D&D 5E I don't want to homebrew anymore...

[Tyranthraxus]

Id second previous suggestions of a module. Modules are a great skeleton, although they appear more as a full body to others, i tend to think of them as the bones and we as a dm add the meat. Ive never been a homebrew person. Ive never had the will or the way to create a setting that is mine own. Im more or less nowadays an organised play DM. Once Pathfinder Society, Now Adventurers League. I love taking the scenario in and then seeing how players react and how I react.

Anyway. Id go to dnd classics. They have a lot of older scenarios now which are pretty cheap and actually come with a lot. You already have a DMG and MM and you should more or less be able to replace monster for monster.

I actually did this with Haunted Halls of Eveningstar which is a Dungeon Crawl (but sadly not yet available at dndclassic.com) however Doom of Daggerdale IS available. You have a villainous organisation in the Zhentarim and plenty of memorable pcs. In fact I recently just bought it and have been running a comb through it converting if I need to (not that I intend on running it anytime soon, its just something I enjoy doing)

The sword of the dales series (aka Daggerdale series) is also a good self contained seres. Its got 2 scenarios after this one to wrap it up but there is certainly a lot of content there. its also only 4.99 currently. Again you will have to rework monsters but from what Ive read of what you have done, should be Childsplay.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

This is an idea I read about on one of these message boards for a campaign that I'm keeping in my back pocket for the next time I'm experiencing DM burnout...

The characters are all agents of a high level wizard who dwells in a tower on a demi-plane. This wizard sponsor either wants items retrieved from dungeons or wants specific evils eliminated and does so by teleporting or gating the party to the adventure location.

I supremely like this idea. I think it's awesome. So awesome in fact that I'm yoinking it right now for my next campaign. Super fantastic. Thanks for putting it out there.

 

[Cody C. Lewis]

Dude it's time you PLAYED for 6 months. Get one of your players to DM for a bit (or cycle DMs).

Can I just say this was my first thought.

PLAY something. My group is full of completely capable DMs (a luxury, never a curse) and we ALWAYS have 2 GMs running 2 weeks on, two weeks off.

I cannot oversell you on how much fun this is. The 2 week breaks let me recharge and refocus on where I want to take the group while giving me plenty of time to put together something that is actually good. Also, I find that the more opportunity I have to PLAY my character helps me work on and refine my RP abilities to bring back to MY game's NPCs. Finally might I add, that watching my friends DM while I am on the player side has done NOTHING if not make me a better DM. I learn from both the things they do well, and the things they do not.

Play dude. Just play. You'll soon be itching to DM again.

 

[Bupp]

I supremely like this idea. I think it's awesome. So awesome in fact that I'm yoinking it right now for my next campaign. Super fantastic. Thanks for putting it out there.

I really like what you are getting at here. I think a lot of the time, the burden to continually build a campaign and keep threads weaving through each session can become overwhelming. A good campaign is a labor of love, and even then, it can begin to get bogged down. The freedom of just hopping from adventure to adventure without too many threads weaving through them all might be a great way to just have fun.

Now that I think about it, this is a lot like how Star Trek episodes often went. Pull the Enterprise up to the new planet and adventure ensues. You could also give it more of a Sliders feel if you wanted to ditch the wizard missions.

 

[epithet]

Echoing what others have said above, I really think you should play through a campaign and take a break from DMing. Not a one-shot, mind you... you need to see a full campaign run by someone else. When you find yourself thinking "I would do this differently" you're beginning your recovery, and when you think to yourself "I could make this a lot better with just a few changes," you're ready to get back behind the screen.

 

[Markh3rd]

I've been having a blast running retconned 1e modules in 5e. They are so old, they are new again. And I don't spend very much time with prep at this point.

If you have good players, they will have a good time as well. The sad secret is, 95% of DM prep time is wasted on players, and usually ends up being fun for the DM who likes world building. Just enjoy it. Eventually, if you want to get back to your old way, it will come back to you. And if you don't, it won't. And that's okay.

I've been at this ... oh... even longer. Man. And I just don't create worlds like I did when I had the time. And it works. It's about the group experience and fun now.

I'm interested in how you adjusted from to 5E. I was wanting to do the same thing.