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

[Musing Mage]

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

I haven't run it yet but have read through it, and am looking forward to it when it does happen.

I have read some negative reviews about it for various reasons, but I don't see what the hate is about. I think it's potentially great sandbox setting, and there's no need to rush into the big events of the module. Let the oppressive winter slowly make things worse and worse over a protracted period.

 

[Retreater]

The official ones I used most successfully with the least prep were Lost Mines of Phandelver, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, and Princes of the Apocalypse. I think there are good adventures in Tales of the Yawning Portal as well.
Shorter, site-based adventures tend to require less prep from me than the epic campaigns. So if you grab a 32 page adventure from a publisher like Frog God Games, those are usually easy to put in. Planet X Games has some good stuff too. I put their Glimmering Crypt of the Iuon King in my Rime of the Frost Maiden, and it was a hit.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What's wrong with LMoP and PotA?

How much do you like vanilla?

 

[LordEntrails]

How much do you like vanilla?

Its my favorite flavor, except in the bedroom!

 

[jdrakeh]

Magical Murder Mansion by Skerples is a well-crafted, low-prep, adventure.

 

[Li Shenron]

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

I mostly run older edition adventures converted to 5e. I find conversion to be super easy but that might be because I don't really care for precise representation of the original and I don't even worry too much about encounter balance, I just trust that players will self-manage. Therefore converting an old adventure for me is only just about using the 5e version of monsters, as well as magic items (or the old version if applicable), and looking up at the general DC guidance for challenges. Only the occasional important NPC might prompt me a full rebuild (roughly using PC rules because I am more comfortable with them), otherwise there's almost no work to do on the rules side.

For mimimal preparation I recommend to look into 3ed free official "web adventures", if you can find them. They are however all pretty short, good for one-shots or maximum 3-4 sessions if your players like taking things slowly or if you add your own stuff.

For longer adventures, 1e/2e modules are great. We've played for example classic Horror on the Hill, Into the Unknown, Keep on the Borderlands (there was even a free 5e version of it), they are all pretty generic dungeon or wildernesses adventures with no real need for a backstory. The Temple of Elemental Evil is another favourite of mine to revisit at every edition but you might disagree about running it as-is

Also another option for mid-length adventures is old Dungeon magazine. Neither short enough to fit a one-shot, nor long enough to fill a campaign, but many of them are generic plug-and-play adventures.

 

[Arilyn]

Gavin Norman converted his OSE adventure, "Winter' Daughter" to 5e. This is excellent, engaging and easy to run. All the needed info is up front and center so there's no digging through paragraphs of fluff.