I’m looking at running a published prewritten adventure for 5e that is good and popular with DM’s and players alike while not having been run so much and so often people are practically sick of playing it.  My concern is that ‘Curse of Strahd’ falls into that camp, though I don’t mind being convinced otherwise.  Preferably I’m looking for an adventure that runs from 1st or 3rd to 11th or 12th.  I was thinking of ‘IceWind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden’ but I’m unsure as I’ve heard mixed experiences?  I don’t particularly mind running a slew of connected one shots, if they connect well enough together.  I’m also considering waiting on ‘Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk.’  As you can tell, I’m EXTREMELY indecisive here and just intent on running an attractive adventure for the current generation of players.  I’m in the midst of some other things and so I’ve got a few months to kill before really committing.  The only other concern I have beyond choosing the adventure is my own skill with making the maps beautiful.  If people could step in with some ideas on what to choose or just offer any thought at all, I’d really appreciate it.

I will be creating a homebrew of my own later, but I’m shaking the dust off first.

I'd say pick something that you think you'll enjoy.

I'm currently running Frostmaiden, but the writing is terrible: story is "tween", full of holes and poorly organised but, I like the flavour of it - wanted to work a horror for a while and don't mind putting the work in/would want to put my spin on it regardless.  So, it more depends on how you'd want to approach it?

There's a lot of material available (some) for free on DMs Guild, a couple of "alternate" approaches to running it floating round online and I'm sure that all exists for whatever module you want to run - so regardless, go with something you want to run, because you're going to be doing some writing regardless.

Quote from Jokei >>

I'd say pick something that you think you'll enjoy.

I'm currently running Frostmaiden, but the writing is terrible: story is "tween", full of holes and poorly organised but, I like the flavour of it - wanted to work a horror for a while and don't mind putting the work in/would want to put my spin on it regardless.  So, it more depends on how you'd want to approach it?

There's a lot of material available (some) for free on DMs Guild, a couple of "alternate" approaches to running it floating round online and I'm sure that all exists for whatever module you want to run - so regardless, go with something you want to run, because you're going to be doing some writing regardless.

 The problem is that I want the players to want to play the adventure and am looking at attracting a group.  I myself am actually very open to running whatever (for the most part).  Obviously I do want the adventure to have meat as well as bones, so it would need to have maps, even if they’re just rough sketches.  By example, I seem to recall that ‘Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus’ has a nice storyline but is extremely sprawling with next to no maps for the majority of the adventure (this is especially true for the adventure prior to arrival in Hell).  I’d prefer an adventure that is actually worth money: something where the devs did their due diligence of saving the DMs from doing ALL the prep.

Edit: Just took a look back at BG:DiA and I think I was wrong about dismissing the adventure; it does have better internal support than I remember.

Well, Rime's got maps and a story is there.  If you want "good" you'll have to do the writing and/or search out the (abundant) fan made corrections supplementary material.

We’ve been enjoying Shadow of the Dragon Queen, which covers the level 1-11 you’re looking for. 

Rime of the Frostmaiden is pretty good, if you understand what it's trying to be; it's trying to be more Skyrim than Lord of the Rings. I've generally found the complaints stem from the.l expectation that there is one overriding story arc.

Personally, I don't get the overplayed problem. Either your table has played it or they haven't - if they haven't, you're good to go, if they have, then you may want to find something else. What everyone else has or hasn't done is largely irrelevant. If you can provide a list of adventures they have played, then we can work around that.

If I remembe correctly, there are a lot of maps with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, but I'll check later.

Also, while I think of it, I'd probably avoid the new Phandalin adventure. It's not entirely clear, but it seems like almost almost half the adventure is just a reprint of Lost Mine of Phandelver - which a lot of players will have played. If you're concerned about adventures being over played...then that one will be one to avoid.

I've played Strahd and I'd play it again.

Edit: This isn't the whole reason why, but, it is the first one where they started trying to incorporate tools for changing it up on subsequent playthroughs.

Quote from Linklite >>

Rime of the Frostmaiden is pretty good, if you understand what it's trying to be; it's trying to be more Skyrim than Lord of the Rings. I've generally found the complaints stem from the.l expectation that there is one overriding story arc.

Personally, I don't get the overplayed problem. Either your table has played it or they haven't - if they haven't, you're good to go, if they have, then you may want to find something else. What everyone else has or hasn't done is largely irrelevant. If you can provide a list of adventures they have played, then we can work around that.

If I remembe correctly, there are a lot of maps with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, but I'll check later.

 Oh I get that, and I’m getting good answers from you and everyone in this thread.  My concern is that I will be a DM to themselves advertising for a new group, and I was hoping to get them excited is all, which is something I wasn’t sure I could accomplish with (once again, by example) Strahd.

Ah ok, that makes sense. I thought you had a party and was looking for what you want to do next, rather than one advertising for a party.

In terms of being different, maybe Light of Xaryxis? I have it but haven't played it...maybe someone who has could comment? It would certainly be different and exotic. If I had a schedule that would work, I'd be interested - unfortunately, I do not.

I really like the adventure anthology books like Keys From the Golden Vault and Candlekeep Mysteries. You can string a series of these individual adventures together to make a campaign, and there isn't a full plot-line you have to complete, so you could start homebrewing the campaign after any adventure if you start to feel ready.

There are really a lot of modules though. For more information, I would advise you to look over this guide by Arcane Eye. And because I'm too lazy too regurgitate what I've said when similar questions have been asked in the past, HERE is a post where I've discussed what I think of the adventures that I have purchased so far.

On the topic of the new Phandelver books, I will say that it looks interesting, and it won't be an issue unless you or your players already have or have played through the original Lost Mine. In that case, it may be a waste of money if content is truly being reused here. I know very little about Rime of the Frostmaiden, so I will defer to those like Linklite who've played or have the read/run the adventure on this.

Icewind Dale is a very tricky fish to catch ahold of - individual sessions are extremely fast to pick up and run, what with the book's largely modular construction for levels 1 through 6.  However, running the campaign as a whole is a very different kettle of fish.  Its plot is disjointed - from basically an adventure anthology in the early levels, to a war against the duergar and ending in a fight against a bunch of evil cult-like wizards in a dead city at the very end, the only connecting thread is Auril, who is not quite given her full due.  If you want to run this, I recommend focusing on a single main plot thread - the wizards, the duergar, or the Frostmaiden - and adding more of the relevant themes to the early level adventures to fit that theme.  I personally have a preference for Auril or the Duergar, as the whole Netherese City plot comes off as a little half-baked, but its entirely your choice.  The Duergar plot in particular has many seeds thrown in at earlier levels, especially in the town of Easthaven - I'd recommend focusing on that plot for a beginner DM, and relegating Auril to the background, or not even mentioning her at all. It has good bones, and alongside resources like MToF, can be made into an entire campaign where you fight against the Duergar, Levistus, and Asmodeus all in one.  You'd need very few changes to the book to run it this way, cutting out chapters 5 through 7 to get a 7 level adventure of extremely high quality.  If you wanted more of a idea on how to run it this way, I recommend reading the book and noting down whenever duergar or devils are mentioned, and where else you think they'd fit into the plot.  If one or more players play duergar characters, you could even have them be evacuees who maybe know a little about Xardarok Sunblight's plans and be able to guide the rest of the party through the first plot threads.  

Icewind Dale is a beautiful book and absolutely worth the buy, it is the best setting book and best one-shot book in all D&D 5e in my opinion and has incredible art quality un-matched in any D&D book before or since.  You can run individual sessions from it amazingly easily, requiring very little rules referencing compared to other 5e adventures such as Out of the Abyss - in a lot of ways, ID: RotF holds the DM's hand as they play through early levels.  However, whether you can bully it into being a good story overall for your players is entirely up to how you handle the plot in the long run.  I've made it sound like its a lot of work, I know, but I'm going in deep on fine details here - you'd be able to conquer this gem of a book fairly easily I believe.