Ralif Redhammer
Legend
I'd recommend getting the new characters to all click together to be of primary importance. If there's conflict or personalities butting against each other, that's going to undermine all their efforts. I don't know your group, what the fracture points are, or whether an exciting battle or deep role-play session would be better.
I'm running Icewind Dale right now, and the players are all loving it. We're still in chapter 1 & 2 territory, so they're still finding out the big picture. There are moments where the party hasn't been sure if they're going in the right direction. I kinda view the beginning as the introduction to the location, getting them to care about the different inhabitants, and seeing how people are coping with the unending winter. People grumble about Auril, but they're doing okay. It's not until later, after the Chardalyn Dragon's rampage, that they'll need to focus on her. I plan on things getting rough after that, with shortages and even worse weather, with the threats cranking up as the monsters of the area are also struggling.
I think it would be of value to detail out some of the NPCs and town locations listed. I don't think you need to go wild with each town, but just making the few that are there as flavorful as you can would help. You know your players and what they'd respond to, so focus on getting those qualities out there. If they like their NPCs weird, adorable, enigmatic, philosophical, etc., go for what works for them. And going back to point one, getting that detail, that investment is going to help them gel.
1) A near-TPK in the first session took out some of the characters that had the start for some interesting backstory. To get the survivors to adventure with the replacement characters took some major suspension of disbelief, and the party personalities haven't gelled yet.
I'm running Icewind Dale right now, and the players are all loving it. We're still in chapter 1 & 2 territory, so they're still finding out the big picture. There are moments where the party hasn't been sure if they're going in the right direction. I kinda view the beginning as the introduction to the location, getting them to care about the different inhabitants, and seeing how people are coping with the unending winter. People grumble about Auril, but they're doing okay. It's not until later, after the Chardalyn Dragon's rampage, that they'll need to focus on her. I plan on things getting rough after that, with shortages and even worse weather, with the threats cranking up as the monsters of the area are also struggling.
2) The adventure presented is a sandbox with many quests not linking directly to the main story. And when the main story is that sub freezing temperatures are destroying an entire region, cloaked in perpetual night, in the talons of an evil goddess, it's hard for my players to want to focus on anything that isn't connected to that.
I think it would be of value to detail out some of the NPCs and town locations listed. I don't think you need to go wild with each town, but just making the few that are there as flavorful as you can would help. You know your players and what they'd respond to, so focus on getting those qualities out there. If they like their NPCs weird, adorable, enigmatic, philosophical, etc., go for what works for them. And going back to point one, getting that detail, that investment is going to help them gel.
3) There are around a dozen towns, settlements, encampments, which are laid out in scant detail. The book might describe 2-3 locations and a handful of villagers in each town. This cursory detail makes it hard to bring the world to life and - as a result - harder for the players to feel a part of the world and their problems.
4) This lack of detail, unconnected quests, and perceived high difficulty carry over to the way the players handle their characters. There is little roleplay or character development (though they've really enjoyed this part of the game in past campaigns - homebrew and Curse of Strahd.) The mini-quests don't keep a consistent story arc going on, and the early character death made players not especially care about developing their characters' personalities.