximately 3 hours. I've considered running a small section of a larger adventure but I worry it will miss a lot of important context.
Honestly I can't really think of any mini campaign that would take just 30 hours max. I was going to suggest Ghosts of Saltmarsh, but I'm pretty sure that while you could punch through a majority of the connected adventures you wouldn't be able to get through the whole thing. Would you consider taking an adventure and only moving through the more "dungeon'y" parts, while providing narration for as if the party had done more non-combat exploration between?
Edit: What would you say to starting an adventure after the early parts, kind of skipping those so you can actually get to the end?
Honestly I can't really think of any mini campaign that would take just 30 hours max. I was going to suggest Ghosts of Saltmarsh, but I'm pretty sure that while you could punch through a majority of the connected adventures you wouldn't be able to get through the whole thing. Would you consider taking an adventure and only moving through the more "dungeon'y" parts, while providing narration for as if the party had done more non-combat exploration between?
Yeah, I was thinking Saltmarsh as well - it is just doable but they said they didn't want to miss too much and I love Saltmarsh. What about Yawning Portal - Forge of Fury?
Tales from the Yawning Portal is good because it's a set of modest size adventures; there's no need to go through the entire book. Candlekeep Mysteries and Journeys through the Radiant Citadel look similar. I can't speak to the quality of any of them.
I was thinking of those too, but I don't know if he'd go for them since they aren't part of a single campaign but instead are anthology adventures (as an Aside, was there enough cleverness in Radiant Citadel to justify the cost? Looking at it, it doesn't seem to have anywhere near the crunch I'd want for the price (not until something like a Cyber Monday sale or such)).
I do own the Radiant Citadel, and I think this could work if I bypass a few of the adventures to cut down the overall length. Ghosts of Saltmarsh sounds of interest, too. Are there any adventures in this book that you would suggest are a must-play over some others? Thanks for your answers everyone, narrowing down some choices!
My group ran Against the Giants (from Tales from the Yawning Portal) a few months ago and it was pretty fun. It's a higher level adventure, which will give a good contrast to the low level ones you've done before. Another advantage is that it's modular. You could just do the first or first and second parts and wrap up a satisfying ending, depending on how far each session gets in the adventure.
If you want to try Ghosts of Saltmarsh, I would look at The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Danger at Dunwater and The Final Enemy. They should fit well in your time schedule and they give the DM a lot of room to maneuver. They are all about Sahuagin and should offer a nice difference to your previous sessions. I loved playing them.
I don't know how good it is because it just came out. But the Light of Xaryxis adventure from the new Spelljammer book is specifically designed to be completed in 12 sessions. They've set it up like a TV serial where there's a big cliffhanger at the end of each session. There's four chapters and each chapter is supposed to be completed in three sessions.
So maybe check it out? I thumbed through it on Tuesday and it looks interesting. D&D in space!
Run Lost Mine but take out all the uneeded parts and side quests.
The fact that you've run this should make it easier to modify for a speed run. Take out the goblin ambush and just have 1 goblin steal something and run toward the cave. Remove the well and the banshee and the orcs and remove or edit Thundertree. You'd probably want to remove a lot of the less interesting combats in wave echo cave too.
So you'd basically go from cragmaw cave, rebrand hideout, Cragmaw Castle, wave echo cave.
Run a Monster Hunter game:
Basically just have your players be an adventuring party or monster hunting guild, and pick fun monsters they can hunt down. Something like this might be best since you don't know if you will have 5 or 10 sessions. You could use the maps from Volo's which has layers for a handful of monsters. You can pick and choose encounters that you've already run to make it super easy for you. Have them go hunt down Venom fang, have them clear out cragmaw castle for a noble the wants his ancestral home back, rip off anything from the Witcher.
You could even take a page from DoIP and say the reason why all these monsters are riled up is because a big dragon or some other "boss" monster has moved and and displaced them if you want an over arching plot that explains things.
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I only have a few months available to run a campaign, so ideally a pre-written campaign that can be completed in 5-10 sessions would be best. I have previously run Dragon of Icespire Peak and Lost Mine of Phandelver, so I'm looking for something new to run. Thanks!
Sorry - What level is your party? How long do your sessions usually run? Do you want Wizards stuff or are you interested in 3rd party?
Any starting level is suitable, and each session will run approximately 3 hours. I've considered running a small section of a larger adventure but I worry it will miss a lot of important context.
Honestly I can't really think of any mini campaign that would take just 30 hours max. I was going to suggest Ghosts of Saltmarsh, but I'm pretty sure that while you could punch through a majority of the connected adventures you wouldn't be able to get through the whole thing. Would you consider taking an adventure and only moving through the more "dungeon'y" parts, while providing narration for as if the party had done more non-combat exploration between?
Edit: What would you say to starting an adventure after the early parts, kind of skipping those so you can actually get to the end?
Yeah, I was thinking Saltmarsh as well - it is just doable but they said they didn't want to miss too much and I love Saltmarsh. What about Yawning Portal - Forge of Fury?
Tales from the Yawning Portal is good because it's a set of modest size adventures; there's no need to go through the entire book. Candlekeep Mysteries and Journeys through the Radiant Citadel look similar. I can't speak to the quality of any of them.
I was thinking of those too, but I don't know if he'd go for them since they aren't part of a single campaign but instead are anthology adventures (as an Aside, was there enough cleverness in Radiant Citadel to justify the cost? Looking at it, it doesn't seem to have anywhere near the crunch I'd want for the price (not until something like a Cyber Monday sale or such)).
I do own the Radiant Citadel, and I think this could work if I bypass a few of the adventures to cut down the overall length. Ghosts of Saltmarsh sounds of interest, too. Are there any adventures in this book that you would suggest are a must-play over some others? Thanks for your answers everyone, narrowing down some choices!
My group ran Against the Giants (from Tales from the Yawning Portal) a few months ago and it was pretty fun. It's a higher level adventure, which will give a good contrast to the low level ones you've done before. Another advantage is that it's modular. You could just do the first or first and second parts and wrap up a satisfying ending, depending on how far each session gets in the adventure.
https://sayeth.itch.io/
If you want to try Ghosts of Saltmarsh, I would look at The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Danger at Dunwater and The Final Enemy. They should fit well in your time schedule and they give the DM a lot of room to maneuver. They are all about Sahuagin and should offer a nice difference to your previous sessions. I loved playing them.
I don't know how good it is because it just came out. But the Light of Xaryxis adventure from the new Spelljammer book is specifically designed to be completed in 12 sessions. They've set it up like a TV serial where there's a big cliffhanger at the end of each session. There's four chapters and each chapter is supposed to be completed in three sessions.
So maybe check it out? I thumbed through it on Tuesday and it looks interesting. D&D in space!
If I was you I'd do one of 2 things:
Run Lost Mine but take out all the uneeded parts and side quests.
The fact that you've run this should make it easier to modify for a speed run.
Take out the goblin ambush and just have 1 goblin steal something and run toward the cave. Remove the well and the banshee and the orcs and remove or edit Thundertree.
You'd probably want to remove a lot of the less interesting combats in wave echo cave too.
So you'd basically go from cragmaw cave, rebrand hideout, Cragmaw Castle, wave echo cave.
Run a Monster Hunter game:
Basically just have your players be an adventuring party or monster hunting guild, and pick fun monsters they can hunt down. Something like this might be best since you don't know if you will have 5 or 10 sessions. You could use the maps from Volo's which has layers for a handful of monsters. You can pick and choose encounters that you've already run to make it super easy for you. Have them go hunt down Venom fang, have them clear out cragmaw castle for a noble the wants his ancestral home back, rip off anything from the Witcher.
You could even take a page from DoIP and say the reason why all these monsters are riled up is because a big dragon or some other "boss" monster has moved and and displaced them if you want an over arching plot that explains things.