If you had a DM that is very story driven and loves to RP - and they asked you out of the following official 5e campaigns, what would you like to play next, what would you pick and why?
Hmmm....currently playing a spelljammer campaign, the wild beyond the witchlight, and just started Strixhaven a curriculum of chaos.
I would be interested in Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse for the new material, but that is not listed.
I don't know much about most of the campaigns you listed. Of what you have listed, Tomb of Annihilation, since I've been hearing about it since the 80's and it's supposed to be great.
Of what you have listed, Tomb of Annihilation, since I've been hearing about it since the 80's and it's supposed to be great.
Tomb of Annihilation is a 5e era adventure inspired by the one you are thinking of, called Tomb of Horrors, which was the original “death trap” module (adventure).
OP:
of those, the new Phandelver is good for RP.
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I think all of these are good for RP - I've not come across any campaign yet that isn't. Even Dungeon of the Mad Mage, with the right group of players is great for RP.
I do love Phandalin, and I run most of my players though my own version of Lost Mine, so adding onto that experience could be very fun. That said, this post is mostly to guage the interest in what people want to play so I can then take the adventure and rework it to fit my DMing and story telling style.
I do not have much experience with premade campaigns, but based on the experiences I do have, I would recommend against Icewind Dale and Descent into Avernus.
Icewind Dale is a narrative mess - its pacing is extremely poorly done, and the actual events are rather disjointed, with no great narrative tying them together, and the antagonists are about as one-dimensional as you can get, hurting both the story and for roleplay opportunities. The setting is pretty neat, but the DM basically has to say “I am using Icewind Dale as the setting and the book as my jumping off point, but I am so heavily modifying it that I am basically writing my own campaign” in order to make something playable.
Descent into Avernus is a fairly linear fetch quest, which makes it difficult to get much roleplay in when played as written. The setting can also have roleplay problems for some groups—if you have one person in your playgroup who plays that far-too-common character that says they’re Lawful Good, but is really just an inflexible jerk riding their high horse? That can cause a lot of issues within the campaign given the demon-centric setting.
(I should note, this does not mean you cannot enjoy either or have a fun RP-heavy game with them; just that the modules either need a lot of heavy lifting from the DM in order to function or that there are fewer RP-focused moments to fuel an RP-heavy campaign.)
If you had a DM that is very story driven and loves to RP - and they asked you out of the following official 5e campaigns, what would you like to play next, what would you pick and why?
I'd like to play Out of the Abyss to adventure in the Underdark.
Icewind Dale is a narrative mess - its pacing is extremely poorly done, and the actual events are rather disjointed, with no great narrative tying them together, and the antagonists are about as one-dimensional as you can get, hurting both the story and for roleplay opportunities. The setting is pretty neat, but the DM basically has to say “I am using Icewind Dale as the setting and the book as my jumping off point, but I am so heavily modifying it that I am basically writing my own campaign” in order to make something playable.
Came here to say this. The setting and some of the Ten Towns plot hooks are super RP-friendly, but it's going to take a lot of work to turn it into a cohesive campaign. That said, the potential to make it an extremely character-driven and story-driven campaign is probably higher with this module than with any of the others as a result.
I would skip Tomb of Annihilation in favor of others. It's pretty much just a massive dungeon crawl with very few NPCs to interact with. The conceit of the death curse is also pretty depressing; I've played it twice with different groups and it was hard for us to keep in-character morale up once we hit the midpoint of the adventure. Everything becomes and stays bleak until you either win or TPK. I don't speak for every table, of course, and I'm sure people who enjoy meatgrinders and dungeons have plenty of fun. All I know is my RP-loving friends and I struggled to enjoy it.
Curse of Strahd sadly isn't an option here, but it's the adventure I'd love to be a player for merely because the only shred of criticism I've seen for it is that it might be hard on the DM at times with wacky tarot cards and an expansive sandbox. But as long as I'm not running it, that's a problem that gets heaped on someone else lol.
And it sucks because I've bought a lot of adventure books and thusly could never be a player for them. The main example for this is Call of the Netherdeep, which seems incredible. But it's something I bought and skimmed through a while ago and I kinda know the whole plot. So, out of this list and with a number of options removed for me, I'd have to go with Dragonlance because I've never played in that setting and dragons are cool.
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Icewind Dale is a narrative mess - its pacing is extremely poorly done, and the actual events are rather disjointed, with no great narrative tying them together, and the antagonists are about as one-dimensional as you can get, hurting both the story and for roleplay opportunities. The setting is pretty neat, but the DM basically has to say “I am using Icewind Dale as the setting and the book as my jumping off point, but I am so heavily modifying it that I am basically writing my own campaign” in order to make something playable.
Came here to say this. The setting and some of the Ten Towns plot hooks are super RP-friendly, but it's going to take a lot of work to turn it into a cohesive campaign. That said, the potential to make it an extremely character-driven and story-driven campaign is probably higher with this module than with any of the others as a result.
I would skip Tomb of Annihilation in favor of others. It's pretty much just a massive dungeon crawl with very few NPCs to interact with. The conceit of the death curse is also pretty depressing; I've played it twice with different groups and it was hard for us to keep in-character morale up once we hit the midpoint of the adventure. Everything becomes and stays bleak until you either win or TPK. I don't speak for every table, of course, and I'm sure people who enjoy meatgrinders and dungeons have plenty of fun. All I know is my RP-loving friends and I struggled to enjoy it.
Interesting - Tomb of Annhilation is one of the most RP heavy and character driven campaigns I've ever DMed. I guess it all boils down to how the DM runs it and the group. Even when we got to the temple, the exploration of the temple was super RP heavy. Crazy how different two peoples experience can be!
Curse of Strahd sadly isn't an option here, but it's the adventure I'd love to be a player for merely because the only shred of criticism I've seen for it is that it might be hard on the DM at times with wacky tarot cards and an expansive sandbox. But as long as I'm not running it, that's a problem that gets heaped on someone else lol.
And it sucks because I've bought a lot of adventure books and thusly could never be a player for them. The main example for this is Call of the Netherdeep, which seems incredible. But it's something I bought and skimmed through a while ago and I kinda know the whole plot. So, out of this list and with a number of options removed for me, I'd have to go with Dragonlance because I've never played in that setting and dragons are cool.
Yeah I left CoS off because it would just dominate the vote - And I've run it probably 15 times now. It's my 2nd fav campaign to DM, right behind my heavily modified version of LMoP.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There was plenty of RP happening in the tomb between players. It's just that our RP was mostly depressing, given what our characters went through. Not much light at the end of the tunnel to be found, at least in our experience.
You're right in that it totally depends on the table, though. Caerwyn's posted before about awful experiences with Icewind Dale, and that remains my absolute favorite module I've ever played. As always, your mileage may vary.
I do not have much experience with premade campaigns, but based on the experiences I do have, I would recommend against Icewind Dale and Descent into Avernus.
Icewind Dale is a narrative mess - its pacing is extremely poorly done, and the actual events are rather disjointed, with no great narrative tying them together, and the antagonists are about as one-dimensional as you can get, hurting both the story and for roleplay opportunities. The setting is pretty neat, but the DM basically has to say “I am using Icewind Dale as the setting and the book as my jumping off point, but I am so heavily modifying it that I am basically writing my own campaign” in order to make something playable.
Descent into Avernus is a fairly linear fetch quest, which makes it difficult to get much roleplay in when played as written. The setting can also have roleplay problems for some groups—if you have one person in your playgroup who plays that far-too-common character that says they’re Lawful Good, but is really just an inflexible jerk riding their high horse? That can cause a lot of issues within the campaign given the demon-centric setting.
(I should note, this does not mean you cannot enjoy either or have a fun RP-heavy game with them; just that the modules either need a lot of heavy lifting from the DM in order to function or that there are fewer RP-focused moments to fuel an RP-heavy campaign.)
I agree with you 100% about Icewind Dale. I've ran the campagin twice now, and other than Tyranny of Dragons, I've probably had to put in the most work into it to make it a good enjoyable campaign for my groups. Getting the players to actually care about 10 towns, and want to go back and save them from some of the plot hooks that I don't want to spoil, was quite tricky.
I cut a ton of stuff out of the campaign as well that just didn't make sense, and added a bunch of my own stuff. The moduel was just poorly written overall, but had a great location, great BBEG, and enough meat on the bones to make a good campaign out of it if you're willing to put in the work.
BG - On the other hand for my group was super easy for me to run. As the DM, I really leaned into Baulders Gate itself, and did WAY more with the Cult of the Dead 3 than the campaign had written. Once we got to Avernus I kept the same story beats for the most part, just added way more RP elements and fleshed out some of the locations quite a bit more than what was in the book. But with that said, you're 100% right, it's a very linear game that didn't give my players much room to explore.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There was plenty of RP happening in the tomb between players. It's just that our RP was mostly depressing, given what our characters went through. Not much light at the end of the tunnel to be found, at least in our experience.
You're right in that it totally depends on the table, though. Caerwyn's posted before about awful experiences with Icewind Dale, and that remains my absolute favorite module I've ever played. As always, your mileage may vary.
Yeah, as a DM when I run a campaign like Curse of Strahd, or Tomb of Annihilation I always add an element of comedy into it and light heartedness to keep spirits up. With Tomb, I also didn't run it as a meatgrinder - I slowed the curse way way down to allow my players ample time to explore Chult and the various locations.
I DMed Out of the Abyss and absolutely loved it! The players RP'ed the heck out of it. For one thing, they went with PCs that were from the Underdark rather than the surface, so it was more personal to them. They wound up - totally of their own initiative - setting up a large diplomatic gathering in Blingdenstone to unite all of the various communities they visited into an uneasy alliance against the Demon Lords. It was awesome!
As for the list you have, I went with Descent into Avernus, especially since I think it could make a really fascinating double campaign. Rather than "PCs start in a richly detailed Baldurs Gate, then go to Avernus for whole rest of the campaign", I'd have them create 2 PCs and alternate between them. Group A is in Baldurs Gate and more or less plays out the intro and then has a campaign of rooting out corruption in the city as tension builds towards a massive uprising that the PCs can either work to prevent or lead. Group B were in Elturel and experience first hand what happens there and then basically plays out the Avernus part of the campaign as-is. Work in some ways for each group to impact the other, and it could really enrich that adventure quite a bit!
I DMed Out of the Abyss and absolutely loved it! The players RP'ed the heck out of it. For one thing, they went with PCs that were from the Underdark rather than the surface, so it was more personal to them. They wound up - totally of their own initiative - setting up a large diplomatic gathering in Blingdenstone to unite all of the various communities they visited into an uneasy alliance against the Demon Lords. It was awesome!
As for the list you have, I went with Descent into Avernus, especially since I think it could make a really fascinating double campaign. Rather than "PCs start in a richly detailed Baldurs Gate, then go to Avernus for whole rest of the campaign", I'd have them create 2 PCs and alternate between them. Group A is in Baldurs Gate and more or less plays out the intro and then has a campaign of rooting out corruption in the city as tension builds towards a massive uprising that the PCs can either work to prevent or lead. Group B were in Elturel and experience first hand what happens there and then basically plays out the Avernus part of the campaign as-is. Work in some ways for each group to impact the other, and it could really enrich that adventure quite a bit!
My group started out of the abyss and really didn't like the underdark travel nor having a bunch of NPC's around the whole time. We didn't even get 1/2 way though it and they wanted to play soemthing else.
It was the first campaign I've ever DMed that we didn't finish due to lack of enjoyment. I'll admit though, I probably could have done way better with going between each city.
I DMed Out of the Abyss and absolutely loved it! The players RP'ed the heck out of it. For one thing, they went with PCs that were from the Underdark rather than the surface, so it was more personal to them. They wound up - totally of their own initiative - setting up a large diplomatic gathering in Blingdenstone to unite all of the various communities they visited into an uneasy alliance against the Demon Lords. It was awesome!
As for the list you have, I went with Descent into Avernus, especially since I think it could make a really fascinating double campaign. Rather than "PCs start in a richly detailed Baldurs Gate, then go to Avernus for whole rest of the campaign", I'd have them create 2 PCs and alternate between them. Group A is in Baldurs Gate and more or less plays out the intro and then has a campaign of rooting out corruption in the city as tension builds towards a massive uprising that the PCs can either work to prevent or lead. Group B were in Elturel and experience first hand what happens there and then basically plays out the Avernus part of the campaign as-is. Work in some ways for each group to impact the other, and it could really enrich that adventure quite a bit!
My group started out of the abyss and really didn't like the underdark travel nor having a bunch of NPC's around the whole time. We didn't even get 1/2 way though it and they wanted to play soemthing else.
It was the first campaign I've ever DMed that we didn't finish due to lack of enjoyment. I'll admit though, I probably could have done way better with going between each city.
How did you hand traveling down there?
Early on in the campaign, they had fun playing up the survival aspects - having to track water, hunt for food, invent rocktopus jerky. But as they leveled up, got some money, and safe base in Blingdenstone, we phased it out to "we make sure to buy X days of supplies, make a few Survival checks to see if you get there faster or slower." Then when they had access to Wind Walk, they made heavy use of that. So I only used the travel rules as much as it made it fun, and things like random encounters and such I only included when fun.
Also, I expanded the campaign to a full 1-20 adding in the Rod of Seven Parts, and the Queen of Chaos as a end boss after the Demon Lords. As they discovered the seven parts of the Rod of Law, I allowed those to be "keys" that allowed teleportation as they got into high levels. So there was definitely some heavy alterations to the Gauntlgrym and later portion of the campaign. But in the first half, prior to Gauntlgrym, I played it about 90% straight out of the book.
As for the large group of NPCs, I originally found a cool resource on DMs Guild called Companion System for using NPCs as extra abilities of PCs, and someone posted a version for the Out of the Abyss NPCs. So that simplified them a lot at first. However, pretty soon after, my players decided they wanted to fully stat them as extra PCs. We had 3 players and this was our first 5e campaign, so they wound up enjoying each playing 3 PCs (1 primary one that they started with, plus 2 former prisoner NPCs that stayed in the background except in combat) so they could try out different 5e class abilities. This only worked because it was 1) their idea rather than me trying to talk them into it, and 2) we worked out a nice balance of when I had to step into the NPCs as DM for certain events and actions. Almost like a video game where they had control of the companions during combat and solme out-of-combat, but I'd step in during "cutscenes" and some dialogue.
So it was incredible for us, but only because early on we tweaked some of the slog out, and in the back half, it basically became a very different campaign based on my adding in the Rod of Seven Parts plot and playing through the impact of their actions (like negotiating an alliance of multiple cities, as well as getting involved in Menzoberranzan politics due to one of the PC's backgrounds, etc.)
Like I'm finding most 5e campaign books, they provide a nice framework that takes heavy modification to fit a particular group, but each group needs different modifications. It worked for us, but obviously it didn't work for you. That sucks. Sometimes they click and sometimes they don't. I've had a couple that some people absolutely love that I tried to incorporate into a campaign and wound up having the modify it so much to work for us, that I pretty much threw it out. Each group is different.
I DMed Out of the Abyss and absolutely loved it! The players RP'ed the heck out of it. For one thing, they went with PCs that were from the Underdark rather than the surface, so it was more personal to them. They wound up - totally of their own initiative - setting up a large diplomatic gathering in Blingdenstone to unite all of the various communities they visited into an uneasy alliance against the Demon Lords. It was awesome!
As for the list you have, I went with Descent into Avernus, especially since I think it could make a really fascinating double campaign. Rather than "PCs start in a richly detailed Baldurs Gate, then go to Avernus for whole rest of the campaign", I'd have them create 2 PCs and alternate between them. Group A is in Baldurs Gate and more or less plays out the intro and then has a campaign of rooting out corruption in the city as tension builds towards a massive uprising that the PCs can either work to prevent or lead. Group B were in Elturel and experience first hand what happens there and then basically plays out the Avernus part of the campaign as-is. Work in some ways for each group to impact the other, and it could really enrich that adventure quite a bit!
My group started out of the abyss and really didn't like the underdark travel nor having a bunch of NPC's around the whole time. We didn't even get 1/2 way though it and they wanted to play soemthing else.
It was the first campaign I've ever DMed that we didn't finish due to lack of enjoyment. I'll admit though, I probably could have done way better with going between each city.
How did you hand traveling down there?
Early on in the campaign, they had fun playing up the survival aspects - having to track water, hunt for food, invent rocktopus jerky. But as they leveled up, got some money, and safe base in Blingdenstone, we phased it out to "we make sure to buy X days of supplies, make a few Survival checks to see if you get there faster or slower." Then when they had access to Wind Walk, they made heavy use of that. So I only used the travel rules as much as it made it fun, and things like random encounters and such I only included when fun.
Also, I expanded the campaign to a full 1-20 adding in the Rod of Seven Parts, and the Queen of Chaos as a end boss after the Demon Lords. As they discovered the seven parts of the Rod of Law, I allowed those to be "keys" that allowed teleportation as they got into high levels. So there was definitely some heavy alterations to the Gauntlgrym and later portion of the campaign. But in the first half, prior to Gauntlgrym, I played it about 90% straight out of the book.
As for the large group of NPCs, I originally found a cool resource on DMs Guild called Companion System for using NPCs as extra abilities of PCs, and someone posted a version for the Out of the Abyss NPCs. So that simplified them a lot at first. However, pretty soon after, my players decided they wanted to fully stat them as extra PCs. We had 3 players and this was our first 5e campaign, so they wound up enjoying each playing 3 PCs (1 primary one that they started with, plus 2 former prisoner NPCs that stayed in the background except in combat) so they could try out different 5e class abilities. This only worked because it was 1) their idea rather than me trying to talk them into it, and 2) we worked out a nice balance of when I had to step into the NPCs as DM for certain events and actions. Almost like a video game where they had control of the companions during combat and solme out-of-combat, but I'd step in during "cutscenes" and some dialogue.
So it was incredible for us, but only because early on we tweaked some of the slog out, and in the back half, it basically became a very different campaign based on my adding in the Rod of Seven Parts plot and playing through the impact of their actions (like negotiating an alliance of multiple cities, as well as getting involved in Menzoberranzan politics due to one of the PC's backgrounds, etc.)
Like I'm finding most 5e campaign books, they provide a nice framework that takes heavy modification to fit a particular group, but each group needs different modifications. It worked for us, but obviously it didn't work for you. That sucks. Sometimes they click and sometimes they don't. I've had a couple that some people absolutely love that I tried to incorporate into a campaign and wound up having the modify it so much to work for us, that I pretty much threw it out. Each group is different.
Nice! That's some top tier advise on how to run the campaign, wish I would have known about that Comopanion System before, I think it would have added a layer to the game that my players would have really loved.
For travel did you do a heavy narration style of travel or did you just make sure they had the food/water they needed to get from x location to x location and roll for random encounters? Also did you use the old school navigation system where you roll survival checks to see if they get lost or not?
Like I said, I loved the adventure layout and the plot, but for whatever reason, for me the underdark travel is what killed it for us. Not sure why I had a harder time making travel fun in the underdark, when it's never and issue for me in any other campaign.
I do not have much experience with premade campaigns, but based on the experiences I do have, I would recommend against Icewind Dale and Descent into Avernus.
Icewind Dale is a narrative mess - its pacing is extremely poorly done, and the actual events are rather disjointed, with no great narrative tying them together, and the antagonists are about as one-dimensional as you can get, hurting both the story and for roleplay opportunities. The setting is pretty neat, but the DM basically has to say “I am using Icewind Dale as the setting and the book as my jumping off point, but I am so heavily modifying it that I am basically writing my own campaign” in order to make something playable.
I remember seeing one review of Icewind Dale that called it a collection of random ideas for encounters that got thrown together and called a complete adventure.
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If you had a DM that is very story driven and loves to RP - and they asked you out of the following official 5e campaigns, what would you like to play next, what would you pick and why?
Hmmm....currently playing a spelljammer campaign, the wild beyond the witchlight, and just started Strixhaven a curriculum of chaos.
I would be interested in Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse for the new material, but that is not listed.
I don't know much about most of the campaigns you listed. Of what you have listed, Tomb of Annihilation, since I've been hearing about it since the 80's and it's supposed to be great.
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Tomb of Annihilation is a 5e era adventure inspired by the one you are thinking of, called Tomb of Horrors, which was the original “death trap” module (adventure).
OP:
of those, the new Phandelver is good for RP.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
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I think all of these are good for RP - I've not come across any campaign yet that isn't. Even Dungeon of the Mad Mage, with the right group of players is great for RP.
I do love Phandalin, and I run most of my players though my own version of Lost Mine, so adding onto that experience could be very fun. That said, this post is mostly to guage the interest in what people want to play so I can then take the adventure and rework it to fit my DMing and story telling style.
I do not have much experience with premade campaigns, but based on the experiences I do have, I would recommend against Icewind Dale and Descent into Avernus.
Icewind Dale is a narrative mess - its pacing is extremely poorly done, and the actual events are rather disjointed, with no great narrative tying them together, and the antagonists are about as one-dimensional as you can get, hurting both the story and for roleplay opportunities. The setting is pretty neat, but the DM basically has to say “I am using Icewind Dale as the setting and the book as my jumping off point, but I am so heavily modifying it that I am basically writing my own campaign” in order to make something playable.
Descent into Avernus is a fairly linear fetch quest, which makes it difficult to get much roleplay in when played as written. The setting can also have roleplay problems for some groups—if you have one person in your playgroup who plays that far-too-common character that says they’re Lawful Good, but is really just an inflexible jerk riding their high horse? That can cause a lot of issues within the campaign given the demon-centric setting.
(I should note, this does not mean you cannot enjoy either or have a fun RP-heavy game with them; just that the modules either need a lot of heavy lifting from the DM in order to function or that there are fewer RP-focused moments to fuel an RP-heavy campaign.)
I'd like to play Out of the Abyss to adventure in the Underdark.
Came here to say this. The setting and some of the Ten Towns plot hooks are super RP-friendly, but it's going to take a lot of work to turn it into a cohesive campaign. That said, the potential to make it an extremely character-driven and story-driven campaign is probably higher with this module than with any of the others as a result.
I would skip Tomb of Annihilation in favor of others. It's pretty much just a massive dungeon crawl with very few NPCs to interact with. The conceit of the death curse is also pretty depressing; I've played it twice with different groups and it was hard for us to keep in-character morale up once we hit the midpoint of the adventure. Everything becomes and stays bleak until you either win or TPK. I don't speak for every table, of course, and I'm sure people who enjoy meatgrinders and dungeons have plenty of fun. All I know is my RP-loving friends and I struggled to enjoy it.
Curse of Strahd sadly isn't an option here, but it's the adventure I'd love to be a player for merely because the only shred of criticism I've seen for it is that it might be hard on the DM at times with wacky tarot cards and an expansive sandbox. But as long as I'm not running it, that's a problem that gets heaped on someone else lol.
And it sucks because I've bought a lot of adventure books and thusly could never be a player for them. The main example for this is Call of the Netherdeep, which seems incredible. But it's something I bought and skimmed through a while ago and I kinda know the whole plot. So, out of this list and with a number of options removed for me, I'd have to go with Dragonlance because I've never played in that setting and dragons are cool.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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HERE.Interesting - Tomb of Annhilation is one of the most RP heavy and character driven campaigns I've ever DMed. I guess it all boils down to how the DM runs it and the group. Even when we got to the temple, the exploration of the temple was super RP heavy. Crazy how different two peoples experience can be!
Yeah I left CoS off because it would just dominate the vote - And I've run it probably 15 times now. It's my 2nd fav campaign to DM, right behind my heavily modified version of LMoP.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There was plenty of RP happening in the tomb between players. It's just that our RP was mostly depressing, given what our characters went through. Not much light at the end of the tunnel to be found, at least in our experience.
You're right in that it totally depends on the table, though. Caerwyn's posted before about awful experiences with Icewind Dale, and that remains my absolute favorite module I've ever played. As always, your mileage may vary.
I agree with you 100% about Icewind Dale. I've ran the campagin twice now, and other than Tyranny of Dragons, I've probably had to put in the most work into it to make it a good enjoyable campaign for my groups. Getting the players to actually care about 10 towns, and want to go back and save them from some of the plot hooks that I don't want to spoil, was quite tricky.
I cut a ton of stuff out of the campaign as well that just didn't make sense, and added a bunch of my own stuff. The moduel was just poorly written overall, but had a great location, great BBEG, and enough meat on the bones to make a good campaign out of it if you're willing to put in the work.
BG - On the other hand for my group was super easy for me to run. As the DM, I really leaned into Baulders Gate itself, and did WAY more with the Cult of the Dead 3 than the campaign had written. Once we got to Avernus I kept the same story beats for the most part, just added way more RP elements and fleshed out some of the locations quite a bit more than what was in the book. But with that said, you're 100% right, it's a very linear game that didn't give my players much room to explore.
Yeah, as a DM when I run a campaign like Curse of Strahd, or Tomb of Annihilation I always add an element of comedy into it and light heartedness to keep spirits up. With Tomb, I also didn't run it as a meatgrinder - I slowed the curse way way down to allow my players ample time to explore Chult and the various locations.
What about Dungeons of Drakenheim?
I DMed Out of the Abyss and absolutely loved it! The players RP'ed the heck out of it. For one thing, they went with PCs that were from the Underdark rather than the surface, so it was more personal to them. They wound up - totally of their own initiative - setting up a large diplomatic gathering in Blingdenstone to unite all of the various communities they visited into an uneasy alliance against the Demon Lords. It was awesome!
As for the list you have, I went with Descent into Avernus, especially since I think it could make a really fascinating double campaign. Rather than "PCs start in a richly detailed Baldurs Gate, then go to Avernus for whole rest of the campaign", I'd have them create 2 PCs and alternate between them. Group A is in Baldurs Gate and more or less plays out the intro and then has a campaign of rooting out corruption in the city as tension builds towards a massive uprising that the PCs can either work to prevent or lead. Group B were in Elturel and experience first hand what happens there and then basically plays out the Avernus part of the campaign as-is. Work in some ways for each group to impact the other, and it could really enrich that adventure quite a bit!
I'm not a big fan of their writing or youtube page. I know a lot of people are, and that's 100% understandable. But just not my style.
My group started out of the abyss and really didn't like the underdark travel nor having a bunch of NPC's around the whole time. We didn't even get 1/2 way though it and they wanted to play soemthing else.
It was the first campaign I've ever DMed that we didn't finish due to lack of enjoyment. I'll admit though, I probably could have done way better with going between each city.
How did you hand traveling down there?
Early on in the campaign, they had fun playing up the survival aspects - having to track water, hunt for food, invent rocktopus jerky. But as they leveled up, got some money, and safe base in Blingdenstone, we phased it out to "we make sure to buy X days of supplies, make a few Survival checks to see if you get there faster or slower." Then when they had access to Wind Walk, they made heavy use of that. So I only used the travel rules as much as it made it fun, and things like random encounters and such I only included when fun.
Also, I expanded the campaign to a full 1-20 adding in the Rod of Seven Parts, and the Queen of Chaos as a end boss after the Demon Lords. As they discovered the seven parts of the Rod of Law, I allowed those to be "keys" that allowed teleportation as they got into high levels. So there was definitely some heavy alterations to the Gauntlgrym and later portion of the campaign. But in the first half, prior to Gauntlgrym, I played it about 90% straight out of the book.
As for the large group of NPCs, I originally found a cool resource on DMs Guild called Companion System for using NPCs as extra abilities of PCs, and someone posted a version for the Out of the Abyss NPCs. So that simplified them a lot at first. However, pretty soon after, my players decided they wanted to fully stat them as extra PCs. We had 3 players and this was our first 5e campaign, so they wound up enjoying each playing 3 PCs (1 primary one that they started with, plus 2 former prisoner NPCs that stayed in the background except in combat) so they could try out different 5e class abilities. This only worked because it was 1) their idea rather than me trying to talk them into it, and 2) we worked out a nice balance of when I had to step into the NPCs as DM for certain events and actions. Almost like a video game where they had control of the companions during combat and solme out-of-combat, but I'd step in during "cutscenes" and some dialogue.
So it was incredible for us, but only because early on we tweaked some of the slog out, and in the back half, it basically became a very different campaign based on my adding in the Rod of Seven Parts plot and playing through the impact of their actions (like negotiating an alliance of multiple cities, as well as getting involved in Menzoberranzan politics due to one of the PC's backgrounds, etc.)
Like I'm finding most 5e campaign books, they provide a nice framework that takes heavy modification to fit a particular group, but each group needs different modifications. It worked for us, but obviously it didn't work for you. That sucks. Sometimes they click and sometimes they don't. I've had a couple that some people absolutely love that I tried to incorporate into a campaign and wound up having the modify it so much to work for us, that I pretty much threw it out. Each group is different.
Nice! That's some top tier advise on how to run the campaign, wish I would have known about that Comopanion System before, I think it would have added a layer to the game that my players would have really loved.
For travel did you do a heavy narration style of travel or did you just make sure they had the food/water they needed to get from x location to x location and roll for random encounters? Also did you use the old school navigation system where you roll survival checks to see if they get lost or not?
Like I said, I loved the adventure layout and the plot, but for whatever reason, for me the underdark travel is what killed it for us. Not sure why I had a harder time making travel fun in the underdark, when it's never and issue for me in any other campaign.
I remember seeing one review of Icewind Dale that called it a collection of random ideas for encounters that got thrown together and called a complete adventure.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.