I think that's true of most adventures, that some thoughtful foreshadowing can improve the overall experience. I don't think it means that it is hard to prep for, though. Something like Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is easy enough to drop into without a lot of prep. Obviously time spent building up a backstory around the existence of the tomb will make the overall game more vibrant for the players, but it's completely unnecessary.
D&D General Best "out of the box" ready to run adventures/modules?
I think that's true of most adventures, that some thoughtful foreshadowing can improve the overall experience. I don't think it means that it is hard to prep for, though. Something like Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is easy enough to drop into without a lot of prep. Obviously time spent building up a backstory around the existence of the tomb will make the overall game more vibrant for the players, but it's completely unnecessary.
Nebulous
Legend
I'm running CoS now. It takes a huge amount of prepwork, reading ahead, and following online walkthroughs to get the most out of it. The town of Vallaki alone is probably 28 pages, has a dozen named NPCs, at least three opposing factions, and the PCs are thrown into the blender.
Nebulous
Legend
I'm running FoF now too. We started it before lockdown, as I just wanted to learn Roll20 and it was a "practice" adventure and sort of a throwaway. Hardly anyone had character backgrounds. Two PCs were sucked from Eberron by a magic portal and just appeared ready to adventure. They had a map to the mine and knew there was magic dwarf treasure in there somewhere. Killing stuff and taking their stuff was the only motivation, just pure greed and dungeon crawl aesthetic.
I don't know if it's the adventure, or the way I ran it, but that top level was brutal. It took the party 7 sessions to reach Glitterhame, and they had to full retreat three times, and lost one character to death. I did swap out two normal orcs for upgraded versions, so that's on me, but I wanted to run the thing as deadly.
Anyway, my point is that the PCs motivation was and still is treasure hunting, which is fine, but four of the named orcs from level 1 escaped, they went into the Glitterhame and they're ahead of the PCs, and the PCs are following them down, still with revenge in mind.
My group managed to find the chimney entrance to level 1, which probably saved them a lot of grief as they didn't aggro the whole garrison at once and only had to deal with one tough fight when they started a fight in the barracks that alerted Ulfe & his wolves in a nearby room. It did take them 3 sessions of 2.5 hours each to clear that level and they never found the area with the shaman. They have blundered into pretty much every trap so far though.
They've explored most of the Glitterhame level and it's been more fun than the orc level. I changed the troglodytes from being no-options hostile to willing to enlist the characters to wipe our the duergar (the duergar will make the opposite offer if given the chance).
Curse of Strahd is by no means easy to prep, but I do think it's easier than most of the other hardcovers due to being more limited in scope and Barovia being more or less a closed system. Certainly less prep than Storm King's Thunder or Tomb of Annihilation.
Nebulous
Legend
We are probably half through Glitterhame. I put a big albino lizard in the large cavern and beefed up its hit points so it could live long enough to do something, and it did. Swallowed the rogue, nearly killed him until his allies carved him out of the thing's stomach.
toucanbuzz
No rule is inviolate
Tales from the Yawning Portal. Most are old-school dungeon crawls requiring little prep time. I dropped Tamoachan into my Savage Tides meso-american campaign and (sad but true) spent at best 15 minutes skimming ahead before each session.
On the flipside, Out of the Abyss was a nightmare for advance prep (tracking NPCs + survival + tracking enemies + adding content to make up for lack of XP + modifying demon lords to be a challenge).
COS is what you put into it, so yeah it could be run with relatively lesser prep (e.g. castle traps, understanding death in Barovia, card reading). But, it became the best campaign I've run in 20+ years because I invested a huge amount of effort in making Strahd so much more complex and fleshing out the setting. So, I'd rate this "you could."
On the flipside, Out of the Abyss was a nightmare for advance prep (tracking NPCs + survival + tracking enemies + adding content to make up for lack of XP + modifying demon lords to be a challenge).
COS is what you put into it, so yeah it could be run with relatively lesser prep (e.g. castle traps, understanding death in Barovia, card reading). But, it became the best campaign I've run in 20+ years because I invested a huge amount of effort in making Strahd so much more complex and fleshing out the setting. So, I'd rate this "you could."
wicked cool
Hero
anyone made barovia a neighboring country in their campaign world? Made it a country next to the starting box set area?
Scott Christian
Hero
I'm just gonna throw this out there, but Storm King's Thunder, while most will say is difficult, is easiest if...
You are a DM that can wing things. In so many other adventures, if you wing something it can crumble the entire adventure/story path. But, SKT is pretty darn loose. This holds true for many of the player's motives. Their motives can really be whatever they want them to be without impeding on the storyline. This is true for a large part of the story.
The adventuring aspect for SKT is also easier than most. The locales, so numerous, that whatever you want you can find and use. Want a bridge across a canyon that's broke. No problem, It's on the way to such and such. Want a haunted light house that holds a magic item your player's need. Sure, it's along the coast and they have to sail there.
The combat is probably the easiest of all the adventures imho. Giants. Fun and cool and easier to track than so many other creatures. And with an array of diverse terrain, it's pretty easy to use whatever you have available if you use maps and minis.
Just my two coppers.
You are a DM that can wing things. In so many other adventures, if you wing something it can crumble the entire adventure/story path. But, SKT is pretty darn loose. This holds true for many of the player's motives. Their motives can really be whatever they want them to be without impeding on the storyline. This is true for a large part of the story.
The adventuring aspect for SKT is also easier than most. The locales, so numerous, that whatever you want you can find and use. Want a bridge across a canyon that's broke. No problem, It's on the way to such and such. Want a haunted light house that holds a magic item your player's need. Sure, it's along the coast and they have to sail there.
The combat is probably the easiest of all the adventures imho. Giants. Fun and cool and easier to track than so many other creatures. And with an array of diverse terrain, it's pretty easy to use whatever you have available if you use maps and minis.
Just my two coppers.
People have, and it is a great second adventure to run after the Starter Set. But it does cause some fundamental plot issues if Barovia is just a regular country you can walk in and out of as opposed to being a pocket plane where both Strahd and his victims are trapped.
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