Now that I almost have my graduate degree, and I have some time to breathe, I'm considering introducing some of my work colleagues to the wonderful game of D&D. Although I've mostly run home-brew campaigns, if I do this again I want to primarily use published material to save myself prep time. I've narrowed it down to the Shackled City or Age of Worms. The World's Largest Dungeon would be a lot of fun, too, but I don't happen to own that. The one thing is that my colleagues would be complete newbies. While I've read most of the adventures in both campaigns, I don't have any play experience in either of them. Does anyone with experience in either of the campaigns have suggestions on why it would or would not be good for introducing newbies to D&D? I'm a DM with about 20 years of experience, so I'm more concerned about the effect of the campaigns on the players, rather than on DMs.
I haven't read Age of Worms, but I wouldn't recommend SCAP for newbies without some changes. It's very challenging and designed to appeal to veteran gamers who cut their teeth on Keep on the Borderlands.
Many Dungeon adventures for 1st level characters are still "advanced" and designed to appeal to the more veteran gamers.
However, you can run some introductory adventures to get your players used to the D&D mechanics and role-playing in general and then put them into the SCAP at 3rd level. For newbies, the extra levels will probably make the difference between life and death, as even my veteran gaming crew has had problems in SCAP.
If you want to save on prep time I'd consider picking up the hardbound SCAP book. This has all the adventures and is the most up to date in terms of errata and linking adventures etc.
That said Fairwell2Kings is right that these adventures are really usually for veteran players - I think the newbies will do fine in anycase if you throw them into the deep end but I'd cheat the system adn pump them up some levels first on real basic intoductory adventures.
I think there's some good basic adventures on the Wizards website that might serve well as introductory filler material to pump a few levels into the PC's as Jeremy stated.
If your newbies are like I was back in the day, a dungeon filled with orcs, giant rats and goblins will be sufficient to get them into it.
I think there's some good basic adventures on the Wizards website that might serve well as introductory filler material to pump a few levels into the PC's as Jeremy stated.
If your newbies are like I was back in the day, a dungeon filled with orcs, giant rats and goblins will be sufficient to get them into it.
Yeah, that's a good idea. The very first introduction to the game probably shouldn't be spent walking on the razor's edge between life and death, at least not until the rules are somewhat familiar to them. I have a number of low-level modules lying around that would work well. I've actually been itching to run the Sunless Citadel, so maybe I'll start there. As the first adventure of 3E, it was sort of geared towards new players. I figure if the characters are 3rd level before they start Shackled City, even if the first adventure is slightly easy for them, the difficulty will catch up quickly.
I have a number of low-level modules lying around that would work well. I've actually been itching to run the Sunless Citadel, so maybe I'll start there...
I thought 'The Sunless Citadel' was a pretty big adventure for first level characters (specialy for starting players).
Before running this adventure, I would suggest something even more basic. Like starting them in a small village and have them clean out or retrieve something in a "bug" infested cave or mine. Give them something small and accomplishable within one or two game sessions. The "bug hunt" may seem old and dull to us, but to newcommers I bet it's still pretty sharp.
So my advice for a group of new players: Give them a short, straight-forward mission which they can accomplish in a game or two. This will give them the taste of reward after a job well done and push them to accomplish bigger things.
Ultradan