D&D 5E What is the best official campaign to start off with for first-time D&D players?
Lost Mine of Phandelver, easily. Failing that, the new starter set adventure, Dragon of Stormwreck Isle.
Dragon of Icespire peak is inferior to both of them. However, if your players really like combat and are not particularly interested in roleplaying, they may like it.
Dragon of Icespire peak is inferior to both of them. However, if your players really like combat and are not particularly interested in roleplaying, they may like it.
That's kind of what I ended up doing.
I ran a group of total D&D noobs through a mashup of Dragon of Icespire Peak and Lost Mine of Phandelver. It went reasonably well and I'd recommend it as a solid sandbox. My total playtime was about 20 two hour sessions.
Once that was complete, about half the group fell out. The remaining players wanted to carry on. Some kept their existing characters, others made new characters. I relocated the campaign to Neverwinter. Conceptually, I thought of this as a spinoff series for a television show -- think The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. So I kept a loose connection to the previous adventures but mostly tried to focus on new material.
I'm sharing this story in case it's helpful to the OP.
The key thing about new players is to realize that most of them simply are not (and will never be) willing to put in the hours it takes to play in a campaign. Campaigns are a commitment from everyone involved. To get the most out of one, D&D has to be your primary hobby. Most players have other hobbies, interests, and demands on their time. With that in mind, I would suggest you do NOT run a campaign for noobs. Instead, run an adventure. If that works well, run another adventure. If that works well, run yet another adventure. Eventually, some players will leave, others will stay, and with those committed players in place you can finally begin a campaign.
Then run whatever you feel like running from your books. Whatever you’re excited about. As DM you being interested will infect the players. The starter sets recommended here are more for new DMs than new players….except, both, and especially DoIP, have more scenarios that conclude after a session or two. Which, for new players can be satisfying. To have done a thing. I think one problem for new players is the pace at which D&D stories go. Like it can take a year to play through what is essentially a novella at best. So, something more episodic works for new players like DoIP.
Except DoIP‘s scenarios are just pretty ok As written, some, like Gnomengard are pretty good, some like Mountain Toe are just boring.
Getting something like MT Black’s Complete Adventures Vol. 1 from Dmsguild and running all the Longsaddle adventures would be so vastly more interesting for new players and similarily episodic.
SKT is the best full long adventure for new players if the DM is up for managing chapter 3. Give players freedom but not overwhelm them with it.
TheSword
Legend
I think the strength of Curse of Strahd for newbies is that the story and the objectives are very very clear. It’s recognizable because it plays to every gothic trope going and the strong story means that players that don’t get the mechanics so well are still going to be engaged.
I like Lost Mines of Phandelver, but I find it gets less engaging as it progresses. The first two dungeons are excellent, later parts not so much.
The story also just isn’t so gripping.
I like Lost Mines of Phandelver, but I find it gets less engaging as it progresses. The first two dungeons are excellent, later parts not so much.
The story also just isn’t so gripping.EpicureanDM
Explorer
Run Dragon Heist, but do it using The Alexandrian's Remix of the book.
Amrûnril
Adventurer
I'm curious about all the praise that Phandelver is receiving. I've only playtested the first chapter a bit, but the initial dungeon really strikes me as relying on a bunch of humanoid adversaries doing nothing but waiting around for the characters to kill them. If a goblin escapes the initial ambush, or if the party's first incursion is pushed out by the flood trap, I'd expect the goblins to mound some sort of coordinated defense or counter attack, but the module doesn't give any guidance on how to handle this (and this sort of coordination would make a nearly impossible encounter for first level characters). Then again, I don't have much experience with published modules in general, so maybe I'm holding this one to a standard other modules would also fall short of?
Paul Farquhar
Legend
This has been characteristic of a typical D&D dungeon since the 1970s.
Do your players want a classic D&D experience, or do they want some new-fangled nonsense in which monsters behave realistically?
Let us remember that if these are new players to D&D... they will have no idea of what the "traditional D&D experience" is or isn't. They also will have no experience with what monster expectations and actions are supposed to be or what is "realistic" in a D&D context.
So just find an adventure that you would like to run and that interests you. If you like what it is you are running and it gets you excited... the players will come along for the ride no matter how well-written or not well-written it is.
So just find an adventure that you would like to run and that interests you. If you like what it is you are running and it gets you excited... the players will come along for the ride no matter how well-written or not well-written it is.
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