My next campaign: What to run?

[Aberzanzorax]

I'm wondering, given the following choices, which one you would choose to run, and why?

War of the Burning Sky Campaign
The Drow War Trilogy
Arcanis Adventures (including Living Arcanis)
Rappan Athuk
Castle Whiterock
Rise of the Runelords
Curse of the Crimson Throne

Or some other campaign length series.


(My group is looking for a new campaign and I'm having trouble deciding. We are doing Shackled City on Saturdays, so I'm avoiding straight city games, like Ptolus.)

 

[Chrono22]

I'm running an expedition to castle ravenloft game.
It's kind of scattered as far as modules go, but it's going well and my players are having fun. I recomend it if you want to try to mix a little Gothic horror into your fantasy.

 

[Windjammer]

(My group is looking for a new campaign and I'm having trouble deciding. We are doing Shackled City on Saturdays, so I'm avoiding straight city games, like Ptolus.)

Then Curse of the Crimson Tide (incidentally, my first recommendation) is off the list. It's an urban adventure path which moves the PCs out of the city only for parts 4 and 5 in a six-part campaign.

Rappan Athuk and Castle Whiterock are Mega-Dungeons in the vein of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (stripped of its first 30 pages). If that's what you like, I'd heavily recommend Whiterock for its humour and flavour. Rappan Athuk on the other hand is the ultimate contest for player skill, and so generates a more serious, competitive environment.

I'd go for Rise of the Runelords. It's iconic D&D at its best.

If you pick that option I strongly recommend you to either get a Player's Guid to or the Map Folio. These contain maps of the homebase (incidentally, not a city) which figures large in key moments the campaign, as well as a regional map of the entire adventure path (Varisia). The Map Folio got these supersized, and I found them the most valuable asset when I ran Rise, as these were on our table fairly often.
Finally, the opening encounters in Rise's first instalment (Burnt Offerings) work remarkably well in unison with a Dungeon Tiles set designed by Jason Bulmahn - Streets of Shadow.

 

[Crothian]

I'd go with Freeport. THe mpodules are nicely connected and you can see the growth of the city and get inviolved in politics and be pirates and do things that are not done usually in D&D.

 

[TracerBullet42]

Take a look at the Savage Tide adventure path from Paizo. It's chock full of city, dungeon, jungle, sea-faring, pirate-y goodness!

Oh, and it has one of the best NPCs ever...Avner Meravanci. You will love to run him and your group will love to hate him.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm running Shackled City at the moment (on a new baby break currently) so I'm in a similar boat to you. Out of the ones you listed, Rise of the Runelords, Castle Whiterock and Rappan Athuk are all on my list of campaigns to run.

I think I'll go with Rise of the Runelords next. Having said that we're still at least 18 months away from finishing Shackled City so I could very well change my mind before then.

I guess your choice may depend on whether you want a "travel" style campaign where you keep visiting lots of different places, a "dungeon-crawl" campaign, or maybe even a wilderness/exploration style campaign.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Voadam]

Drow war would appeal the most to me at the moment if I had it. Heroes of destiny fighting off a growing drow invasion threat with a big sidhe/underdark dark sidhe theme.

I played as a player in the beginning of this series and it was a lot of fun. I've heard it reads poor but plays well at the table. And it is split into three 10 level books so I expect two climax break points if you want to stop at levels 10 or 20.

War of the Burning Sky starts off in a city for the first module but then is quite varied in setting and style for the follow ups and has plenty of advice for various breakpoints if you don't want to do the whole thing. I own this one but I'm not really in a war mood right now and the dream and bad empire elements don't appeal as much as drow ones to me at the moment so the edge would go to drow war.

I'd probably either go with the Freeport trilogy (because I'm familiar with Freeport and the trilogy and I'm not sick of city adventures) or Rappan Athuk the big killer sandbox dungeon. I've heard great things about Castle Whiterock which I own but Athuk looks a little more digestible to dive into. Athuk does start above 1st level though and White Rock goes 1-15 plus the short level 1 intro one. I've also heard really good things about Tomb of Abysthor and might go with that over either for a shorter mega-dungeon crawl (particularly if someone wanted to play a paladin), and then move onto something different.

 

[meomwt]

War of the Burning Sky starts off in a city for the first module but then is quite varied in setting and style for the follow ups and has plenty of advice for various breakpoints if you don't want to do the whole thing.

Gate Pass is a great city - it's long and narrow and rests in the middle of a rift in a mountain range. It's one of the most unusual fantasy cities I've seen, and is tremendously well-done.

Plus module 1 takes place whilst the city is under assault from enemy forces (aerial dragon-fights, bombings, enemy soldier incusions), then sends the PC's out and about to various locations. I don't think there's a Dungeon Crawl until about Level 6 or so.

If your players are in the mood for a Dungeon Crawl, however, run either Castle Whiterock which looks great and has some wonderful RP opportunities as well as kick-in-the-door action, or go for the Necro "AP" - Wizard's Amulet (free download from Necro site), Crucible of Freya, Tomb of Abysthor and finally Rappan Athuk. There are links between the latter two modules already, so some more of that can be brough out.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Thanks you all for the input!

I've done a bit more research into each of your suggestions and my own list.

(Some of your suggestions...Freeport and Savage Tide, for example we just ran in the campagin we're finishing up before I start mine!).



In the end, I my group didn't want a dungeon crawl, so I'm going with the Drow war Trilogy (but I'll probably just do two out of three books).


Thanks again!

 

[Sir Robilar]

Shucks, guess I´m too late to the party to recommend Legacy of Fire.