I offered to run a d&d game for a random collection of folks, as a distraction from all the crap going on right now. I got...more people than I thought, like 7, so I may have to split the group. But that's another matter. The bigger thing is that I have a few players who've played for years, and some who have never touched dice.
What adventure might be good for a mixed bag like this? I think the experienced folks will be super, super bored with LMOPH, but I don't want to pick something too hard for the babies. Maybe Dragon Queen? I've got one player who's in my real campaign so I can't use Icespire, which is what I'm running for my primary group.
Also open to DM's guild recs too. I want something flexible, and interesting. They're more interested in RP and exploring than massive amounts of combat. And I'd like to avoid outright gothic and horror, since this is supposed to be a fun escape for everyone.
First maybe talk to the more experienced players. You think they'll be bored with Lost Mines, and they might, especially if they've played it before, but sometimes when you've been playing for a while you've had enough of twists and turns and unconventional stuff and just want to do a classic, straightforward, tropey adventure; it's worth asking, at least.
Another idea: If you have or would be willing to pick up Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, there are starter adventures in there, nowhere near as extensive as Lost Mines, but they're designed to be friendly to new players while also being freshly published and using a new setting, therefore less boring to experienced players.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh might be fun too; the adventures run from level 1 to level 12 (although it can be deadly for level 1s if they aren't super cautious; I started my players at 3, but 2 would also work), but they aren't super strongly connected in terms of narrative, so if you're looking for a short 1-5 adventure you can pull the first couple of chapters. Plus, the book has tons of tools and setting information to homebrew your own stuff.
First maybe talk to the more experienced players. You think they'll be bored with Lost Mines, and they might, especially if they've played it before, but sometimes when you've been playing for a while you've had enough of twists and turns and unconventional stuff and just want to do a classic, straightforward, tropey adventure; it's worth asking, at least.
Another idea: If you have or would be willing to pick up Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, there are starter adventures in there, nowhere near as extensive as Lost Mines, but they're designed to be friendly to new players while also being freshly published and using a new setting, therefore less boring to experienced players.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh might be fun too; the adventures run from level 1 to level 12 (although it can be deadly for level 1s if they aren't super cautious; I started my players at 3, but 2 would also work), but they aren't super strongly connected in terms of narrative, so if you're looking for a short 1-5 adventure you can pull the first couple of chapters. Plus, the book has tons of tools and setting information to homebrew your own stuff.
Oh, I *have* Wildemount. :) I was actually thinking of those low-level adventures for sure. In some ways that might work better, since if we have to split people up, I'd rather run some small things that don't take weeks. There are also a ton of adventure hooks in there too that I could build off, depending where they wanted to start.
I was eyeballing Saltmarsh as well, wasn't sure if people liked it (I really wish dndb had a rental or preview or something).
I'd thought about grabbing some stuff from Descent into Avernus and turning it into shorter bits, but internet says that one can be pretty rough. I was only thinking about it because I'm thinking of tossing my primary group into that one next. But Salt Marsh might be a little kinder.
I have both, running Saltmarsh now and I've read Avernus pretty extensively. Saltmarsh is legitimately one of my favorite 5e books because it's so dense. There's the core adventures that offer a little of everything: there's some stealth/heisty stuff, there's dungeon crawling, there's skill challenges and chases, there's a bit of mystery, there's cults and legendary monsters if you go to the end.
But where it really shines IMO is the setting information in chapter 1 and the toolkit in the appendices. There is a lot outside of the core adventures. There are three distinct wilderness areas you can flesh out for your players to explore; one of them is a fairly "normal" wooded-area-with-monsters-and-bandits, one of them is linked to the Shadowfell with an ancient hag and tons of crazy shit in there (the hag's bodyguards include 23 oni! plus vampires!), and one of them is the site of an Abyssal incursion. My players went there, got super interested in the cult of Zuggtmoy that started it, and now that's a major focus of the campaign. That's not even touching on the entire ocean right there, and there is a huge section on what kinds of ships they might have, how to use those ships, upgrades to their ship that can be a money sink, and an even huger section on what they might encounter, tools for generating random islands, obstacles that might get in the way of a sea voyage (from mundane storms to whirlpools that suck you to the Plane of Water). There's a political subplot with factions that the party might align with or play off each other. There's a secret society using assassination, rumors, and sabotage to eventually destroy the town's power structure and supplant it. There's a mine that might hire the party to deal with monsters which you could spin off into an Underdark arc. You can do so much with this book.
I’m running Sunless Citadel from Tales From the Yawning Portal for my kids right now, and that’s a great straightforward adventure that shows off all the classic D&D elements, and only takes a few sessions to finish. I could see a mixed skill group being plenty happy in that setting.
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I offered to run a d&d game for a random collection of folks, as a distraction from all the crap going on right now. I got...more people than I thought, like 7, so I may have to split the group. But that's another matter. The bigger thing is that I have a few players who've played for years, and some who have never touched dice.
What adventure might be good for a mixed bag like this? I think the experienced folks will be super, super bored with LMOPH, but I don't want to pick something too hard for the babies. Maybe Dragon Queen? I've got one player who's in my real campaign so I can't use Icespire, which is what I'm running for my primary group.
Also open to DM's guild recs too. I want something flexible, and interesting. They're more interested in RP and exploring than massive amounts of combat. And I'd like to avoid outright gothic and horror, since this is supposed to be a fun escape for everyone.
What about Waterdeep Dragon Heist? Still very accessible with a lot of RP opportunities.
Corinne Hemlock: Dhampir courtesan and dusk huntress
Kraig Bronzeaxe: Dwarven archaeologist and guerilla archer
First maybe talk to the more experienced players. You think they'll be bored with Lost Mines, and they might, especially if they've played it before, but sometimes when you've been playing for a while you've had enough of twists and turns and unconventional stuff and just want to do a classic, straightforward, tropey adventure; it's worth asking, at least.
Another idea: If you have or would be willing to pick up Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, there are starter adventures in there, nowhere near as extensive as Lost Mines, but they're designed to be friendly to new players while also being freshly published and using a new setting, therefore less boring to experienced players.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh might be fun too; the adventures run from level 1 to level 12 (although it can be deadly for level 1s if they aren't super cautious; I started my players at 3, but 2 would also work), but they aren't super strongly connected in terms of narrative, so if you're looking for a short 1-5 adventure you can pull the first couple of chapters. Plus, the book has tons of tools and setting information to homebrew your own stuff.
Oh, I *have* Wildemount. :) I was actually thinking of those low-level adventures for sure. In some ways that might work better, since if we have to split people up, I'd rather run some small things that don't take weeks. There are also a ton of adventure hooks in there too that I could build off, depending where they wanted to start.
I was eyeballing Saltmarsh as well, wasn't sure if people liked it (I really wish dndb had a rental or preview or something).
I'd thought about grabbing some stuff from Descent into Avernus and turning it into shorter bits, but internet says that one can be pretty rough. I was only thinking about it because I'm thinking of tossing my primary group into that one next. But Salt Marsh might be a little kinder.
I have both, running Saltmarsh now and I've read Avernus pretty extensively. Saltmarsh is legitimately one of my favorite 5e books because it's so dense. There's the core adventures that offer a little of everything: there's some stealth/heisty stuff, there's dungeon crawling, there's skill challenges and chases, there's a bit of mystery, there's cults and legendary monsters if you go to the end.
But where it really shines IMO is the setting information in chapter 1 and the toolkit in the appendices. There is a lot outside of the core adventures. There are three distinct wilderness areas you can flesh out for your players to explore; one of them is a fairly "normal" wooded-area-with-monsters-and-bandits, one of them is linked to the Shadowfell with an ancient hag and tons of crazy shit in there (the hag's bodyguards include 23 oni! plus vampires!), and one of them is the site of an Abyssal incursion. My players went there, got super interested in the cult of Zuggtmoy that started it, and now that's a major focus of the campaign. That's not even touching on the entire ocean right there, and there is a huge section on what kinds of ships they might have, how to use those ships, upgrades to their ship that can be a money sink, and an even huger section on what they might encounter, tools for generating random islands, obstacles that might get in the way of a sea voyage (from mundane storms to whirlpools that suck you to the Plane of Water). There's a political subplot with factions that the party might align with or play off each other. There's a secret society using assassination, rumors, and sabotage to eventually destroy the town's power structure and supplant it. There's a mine that might hire the party to deal with monsters which you could spin off into an Underdark arc. You can do so much with this book.
I’m running Sunless Citadel from Tales From the Yawning Portal for my kids right now, and that’s a great straightforward adventure that shows off all the classic D&D elements, and only takes a few sessions to finish. I could see a mixed skill group being plenty happy in that setting.