I have started playing my first campaign ever with some family members (including 2 nephews <10 years). I am the DM and they are 4 new players. We are playing Dragons of Stormwreck Isle as an introduction. It has been great to have things laid out clearly in the adventure guide and everyone is having fun while learning the rules. We are about halfway through this adventure and I was looking for tips on where to go next. I'd like to stick with another adventure as I don't feel comfortable enough home brewing everything myself at this stage. The internet has tons of lists of 5e adventures, but I was hoping for some more personalized suggestions. Any recommendations of what adventure to play next? Some seem to be placed in realms with different gaming mechanisms- so maybe something a bit more simple, but longer as the next campaign. It also can't be super heady as I don't want to leave my nephews in the dust if they are too confused.
A few related questions:
1. Do we continue playing as these characters (all were pre-generated and came with Stormwreck Isle) or create new ones for the next adventure?
2. Some adventures list the character level above 1 (ex- Levels 5-20). Are these meant for preexisting characters who have reached the starting level? Or do you make new characters in session 0 that will start out at the minimum level (level 5 in my example)?
Any suggestions on where to go next would be really appreciated- thanks!
There really no wrong answer, as long as you are all having fun, you’re doing it right.
But to give more direct answers. There are people who like to carry on with their characters and move them to a new adventure. Others like to start something new, and try out new kinds of characters. Both are fun, it’s going to be up to your group. Same with higher level adventures, some people use characters they carried over, others make new ones. With new players, I’d suggest something that starts at level 1, so you can have time to learn the characters, rather then jumping in at 5 with lots of powers and spells to learn. But, there’s no hard and fast rule.
With a group of all new people, I’d suggest switching to something else, and starting with new characters. Now you’ve got a sense of the rules, you might have fun making your own characters. Id suggest getting the players handbook if you don’t have it already. And for an adventure, Lost Mines of Phandelver is another good starter adventure, and it’s available for free here on dndbeyond.
Well there's a lot of different things you could do. Let me address your related questions first.
1. You can keep those characters or make new ones. It's up to you and what makes sense for the adventure.
2. If an adventure starts higher than level one, you just make characters for whatever level you need and play them. If you already have characters that level (or even close to it) from a different adventure, you can play those too.
As for where to go next: Since you have young/new players, and you're not comfortable homebrewing a world yourself, I would suggest taking another starter adventrue like Lost Mines or Dragon of Icespire Peak. You can decide if you want to start at level one with new characters, or try modifying the adventures for higher level characters from your last adventure. If you choose to modify, it will give you some experience with encounter balancing without having to go from scratch. Those two are set in the same town so you could even choose to mix and match or combine together in your own way to make a different adventure without having to homebrew much.
If you DO want to try your hand at a LITTLE bit of home brew, "The Lost Mine of Phandelver" (LMoP, which is available for free on DnDBeyond) and "The Dragon of Icespire Peak" (DoIP) both take place in the same town. It’s not too much of a hassle to combine the two into one adventure, though it requires a bit more work on the DM’a part. You can start it at level 1 and take it all the way up to level 6-8, making it easy for your family to try some new characters and go beyond the 1st tier (levels 1-4).
In fact, if you get the digital version of DoIP, you get access to three sequel adventures designed to tie into DoIP. You can run one or more of them after completing LMoP and DoIP with the same characters, or your family can forgo their characters for new ones with these extra adventures.
My personal recommendation? Buy DoIP on DnDBeyond, and use it in conjunction with LMoP and the sequel adventures ("Storm Lord's Wrath," "Sleeping Dragon's Wake," and "Divine Contention."). You'll get 5 adventures in the same region for the cost of 1, a truly epic level 1-11 campaign.
Candlekeep Mysteries is a great series of adventures that can take characters all the way from level 1 to level 16. CKM is broken down into a bunch of loosely linked (but still awesome adventures. This allows you to you to skip the first few adventures and start with "A Deep and Creeping Darkness" if your nephews wanted to continue using their old characters. Conversely, you could jsut start at the start of the book if your players wanted to play new, level 1 characters.
1. It's up to you! If your players are satisfied with their pre-gens and want to continue playing them, then continue playing them! On the other hand, your players might have gotten tired of their characters and want to try out a different race, class, personality, or other features for their characters. If this is the case, make new characters. Either choice will provide a fully functional game.
2. Once again, it's up to personal preference as either choice will mechanically work.
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"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
This is exactly what my group are doing - I am the DM, I've DMed Stormwreck and we will finish it next session. Then my friends (4 in total) want to keep their level 3 characters and jump into the next adventure. I set it up as Runara being an old friend of Gundren Rockseeker who sent her a note "I found it!" which has her very worried and she sends the party to assist him. I intend to simply increase the difficulty of each encounter (for example adding a bugbear to the Golblin ambush) and not allow the party to level up until Lost mine of Phandelver says they should get to level 4. Beyond that, then I intend to tie it into Dragons of Icespire peak and once again adjust the encounters.
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Hello!
I have started playing my first campaign ever with some family members (including 2 nephews <10 years). I am the DM and they are 4 new players. We are playing Dragons of Stormwreck Isle as an introduction. It has been great to have things laid out clearly in the adventure guide and everyone is having fun while learning the rules. We are about halfway through this adventure and I was looking for tips on where to go next. I'd like to stick with another adventure as I don't feel comfortable enough home brewing everything myself at this stage. The internet has tons of lists of 5e adventures, but I was hoping for some more personalized suggestions. Any recommendations of what adventure to play next? Some seem to be placed in realms with different gaming mechanisms- so maybe something a bit more simple, but longer as the next campaign. It also can't be super heady as I don't want to leave my nephews in the dust if they are too confused.
A few related questions:
1. Do we continue playing as these characters (all were pre-generated and came with Stormwreck Isle) or create new ones for the next adventure?
2. Some adventures list the character level above 1 (ex- Levels 5-20). Are these meant for preexisting characters who have reached the starting level? Or do you make new characters in session 0 that will start out at the minimum level (level 5 in my example)?
Any suggestions on where to go next would be really appreciated- thanks!
There really no wrong answer, as long as you are all having fun, you’re doing it right.
But to give more direct answers. There are people who like to carry on with their characters and move them to a new adventure. Others like to start something new, and try out new kinds of characters. Both are fun, it’s going to be up to your group.
Same with higher level adventures, some people use characters they carried over, others make new ones. With new players, I’d suggest something that starts at level 1, so you can have time to learn the characters, rather then jumping in at 5 with lots of powers and spells to learn. But, there’s no hard and fast rule.
With a group of all new people, I’d suggest switching to something else, and starting with new characters. Now you’ve got a sense of the rules, you might have fun making your own characters. Id suggest getting the players handbook if you don’t have it already.
And for an adventure, Lost Mines of Phandelver is another good starter adventure, and it’s available for free here on dndbeyond.
Well there's a lot of different things you could do. Let me address your related questions first.
1. You can keep those characters or make new ones. It's up to you and what makes sense for the adventure.
2. If an adventure starts higher than level one, you just make characters for whatever level you need and play them. If you already have characters that level (or even close to it) from a different adventure, you can play those too.
As for where to go next: Since you have young/new players, and you're not comfortable homebrewing a world yourself, I would suggest taking another starter adventrue like Lost Mines or Dragon of Icespire Peak. You can decide if you want to start at level one with new characters, or try modifying the adventures for higher level characters from your last adventure. If you choose to modify, it will give you some experience with encounter balancing without having to go from scratch. Those two are set in the same town so you could even choose to mix and match or combine together in your own way to make a different adventure without having to homebrew much.
If you DO want to try your hand at a LITTLE bit of home brew, "The Lost Mine of Phandelver" (LMoP, which is available for free on DnDBeyond) and "The Dragon of Icespire Peak" (DoIP) both take place in the same town. It’s not too much of a hassle to combine the two into one adventure, though it requires a bit more work on the DM’a part. You can start it at level 1 and take it all the way up to level 6-8, making it easy for your family to try some new characters and go beyond the 1st tier (levels 1-4).
In fact, if you get the digital version of DoIP, you get access to three sequel adventures designed to tie into DoIP. You can run one or more of them after completing LMoP and DoIP with the same characters, or your family can forgo their characters for new ones with these extra adventures.
My personal recommendation? Buy DoIP on DnDBeyond, and use it in conjunction with LMoP and the sequel adventures ("Storm Lord's Wrath," "Sleeping Dragon's Wake," and "Divine Contention."). You'll get 5 adventures in the same region for the cost of 1, a truly epic level 1-11 campaign.
Candlekeep Mysteries is a great series of adventures that can take characters all the way from level 1 to level 16. CKM is broken down into a bunch of loosely linked (but still awesome adventures. This allows you to you to skip the first few adventures and start with "A Deep and Creeping Darkness" if your nephews wanted to continue using their old characters. Conversely, you could jsut start at the start of the book if your players wanted to play new, level 1 characters.
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HERE.1. It's up to you! If your players are satisfied with their pre-gens and want to continue playing them, then continue playing them! On the other hand, your players might have gotten tired of their characters and want to try out a different race, class, personality, or other features for their characters. If this is the case, make new characters. Either choice will provide a fully functional game.
2. Once again, it's up to personal preference as either choice will mechanically work.
Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
This is exactly what my group are doing - I am the DM, I've DMed Stormwreck and we will finish it next session. Then my friends (4 in total) want to keep their level 3 characters and jump into the next adventure. I set it up as Runara being an old friend of Gundren Rockseeker who sent her a note "I found it!" which has her very worried and she sends the party to assist him. I intend to simply increase the difficulty of each encounter (for example adding a bugbear to the Golblin ambush) and not allow the party to level up until Lost mine of Phandelver says they should get to level 4. Beyond that, then I intend to tie it into Dragons of Icespire peak and once again adjust the encounters.