Introducing a few new players to D&D - Which campaign would be best?


3.5/d20/OGL


This Sunday a few friends that I've played D&D with before and some anxious new players eager to roll some dice and fight some monsters will be getting together with me to play some Dungeons and Dragons. I'm super excited and I want to make sure that they have a really fun, memorable first game of D&D, which would hopefully go on to a great first campaign. However, I'm just beside myself with how many great options I've got!

-I have the Shackled City Adventure Path hardcover, which may be good because it's very straight forward and Dungeon Crawl heavy

-I have the Age of Worms adventures, which may also be good because of dungeon crawls, but also because it's close to the archeypal D&D experience. However, my more experienced player has already done some of these adventures.

-The Savage Tide adventure path is just now starting and it looks good. However, it may be a little too heavily pirate flavored for a first time game. The easiest concept to grasp about D&D is, of course, Dungeons, Dragons, and typical Western Medieval fantasy. But it also looks super fun.

-I could cobble something together between Dungeon adventures and things. For instance, Siege of the Spider Eaters to start, into Devil Box, into the recent Twilight Tomb (stripped of Realms pronouns), some good mid-level adventures and then The Styes, etc.

I like writing my own adventures, but I've also got a full course load and big projects to do to finish art school, so pre-written adventures are a big help. I appeal to the wisdom of the Paizo board members for guidance! Don't do it for me, though. Do it for the impressionable youths I will bring into our depraved and twisted hobby.


Shackled City would be a good one--it covers all of what makes D&D great (dragons, giants, demons, dungeons galore) you have a nice home base for the characters (with some great RP opportunities if your players are so minded), and there's a ton of cool stuff on the RPGenius website to supplement the campaign and make it even cooler...

Of course, I may be a little biased as I also have the hardcover and am running it and loving it!

--Fang


I'd vote AoW. Great, classic D&D feel, a good home base to start with (only the first two adventures may take place in Diamond Lake ((not counting the return one later)), but it's still enough to develop an identity and good RP), travel, dragons, undead, magic, all kinds of good stuff! The Whispering Cairn feels like old-style dungeon crawls, but for 1st level. And fully developed adventures straight from levels 1 to 20. Now, I haven't really read the SCAP, as my subscription to Dungeon started the issue after the last installment, and as you said, STAP is just starting and may be a little heavy on the "Arr!" factor. Cauldron also has the whole jungle/volcano thing going on, which may not be a good thing to start newbies on if you're really trying to get the feel of D&D.

Happy gaming!


Shackled City is compleat and you have it all in one package. It is classic D&D, with an interesting home base, Cauldron.


Personally I would use smaller adventures, each seperate from the one that follows but linked in theme into an overall campaign. That way you can tailor the experience to the players styles and characters they create.


I'm in agreement with Nermal.

Use a realm you're familiar with, to minimize the work. Start with ONE simple adventure, to see how the new players like it. Make it a straight forward adventure...

The PCs are hired to guard a merchant's wagon as it moves from one village to the next (just throw any creature you wish on the road ahead);

Or some kobolds have raided a farm on the outskirts of town and have made off with the farmer's 6 year old daughter (that always gets th PCs going), the PCs become part of the rescue effort and (of course) ends up finding the kobold lair;

Or one of the PCs (preferably a rogue)is at the right place at the wrong time and sees the town sheriff and his men making some sort of deal with a shady character (the rogue gets spotted and instantly becomes wanted by the law), now the PCs are fugitives and must help their friend prove he has done nothing wrong.

Ultradan


I support the keep it simple approach for new players. Set up some roleplay a few simple straight forward combats. I'd review their character sheets and try to create situations that would encourage the use of their feats and skills so the get the whole package as part of their first adventure. Add in a healthy dose of Role-play opportunity and see how it goes.

You could use the initial adventure to launch AoW even if they reach 2nd lvl from their first foray they will be plenty challenged by the Whispering Cairn.

The Exchange

I think you need to start semi-small, a full campaign for people who may or may not like it is abit much.
My suggestion: I know I go here alot but, The Sunless Citadel.
Perfect start to any campaign, great dungeon feel with cool monsters, good RP opportunities, a great homebase, and gets the Newbs a bit of power (to 3rd level I believe).
There is almost no updating to 3.5 needed and most of what needs updating is able to be done on the fly.
Another thought I had is to talk to the veterans and tell them to stick with core-classes for this campaign. A half-dragon celestial dwarven warlock would overwhelm the newbs. K.I.S.S.
If all goes well with the adventure, you can give the players the option of starting a new 1-20th level campaign or continue the one you started. Some of the newbs may want to try some different character options and may not really appreciate playing a _______ for a whole year with all the other options available that they have never tried.

hope it helps.
FH


Perhaps the whole background of the AoW (and the SCAP as well) may be a bit overwhelming for newbies. It is helpful to have an established home base like Diamond Lake, but take a simple, straightforward adventure for the first time. Whispering Cairn is a good adventure, but may be a bit too complex, with its traps and all, for new players - the whole AP seems to me to be aimed at more experienced players. Try something like the Burning Plague from the WotC website - IIRC, that was a fairly simple adventure that will take a only few hours to play through and take a minimum of preparation.

Stefan

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

I suggest any of the first level Goodman Games modules found here.

My reasoning is that you can concentrate on character creation and combat. Do that once or twice and then get into the finer roleplaying aspects and the deeper complexity of the adventure paths.


Thanks for all the advice, guys, very helpful. It is likely a good idea to keep everything really simple for the first few adventures until everyone is on equal footing with the rules.

Sometimes it's hard to remember what it was like when I was still learning to play and hadn't been jaded to the simple joys of stabbing kobolds, losing an arm to a scythe trap and talking smack to dwarves.


I've introduced a couple of people to D&D over the years, and I've always found that it's easiest to definitely keep it simple. Don't go overboard on the political intrigue (though that's my thing). When presenting the newbies with a situation, try to subtly give them some ideas if they're having trouble coming up with it on their own.

If you've got some veteran players in the group, that helps you as a DM tremendously. It's always been a house rule that if there's a new player, particularly new to the game or RPGs in general, it's your job as a veteran to help out the new guy, whether it's with the mechanics or suggesting a course of action.


I've introduced (or helped to introduce) a handful of players to the rules, and I almost invariably start them off (after character creation) with "Orc and Pie". It covers the most basic form of combat and introduces them to the standard format for playing D&D: the DM describes the situation, they ask clarifying questions as necessary, and then determine how they react to the situation at hand. It really throws some of them for a loop when they ask "what can I do?" and the answer is "you can try anything you can think of."

Of course, it almost invariably devolves to killing the orc and taking his pie, but that's the point. I heard about one guy who used Charm Perosn to talk the orc into giving him the pie, though.


Fake Healer wrote:

I think you need to start semi-small, a full campaign for people who may or may not like it is abit much.

My suggestion: I know I go here alot but, The Sunless Citadel.
Perfect start to any campaign, great dungeon feel with cool monsters, good RP opportunities, a great homebase, and gets the Newbs a bit of power (to 3rd level I believe).
There is almost no updating to 3.5 needed and most of what needs updating is able to be done on the fly.
Another thought I had is to talk to the veterans and tell them to stick with core-classes for this campaign. A half-dragon celestial dwarven warlock would overwhelm the newbs. K.I.S.S.
If all goes well with the adventure, you can give the players the option of starting a new 1-20th level campaign or continue the one you started. Some of the newbs may want to try some different character options and may not really appreciate playing a _______ for a whole year with all the other options available that they have never tried.

hope it helps.
FH

I took your advice and it worked pretty darn well. Sunless Citadel is very helpful for starting people off on the game, especially since I was more loose with the combat system than usual (not terribly stringent about attacks of opportunity at first, slowly introducing more complex ideas like flanking, etc.). It also helped that I only had two players for this first session, and only one of them was beginning so the session went pretty fast. She had fun and wants to play next week, when we may have even more new players, so mission accomplished! Thanks FH and everybody for the advice!

The Exchange

James Keegan wrote:
I took your advice and it worked pretty darn well. Sunless Citadel is very helpful for starting people off on the game, especially since I was more loose with the combat system than usual (not terribly stringent about attacks of opportunity at first, slowly introducing more complex ideas like flanking, etc.). It also helped that I only had two players for this first session, and only one of them was beginning so the session went pretty fast. She had fun and wants to play next week, when we may have even more new players, so mission accomplished! Thanks FH and everybody for the advice!

Yeah! More people who will know/meet the legendary Meepo!!

Glad to help and great job indoctrinating the newbs into the D&D fold. Hope it goes as well with the others.

FH

Liberty's Edge

Yeah, fakey, you really are Lord of the Place Where the Sun Don't Shine.


In the "Eric Mona DMs Greyhawk" thread in Campaign Journals, on page 5 or 6 they had a short "prelude" adventure where all the players took the roles of 1st level warriors destined for short, grisly lives. I ran that last night to good effect. Afterwards, when the new players get to run their own characters, they will savor every gold piece they get.

TK


Whispering Cairn is actually a great first level dungeon. It really had a kind of first edition feel to it that completely took me back to my high school playing days. But I wouldn't run it as written for completely new players. I'd lower the CR of most of the encounters, and make some of the traps less deadly. Or perhaps modify it so PCs take on part of the dungeon at a time, then have to go on a side-quest to find the key to the next part of the dungeon. This gives them a chance to grow into the more difficult challenges posed by the last part of the dungeon.

One might easily concoct a mini-dungeon prelude, set the game in Diamond Lake, and then go from there if the campaign takes off.

When I introduced my son and my nephew to the game, I concocted a fairly simple mystery that involved finding a stolen relic and some kidnapped children, connected by a mysterious symbol carved at the sight of each crime. By following the leads and using their skills (gather info, track, etc.) the PCs track the culprits to a small dungeon hollowed out below the local cemetary. Four rooms, three goblins, a dire rat, two skeletons, and an evil 2nd level priest. One simple (not very deadly) trap on the priest's treasure chest. Gives players the feel for the roleplaying, problem-solving, dungeon-crawling, combat, and treasure-hauling aspects of the game in one nice 4-6 hour package.

I ran two DMPCs to accompany the PCs--this allows the DM to give hints and suggestions in character, without taking over the game.

One thing also to consider here is the age, maturity, and other interests of your potential players--if the adventure isn't interesting to them, they won't dig the game. Ten year olds get a kick out of killing kobolds, twenty-five or thirty year olds are probably more attracted to other aspects of the game, such as problem-solving and roleplaying.


Thanis Kartaleon wrote:

In the "Eric Mona DMs Greyhawk" thread in Campaign Journals, on page 5 or 6 they had a short "prelude" adventure where all the players took the roles of 1st level warriors destined for short, grisly lives. I ran that last night to good effect. Afterwards, when the new players get to run their own characters, they will savor every gold piece they get.

TK

Well, it probably would've been a lot more horrific (though less fun) if we hadn't know when we went in that we were playing Red Shirts. As it was, my character started screaming as soon as we entered the basement (long before the monster appeared), and was screaming "Augh, my spleen!" seconds before the door exploded in front of him.

The Exchange

Heathansson wrote:
Yeah, fakey, you really are Lord of the Place Where the Sun Don't Shine.

And don't you forget it, Cur!

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