Well, it depends on how well you believe that you DM.
As mentioned above, if this is your first time, Lost Mines of Phandelver is an excellent place to start. The amount of prep you have to do for max player enjoyment is fairly low.
On the other hand, if you felt like skipping the swimming pool and diving straight into the ocean, Curse of Strahd is a wonderful module (I've recently finished DMing it myself, and our group had a blast). However, while you can basically run Phandelver straight from the book, in my opinion, to get the maximum enjoyment out of Strahd, you should rework some of the sections (I ended up redoing most of the dungeons). On top of that, the prep work is generally higher because due to the sheer amount of stuff the players can do.
Overall, I'd recommend Phandelver, but if you feel that you have stupid amounts of free time, Strahd is a higher risk / higher reward option.
(This is coming from someone fairly new to DMing, I've been at it for about a year now. Strahd was the first full campaign [not counting Phandelver] I ran, and I didn't find it super difficult.)
I see alot of hatred towards the tyranny of dragons campaign and alot of it is warranted as it really is unbalanced in many parts . But I would also say with the right group and dm it can be alot of fun as I have ran it twice and everyone enjoyed it also it was my first time dming and because it is so linear ie railroady it was very easy to do
You have to realize that "railroad" is a 4-letter word in the D&D internet community these days, so the fact that it is railroady is where it gets so much hate.
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You have to realize that "railroad" is a 4-letter word in the D&D internet community these days, so the fact that it is railroady is where it gets so much hate.
Railroads for beginning players and GMs is ok. They're still figuring it out.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I am a average player player that only has done homebrew. But I have never been a DM so I got my group together. Now I need your ranking and brief summary of the module.
there are a lot... here goes:
Lost mine of phandelver: would definitely recommend. very good. summery: players escort a caravan to a town, where they do quests, and learn of wave echo cave, which they clear out. bad summery, but it is a VERY good modual.
Tyranny of dragons: i love all the dragons, the plot, and the high stakes, but not the best destined, and can be hard to run. summery: cult of the dragon attempos to bring tiamat beck to the frogoton realms, and the players need to stop them.
Curse of stahd: never played, but i heard its good. (never mind, very bad). Summery: no idea
Storm kings thunder: dont like summery: i frogot
Out of the abyss. Not as good as phandelver, but would still definitely recommend. Summery: the players are captured by drow, and have to escape, out of a huge abyss, while doing cool stuff, and killing lots of demons.
Ghosts of saltmarsh. good, but no as good as out if abyss or phandelver, although is easier to run than out of abyss. Summery: characters go on quests for a town.
I believe there is 26 modules. ( I know that is a lot
I thought 11 full modules... I am likely wrong however. But I have been researching (I am in the same situation as Butt) and I think, while I do not have a ranking, I have heard this about the campaigns:
Curse of Strahd
Pros: Well written, great villain and locations, Customisable
Cons: Hard for new DMs and Players, Horror (not for everyone), unbendingly racist and anti-mental health as currently written
Tomb of Annihilation:
Pros: Magnificent plot & Dungeons, New Monsters in the dozens
Cons: "Difficult" for new DMs, a bit racist as written (possibly)
Yeah; not sure where you're getting this "racist" stuff from. A handful of overly sensitive and politically self-important people who are looking to be offended by everything nearly all of the time--constitutes trolling in its purest form. This doesn't constitute the vast majority of the Dungeons and Dragons community. Just because a critical article is written by one of these types of people doesn't necessarily give their assertions any creedence whatsoever. This is fantasy. Many fantasy tropes have real-life inspirations or references. The people in Transylvania (and surrounding environs) which were the clear inspiration for the Strahd adventure of course has its roots in the Dracula story. So what? We play the game to have fun and to try to involve our imagination as we assume the roles of heroes (or villains) in an fantasy world.
As for "anti-mental health"; if you know anything about "mental health" as we now know it...you can't possibly try to draw parallels between what we know in the modern age about neurological problems and mental health issues and try to reasonably criticize something written in an fantasy, medieval-type setting like D&D. The sorts of things that ancient and medieval people used to do to the mentally ill is a matter of scientific and historical fact and is well-documented. That doesn't mean we try to erase it, hide from it, or try to live in some sort of denial or shame for the things that people did hundreds (or thousands) of years ago. Some people actually thought that mental illness was a result of demonic possession or other issues relating to the spirit realm. Simply making reference to that or scripting characters to reflect this generally-held belief in ancient times is neither insensitive or "anti-mental health."
I think one of the biggest issues that we have today within our entertainment/recreational outlets (or even in new television/movie projects) is the injection of developers/producers' ideas of virtue signaling and identity politics into our entertainment. I play D&D to GET AWAY from the nonsense and the political rabble-rousing going on in the world. I don't want to see my fantasy outlets/recreational fun time compromised by people choosing to incorporate their pet political causes into what we do to ostensibly escape from the real world for several hours at a time and have fun with our friends.
On a different note; I'd have to agree with one of the first posters and recommend:
1) Lost Mines of Phandelver
2) Tomb of Annihilation
3) Descent into Avernus (playing this one now and I love it so far)
While I do love the Strahd character and the environment they put together in "Curse of Strahd"; I think that you kind of have to be into that genre to really enjoy it and get into it.
Regarding Curse of Strahd, the racism and mental health issues may not be meaningful to some. The point is that for people who have experienced problems with racism and mental health there is content in Curse of Strahd that might be troubling to them. I mean c'mon, there's literally a tiger in the module that has been trained to kill only a certain race of people. So maybe if you've never had someone want to kill you because of your race, the tiger might not mean anything to you. But to others, that part of the module could be very disturbing. Someone who has been the target of race violence deserves a fantasy outlet too where they can get away from that stuff.
I found this disclaimer that someone wrote that I found helpful to share with my players before we started that module:
Curse of Strahd, as-written, is full of disturbing and graphic content. If you are potentially triggered by elements of child abuse, murder, stalking, gaslighting, racism, torture, mind control, cannibalism, situations paralleling sexual assault, child death, references to stillbirth/miscarriage, abuse of those with disabilities or mental illness, animal cruelty, body horror, child abandonment, portrayals of alcoholism or drug abuse, potential incest, implied necrophilia, or suicide, speak with your DM about potentially working around or entirely avoiding these elements.
Ultimately I cut a lot of stuff out of the module to avoid some of this content based on my own concerns and those of my players. However, even though I sanitized it a lot, we're still having a blast playing it. So yeah, there are some valid concerns about content in Curse of Strahd. However, it is possible to work around the stuff you don't want to have part of your game and you can still have a lot of fun playing this great adventure book.
Wow reading that warning, and I am NOT someone who "triggers" easily, or pretty much ever, I am not sure I would like Curse of Strahd -- in fact, I'm fairly certain I would NOT like it without heavy DM modification. It's not that I would be triggered by any of that but I don't particularly have any interest in RPing out scenes of sexual assault, child abuse, body horror, alcoholism, incest, necrophilia, etc. I mean I read that and just... yuck. It wouldn't give me nightmares or anything... but I would just have zero fun playing it.
But then I am no fan of the horror genre anyway.
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Yeah, that was my reaction the first time I read through the book. Yuck. I bought it on D&D Beyond because I heard it was great but then when I read it I had major concerns about the content. I was planning on playing it with my teenage sons and their friends and I almost gave up on it after the first read. However, when I thought about it I realized there is still a lot to love about the adventure book and most of that disturbing content is easily worked around.
I took out all the stuff that grossed me out that I wouldn't want to have in the game I did with my kids. Then I shared the disclaimer with the players in my adult group and had some conversations with them about what I had already cut and then based on their input I cut a few other things. Then we started playing. So I think if you just be open about it with everyone playing, it's easy to solve the content issues.
I took out all the stuff that grossed me out that I wouldn't want to have in the game I did with my kids. Then I shared the disclaimer with the players in my adult group and had some conversations with them about what I had already cut and then based on their input I cut a few other things. Then we started playing. So I think if you just be open about it with everyone playing, it's easy to solve the content issues.
I am going to bookmark this thread and if I ever have to run CoS (which I probably never will, but who knows?), I am going to hit you up for a list of your mods to it.
From what I have heard, the story is really good, and the adventure is well-written from the point of view of player enjoyment and so on... but I feel like a lot of this stuff just would not be up my alley.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
As I am currently running CoS for a group ... I would have to say that the disclaimer posted above is accurate. There are a number of horror elements in CoS that push a number of these buttons, especially for someone who might already be sensitized. I've included some spoilers below to give context. The spoilers don't cover everything but if you want to play CoS at some point don't read them.
P.S. I am not a fan of the horror genre either but I had heard CoS described as one of the better modules so I decided to run it for a group. It is generally well written BUT the content is a bit descriptive.
CoS is classical horror ... there are scenes, events and characters that are intended to invoke fear and loathing just through the descriptions. There are also a lot of elements that can be/are offensive.
1) Strahd is a vampire. What do vampires do? They prey on people. The soul of a woman Strahd obsesses about is trapped in Barovia and reincarnates every so often. He always tracks her down, seduces her a few times feeding on her then converts her to a vampire spawn and imprisons her in the dungeon as his mate. In CoS, the characters encounter this woman and are given a quest to take her someplace more safe since Strahd has already fed on her twice.
2) Barovia is a realm of horror some of which is constructed from Strahd's mind. Souls can not leave Barovia but there are more people than souls so most of the people encountered in Barovia don't have souls. This can push a lot of religious buttons.
3) There is a coven of hags living in a windmill. They go through the towns selling cakes that give 24 hours of escape from Barovia (these cakes are addictive). The hags sometimes take children in exchange for the cakes. Ground bones of children are an ingredient in the cakes. The characters are expected to kill the hags and rescue the current captive children.
4) The people of Barovia are trapped in a cursed land. It is always cloudy, almost always raining, the sun never shines, they come up with desperate measures to try to get by. There is little hope and Strahd is always around to eliminate it if hope starts to spread. Wolves, dire wolves and werewolves as well as undead can roam the countryside. Travel isn't safe. As a result there are lots of elements involving depression and mental instability. The mayor of Vallaki holds weekly festivals in a mistaken belief that if everyone pretends to be happy then everything will be ok. The priest in Barovia keeps his son (who was converted to a vampire spawn in previous events) locked in the basement unable to save him, let him go or put him out of his misery. There are constant references to one of the only good things being the wine produced and distributed free of charge by the Wizard of Wines winery being the only thing that keeps some of the populace going. Several quests involve restoring the wine supply to Vallaki and Krezk. Providing wine is enough to get the party into some of the walled villages because of the surcease it provides.
5) The abbot at Krezk is a fallen celestial ... the entire plot line in the abbey which is also an asylum for a large in bred family of monstrosities with human and beastial characteristics is atrocious. I tried to bypass most of it though the plot stereotypes insanity and an asylum ... most are violent, incapable, and need to be locked up ... as someone said, it represents a medieval approach to insanity but fits the horror theme of the campaign. In addition, the abbot has created a flesh golem for Strahd, intended to be his bride, constructed from the body parts of recently deceased villagers.
6) The werewolf pack kidnaps children from the villages. The pack leader has the children fight to the death with the last one standing being converted to a werewolf. There was a fight in the pack where one faction thought it better to "spare" the children and just convert them all to werewolves. The leader who likes watching children kill each other won so the fights continue. The party is expected to rescue the current batch of children and kill the werewolves.
7) The Vistani in CoS are based on myths about a real life group and the change of name only slightly veils it ... the inaccurate stereotypes that are often applied to this group are present in full force in CoS. This group is the only one that can freely leave Barovia and are generally though not always followers of Strahd. This groups is loathed and despised by the citizens of Barovia if only because they can leave. There is a tiger trained to kill members of this group by an NPC that hates this group because of what some members of this group did to his son.
8) Strahd the vampire is the ultimate villain of the adventure and hopefully the players triumph in the end. However, the Amber Temple contains the vestiges of the evil gods that truly rule Barovia and who offer the characters "Dark Gifts". Making deals with ultimate evil to obtain additional powers is an option in CoS.
Most of the evil/awful plot are the horror elements that the players have to defeat. Most modules have the villains doing "bad" things (killing and worse) which is why the players/characters are motivated to defeat them. However, CoS makes these horror story memes (Hansel and Gretel, vampires, werewolves, witches etc) much more explicit in striving for the horror atmosphere.
There are some forces for good in Barovia but the general tone is dark/evil/depraved. The module is well written considering that this is the goal but the content is not for everyone. I also think it is important to try and play this with a good aligned party since there are too many ways that a party with evil characters would go completely off track.
Lost Mines of Phandelver is consistently ranked as one of the best modules. This is in spite of being the starter module. I have not heard anyone rank this one out of the top 5.
I've never seen Curse of Strahd out of the top 3. This is remarkable as it's not routine D&D type fantasy content. Acknowledge the other comments about the module; I still haven't seen a serious detractor not say it was top 3...they just adjust/home brew it.
I have my own opinions on other modules. Some I rank over the ones above; however, I've seen every other module ranked at both the bottom or the top depending on who's making the list. CoS and LMoP are always top 5.
I have recently discovered "The War of the Burning Sky" (WotBS) and "Zeitgeist" adventure paths. They are not published Wizards of the Coast, but, IMO, they beat all the official modules in terms of narrative and adventure complexity by a mile.
WotBS is a high fantasy adventure with some unique elements of worldbuilding, multiple antagonist factions, complex politics, and many levels of mysteries. Roll20 maps are also available. I'm currently running two groups through WotBS. "Zeitgeist" is more of Eberron-like magepunk setting that I would love to try next.
I don't think these modules are widely known, and I encourage every DM looking for content to check them out. The authors provide great support on the enworld forums.
I am playing Odyssey of the Dragonlords, it's not an official sourcebook but it's pretty awesome. The book is very well structured and it really involves the players. The lore is a bit different though.
Another game I'm preparing is CoS which is mentioned a lot in this thread. I think in itself it is one of the better books I've read so far. But it is based off really ancient stories and therefore doesn't fit the modern culture. Almost every race you read up on can be placed in reality and combine that with fantasy/horror that amplifies certain stereotypes - can be interpreted as offensive. Then again, so can a lot of horror movies or books be.
My personal opinion is that as long as you don't use those comparisons in your game in a negative manner it's ok. And thus, it's still a great campaign book if you like a dark setting where the quest hook is very obvious. And you like fighting ultimate evil, vampires, zombies etc.
I am also playing Storm King's Thunder, it's very sandbox and it requires a lot of work placing the characters in the Swordcoast's 'The North' and creating personal story hooks etc. I like it, but if you want to progress through a storyline with all kind of interesting events - the beginning is not the best. But you can implement some extra's to foreshadow the remaining chapters making the story a lot more interesting.
Somewhere I read a comment about out of the abyss being complicated, I strongly disagreed. I've ran this campaign as my first game DM'ing and it's pretty straight forward besides the number of NPC's you need to play at the start - but that's preparation it's not hard.
Hoard of the dragonqueen I started as a player, but never finished it, but I thought the beginning was...slow and not really captivating me as a player. Waterdeep I played the ending joinin a group of players. I think it's a great campaign if you play it in full. The only thing that bothered me somewhat is that it's very local - so there are not many places of lore you get traveling Faerun.
So from my experience: Odyssey of the Dragonlords (not official) Out of the Abyss Curse of Strahd Waterdeep Storm King's Thunder Hoard of the Dragonqueen
I strongly disagree on Odyssey of the Dragonlords. The concept and the atmosphere are really well done. The book itself however seems to have never been playtested.
- Some encounters are badly balanced.
- No index.
- Inconsistent naming conventions and the random way monsters are sorted makes it hard work to actually find something in this book. Could have been avoided by an index.
- NPC actions sometimes make no sense.
- Some NPCs are just annoying and badly written in my opinion (your may differ).
I have DMed the majority of the official 5e Modules at least once with a few exceptions. Many of them I have done multiple times. There would be two ways I would rate a module. How fun they are for me and my players, and then also how easy they are to run. So rather than do that. I'll just rate them on a scale of 1-10 for both aspects.
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus - Fun: 7 Ease of Use: 7 Curse of Strahd: Fun 9 East of Use: 5 Lost Mine of Phandelver: Fun: 10 Ease of Use: 9 Dragon of Icespire Peak + 3 expansions: Fun: 8 Ease of Use: 7 Rick and Morty: Fun 6 Ease of Use: 10 Frozen Sick: Fun 5 Ease of Use: 7 Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Fun 4 Ease of Use 6 Hunt for the Thessalhydra: NA Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden: NA But I am prepping it and it seems good so far, but I've homebrewed a ton for 10 towns Infernal Machine Rebuild: NA Lost Laboratory of Kwalish: NA Out of the Abyss: Fun: 7 Ease of Use: 7 Prince of the Apocalypse: Fun 8 Ease of Use 5 "I had to homebrew sooo much in this to make it fun, I feel like I did more writing than the authors of the book" Rise of Tiamat - Fun: 5 Ease of Use: 5 Rrakkma: NA Storm King's Thunder: Fun: 7 Ease of Use: 6 "Again a ton of my own homebrew went into this" Yawning Portal: Fun 8 Ease of Use: 6 "Tons and homebrew" Tome of Annihilation: Fun 6 Ease of Use 6 Waterdeep Dragon Heist: Fun 9 Ease of Use 8 Waterdeep Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Fun 4 Ease of Use 7
Hope this helps. None of these adventures were bad, some I had to really do a ton of work to get them to be enjoyable for myself and the players but the solid baseline and story they provided made it pretty easy to do that.
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Well, it depends on how well you believe that you DM.
As mentioned above, if this is your first time, Lost Mines of Phandelver is an excellent place to start. The amount of prep you have to do for max player enjoyment is fairly low.
On the other hand, if you felt like skipping the swimming pool and diving straight into the ocean, Curse of Strahd is a wonderful module (I've recently finished DMing it myself, and our group had a blast). However, while you can basically run Phandelver straight from the book, in my opinion, to get the maximum enjoyment out of Strahd, you should rework some of the sections (I ended up redoing most of the dungeons). On top of that, the prep work is generally higher because due to the sheer amount of stuff the players can do.
Overall, I'd recommend Phandelver, but if you feel that you have stupid amounts of free time, Strahd is a higher risk / higher reward option.
(This is coming from someone fairly new to DMing, I've been at it for about a year now. Strahd was the first full campaign [not counting Phandelver] I ran, and I didn't find it super difficult.)
(Also, as a loyal member of the D&D Beyond community, I'm obligated to share this Youtube playlist with you: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_)
"Players beware, the DM is here!" - Probably Some 80's Cartoon
From what I know having researched, these are the ones I'd recommend:
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist & Dungeon of the Mad Mage if you want a super big, relatively easy campaign.
Starter Set: Lost Mines of Phandalver if you don't mind a small campaign that's easy to run.
Essentials Kit: Dragon of Icespire Peak if you don't mind doing some work (take a look at Sly Flourish's encounter notes).
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus if you want a big campaign, that's cheaper than the Waterdeep Duo but also relatively easy.
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden if you want a big campaign with some difficulties but overall easy to run.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal if you don't mind sacrificing module length and style for excellent rules, ships and dungeons.
I would not recommend the following:
Rage of Demons: Out of the Abyss as it has complicated travel and madness rules and is difficult.
Tyranny of Dragons Duo as needs restructuring for more balanced encounters
However, this is all second-hand opinion, and it's ultimately up to you!
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I see alot of hatred towards the tyranny of dragons campaign and alot of it is warranted as it really is unbalanced in many parts . But I would also say with the right group and dm it can be alot of fun as I have ran it twice and everyone enjoyed it also it was my first time dming and because it is so linear ie railroady it was very easy to do
You have to realize that "railroad" is a 4-letter word in the D&D internet community these days, so the fact that it is railroady is where it gets so much hate.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Railroads for beginning players and GMs is ok. They're still figuring it out.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I don't disagree. But "the internet" seems to hate them without regard to new, old, beginning, etc.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
there are a lot... here goes:
Lost mine of phandelver: would definitely recommend. very good. summery: players escort a caravan to a town, where they do quests, and learn of wave echo cave, which they clear out. bad summery, but it is a VERY good modual.
Tyranny of dragons: i love all the dragons, the plot, and the high stakes, but not the best destined, and can be hard to run. summery: cult of the dragon attempos to bring tiamat beck to the frogoton realms, and the players need to stop them.
Curse of stahd: never played,
but i heard its good. (never mind, very bad). Summery: no ideaStorm kings thunder: dont like summery: i frogot
Out of the abyss. Not as good as phandelver, but would still definitely recommend. Summery: the players are captured by drow, and have to escape, out of a huge abyss, while doing cool stuff, and killing lots of demons.
Ghosts of saltmarsh. good, but no as good as out if abyss or phandelver, although is easier to run than out of abyss. Summery: characters go on quests for a town.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Yeah; not sure where you're getting this "racist" stuff from. A handful of overly sensitive and politically self-important people who are looking to be offended by everything nearly all of the time--constitutes trolling in its purest form. This doesn't constitute the vast majority of the Dungeons and Dragons community. Just because a critical article is written by one of these types of people doesn't necessarily give their assertions any creedence whatsoever. This is fantasy. Many fantasy tropes have real-life inspirations or references. The people in Transylvania (and surrounding environs) which were the clear inspiration for the Strahd adventure of course has its roots in the Dracula story. So what? We play the game to have fun and to try to involve our imagination as we assume the roles of heroes (or villains) in an fantasy world.
As for "anti-mental health"; if you know anything about "mental health" as we now know it...you can't possibly try to draw parallels between what we know in the modern age about neurological problems and mental health issues and try to reasonably criticize something written in an fantasy, medieval-type setting like D&D. The sorts of things that ancient and medieval people used to do to the mentally ill is a matter of scientific and historical fact and is well-documented. That doesn't mean we try to erase it, hide from it, or try to live in some sort of denial or shame for the things that people did hundreds (or thousands) of years ago. Some people actually thought that mental illness was a result of demonic possession or other issues relating to the spirit realm. Simply making reference to that or scripting characters to reflect this generally-held belief in ancient times is neither insensitive or "anti-mental health."
I think one of the biggest issues that we have today within our entertainment/recreational outlets (or even in new television/movie projects) is the injection of developers/producers' ideas of virtue signaling and identity politics into our entertainment. I play D&D to GET AWAY from the nonsense and the political rabble-rousing going on in the world. I don't want to see my fantasy outlets/recreational fun time compromised by people choosing to incorporate their pet political causes into what we do to ostensibly escape from the real world for several hours at a time and have fun with our friends.
On a different note; I'd have to agree with one of the first posters and recommend:
1) Lost Mines of Phandelver
2) Tomb of Annihilation
3) Descent into Avernus (playing this one now and I love it so far)
While I do love the Strahd character and the environment they put together in "Curse of Strahd"; I think that you kind of have to be into that genre to really enjoy it and get into it.
Regarding Curse of Strahd, the racism and mental health issues may not be meaningful to some. The point is that for people who have experienced problems with racism and mental health there is content in Curse of Strahd that might be troubling to them. I mean c'mon, there's literally a tiger in the module that has been trained to kill only a certain race of people. So maybe if you've never had someone want to kill you because of your race, the tiger might not mean anything to you. But to others, that part of the module could be very disturbing. Someone who has been the target of race violence deserves a fantasy outlet too where they can get away from that stuff.
I found this disclaimer that someone wrote that I found helpful to share with my players before we started that module:
Ultimately I cut a lot of stuff out of the module to avoid some of this content based on my own concerns and those of my players. However, even though I sanitized it a lot, we're still having a blast playing it. So yeah, there are some valid concerns about content in Curse of Strahd. However, it is possible to work around the stuff you don't want to have part of your game and you can still have a lot of fun playing this great adventure book.
Wow reading that warning, and I am NOT someone who "triggers" easily, or pretty much ever, I am not sure I would like Curse of Strahd -- in fact, I'm fairly certain I would NOT like it without heavy DM modification. It's not that I would be triggered by any of that but I don't particularly have any interest in RPing out scenes of sexual assault, child abuse, body horror, alcoholism, incest, necrophilia, etc. I mean I read that and just... yuck. It wouldn't give me nightmares or anything... but I would just have zero fun playing it.
But then I am no fan of the horror genre anyway.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah, that was my reaction the first time I read through the book. Yuck. I bought it on D&D Beyond because I heard it was great but then when I read it I had major concerns about the content. I was planning on playing it with my teenage sons and their friends and I almost gave up on it after the first read. However, when I thought about it I realized there is still a lot to love about the adventure book and most of that disturbing content is easily worked around.
I took out all the stuff that grossed me out that I wouldn't want to have in the game I did with my kids. Then I shared the disclaimer with the players in my adult group and had some conversations with them about what I had already cut and then based on their input I cut a few other things. Then we started playing. So I think if you just be open about it with everyone playing, it's easy to solve the content issues.
I am going to bookmark this thread and if I ever have to run CoS (which I probably never will, but who knows?), I am going to hit you up for a list of your mods to it.
From what I have heard, the story is really good, and the adventure is well-written from the point of view of player enjoyment and so on... but I feel like a lot of this stuff just would not be up my alley.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
As I am currently running CoS for a group ... I would have to say that the disclaimer posted above is accurate. There are a number of horror elements in CoS that push a number of these buttons, especially for someone who might already be sensitized. I've included some spoilers below to give context. The spoilers don't cover everything but if you want to play CoS at some point don't read them.
P.S. I am not a fan of the horror genre either but I had heard CoS described as one of the better modules so I decided to run it for a group. It is generally well written BUT the content is a bit descriptive.
CoS is classical horror ... there are scenes, events and characters that are intended to invoke fear and loathing just through the descriptions. There are also a lot of elements that can be/are offensive.
1) Strahd is a vampire. What do vampires do? They prey on people. The soul of a woman Strahd obsesses about is trapped in Barovia and reincarnates every so often. He always tracks her down, seduces her a few times feeding on her then converts her to a vampire spawn and imprisons her in the dungeon as his mate. In CoS, the characters encounter this woman and are given a quest to take her someplace more safe since Strahd has already fed on her twice.
2) Barovia is a realm of horror some of which is constructed from Strahd's mind. Souls can not leave Barovia but there are more people than souls so most of the people encountered in Barovia don't have souls. This can push a lot of religious buttons.
3) There is a coven of hags living in a windmill. They go through the towns selling cakes that give 24 hours of escape from Barovia (these cakes are addictive). The hags sometimes take children in exchange for the cakes. Ground bones of children are an ingredient in the cakes. The characters are expected to kill the hags and rescue the current captive children.
4) The people of Barovia are trapped in a cursed land. It is always cloudy, almost always raining, the sun never shines, they come up with desperate measures to try to get by. There is little hope and Strahd is always around to eliminate it if hope starts to spread. Wolves, dire wolves and werewolves as well as undead can roam the countryside. Travel isn't safe. As a result there are lots of elements involving depression and mental instability. The mayor of Vallaki holds weekly festivals in a mistaken belief that if everyone pretends to be happy then everything will be ok. The priest in Barovia keeps his son (who was converted to a vampire spawn in previous events) locked in the basement unable to save him, let him go or put him out of his misery. There are constant references to one of the only good things being the wine produced and distributed free of charge by the Wizard of Wines winery being the only thing that keeps some of the populace going. Several quests involve restoring the wine supply to Vallaki and Krezk. Providing wine is enough to get the party into some of the walled villages because of the surcease it provides.
5) The abbot at Krezk is a fallen celestial ... the entire plot line in the abbey which is also an asylum for a large in bred family of monstrosities with human and beastial characteristics is atrocious. I tried to bypass most of it though the plot stereotypes insanity and an asylum ... most are violent, incapable, and need to be locked up ... as someone said, it represents a medieval approach to insanity but fits the horror theme of the campaign. In addition, the abbot has created a flesh golem for Strahd, intended to be his bride, constructed from the body parts of recently deceased villagers.
6) The werewolf pack kidnaps children from the villages. The pack leader has the children fight to the death with the last one standing being converted to a werewolf. There was a fight in the pack where one faction thought it better to "spare" the children and just convert them all to werewolves. The leader who likes watching children kill each other won so the fights continue. The party is expected to rescue the current batch of children and kill the werewolves.
7) The Vistani in CoS are based on myths about a real life group and the change of name only slightly veils it ... the inaccurate stereotypes that are often applied to this group are present in full force in CoS. This group is the only one that can freely leave Barovia and are generally though not always followers of Strahd. This groups is loathed and despised by the citizens of Barovia if only because they can leave. There is a tiger trained to kill members of this group by an NPC that hates this group because of what some members of this group did to his son.
8) Strahd the vampire is the ultimate villain of the adventure and hopefully the players triumph in the end. However, the Amber Temple contains the vestiges of the evil gods that truly rule Barovia and who offer the characters "Dark Gifts". Making deals with ultimate evil to obtain additional powers is an option in CoS.
Most of the evil/awful plot are the horror elements that the players have to defeat. Most modules have the villains doing "bad" things (killing and worse) which is why the players/characters are motivated to defeat them. However, CoS makes these horror story memes (Hansel and Gretel, vampires, werewolves, witches etc) much more explicit in striving for the horror atmosphere.
There are some forces for good in Barovia but the general tone is dark/evil/depraved. The module is well written considering that this is the goal but the content is not for everyone. I also think it is important to try and play this with a good aligned party since there are too many ways that a party with evil characters would go completely off track.
Lost Mines of Phandelver is consistently ranked as one of the best modules. This is in spite of being the starter module. I have not heard anyone rank this one out of the top 5.
I've never seen Curse of Strahd out of the top 3. This is remarkable as it's not routine D&D type fantasy content. Acknowledge the other comments about the module; I still haven't seen a serious detractor not say it was top 3...they just adjust/home brew it.
I have my own opinions on other modules. Some I rank over the ones above; however, I've seen every other module ranked at both the bottom or the top depending on who's making the list. CoS and LMoP are always top 5.
I have recently discovered "The War of the Burning Sky" (WotBS) and "Zeitgeist" adventure paths. They are not published Wizards of the Coast, but, IMO, they beat all the official modules in terms of narrative and adventure complexity by a mile.
WotBS is a high fantasy adventure with some unique elements of worldbuilding, multiple antagonist factions, complex politics, and many levels of mysteries. Roll20 maps are also available. I'm currently running two groups through WotBS. "Zeitgeist" is more of Eberron-like magepunk setting that I would love to try next.
I don't think these modules are widely known, and I encourage every DM looking for content to check them out. The authors provide great support on the enworld forums.
I am playing Odyssey of the Dragonlords, it's not an official sourcebook but it's pretty awesome. The book is very well structured and it really involves the players. The lore is a bit different though.
Another game I'm preparing is CoS which is mentioned a lot in this thread. I think in itself it is one of the better books I've read so far. But it is based off really ancient stories and therefore doesn't fit the modern culture. Almost every race you read up on can be placed in reality and combine that with fantasy/horror that amplifies certain stereotypes - can be interpreted as offensive. Then again, so can a lot of horror movies or books be.
My personal opinion is that as long as you don't use those comparisons in your game in a negative manner it's ok. And thus, it's still a great campaign book if you like a dark setting where the quest hook is very obvious. And you like fighting ultimate evil, vampires, zombies etc.
I am also playing Storm King's Thunder, it's very sandbox and it requires a lot of work placing the characters in the Swordcoast's 'The North' and creating personal story hooks etc. I like it, but if you want to progress through a storyline with all kind of interesting events - the beginning is not the best. But you can implement some extra's to foreshadow the remaining chapters making the story a lot more interesting.
Somewhere I read a comment about out of the abyss being complicated, I strongly disagreed. I've ran this campaign as my first game DM'ing and it's pretty straight forward besides the number of NPC's you need to play at the start - but that's preparation it's not hard.
Hoard of the dragonqueen I started as a player, but never finished it, but I thought the beginning was...slow and not really captivating me as a player. Waterdeep I played the ending joinin a group of players. I think it's a great campaign if you play it in full. The only thing that bothered me somewhat is that it's very local - so there are not many places of lore you get traveling Faerun.
So from my experience:
Odyssey of the Dragonlords (not official)
Out of the Abyss
Curse of Strahd
Waterdeep
Storm King's Thunder
Hoard of the Dragonqueen
I strongly disagree on Odyssey of the Dragonlords. The concept and the atmosphere are really well done. The book itself however seems to have never been playtested.
- Some encounters are badly balanced.
- No index.
- Inconsistent naming conventions and the random way monsters are sorted makes it hard work to actually find something in this book. Could have been avoided by an index.
- NPC actions sometimes make no sense.
- Some NPCs are just annoying and badly written in my opinion (your may differ).
I have DMed the majority of the official 5e Modules at least once with a few exceptions. Many of them I have done multiple times. There would be two ways I would rate a module. How fun they are for me and my players, and then also how easy they are to run. So rather than do that. I'll just rate them on a scale of 1-10 for both aspects.
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus - Fun: 7 Ease of Use: 7
Curse of Strahd: Fun 9 East of Use: 5
Lost Mine of Phandelver: Fun: 10 Ease of Use: 9
Dragon of Icespire Peak + 3 expansions: Fun: 8 Ease of Use: 7
Rick and Morty: Fun 6 Ease of Use: 10
Frozen Sick: Fun 5 Ease of Use: 7
Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Fun 4 Ease of Use 6
Hunt for the Thessalhydra: NA
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden: NA But I am prepping it and it seems good so far, but I've homebrewed a ton for 10 towns
Infernal Machine Rebuild: NA
Lost Laboratory of Kwalish: NA
Out of the Abyss: Fun: 7 Ease of Use: 7
Prince of the Apocalypse: Fun 8 Ease of Use 5 "I had to homebrew sooo much in this to make it fun, I feel like I did more writing than the authors of the book"
Rise of Tiamat - Fun: 5 Ease of Use: 5
Rrakkma: NA
Storm King's Thunder: Fun: 7 Ease of Use: 6 "Again a ton of my own homebrew went into this"
Yawning Portal: Fun 8 Ease of Use: 6 "Tons and homebrew"
Tome of Annihilation: Fun 6 Ease of Use 6
Waterdeep Dragon Heist: Fun 9 Ease of Use 8
Waterdeep Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Fun 4 Ease of Use 7
Hope this helps. None of these adventures were bad, some I had to really do a ton of work to get them to be enjoyable for myself and the players but the solid baseline and story they provided made it pretty easy to do that.