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New GM with new players. Best adventure?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7114323" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>2e is fine and has the advantage of being mostly compatible with 1e, which gives you access to the old school modules from 1e with no more work than you would have needed to get a 1e module ready to play.</p><p></p><p>I think I'd jump to 5e if it were me, unless I was really familiar with 2e, had a ton of material around for 1e/2e, and wasn't sure how successful things were going to be. It's better to get play going than to make it perfect. So, in your case.... I might well make your choice and stick to 2e, at least until the kids got some mud under their boots.</p><p></p><p>There is not going to be a premade campaign worth your time for low level and for 1e/2e. That's because 1e/2e doesn't get into its sweet spot until 3rd-5th level. If I was starting new players, and I wanted a premade campaign, I'd start with I3,I4,I5 - the Desert of Desolation - and expand the material appropriately, specifically filling out the wilderness areas to make exploration more of a thing and make the setting more alive. You'll get some recommendations for U1, U2, U3 - the Saltmarsh campaign - but... while U1 has a beautiful idea for an adventure with some awesome concepts and a great twist, the implementation is lacking (look at all those poisonous monsters to start the game on). More to the point, U2 and U3 are very poorly conceived and involve too many assumptions about how players will behave and give you too little to work with as a DM. The barely in my opinion count as modules, and while you could go with them, it's a huge amount of work to turn the sketches in U2 and U3 into real campaigns.</p><p></p><p>A decent starter campaign for low levels is L1: Secret of Bone Hill and L2: The Assassin's Knot. That starts at 2nd level rather than the 5th or 6th you'd be starting 'Desert of Desolation'. You could throw in T1: Homlet into the setting and have tons of adventures.</p><p></p><p>I'm also a huge fan of UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave, which is also a great choice if you have a mixed gender group of players with different (and more stereotypical) aesthetics of play (teaching boys that would be inclined to hack and slash to use their role playing skills, while whetting the swords of the girls before throwing them into some more grindy adeventure). You could also go from there directly into 'Desert of Desolation' without too much trouble, by having the party hook be the wedding feast...</p><p></p><p>(I suppose you could turn T1, L1, L2, UK1, I3, I4, I5 into a single epic campaign without too much trouble.)</p><p></p><p>There is basically nothing for 2e low level characters worth playing, but the silver anniversary mega modules are some of the best high level play for the AD&D era.</p><p></p><p>If you are looking for a serious challenge, in the hands of a good GM willing to invent things whenever players get off the path (or invent story for characters of the players own invention), the Dragonlance Campaign still has the makings of one the most exciting adventures ever. However as written, it's very railroady, which is probably the only way a new GM can run it with the information provided.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7114323, member: 4937"] 2e is fine and has the advantage of being mostly compatible with 1e, which gives you access to the old school modules from 1e with no more work than you would have needed to get a 1e module ready to play. I think I'd jump to 5e if it were me, unless I was really familiar with 2e, had a ton of material around for 1e/2e, and wasn't sure how successful things were going to be. It's better to get play going than to make it perfect. So, in your case.... I might well make your choice and stick to 2e, at least until the kids got some mud under their boots. There is not going to be a premade campaign worth your time for low level and for 1e/2e. That's because 1e/2e doesn't get into its sweet spot until 3rd-5th level. If I was starting new players, and I wanted a premade campaign, I'd start with I3,I4,I5 - the Desert of Desolation - and expand the material appropriately, specifically filling out the wilderness areas to make exploration more of a thing and make the setting more alive. You'll get some recommendations for U1, U2, U3 - the Saltmarsh campaign - but... while U1 has a beautiful idea for an adventure with some awesome concepts and a great twist, the implementation is lacking (look at all those poisonous monsters to start the game on). More to the point, U2 and U3 are very poorly conceived and involve too many assumptions about how players will behave and give you too little to work with as a DM. The barely in my opinion count as modules, and while you could go with them, it's a huge amount of work to turn the sketches in U2 and U3 into real campaigns. A decent starter campaign for low levels is L1: Secret of Bone Hill and L2: The Assassin's Knot. That starts at 2nd level rather than the 5th or 6th you'd be starting 'Desert of Desolation'. You could throw in T1: Homlet into the setting and have tons of adventures. I'm also a huge fan of UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave, which is also a great choice if you have a mixed gender group of players with different (and more stereotypical) aesthetics of play (teaching boys that would be inclined to hack and slash to use their role playing skills, while whetting the swords of the girls before throwing them into some more grindy adeventure). You could also go from there directly into 'Desert of Desolation' without too much trouble, by having the party hook be the wedding feast... (I suppose you could turn T1, L1, L2, UK1, I3, I4, I5 into a single epic campaign without too much trouble.) There is basically nothing for 2e low level characters worth playing, but the silver anniversary mega modules are some of the best high level play for the AD&D era. If you are looking for a serious challenge, in the hands of a good GM willing to invent things whenever players get off the path (or invent story for characters of the players own invention), the Dragonlance Campaign still has the makings of one the most exciting adventures ever. However as written, it's very railroady, which is probably the only way a new GM can run it with the information provided. [/QUOTE]
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