Best published campaign?

[Blas_de_Lezo]

Hi playgrounders!

Me and my friends are about to start a new campaign at 5e. What is, in your opinion, the best published campaign? Thanks!

[Kobard]

That depends. What sort of things do you want to do in your campaign?

[hymer]

Well for 5e, I think the only published campaign world is Forgotten Realms. Maybe count Ravenloft.

I guess my least unfavourite published campaign world is Forgotten Realms. It does have huge drawbacks, like a convoluted, non-cohesive structure, extremely vast size, and annoyingly powerful NPCs that you are encouraged to use actively... But really, you can stick to a less-known part, add in your own settlements, and have all that lore stuff as part of the background rather than overshadow what you're trying to do.

[Cespenar]

My favorite is Murder in Baldur's Gate, followed by Legacy of the Crystal Shard and the starter campaign, Lost Mines of Phandelver. Beware though, the first one has a high percentage of social encounters and investigations, and very little combat.

[Draco4472]

I love Curse of Strahd. If you're looking for a gothic/horror campaign in a Transylvania-like setting, this would be what you're looking for.

I may like it as much as I do because it inspired my favorite 5th edition PC as of now.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

My favorite is Murder in Baldur's Gate, followed by Legacy of the Crystal Shard

Are these AL modules? Is there any way to get them other than actually signing up to AL?

[Cespenar]

Are these AL modules? Is there any way to get them other than actually signing up to AL?

I dunno. Amazon seems to be selling them alright.

[Vogonjeltz]

Here's the list of books:

Starter Set Lost Mines of Phandelver 1-4 July 15, 2014
Tyranny of Dragons Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1-7 August 19, 2014
Tyranny of Dragons The Rise of Tiamat 8-15 November 4, 2014
Elemental Evil Princes of the Apocalypse 1-15 April 7, 2015
Rage of Demons Out of the Abyss 1-14 September 15, 2015
Curse of Strahd Curse of Strahd 1-10 March 15, 2016
Storm King's Thunder Storm King's Thunder 1-11 September 6, 2016


Best is a relative term, Phandelver (if you haven't done it) is a fairly fun and straightforward campaign.

The last three have a large amount of customizability, it's possible to get in way over your head in them quite easily.

So, in terms of complexity, that's sort of up to you.

[RedMage125]

IMHO Best Published Campaign EVER goes to the Age of Worms, a 3.5e campaign in DUNGEON Magazine. Some people are working out 5e conversions for it (easier with Volo's Guide out).

[rooneg]

I dunno. Amazon seems to be selling them alright.

Note that they were originally written for the 5e playtest, not 5e as it currently stands, so they may require tweaking to actually play.

As for the stuff that's out there, beyond avoiding Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat (since they were the first big adventures published for this edition, and it kind of showed) you really should decide what kind of adventure you want. Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Storm King's Thunder, Curse of Strahd, Lost Mine of Phandelver, they're all generally considered to be pretty good and there's plenty of guidance out on the internet on how best to run them.

The preferences of your group are probably going to be the most important thing here. Not everyone wants gothic horror. Not everyone wants to wander around the underdark going slowly insane while being hunted by dark elves. Not everyone wants to fight elemental cultists. Not everyone wants to figure out why the giants went all crazy and started screwing with the rest of the sword coast. You need to pick which one you actually are interested in.

All else being equal though, if you just want a generic D&D campaign starting with Lost Mine of Phandelver is a great idea. It's a fun adventure, you can finish it reasonably quickly and when you're done it's pretty easy to jump into any of the other ones if you're so inclined.

[eastmabl]

IMHO Best Published Campaign EVER goes to the Age of Worms, a 3.5e campaign in DUNGEON Magazine. Some people are working out 5e conversions for it (easier with Volo's Guide out).

So that's one vote for Greyhawk.

[Deleted]

Hi playgrounders!

Me and my friends are about to start a new campaign at 5e. What is, in your opinion, the best published campaign? Thanks!

Honestly, I can't recommend any of them.

My groups have been using old ones from 2e, 3e, and 4e and just updating them. Cheaper too!

[Theodoxus]

Honestly, I can't recommend any of them.

My groups have been using old ones from 2e, 3e, and 4e and just updating them. Cheaper too!

Are you new to 5E? Sounds like the OP might be.. converting isn't really great for your first time... as true as your sentiment might be already...

[Deleted]

Are you new to 5E? Sounds like the OP might be.. converting isn't really great for your first time... as true as your sentiment might be already...

Um, what?

Converting things was the first thing my groups did during the playtest, that's like one of the simplest things to do. Replace monster and traps to things that are close enough and use 5e's DC system.

[Cespenar]

Note that they were originally written for the 5e playtest, not 5e as it currently stands, so they may require tweaking to actually play.

All of the modules require some tweaking anyway, and they come with creature stats for 5e so that they don't need that much tweaking.

In my humble opinion, though, stay away from the long campaigns. They railroad too much, ignore 90% of any personal bonds/quests/etc. your characters might have, and overall lock your character to one story arc which takes away a lot from the "adventurer" feel.

[Corsair14]

Either Planescape or Spelljammer(Pirates of the Caribbean in space). Both of which would require a lot of conversion. Dark Sun a close second. I heard they redid it for 4th most recently, didnt read it but would surprise me if they didnt dumb it down to lose its deadly charm. You made 4 characters and started them at 3rd because characters die alot and 1st and 2nd levels are even weaker.

[Hawkstar]

I don't know what the best is, but Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the worst.

[Theodoxus]

In my humble opinion, though, stay away from the long campaigns. They railroad too much, ignore 90% of any personal bonds/quests/etc. your characters might have, and overall lock your character to one story arc which takes away a lot from the "adventurer" feel.


I don't know what the best is, but Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the worst.

If you mod HotDQ in a manner that Cespenar notes; while allowing for a broader arc - it can quite easily return to that "adventurer" feel.

Rise of Tiamat as a background story arc takes you all over the Sword Coast at first, and then broadens the scope to the more iconic locals in Faerun that aren't "Elminster was here". If you delve into the plot hooks, story elements and history of the regions the characters go through, there's no reason you can't jump the rails for a session or 3 after every chapter of the modules. Heck, having a motivated enemy that slowly marches forward with their agenda is a great way to keep the players on track while still allowing them to explore the world, their characters and the mythic happenings around them.

When they get to Waterdeep, take a month exploring Undermountain. When the explore the Meer of Lost Men, have them get into the politics of the black dragon - why isn't he on board with the cult? What might he be wanting and offer the party vast riches in return? There's political intrigue, dungeon delving, tomb raiding, factions to pursue... the bare bones of the RoT is yeah, really bland. But the potential to make it a 3 or 4 year long campaign with the culmination of riding into the abyss to tackle Tiamat once and for all? That means epic levels and epic boons - artifacts and a legion of support... probably...

If you're gonna mod - mod big!

[Gastronomie]

While it isn't everyone's cup of tea and the DM requires a lot of work beforehand, I'm enjoying DMing Out of the Abyss. It's like a mix of D&D and Call of Cthulhu, takes place in the Underdark, and the campaign book itself is already a really enjoyable read. Travelling through the settlements of Kuo-Toa, the metal cities of the Duergar, the fungal oasis of the Myconids, and so on.

Or alternatively: Have someone buy Volo's Guide to Monsters and make a series of short campaigns, each featuring an enemy from the guide. It has quite a lot of possible ideas for story hooks, you know.

I'm currently throwing in lots of monsters and ideas from the Volo's guide into the OotA campaign. It works.

[erok0809]

I'm playing Storm King's Thunder in AL now, and I really like it, it's got a logical progression but you have a decent number of choices as a player for where the plot goes; at least, that's how I feel as a player anyway. I'm also DMing a home game running Princes of the Apocalypse, which is pretty fun as well. That one can be a decent dungeon crawl if your players don't go back to town to rest often. I like them both.

[Deleted]

Either Planescape or Spelljammer(Pirates of the Caribbean in space). Both of which would require a lot of conversion. Dark Sun a close second. I heard they redid it for 4th most recently, didnt read it but would surprise me if they didnt dumb it down to lose its deadly charm. You made 4 characters and started them at 3rd because characters die alot and 1st and 2nd levels are even weaker.

4e darksun was amazing.

The lowest "score" I've heard of was a B+ (which beats out everything from 5e for me) and part of that was because it was shorter than anticipated.

If you want a 5e darksun sourcebook, you can get this or the original and it will do wonders.

Actually, 4e is a lot easier to convert to 5e so I would suggest this one as it is coming from the same sort of ideology (screw the characters instead of screw the players lol).

[RedMage125]

So that's one vote for Greyhawk.

Not so.

He asked for published CAMPAIGNS, not SETTINGS. Greyhawk is a SETTING. And while Age of Worms defaults to a "Core" world, some Greyhawk-setting specific names are changed to make it more generic (Free City becomes Greyhawk, Manzorian becomes Tenser, and Balakarde becomes Bucknard). Also, you can quite easily run AoW in Forgotten Realms or Eberron.

I'm actually not a huge fan of Greyhawk. Used to be a bigger fan of FR, but I'll stick with reading the novels and leave the setting alone. I run in my own campaign world, or in Eberron.

[JackPhoenix]

I have no experience with legendary pre-3e campaigns, but I consider Red Hand of Doom the best WotC campaign I ever saw. Also, it's apparently pretty easy to port to 5e, though I haven't actually done that... yet. I consider running a mix of RHoD and HotDQ/RoT as my next game after the current one ends.