I'm running a group with very inexperienced players. We've only done one session, but now they want to make their own characters. They've expressed interest in a horror/gothic adventure, but I don't want them to be instantly wiped out and get discouraged. I also don't know if they are totally skilled at uncovering the world around them and unraveling the story. I know they enjoy making choices and good game mechanics and story. But that's about it right now.
If you've only done one session, by all means, have a session and let everyone create their own characters. There's a lot of buy-in in creating (and losing) characters. I would even say let them keep the progress they made in Lost Mine of Phandelver and keep going. You can certainly add some spooky to some of those places, but in general... yeah, they're not going to experience much Gothic Horror unless you create your own thing or go into Curse of Strahd. It sounds like you had some bad experiences with that module at some point in the past. It's easy enough to have them enter the Mists and arrive in the Domains of Dread. Just because Curse of Strahd is the only currently published module from that series of work, there are plenty of stories from the past if you want to delve into them and adapt them.
So I guess my question to you would be, how much do you want to stick to a module? If you are 100% committed to only running modules, then you can have chancy encounters with Curse of Strahd or you can go with a little better planning by taking them from the Lost Mines of Phandelver on into Waterdeep and the Heist... as they flow together easily enough, you'll just have to adjust encounters because both are expecting your characters to start at level 1 and work their way up a few levels. The sooner you get comfortable with adapting and scaling encounters, the more fun you will all have... and at that point it is just a matter of changing the skin of the story to turn it into Gothic Horror.
I would say from the way you wrote everything out that you are really looking at D) Create your own World of Gothic Horror while playing through Lost Mines of Phandelver to buy you a bit of time.
As for "inexperienced players" let them have fun. They'll figure it out. Just look up Session 0 if you haven't because it is an important step a lot of people try to rush over in the rush to start rolling dice with a brand new character. Get everyone together with their character ideas. Talk about what you expect of them as players and gives them an opportunity to ask what they can expect of you as the DM. If there are any houserules that need to be outlined, cover it then. And then move into characters. Talk about the world. Have them help build it by answering questions on where they come from (don't let them just pull stock answers from their favorite game / anime, get them to use brain power too). Connect each character to some other character in some way. Bring them together in a specific location... and then begin the game.
I would go from Lost Mine to Strahd. Lost Mine takes you up to level 5, which would be a pretty decent starting point to dealing with Barovia. CoS is really sandboxy, so you don't have to worry about perfect level matches, and in my experience it's not uber combat heavy, either. Not to mention CoS has a really adaptable hook, in that it's essentially "you get sucked up by the mist one day, now your in Barovia."If you were to go from LMoP to Dragon Heist, it'd be a little more wonky, since Dragon Heist only goes up to level 8, and I don't think it would make much narrative sense, as a good part of it involves dealing with Volo's shenanigans at early levels and then getting a house.
Thanks for the replies, I think my best bet is to finish LMoP and go into curse of Strahd. My players have actively asked for a gothic/horror adventure. And after we finish LMoP I'll give them one stern warning and tell them about how important skills are in the game, etc etc.
I think this would be best as well for my development as a GM. Curse of Strahd seems to have a little bit of everything.
I can picture them smiling and laughing as I give them their one warning that their characters might be instantly killed here. Even the story in the death house would be right up their alley and I think they would find it really cool. They all chose Waterdeep second as well. So maybe we can save that for further down the road.
My only fear is that CoS will be too dangerous or punishing for them as new players.
If you were open to other suggestions, I bought the 'Gothic Horror' bundle from The Arcane Library a while ago, and I read over those cover to cover. I am yet to run these modules myself, but they are really well written and have been designed to require next to no prep from the DM beforehand. I'm kinda looking forward to when one of the regular players in my current weekly campaign takes a short hiatus so I can run these as a palate cleanser. They take a group from level 1 to 5, which could prep your group for CoS (which I don't really know anything about).
For what its worth my group did finish LMoP, and for the most part I enjoyed running it. My issues with it however were that none of us knew much about any of the factions or 'lore' of the setting, so when player rewards for side quests involved being allowed to join these groups I really had no idea what to say about them and had to make stuff up. I think the BBEG at the end is also weakly woven into main story-line, so by the time your group gets to the Black Spider they won't really care much about him. If you do stick with LMoP I'd recommend you offer players more tangible 'loot' rewards for side quests, and weave the Black Spider more into the story than the veiled references made to him.
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I'm running a group with very inexperienced players. We've only done one session, but now they want to make their own characters. They've expressed interest in a horror/gothic adventure, but I don't want them to be instantly wiped out and get discouraged. I also don't know if they are totally skilled at uncovering the world around them and unraveling the story. I know they enjoy making choices and good game mechanics and story. But that's about it right now.
My question is do we:
A) Finish LMoP and go to CoS
B) Skip LMoP and do WDH > CoS
C) Skip both WDH and LMoP and go to CoS
Any advice would be great, thanks.
If you've only done one session, by all means, have a session and let everyone create their own characters. There's a lot of buy-in in creating (and losing) characters. I would even say let them keep the progress they made in Lost Mine of Phandelver and keep going. You can certainly add some spooky to some of those places, but in general... yeah, they're not going to experience much Gothic Horror unless you create your own thing or go into Curse of Strahd. It sounds like you had some bad experiences with that module at some point in the past. It's easy enough to have them enter the Mists and arrive in the Domains of Dread. Just because Curse of Strahd is the only currently published module from that series of work, there are plenty of stories from the past if you want to delve into them and adapt them.
So I guess my question to you would be, how much do you want to stick to a module? If you are 100% committed to only running modules, then you can have chancy encounters with Curse of Strahd or you can go with a little better planning by taking them from the Lost Mines of Phandelver on into Waterdeep and the Heist... as they flow together easily enough, you'll just have to adjust encounters because both are expecting your characters to start at level 1 and work their way up a few levels. The sooner you get comfortable with adapting and scaling encounters, the more fun you will all have... and at that point it is just a matter of changing the skin of the story to turn it into Gothic Horror.
I would say from the way you wrote everything out that you are really looking at D) Create your own World of Gothic Horror while playing through Lost Mines of Phandelver to buy you a bit of time.
As for "inexperienced players" let them have fun. They'll figure it out. Just look up Session 0 if you haven't because it is an important step a lot of people try to rush over in the rush to start rolling dice with a brand new character. Get everyone together with their character ideas. Talk about what you expect of them as players and gives them an opportunity to ask what they can expect of you as the DM. If there are any houserules that need to be outlined, cover it then. And then move into characters. Talk about the world. Have them help build it by answering questions on where they come from (don't let them just pull stock answers from their favorite game / anime, get them to use brain power too). Connect each character to some other character in some way. Bring them together in a specific location... and then begin the game.
I would go from Lost Mine to Strahd. Lost Mine takes you up to level 5, which would be a pretty decent starting point to dealing with Barovia. CoS is really sandboxy, so you don't have to worry about perfect level matches, and in my experience it's not uber combat heavy, either. Not to mention CoS has a really adaptable hook, in that it's essentially "you get sucked up by the mist one day, now your in Barovia."If you were to go from LMoP to Dragon Heist, it'd be a little more wonky, since Dragon Heist only goes up to level 8, and I don't think it would make much narrative sense, as a good part of it involves dealing with Volo's shenanigans at early levels and then getting a house.
Hombrew: Way of Wresting, Circle of Sacrifice
Thanks for the replies, I think my best bet is to finish LMoP and go into curse of Strahd. My players have actively asked for a gothic/horror adventure. And after we finish LMoP I'll give them one stern warning and tell them about how important skills are in the game, etc etc.
I think this would be best as well for my development as a GM. Curse of Strahd seems to have a little bit of everything.
I can picture them smiling and laughing as I give them their one warning that their characters might be instantly killed here. Even the story in the death house would be right up their alley and I think they would find it really cool. They all chose Waterdeep second as well. So maybe we can save that for further down the road.
My only fear is that CoS will be too dangerous or punishing for them as new players.
If you were open to other suggestions, I bought the 'Gothic Horror' bundle from The Arcane Library a while ago, and I read over those cover to cover. I am yet to run these modules myself, but they are really well written and have been designed to require next to no prep from the DM beforehand. I'm kinda looking forward to when one of the regular players in my current weekly campaign takes a short hiatus so I can run these as a palate cleanser. They take a group from level 1 to 5, which could prep your group for CoS (which I don't really know anything about).
For what its worth my group did finish LMoP, and for the most part I enjoyed running it. My issues with it however were that none of us knew much about any of the factions or 'lore' of the setting, so when player rewards for side quests involved being allowed to join these groups I really had no idea what to say about them and had to make stuff up. I think the BBEG at the end is also weakly woven into main story-line, so by the time your group gets to the Black Spider they won't really care much about him. If you do stick with LMoP I'd recommend you offer players more tangible 'loot' rewards for side quests, and weave the Black Spider more into the story than the veiled references made to him.