Situation: I am trying to put together a game for my family of 3-5 players (plus me, the DM) for over the Christmas/New Years holidays. I believe I will be able to squeeze at least 3x2-3 hour sessions out of them over that time. I want to start a premade that hopefully hooks everyone enough that we can continue to play on Fantasygrounds, roll20 or something of the sorts. (I realize that this is sort of my job as a DM)
Background: I have played very little DnD growing up. It was 3.5e, and to be honest, I remember little of the mechanics, but a lot about the adventures #goodtimes.
None of my Family have played DnD until last year when I introduced them to it, and we played Lost Mines of Phandelver up to entering Phandalin.
I’ve “ran” Lost Mines of Phandelver 3 times with 3 different groups, one session each (so only until entering Phandalin). Each time was with my wife, so of our group, she will be the most experienced of the players.
I have read into quite a few other adventures, as I enjoy buying the official 5e books and other 5e content.
My wife is now making a Bard based off ‘Prince’, “The Bard Formally Known as Kevin,” who was famous in her home town *TBD*, where a green dragon killed his musician family and took his families heirloom golden bejeweled Lute. The only connection he has is one of the dragon’s talons which he wears around his neck. he became an adventurer to find the dragon and get back his Families Lute.
I own all the 5e compendium and adventures between physican as well as here on DnD beyond.
Assessment:Continuing Lost Mines of Phandelver is the obvious First Choice. It is a relatively easy to run campaign, that is able to railroad players through guidance rather than force, that requires moderate to low prep (comparatively). My Wife’s Bard would fit perfect in this adventure, and it would help me to direct the adventurers through her. Also, I have actually read through the entire module twice and have an abundance of prep work already.
Curse of Strahd: is an adventure that I hear so many good things about, I love the setting and lore, and I really want to run. I really would like to wait until I have at least an entire story arc under my DM belt to give this at least some of the attention it deserves, or possibly even be a player if I get up the courage to find a group.
Dragon Heist: Another adventure that I hear about as much about as Curse, Less encounters, more roll playing, which might be a good thing, since dungeon crawling in Cragmaw Hideout didn’t really get us fired up for DnD. Also another great choice for my Wife’s bard to shine. I’m sure I could even try and build in a green dragon encounter somehow. This is the adventure I am most eager to run, and I still have enough time to prep for it.
Tales from the Yawning Portal: Plenty of ‘one shot’ style adventures which we could possibly even finish and could easily blend into another adventure.
Ghosts of Salt Marsh: From what I hear, right under CoS and DH in terms of playability, and I hear it is very new DM friendly as far as the prepwork goes. As a bonus, wife bought it for me.
Finally, Dungeons & Dragons vs Rick and Morty: I do not know much about this, but it seems like a fun and easy icebreaker, but I don’t know if this is the tone I want for getting people into playing DnD long term.
Two others that I would consider, but have restrictions are Stranger Things (we all love the series and watch it ‘together’), but my wife had prepped that game so she could DM it for me, so I could play. Also, Icespire Peak is a module I intend on prepping as a single player module to play with my wife.
Recommendation: These are the Modules I have given serious consideration to running. In order from most to least (but the top 5 are all very very close) that I would like to run these for my current situation is DH, GoSM, LMoP, D&DvRaM, CoS, TftYP, DoIP, and HftT (wife would run) .
Please offer me any suggestions or recommendations. Again, myend goal is to ensure that no one gets too frustrated with the game, but gets into the adventure and idea of playing DnD. I don't need to finish an adventure, but would like to have them accomplish something and hook them into playing more, possibly online.
TL;DR: Little to no DnD xp, esp DM, need suggestions for easy to play/dm adventure to hook 3-5 players into DnD for years to come within 1-3 sessions 2 hours long.
I can't really speak to the adventures above. But if I can offer another suggestion... The weekly encounters that are published here are pretty good for a quick pick up and play. My daughter uses them for her school group when their regular DM doesn't show.
I would avoid curse of Strahd for newbies and such. And lean either continue lost mines or go Yawning portal route.
character wise- are you making premade a for them? Or letting them fully customize?
for total beginners sometimes you want to have a bunch of premade a they can choose from, and let them switch around if they don’t like the class or whatever between other premade a, until they know what to build for themselves.
Good point with the premades. A few of them have already made their characters from the last session, and my wife made her bard. But I think for those that either don’t want to use their characters, I will offer them a list of premades, ideally with the missing character roles. The last game with this group we had two wizards, a paladin, and a ranger. And a level 1-2 paladin isn’t exactly enough of a shield for that many squishies and no healer.
Good point with the premades. A few of them have already made their characters from the last session, and my wife made her bard. But I think for those that either don’t want to use their characters, I will offer them a list of premades, ideally with the missing character roles. The last game with this group we had two wizards, a paladin, and a ranger. And a level 1-2 paladin isn’t exactly enough of a shield for that many squishies and no healer.
No prob.
good luck friend.
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Situation: I am trying to put together a game for my family of 3-5 players (plus me, the DM) for over the Christmas/New Years holidays. I believe I will be able to squeeze at least 3x2-3 hour sessions out of them over that time. I want to start a premade that hopefully hooks everyone enough that we can continue to play on Fantasygrounds, roll20 or something of the sorts. (I realize that this is sort of my job as a DM)
Background: I have played very little DnD growing up. It was 3.5e, and to be honest, I remember little of the mechanics, but a lot about the adventures #goodtimes.
None of my Family have played DnD until last year when I introduced them to it, and we played Lost Mines of Phandelver up to entering Phandalin.
I’ve “ran” Lost Mines of Phandelver 3 times with 3 different groups, one session each (so only until entering Phandalin). Each time was with my wife, so of our group, she will be the most experienced of the players.
I have read into quite a few other adventures, as I enjoy buying the official 5e books and other 5e content.
My wife is now making a Bard based off ‘Prince’, “The Bard Formally Known as Kevin,” who was famous in her home town *TBD*, where a green dragon killed his musician family and took his families heirloom golden bejeweled Lute. The only connection he has is one of the dragon’s talons which he wears around his neck. he became an adventurer to find the dragon and get back his Families Lute.
I own all the 5e compendium and adventures between physican as well as here on DnD beyond.
Assessment: Continuing Lost Mines of Phandelver is the obvious First Choice. It is a relatively easy to run campaign, that is able to railroad players through guidance rather than force, that requires moderate to low prep (comparatively). My Wife’s Bard would fit perfect in this adventure, and it would help me to direct the adventurers through her. Also, I have actually read through the entire module twice and have an abundance of prep work already.
Curse of Strahd: is an adventure that I hear so many good things about, I love the setting and lore, and I really want to run. I really would like to wait until I have at least an entire story arc under my DM belt to give this at least some of the attention it deserves, or possibly even be a player if I get up the courage to find a group.
Dragon Heist: Another adventure that I hear about as much about as Curse, Less encounters, more roll playing, which might be a good thing, since dungeon crawling in Cragmaw Hideout didn’t really get us fired up for DnD. Also another great choice for my Wife’s bard to shine. I’m sure I could even try and build in a green dragon encounter somehow. This is the adventure I am most eager to run, and I still have enough time to prep for it.
Tales from the Yawning Portal: Plenty of ‘one shot’ style adventures which we could possibly even finish and could easily blend into another adventure.
Ghosts of Salt Marsh: From what I hear, right under CoS and DH in terms of playability, and I hear it is very new DM friendly as far as the prepwork goes. As a bonus, wife bought it for me.
Finally, Dungeons & Dragons vs Rick and Morty: I do not know much about this, but it seems like a fun and easy icebreaker, but I don’t know if this is the tone I want for getting people into playing DnD long term.
Two others that I would consider, but have restrictions are Stranger Things (we all love the series and watch it ‘together’), but my wife had prepped that game so she could DM it for me, so I could play. Also, Icespire Peak is a module I intend on prepping as a single player module to play with my wife.
Recommendation: These are the Modules I have given serious consideration to running. In order from most to least (but the top 5 are all very very close) that I would like to run these for my current situation is DH, GoSM, LMoP, D&DvRaM, CoS, TftYP, DoIP, and HftT (wife would run) .
Please offer me any suggestions or recommendations. Again, my end goal is to ensure that no one gets too frustrated with the game, but gets into the adventure and idea of playing DnD. I don't need to finish an adventure, but would like to have them accomplish something and hook them into playing more, possibly online.
TL;DR: Little to no DnD xp, esp DM, need suggestions for easy to play/dm adventure to hook 3-5 players into DnD for years to come within 1-3 sessions 2 hours long.
I can't really speak to the adventures above. But if I can offer another suggestion... The weekly encounters that are published here are pretty good for a quick pick up and play. My daughter uses them for her school group when their regular DM doesn't show.
I would avoid curse of Strahd for newbies and such. And lean either continue lost mines or go Yawning portal route.
character wise- are you making premade a for them? Or letting them fully customize?
for total beginners sometimes you want to have a bunch of premade a they can choose from, and let them switch around if they don’t like the class or whatever between other premade a, until they know what to build for themselves.
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Good point with the premades. A few of them have already made their characters from the last session, and my wife made her bard. But I think for those that either don’t want to use their characters, I will offer them a list of premades, ideally with the missing character roles. The last game with this group we had two wizards, a paladin, and a ranger. And a level 1-2 paladin isn’t exactly enough of a shield for that many squishies and no healer.
No prob.
good luck friend.
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