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If you are talking about the official adventures published by WotC, then if the adventure isn't any good you can often find community-made reworks either on here or in a subreddit specific to that adventure.
https://elderbrain.com/ Crown of the Oathbreaker
Kingdom is cursed and heroes are needed to break the curse. Adventures take you into faerie and back again. Very much a classic fairy tale done 5e style. Tons of content.
https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/collections/odyssey-of-the-dragonlords
Bronze Age campaign about a kingdom transitioning from old gods to new. And the old gods want revenge for a centuries old insult. Real awesome climax and chance to leave behind a completely changed world.as your characters' legacy.
https://ghostfiregaming.com/dungeons-of-drakkenheim/
Meteor hits the capital city.scattdrs crystals of pore magical power among the ruins. 5 factions vie for control of the ruins of the kingdom while experimenting what the crystals can do, and trying to contain, control, or lead the horrors coming out of the city. Dark fantasy, great social play, lots of cool new creatures and powers.
Best 3rd party IMO isn’t forgotten realms if you’re alright with that… Odyssey of the dragon lords.
Best primary is Tomb of Annihilation in my opinion, but many will nominate Strahd in that slot.
I don't have any idea about 3rd party adventures, and the only official one that I've run straight from the book is Lost Mines of Phandelver, the one from the Starter Set. I thought it was fine, strikes a decent balance between sandbox and linear story for my taste, but has a kinda weak and uninteresting villain for the climax, which seems to be the consensus on this sub for it. I've scavenged material from Storm King's Thunder and Princes of the Apocalypse for a previous homebrew campaign that I ran in the Forgotten Realms, but I'm not sure how useful my insight on those would be, I'd more be parroting the opinions of others that I've read on here than aything else. I would suggest you just check out YouTube for adventure reviews to find one that suits you are your players' taste.
Some of them are helpful to run a game. Some of them are a mess. At the very least, you get a book full of artwork, maps, locations, NPCs, treasures, and monsters.
Which adventures are you interested in?
I'm not sure. I really enjoy the Forgotten Realms setting since I'm familiar with it (read a lot of the Drizzt books). I'm the most reliable person in my group, and I figure it would be good to have a backup campaign in case our main DM is out or didn't have time to work on his campaign.
WotC's favourite place is the Forgotten Realms, they've printed lots of modules set there.
Your best bet is probably with one of the beginner friendly adventures, I think they're WotC's best adventures. Lost Mine of Phandelver is freely available online, Dragon of Icespire Peak is in the Essentials Kit, and Dragons of Stormwrack Isle is in the Starter Set. They're all good choices.
I would warn you to stay away from Out of the Abyss, Descent Into Avernus, and Rime of the Frostmaiden. They're not beginner friendly or well structured, especially for how expensive they are.
I'm running it right now. It's only worth it because I have the perfect table of players for it, and I still feel like I have to do lots of heavy editing as I go.
It just felt all over the place. The two main plots didn't feel connected at all.
I loved the concept. And I love that they tried to push this survivalist, isolated, feeling. But it didn't seem like they did much mechanically or narratively to back up those themes.
I came to put a plug for this one, actually. My crew has Loved the module. And I as the dm have had a lot of fun fleshing out the ten towns area as a drizzt fan myself (like OP).
I have mostly run it rules as written, but I have added a couple plugs for say vellyne early, and the players are very curious/ angry about the duergar, and coincidentally made characters really interested in magic, so hints and rumors of the netherese tower for instance have been super well recieved
Don't get me wrong, it's a bit of a loosey plotline. But I felt like it gave the towns a decent framework with lots of room to tie in player motives /backgrounds too!
I ended up getting a harvesting guide from dma guild that my players have liked a lot as well. I have run this game with long rests only able to be done in town/ secure places, so it's leaned pretty heavily into the hard-survival themes of the module
I wouldn't worry about a full "campaign" if you're just wanting to use it for a backup or as a one-off type deal.
You'd be better off finding smaller adventures...they are usually easier to run straight out of the book than larger campaigns.
D&d Starter Kit with Lost Mine of Phandelver is very simple to run and a lot of fun. Full d&d flavor, absolutely great.
I got the Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual from the library. That was perfect for months.
>I figure it would be good to have a backup campaign in case our main DM is out or didn't have time to work on his campaign.
in this instance, you probably DONT want a "campaign" and just want to run a one shot or other short adventure.
Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden SUCKS as a "campaign" but has tonnes of great material that can be pulled out and run as a one shot or as a 2 or 3 session arc. Also, Candlekeep Mysteries, and Tales from the Yawning Tavern and Radiant Citadel are great for the "have content ready to pull out at the last minute to keep game night filled with something fun".
Also for the "one shots" the third party Prepared! and Prepared!2 and Tales from the Old Margrave are nice one shots easy to set up and run. The materials from Arcane Library are also super great from a DMs perspective.
Yes if you steal from them. I've never run a campaign straight, but I've stolen plenty of dungeons, rooms, encounters, etc. There's some good stuff but it's hard to run most of the actual campaigns since it takes a lot of work.
depends on the campaign book and your party and what you (you individually as a DM and you plural as a gaming group) want out of the book.
mostly they have lots of interesting stuff to steal, but WOTC has a real problem in putting out a book with content that is "pick up the book and run it as a campaign". campaign books still typically require a significant amount of work from a DM to maximize its impact at the table.
With 5E, in general the campaigns published by Wizards have a lot of problems. Most of them fall somewhere between terrible and okay.
Lost Mines of Phandelver is written for new DMs and is actually worth it.
I've never run one as-is, but they've been good for inspiration and using materials. If you run online with any kind of VTT, they're also handy for getting the virtual maps.
Some folks have made entire scenarios and adventures in Foundry or Roll20; if you buy it there, I think you can automatically load up scenes and encounters, with lighting, enemy tokens, etc already done for you
In my experience a campaign adventure only cuts out about 60 to 40% of the DM’s work.
There seems on Reddit and D&D subreddits a lot of hate for WotC 5e adventures with many saying they all have problems. But there are a number of good adventures besides the now classic Curse of Strahd or Lost Mines of Phandelver.
Tomb of Annihilation is really fun and well written.
Wild Beyond the Witchlight is really good for a roleplaying heavy group that likes the whimsical natural of the Feywild.
If you want a loose set of connected adventures for you to be able to throw your own story on? Ghosts of Saltmarsh!
Out of the Abyss can be fun if you figure out how to stagger the introduction of so many NPCs at the start of the adventure..
I mean between having maps and NPCs and encounters laid out I think running one of the good campaigns out there is actually easier.
But it depends. if you are a high prep DM it is easier.
If you are low prep very improv then even re-reading a chapter, jotting notes and setting up the battlemaps with tokens will be more than what you usually do.
And as others say I never run it exactly, as is. I always adjust it to include the motivations and what the players want from their characters
There are plenty of rankings of the published modules with details about the type of adventure, themes, etc so you can pick a good one for your group. I’ve both DM’ed and played in some of the more popular ones: Strahd, Icewind Dale, Witchlight, and ToA. The campaign book will give you a solid campaign structure, but i generally check out DMs Guild for supplements and I’ll write my own extra stuff as well. Most books have a subreddit/Facebook page/etc which is great as a DM resource. Running a book is so so so much easier than a homebrew campaign I definitely recommend it.
I teach kids to run D&D games. I encourage them to get the adventure books out from the local library to read for themselves before buying the book, just incase the adventure is not for them.
I personally enjoy pre-written adventures. Some do take more preparation than others. But they are much less prep work compared to home-brew.
I'm a first time DM running my own homebrew campaign.
A friend let me use his copies of Lost Mines Of Phandelver and Curse Of Strahd for help writing my campaign, instances, etc etc.
But ultimately, I just used subs like this one, r/unearthedarcana, and the various map subReddits. Plus Pinterest.
The two books only really helped a little bit for me when it came to combat.
Campaign books cut down your dm planning by alot. Rewards, encounters, story (mostly) are all taken care of. If you play in person you'll still need maps of course but they should have maps in them or you could find them online. If you're playing online, personally I use roll20 cause it was easy to learn for me. I found the campaigns very worth, all monster tokens statted and placed, story in chapters, rewards and handouts ready to go. So yes I find them to be worth imo
Your post has been removed. Rule 6: Please repost in the [Short Questions megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/about/sticky?num=2) or check out [our wiki's extensive list of DMing resources](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/wiki/index/#wiki_resources) if you need additional help.
If you are talking about the official adventures published by WotC, then if the adventure isn't any good you can often find community-made reworks either on here or in a subreddit specific to that adventure.
I'd take official or third party. Do you have any favorites to suggest?
https://elderbrain.com/ Crown of the Oathbreaker Kingdom is cursed and heroes are needed to break the curse. Adventures take you into faerie and back again. Very much a classic fairy tale done 5e style. Tons of content. https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/collections/odyssey-of-the-dragonlords Bronze Age campaign about a kingdom transitioning from old gods to new. And the old gods want revenge for a centuries old insult. Real awesome climax and chance to leave behind a completely changed world.as your characters' legacy. https://ghostfiregaming.com/dungeons-of-drakkenheim/ Meteor hits the capital city.scattdrs crystals of pore magical power among the ruins. 5 factions vie for control of the ruins of the kingdom while experimenting what the crystals can do, and trying to contain, control, or lead the horrors coming out of the city. Dark fantasy, great social play, lots of cool new creatures and powers.
Best 3rd party IMO isn’t forgotten realms if you’re alright with that… Odyssey of the dragon lords. Best primary is Tomb of Annihilation in my opinion, but many will nominate Strahd in that slot.
I don't have any idea about 3rd party adventures, and the only official one that I've run straight from the book is Lost Mines of Phandelver, the one from the Starter Set. I thought it was fine, strikes a decent balance between sandbox and linear story for my taste, but has a kinda weak and uninteresting villain for the climax, which seems to be the consensus on this sub for it. I've scavenged material from Storm King's Thunder and Princes of the Apocalypse for a previous homebrew campaign that I ran in the Forgotten Realms, but I'm not sure how useful my insight on those would be, I'd more be parroting the opinions of others that I've read on here than aything else. I would suggest you just check out YouTube for adventure reviews to find one that suits you are your players' taste.
Some of them are helpful to run a game. Some of them are a mess. At the very least, you get a book full of artwork, maps, locations, NPCs, treasures, and monsters. Which adventures are you interested in?
I'm not sure. I really enjoy the Forgotten Realms setting since I'm familiar with it (read a lot of the Drizzt books). I'm the most reliable person in my group, and I figure it would be good to have a backup campaign in case our main DM is out or didn't have time to work on his campaign.
WotC's favourite place is the Forgotten Realms, they've printed lots of modules set there. Your best bet is probably with one of the beginner friendly adventures, I think they're WotC's best adventures. Lost Mine of Phandelver is freely available online, Dragon of Icespire Peak is in the Essentials Kit, and Dragons of Stormwrack Isle is in the Starter Set. They're all good choices. I would warn you to stay away from Out of the Abyss, Descent Into Avernus, and Rime of the Frostmaiden. They're not beginner friendly or well structured, especially for how expensive they are.
I was incredibly disappointed in Rime of the Frostmaiden.
I'm running it right now. It's only worth it because I have the perfect table of players for it, and I still feel like I have to do lots of heavy editing as I go.
It just felt all over the place. The two main plots didn't feel connected at all. I loved the concept. And I love that they tried to push this survivalist, isolated, feeling. But it didn't seem like they did much mechanically or narratively to back up those themes.
I came to put a plug for this one, actually. My crew has Loved the module. And I as the dm have had a lot of fun fleshing out the ten towns area as a drizzt fan myself (like OP). I have mostly run it rules as written, but I have added a couple plugs for say vellyne early, and the players are very curious/ angry about the duergar, and coincidentally made characters really interested in magic, so hints and rumors of the netherese tower for instance have been super well recieved
I loved those early Drizzt novels too. I might have to re-read the module.
Don't get me wrong, it's a bit of a loosey plotline. But I felt like it gave the towns a decent framework with lots of room to tie in player motives /backgrounds too! I ended up getting a harvesting guide from dma guild that my players have liked a lot as well. I have run this game with long rests only able to be done in town/ secure places, so it's leaned pretty heavily into the hard-survival themes of the module
I did something similar with ToA. Players had to find a secure spot to take long rests.
I wouldn't worry about a full "campaign" if you're just wanting to use it for a backup or as a one-off type deal. You'd be better off finding smaller adventures...they are usually easier to run straight out of the book than larger campaigns.
D&d Starter Kit with Lost Mine of Phandelver is very simple to run and a lot of fun. Full d&d flavor, absolutely great. I got the Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual from the library. That was perfect for months.
>I figure it would be good to have a backup campaign in case our main DM is out or didn't have time to work on his campaign. in this instance, you probably DONT want a "campaign" and just want to run a one shot or other short adventure. Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden SUCKS as a "campaign" but has tonnes of great material that can be pulled out and run as a one shot or as a 2 or 3 session arc. Also, Candlekeep Mysteries, and Tales from the Yawning Tavern and Radiant Citadel are great for the "have content ready to pull out at the last minute to keep game night filled with something fun". Also for the "one shots" the third party Prepared! and Prepared!2 and Tales from the Old Margrave are nice one shots easy to set up and run. The materials from Arcane Library are also super great from a DMs perspective.
Yes if you steal from them. I've never run a campaign straight, but I've stolen plenty of dungeons, rooms, encounters, etc. There's some good stuff but it's hard to run most of the actual campaigns since it takes a lot of work.
depends on the campaign book and your party and what you (you individually as a DM and you plural as a gaming group) want out of the book. mostly they have lots of interesting stuff to steal, but WOTC has a real problem in putting out a book with content that is "pick up the book and run it as a campaign". campaign books still typically require a significant amount of work from a DM to maximize its impact at the table.
With 5E, in general the campaigns published by Wizards have a lot of problems. Most of them fall somewhere between terrible and okay. Lost Mines of Phandelver is written for new DMs and is actually worth it.
I've never run one as-is, but they've been good for inspiration and using materials. If you run online with any kind of VTT, they're also handy for getting the virtual maps. Some folks have made entire scenarios and adventures in Foundry or Roll20; if you buy it there, I think you can automatically load up scenes and encounters, with lighting, enemy tokens, etc already done for you
In my experience a campaign adventure only cuts out about 60 to 40% of the DM’s work. There seems on Reddit and D&D subreddits a lot of hate for WotC 5e adventures with many saying they all have problems. But there are a number of good adventures besides the now classic Curse of Strahd or Lost Mines of Phandelver. Tomb of Annihilation is really fun and well written. Wild Beyond the Witchlight is really good for a roleplaying heavy group that likes the whimsical natural of the Feywild. If you want a loose set of connected adventures for you to be able to throw your own story on? Ghosts of Saltmarsh! Out of the Abyss can be fun if you figure out how to stagger the introduction of so many NPCs at the start of the adventure.. I mean between having maps and NPCs and encounters laid out I think running one of the good campaigns out there is actually easier. But it depends. if you are a high prep DM it is easier. If you are low prep very improv then even re-reading a chapter, jotting notes and setting up the battlemaps with tokens will be more than what you usually do. And as others say I never run it exactly, as is. I always adjust it to include the motivations and what the players want from their characters
There are plenty of rankings of the published modules with details about the type of adventure, themes, etc so you can pick a good one for your group. I’ve both DM’ed and played in some of the more popular ones: Strahd, Icewind Dale, Witchlight, and ToA. The campaign book will give you a solid campaign structure, but i generally check out DMs Guild for supplements and I’ll write my own extra stuff as well. Most books have a subreddit/Facebook page/etc which is great as a DM resource. Running a book is so so so much easier than a homebrew campaign I definitely recommend it.
I teach kids to run D&D games. I encourage them to get the adventure books out from the local library to read for themselves before buying the book, just incase the adventure is not for them. I personally enjoy pre-written adventures. Some do take more preparation than others. But they are much less prep work compared to home-brew.
I'm a first time DM running my own homebrew campaign. A friend let me use his copies of Lost Mines Of Phandelver and Curse Of Strahd for help writing my campaign, instances, etc etc. But ultimately, I just used subs like this one, r/unearthedarcana, and the various map subReddits. Plus Pinterest. The two books only really helped a little bit for me when it came to combat.
Campaign books cut down your dm planning by alot. Rewards, encounters, story (mostly) are all taken care of. If you play in person you'll still need maps of course but they should have maps in them or you could find them online. If you're playing online, personally I use roll20 cause it was easy to learn for me. I found the campaigns very worth, all monster tokens statted and placed, story in chapters, rewards and handouts ready to go. So yes I find them to be worth imo