Which First Level Adventure for Beginners/Returning Lapsed Adults

[aco175]

DMsGuild also has several low level adventures set up to get back into play. A lot of free modules are there as well if you want to get in cheap before making more of an investment. You can find the 5eSRD online and get a free module to see how mush the group wants to get invested.

For the cheap money though, I would get Lost Mines of Phandelver as well.

 

[Reynard]

Quests of Doom 2,

Has 2 level 1 adventures including "1976" an adventure modeled on ye olde D&D adventures. You can get the Quests of Doom books at the Frog Gods store on their site. The other 4 adventures are 5th level.

Weirdly, I won copies of QoD 1, 2 and 4 last week at a convention raffle. I haven't had a chance to peruse them yet.

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

Lost Mines is great as is Sunless Citadel and Assault on Blacktooth is good too. One that I'm surprised no one mentioned that was updated to 5E (and more importantly free) is The Wizard's Amulet by Necromancer/Frog God Games. That's a fun short adventure the I've always liked.

 

[Zardnaar]

Weirdly, I won copies of QoD 1, 2 and 4 last week at a convention raffle. I haven't had a chance to peruse them yet.

Well there you go. LMoP and Sunless Citadel are great but you might want to tell your own story and I find smaller adventures that can be linked can be better than a prepublished medium sized adventure or a large AP one. QoD2 also has some 5th level adventures in it so you could do LMoP and then move onto one of them.

 

[Reynard]

After re-reading Phandelver, I think I am going to run that. I had forgotten how it was built from discrete, bite sized chunks, which I think will be helpful in making sure something new is always happening (as opposed to a longer crawl like Sunless Citadel). Also, it allows me to wing stuff, given the small sandbox nature of the middle of the module.

Does anyone have suggestions for must-have DMsGuild expansions, enhancements or other things related to LMoP?

 

[S'mon]

This Google turned up a lot! https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dms+guild+phandalin&oq=dms+guild+phandalin&aqs

 

[Rhenny]

I ran Lost Mines with some of my old friends from high school (my D&D friends) at a weekend reunion. We played for 18 hours over 3 days and loved it. We got through parts 1-3 so we’re about 3/4 done and pcs ere at 4th level.

Spoilers

When you run it, I’d suggest not throwing out too many quests to chase when they get to Phandalin. The ones that take them to Thundertree seem especially off the beaten track and if they get to Thundertree too soon, the dragon could end it all pretty quickly.

There are lots of opportunities to role play with town folk, the Redbrands, and the one encounter with the Nothic in the Redbrand hideout can also lead to awesome role playing.

When the pcs in my group infiltrated the hideout, they had enlisted the help of a Redbrand who they spared from death to get them in. He told them about how they delivered the extortion money to some of the guys inside secret entrance so they staged a delivery, and ambushed the Redbrands when they met to give them the money. Just before the fight was over I had the Nothic in that area telepathically communicate with the cleric in the group. I played psychological mind games with him to sift his mind for secrets. After initially contacting him, I gave that player a minute or two to reveal to me the character’s deep dark secret. When the cleric player told me that the player stole money from his parents, the Nothic telepathically chided him and told him that Moradin was disappointed with him and he should be ashamed. The Nothic goaded him to jump into the ravine to end his shame. By this time, the player was totally freaked. He asked if he had to roll any check or save. I told him there was no save; he could respond any way his pc wanted to. Eventually, the Nothic emerged and attacked him, but the whole pre-fight was intense.

After the session, we talked about how awesome the telepathic mind games were because they were not tied to any save and it just became free form improv. I almost got the cleric to jump into the ravine by his own volition. It was spectacular.

 

[S'mon]

There are lots of opportunities to role play with town folk

To make LMOP work, I think Phandalin desperately needs development. In particular the NPCs need to be more than just quest givers with ! over their heads - it is the most videogamey 'starter town' I've ever seen in a TTRPG, and I really disliked it. I would suggest statting out all the major town NPCs, give them physical descriptions and wealth/gear, think about their relations & motivation.

I recently started GMing Gygax's Village of Hommlet for 1e and it is an absolute joy, the town NPCs really feel alive. It only takes a couple lines of description that is NOT about the quest they will give the PCs.

 

[Rhenny]

To make LMOP work, I think Phandalin desperately needs development. In particular the NPCs need to be more than just quest givers with ! over their heads - it is the most videogamey 'starter town' I've ever seen in a TTRPG, and I really disliked it. I would suggest statting out all the major town NPCs, give them physical descriptions and wealth/gear, think about their relations & motivation.

I recently started GMing Gygax's Village of Hommlet for 1e and it is an absolute joy, the town NPCs really feel alive. It only takes a couple lines of description that is NOT about the quest they will give the PCs.

I totally agree. I had to put all the personality into that part of the campaign. You do have to pick out the NPCs that you’ll invest with some personality. The inn owner and some villagers in the inn, the guy who runs the town, a few shop keepers, etc.

 

[Mistwell]

To make LMOP work, I think Phandalin desperately needs development. In particular the NPCs need to be more than just quest givers with ! over their heads - it is the most videogamey 'starter town' I've ever seen in a TTRPG, and I really disliked it. I would suggest statting out all the major town NPCs, give them physical descriptions and wealth/gear, think about their relations & motivation.

I recently started GMing Gygax's Village of Hommlet for 1e and it is an absolute joy, the town NPCs really feel alive. It only takes a couple lines of description that is NOT about the quest they will give the PCs.

LOL you accuse it of being too video-gamey and then suggest you stat and equip the NPCs...what, in case the players attack and loot them like they'd do in a video game?

I recommend you not do all that for the NPCs. Some random tables for descriptions and relations and motives is fine, but don't go to all the work of stattting out everyone when only a fraction of the NPCs will likely ever be encountered. Be efficient in your work - do the work needed for only the part of the world your players actually see. You're not writing a novel where massive background helps your giant world - you're just running some NPCs who primary purpose really is to point the PCs in the direction of a quest for a first adventure.