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Hi all, I have access to the following campaigns,
Elemental Evil, Rage of Demons, Return to Ravenloft, Stormking's Thunder, Tales from the Yawning Portal, and Tyranny of Dragons.
I don't want to read them all as I would like to eventually want to play in one or two of them.
But I do want to either take story inspiration or run one of the campaigns.
For the DMs who may have run or read through the above, which story and plot arcs did you find intriguing and well written as to be satisfying and fulfilling to run for your players?
Well... I would say the best of the 5th adventures is probably Curse of Strahd. But it depends on what you want.
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Rage of Demons is probably one of the best fan supported adventures. You will find all kinds of information on how to run it, how to add more random encounters or side quests, how to run NPCs, and even a number of play reports (either actual play or written).
That said, the mark of a good adventure is one for which the DM is most excited. I'd pick whatever premise you like best. The rest should fall into place.
When I was trying to choose a 5E campaign I run for my wife and kids, I was originally considering Curse of Strahd (my daughter has read and loved Dracula and Frankenstein), but ended up buying Tales from the Yawning Portal instead. Tales is an anthology of several discreet adventures, so it will be easy for us to play one part (we recently finished The Sunless Citadel), then do something else for a while (which we're doing now), then come back and play the next adventure later. The adventures in Tales don't have much to do with each other (except the first two, and that's tenuous at best), but they were deliberately chosen to get the party to the right level to play the next one, if you want to run them all as a loose campaign.
OTOH, if having a coherent campaign story throughout is a priority for you, almost any of the other books would probably be a better choice.
I have since acquired and read a cheap used copy of Strahd, and will probably try running it someday (or the Death House part, at the very least).
I'm halfway through reading "Tomb of Annihilation" and I really like it! It's my first time reading one of the hardback modules. I really like how they structure it:
1. Meeting and introducing the plot and quest
2. Home Base that introduces general themes and cultures
3. Big Exploration area to search for MacGuffintown
4. Focused Exploration area of MacGuffintown
5. Dungeoneering under MacGuffintown
It features lots of dinosaurs and undead and kind of cute tribal societies, which seem like a good family adventure. Kids like dinosaurs, nobody feels guilty killing undead, and there are opportunities to use non-combat conflict resolution in the villages.
Also, lots of puzzles and social encounters that require cooperation and teamwork. There are also some borderline silly encounters that are kind of funny.
It's kind of a "save the world" quest, but if the PCs fail, the consequences are just limiting everyone to one life to live. Like the really real world.
My only concerns are that some of the handouts have other handouts on the opposite side, so you might want to photocopy or scan and printout the handouts (this would also keep your hardcopy whole). You also might want to have your monster stats printed out to, since the text of the module just gives you a bolded monster name and relies on the DM to flip to the back of the book or MM to get the monster stats. I do like how a lot of the NPCs are versions of the NPCs in the back of the MM, often with an extra ability or two for zest, like Proficiency in Animal Handling or Survival, or additional languages know, or a different race or alignment.