D&D 5E Recommend an adventure (difficulty level: minimal prep)

[edosan]

I asked this question in a different thread but I thought I would throw it out to a wider audience:

I am finishing a 5e campaign in the next month and I am, to put it mildly, disappointed with adventures that require a large amount of fixing. I'm not a new DM so I understand any prewritten adventure requires a certain amount of prep to run - every party is different and so on. My issue is with buying a hardcover that is is not playable at the table without major revisions and I have to spend significant time rewriting the adventure, looking online for supplemental materials that should have been covered in the book and so on. You know the adventures that people say "oh, it's great but man, you really have to work at it and hack to make it sing but it's got some decent stuff buried in there?" Yeah, I don't want another one of those.

I don't mind looking at third party adventures or even adventures from other versions.

(...and if you don't think that a minimal prep adventure is desirable or even possible let's just agree to disagree and move on. I don't want to have a philosophical debate about it, I'd just prefer suggestions from like minded individuals. Thanks!)

 

[toucanbuzz]

What levels or range of levels are you aiming to hit?

 

[Jer]

I'm going to watch this thread because I'm curious to see what people suggest.

The only adventures I could suggest that might even come close are site-based adventures with minimal story in them. But for myself I still put a lot of prep into them because I use them as skeletons to fit to my players and our ongoing campaign needs. The adventures in Tales from the Yawning Portal were mostly good for that, as is my collection of old Basic adventures and some 1e AD&D adventures. I'd suggest looking for shorter adventures because with a smaller page count there's less space to create issues.

 

[payn]

I'm going to watch this thread because I'm curious to see what people suggest.

The only adventures I could suggest that might even come close are site-based adventures with minimal story in them. But for myself I still put a lot of prep into them because I use them as skeletons to fit to my players and our ongoing campaign needs. The adventures in Tales from the Yawning Portal was mostly good for that, as is my collection of old Basic adventures and some 1e AD&D adventures. I'd suggest looking for shorter adventures because with a smaller page count there's less space to create issues.

Pretty much this. The perfectly written module that runs itself is a myth.

 

[Irlo]

I’m watching for recommendations as well. I’ve tried a number of highly rated adventures on DMs Guild, but I guess I’m just really hard to please because all I find is sort of bad.

 

[edosan]

What levels or range of levels are you aiming to hit?

My current group is level five, but I'm honestly interested in well-made adventures of all levels for future use.

 

[Musing Mage]

Without knowing you or your particular play style it's really hard to judge... what I feel is a ready to run scenario that requires no alteration might very well be something you'd feel the need to overhaul.

That said, I would consider some old-school updates like Goodman Games OAR line... things that focus on location based exploration instead of a fixed plot. They did a good update of Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread that might suit your needs. Just review them and run them as-is without changing anything and see where things land.

I really liked the Ghosts of Saltmarsh update as well for similar reasons. It's got the best of both - a brewing storm of story and trouble, but an open sandbox setting with lots to do. 7 adventures in the module itself plus whatever you feel fit to add in yourself.

 

[Jer]

Pretty much this. The perfectly written module that runs itself is a myth.

Once you move beyond a module that just describes a site and starts to add plot, you have to put in a lot more work. You have to understand the plot, figure out all of the NPCs, understand any proposed timeline of events, etc. And you have to do it from the written word on the page without having the author there to explain any assumptions or ideas that are assumed but unstated for whatever reason. If you're in synch with the author and the way they think you might think a module is brilliant and it will work perfectly for you at the table - if you're not then their work is going to read as incomplete and you'll have to work to fill in the gaps.

That's another reason to prefer shorter adventures - at least there's less you need to fix when you hit an issue with it.

 

[Quickleaf]

The One-Page Dungeons are extraordinary for this. The quality does vary, but as far as titrating information and minimal prep, they are outstanding. Recently I read Stephen Thompson's Canal City and Sarah Brunt's Bound for Glory from the 2020 compilation (GoogleDrive link), and I enjoyed how focused they were. I've yet to run one of them as written, though I definitely borrowed from one of the 2017/2018 ones (can't recall name) during my last campaign.

 

[edosan]

The One-Page Dungeons are extraordinary for this. The quality does vary, but as far as titrating information and minimal prep, they are outstanding. Recently I read Stephen Thompson's Canal City and Sarah Brunt's Bound for Glory from the 2020 compilation (GoogleDrive link), and I enjoyed how focused they were. I've yet to run one of them as written, though I definitely borrowed from one of the 2017/2018 ones (can't recall name) during my last campaign.

That said, I would consider some old-school updates like Goodman Games OAR line... things that focus on location based exploration instead of a fixed plot. They did a good update of Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread that might suit your needs. Just review them and run them as-is without changing anything and see where things land.

I really liked the Ghosts of Saltmarsh update as well for similar reasons. It's got the best of both - a brewing storm of story and trouble, but an open sandbox setting with lots to do. 7 adventures in the module itself plus whatever you feel fit to add in yourself.

Thanks for these suggestions, I really appreciate them. I've been thinking about looking into the OAR line before since I remember a lot of those adventures fondly from way back when.

 

[Mercurius]

On one hand, you say "no philosophy," yet on the other the basic truth of the matter is that "minimal prep" really depends upon the individual DM. You might find an adventure needs to be completely overhauled, while another person might find it just fine to run as-is, and have a great play experience. This isn't a matter of philosophy, but better understanding the issue so that it can be effectively addressed.

So I think it really comes down to what you think requires "a large amount of fixing." What is it, exactly, that you regularly feel needs to be fixed about pre-written adventures? And is it something that is just the nature of the beast, or indicative of the style of WotC adventures?

Maybe something that would be helpful is you listing adventures that you've run that you feel required minimal prep, and explaining why. That might help people pinpoint what your concerns are, and what you're looking for.

 

[DeviousQuail]

I would suggest checking out D&D 5e Content | Adventures Await Studios. They are neat little adventures and come with most everything you would need to run them. They also suggest multiple ways to get the players hooked into what's happening. There's always going to be a little bit of prep needed but it's not onerous. They have a bunch of free ones and plenty of patreon ones.

 

[Lanefan]

What you're probably after is adventures with as little baked-in backstory or plot as possible, so as to avoid the prep-time of having to strip out the built-in backstory and replace it with your own to suit your campaign; and in this I hear ya loud and clear!

However, as it seems you're running 5e the best solution I can offer probably won't help very much, in that it'll mostly just replace one type of prep-work (backstory replacement) with another (edition conversion). That solution is to look at some of the classic early-era modules. Many of them didn't involve much backstory at all other than just enough to give the adventure a reason to exist, and thus they can be easily dropped in anywhere with minimal effort. But - converting them from Basic or 1e (or in some cases Judges Guild's bizarre homebrew rules system) to 5e would require some work on your part.

 

[edosan]

What you're probably after is adventures with as little baked-in backstory or plot as possible, so as to avoid the prep-time of having to strip out the built-in backstory and replace it with your own to suit your campaign; and in this I hear ya loud and clear!

However, as it seems you're running 5e the best solution I can offer probably won't help very much, in that it'll mostly just replace one type of prep-work (backstory replacement) with another (edition conversion). That solution is to look at some of the classic early-era modules. Many of them didn't involve much backstory at all other than just enough to give the adventure a reason to exist, and thus they can be easily dropped in anywhere with minimal effort. But - converting them from Basic or 1e (or in some cases Judges Guild's bizarre homebrew rules system) to 5e would require some work on your part.

For some reason, I don't find converting a decent 1e or 2e adventure as difficult as repairing a broken or incomplete adventure.

I just find that with WOTC adventures (or anything that follows the "adventure path" template) are easily broken if the players guess wrong and that they focus way more on being an enjoyable read than a easily playable adventure. By comparison, substituting 5e goblin stats for 2e goblin stats is NBD.

 

[Malmuria]

Ghosts of Saltmarsh is good in providing a little mini-setting with lots of adventure hooks, plus the updates from the original U series and some other adventures. I haven't run the whole thing.

Other than that I wonder if homebrew is actually less prep-intensive if you aren't trying to built out an entire world but just focus one session at a time. You can use random generators to spark creativity and take care of the more mundane bits (treasure, encounters, tavern names, etc). You just have to prevent yourself from going overboard.

 

[LordEntrails]

What's wrong with LMoP and PotA? I ran both of those with virtually no prep. LMoP we kept pretty much on plot/track while PotA was a multi-choice sand box for the most part.

 

[Ancalagon]

For some reason, I don't find converting a decent 1e or 2e adventure as difficult as repairing a broken or incomplete adventure.

I just find that with WOTC adventures (or anything that follows the "adventure path" template) are easily broken if the players guess wrong and that they focus way more on being an enjoyable read than a easily playable adventure. By comparison, substituting 5e goblin stats for 2e goblin stats is NBD.

I completely agree.

I'm curently running a 5e game of Gates of Firestorm Peak. Converting it was a bit of work, but once that was done... easy peasy. In fact, I'm running it for the 2nd time with a 2nd group and once I found some VTT maps, we were set to go!

 

[aco175]

What's wrong with LMoP and PotA? I ran both of those with virtually no prep. LMoP we kept pretty much on plot/track while PotA was a multi-choice sand box for the most part.

I ran both of these as well and found them fine to use out of the box with hardly any prep. I even managed to spin a couple more campaigns out of LMoP and the Essential box.

 

[Scott Christian]

I recommend Rime of the Frost Maiden. No, seriously, I do.

Outside of that, Ghosts and Tomb have been my two favorites. Although Tomb takes a lot of work if you want to tie in character arcs. I would actually say the lowest prep work of all the official adventures is Hoard. I have seen it run many times and ran part of it myself. It is easy and a solid adventure.

 

[Mort]

Minimal prep is a tough bar for published adventures!

That said, A Wild Sheep Chase is whimsical little adventure (for 4th-5th level PCs) that's very easy to run. Plus, it's free.