D&D General What is your favorite intro module?

[GamerforHire]

My favorite intro module, because of the elements of mystery and investigation, is N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God. It could be argued that those mystery elements will make it more difficult for a novice DM, which may be a fair point if both players and DM are new to the game.

More so than T1 Hommlet, I would suggest L1 Secret of Bone Hill—I like Restenford better than Hommlet as a starting village.

 

[MockingBird]

Phandelver for sure with Sunless Citadel a close second.

 

[Greg K]

More so than T1 Hommlet, I would suggest L1 Secret of Bone Hill—I like Restenford better than Hommlet as a starting village.

Initally, I had included L1 along with T1 as I loved L1 as much as T1. However, when I checked the module is suggested for minimum character levels of 2 so I removed it.

 

[Aldarc]

I've run Sunless Citadel several times as an intro adventure that I plop where the "Kobold Hall" is in the Nentir Vale. (But the Citadel having been brought down into the Underdark by Torog.) It has a nice hook for novice players. I usually have the players as a patrol unit for Fallcrest, with the three missing NPCs being members of a veteran patrol unit. It works pretty well.

 

[pukunui]

“Trouble in Red Larch” from PotA.

 

[Lanefan]

My favorite intro module, because of the elements of mystery and investigation, is N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God. It could be argued that those mystery elements will make it more difficult for a novice DM, which may be a fair point if both players and DM are new to the game.

More so than T1 Hommlet, I would suggest L1 Secret of Bone Hill—I like Restenford better than Hommlet as a starting village.

Bone Hill is an excellent module but as written is probably a bit much for raw 1st-level characters. Better as their second or even third adventure, I'd say.

For the best of both worlds, switch the villages - put Restenford next to the Hommlet dungeon and put Hommlet next to Bone Hill.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’ll add my voice to the B2 chorus. I don’t think it’s necessarily the best intro adventure, but it is definitely my favorite, because some of my fondest D&D memories are tied to it.

 

[Lanefan]

I’ll add my voice to the B2 chorus. I don’t think it’s necessarily the best intro adventure, but it is definitely my favorite, because some of my fondest D&D memories are tied to it.

It's funny, to me, in that I never encountered B2 in play as either player or DM until I ran it at the start of my current campaign.

I've still never played in it. 41 years and counting...

 

[DarkCrisis]

While I am very pro AD&D/OSR, I love Sunless Citadel from 3E

 

[Tony Vargas]

Edition-intro modules have been pretty horrible lately. The first level portion of HotDQ for 5e was a train wreck. The Essentials "Red Box" was insulting, and KotSf, before that had two notoriously broken enemies.

The Encounters program prior to HotDQ and the playtest, though, had a series of decent intro adventures. Though they didn't seem like much, to me, brand-new players I ran them for took to them easily. Of those, Beyond the Crystal Cave was probably the best.

I remember liking Sunless Citadel, but my group at the time tackled it at 3rd level.

The module I actually started with - Into the Unknown - was incomprehensible at the time, but, looking back at it years later, I have to say, still pretty awful, TBH.