A Hypothetical Great Adventure to teach new DMs to run 5th Edition well

[Yora]

There is another thread that questions the quality of the official D&D adventures for 5th edition, and the whole way of how published adventures are designed for the last decades. And because these adventures create new game masters' expectations what an adventure should be like, and serve as the reference frame for the creators of new adventurers, we seem to be stuck in a feedback loop of published material that mostly ranges from not that great to pretty bad.
There are a great number of things that appear in such adventures that people consider to be poor choices or executions, but this leads to the question of what things a good adventure should do. Particularly adventures aimed at new gamemasters to show them how to effectively run and structure their games.

I think the first priority of any published adventure should always be to make things easy for the DM. Published adventures exist for the purpose of enabling DMs to run a great adventures when they don't have the motivation, the time, the inspiration, or the skill to create one themselves. A published adventure should not be a story book, but a tool for DMs that takes some of the work off them.
1. The adventure should have a useful summary at the start that states in as few words as possible what it is about, who the important NPCs are, and how the important elements come together. No backstory here, just the barest essentials to give us an idea what the rest of the text is talking about and what purpose the different elements serve.
2. As DMs, we can't read the whole adventure and then run it only from memory. We will need to look things up as the adventure is being played. For that purpose, information needs to be easy to find. Even if, and especially when, we don't remember where that information is written down. This means the whole text has to be as long as it needs to be, but also as short as it can be. Details that help the DMs to make descriptions and scenes more evocative to the players have their place. But to help DMs figure out what is important and to find the important bits when they need to look them up, there needs to be no clutter and no padding. Got to the point. Say the things you think need to be said in as few words as possible.

The other thing that is very important to me is to create adventures that make full use of the things that roleplaying games can do, that no other medium can. That is interactivity, improvisation, and non-predetermined conclusions. When we play an RPG, we have something that no other medium has. We have the gamemaster right here and right now, who can decide things and make the NPCs and monster do things that the writer of the adventure never anticipated. This makes the players in an RPG different from the audience in any other medium. The players can decide how their characters react to the things they encounter and experience. And the gamemasters can decide how NPCs and monsters are going to react to what the players decide to do.
This is not something that all gamemasters do, or that many adventure writers take into account. But I think when you are teaching gamemasters, by example of your adventure, how to run an RPG, then you should teach them that they can do it and how they could do it.

Yes, this means that the players might decide on a course of action that leads them to a point at which there is no longer any plausible way to accomplish their initial goal. This is fine! Failure is always an option. I believe that in a well designed adventure, success is not guaranteed. A well written adventure should have a good chance that the players succeed, a range of possible outcomes in which they partially succeed on some goals, and some chance that they return home in defeat. If the quest has failed, it does not have to mean that the game has failed. A good adventure has a failure state that would not be the end of the world, but that makes the players determined to do better on their next adventure.

Speaking of which: I really very much prefer for adventures to be modular. That is adventures that can take place in many different places, and that are not overly long. When the party is expected to gain a new level once or maybe twice by the time they are finished, that is long enough. As GM, I want to ability to chose one adventure that I think will be fun at 1st level, one at 3rd level, one at 5th level, and so on. I am not much of a fan of an adventure that makes my buy in to a complete bundle of events from 1st to 10th or 15th level. I want to be able to mix and match and put together a campaign for my group. I also don't know at the start of each new campaign how long this group will be playing. I think it's much better to play maybe 4 or 6 sessions and get a propper conclusion, and then decide as a group if we want to go for another 4 or 6 sessions. If I start an adventure that might take us 20 sessions to play through but for whatever reason we only play 10 sessions or so, then the players walk away without the feeling of having accomplished anything or learning what the whole thing was about.

What do you think a good adventure should do, particularly under the aspect that it will serve new gamemasters as a reference for how they run 5th edtion and create their own adventures? What do you consider good practices to follow and bad practices to avoid?

[Bjarkmundur]

I aggre wholeheartedly.

Especially with the failure bit. I was thought to that you should only only roll the dice when the results have consequences. This means that there are always at least two possible outcomes to every dice roll or decision . I also learned that you can fail and still move the story forward. "Succeeding or dying" doesn't move the story forward, for example.

For a standard module, it wouldn't even have to be anything major. Maybe one or two things thst can go either a or b based on how things played out.

I would love to see more of this.

[MaxWilson]

I'm on phone so short shrift:

In the interests of interactivity, I would like for the intro section to briefly cover likely possible outcomes from the adventure and give gaming advice for possible What's Next. E.g.:

Possible outcomes include:

PCs find the treasure and get rich. They will probably want to buy some cool stuff, either adventuring equipment or status symbols (food, drink, real estate, noble titles). Depending on their choices, the next big adventure in their lives might be searching for more treasure (see XYZ-1), or a murder mystery back in town (see XBV-1).

PCs are defeated by goblins (nonlethal TPK) and sold into slavery. They might awake in the Underdark (Out of the Abyss) or as gladiators on a strange world (Athasian Champion, XPF-1).

PCs make peace with the mind flayers and/or the goblins and resolve the conflict without violence. The next big adventure in their lives could be a threat to the whole community including the monsters (Vodyonoi Invasion, INV-1), or a (...etc, I'm out of ideas).

An example of a module which does something like this well is Ragnarok and Roll (1988 I think) for Marvel Super Heroes.

Keeping the DM's eye on outcomes for scenes can help new DMs with pacing (knowing that it's okay to close a scene when the dramatic question for the scene has been answered, instead of dragging on until the players say "we walk out the door"), and highlighting some outcomes from an adventure ought to help focus play on scenes which will resolve the adventure-level dramatic questions, without forcing a particular resolution.

[VonKaiserstein]

You know, if Death House from Curse of Strahd didn't have so many secret door checks required, it would be a great starter adventure. It's compact, it has mysteries, plenty of threat, although less if they pace themselves properly, and an absolutely epic climactic ending.

Plus plenty of opportunities for roleplaying with the choices they make around the house itself, and the children that sent them in.

Arguably too fatal- but that would be my starting point for crafting a beginning adventure.

Now it is far too narrow to be called a campaign, but I think a brand new DM needs 3 or 4 very loosely connected adventures under their belt before they attempt a campaign.

[creakyaccordion]

This is going to sound a little wild, but I really think the best way to get new DMs to learn any edition of D&D is to have them design a starting adventure themselves. It's of course not going to be great, but in the interest of pure learning it's super valuable.

The key reason it works well is you ensure that the DM is running something that they think is interesting. A lot of first time DMs will pick an adventure that seems "easy" to run and hopefully easy for the players to play, and there simply aren't enough published adventures out there for a DM to find something that is interesting to them AND easy to run.

Secondly, you guarantee that the DM can run the adventure like they know it like the back of their hand, since they were literally in charge of creating most or all of its details. Not only does this make play itself smoother since the DM needs to make fewer references, but it also encourages DMs to make more changes on the fly if they need to. A new DM can be scared to change things in a published adventure since they aren't sure how it could affect the structure of the adventure down the line, so often they just simply don't. There's no such ramification with their own adventure!

And tbh having someone help them make the adventure is nice, but it isn't really necessary. As long as you have a table where everyone is familiar with each other, I think a mediocre session or two while a new DM is finding their footing is worth the growth of a new DM, and running first adventures this way helps everyone at the table learn a lot more.

IMO a really easy way to design an adventure when you're a new DM is to work backwards from the boss. Peruse through any of the monster books until you find a monster of appropriate CR that fascinates you, think about what kind of minions it would have, think about where they would live and THEN figure out why the local townsfolk or whoever sends the party on a quest would need them to go there.

[Unoriginal]

What would such a campaign's plot be?

You'd need a series of goals, and antagonists and challenges that make reaching those goals not easy, entertaining and rewarding.

Even more important to decide early on, what would be the starting level of the PCs, and the expected level at the end?

[Bjarkmundur]

You know, if Death House from Curse of Strahd didn't have so many secret door checks required, it would be a great starter adventure. It's compact, it has mysteries, plenty of threat, although less if they pace themselves properly, and an absolutely epic climactic ending.

Plus plenty of opportunities for roleplaying with the choices they make around the house itself, and the children that sent them in.

Arguably too fatal- but that would be my starting point for crafting a beginning adventure.

Now it is far too narrow to be called a campaign, but I think a brand new DM needs 3 or 4 very loosely connected adventures under their belt before they attempt a campaign.

This is the first time hearing this opinion. I'll definitely check it out :)

[Yora]

This is going to sound a little wild, but I really think the best way to get new DMs to learn any edition of D&D is to have them design a starting adventure themselves. It's of course not going to be great, but in the interest of pure learning it's super valuable.
One of the Basics Sets from either 81 or 83 had a starting dungeon that had most of the treasure and monsters noy assigned to specific rooms. I think it also had some guidance on how to place them in ways that make for fun play. It's still highly regarded by players of Oldschool D&D.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One concern I have with a "teaching adventure" is that it will inevitably teach one specific style (because the scaffolding to teach DM'ing must necessarily do so in a particular style). And that, to me, would be a problem.

Some people like the sandboxy style. Others prefer having rails. Some like loose guidelines. Others want strict time-tables. And none of them are wrong, merely different. And what works well for one style doesn't work at all for another style.

[Bjarkmundur]

One concern I have with a "teaching adventure" is that it will inevitably teach one specific style (because the scaffolding to teach DM'ing must necessarily do so in a particular style). And that, to me, would be a problem.

Some people like the sandboxy style. Others prefer having rails. Some like loose guidelines. Others want strict time-tables. And none of them are wrong, merely different. And what works well for one style doesn't work at all for another style.

But a worthy design goal nonetheless.
Just because it's not a perfect idea doesn't mean it isn't a good one.
There's a bunch of things that a module can teach a player directly, but also indirectly. A module that motivates you to learn, and is set up so you learn things ina certain order can also qualify as a "teaching module".

For example, maybe there's a short travel in the middle of the module. The module reads:


There's quite a way from point a to point b, that the adventurers need to travel. Pick one of the following options, based on what intrigues you the most."
Then it sets up some options, that help guide a DM towards" his playstyle "

Running our first module we were incentivised to figure a bunch of things out on our own. Don't avoid that, encourage it.

A teaching module is never gonna be a" pick up and play" module. Those are two different design goals altogether.

[Democratus]

If you're wanting someone to learn any edition, the best bet is the Black Box (released in 1991).

It comes with 'choose your own adventure' style cards that the DM reads through. As the cards progress, it introduces more and more rules until by the end you are playing the full game of D&D.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But a worthy design goal nonetheless.
Just because it's not a perfect idea doesn't mean it isn't a good one.
There's a bunch of things that a module can teach a player directly, but also indirectly. A module that motivates you to learn, and is set up so you learn things ina certain order can also qualify as a "teaching module".

For example, maybe there's a short travel in the middle of the module. The module reads:

Then it sets up some options, that help guide a DM towards" his playstyle "

Running our first module we were incentivised to figure a bunch of things out on our own. Don't avoid that, encourage it.

A teaching module is never gonna be a" pick up and play" module. Those are two different design goals altogether.

I run a tutorial module for players as one of my stock openings (since I play in a school club setting with new players most of the time). One of the big purposes of it is to acquaint them with how I run things. A second is for me to get a sense of the types of things this group is likely to pull.

Teaching a DM, on the other hand, is harder. Having had many prior players who have gone on to DM themselves, the only thing that really works is by having them get experience as a player and noting the things they want to do/not do. And then having someone run through an intentional teaching session--running a game where the experienced DM explains not only what do to, but walks through their thought process while doing so. "I'm assigning a DC of X, because P,D, and Q. Normally I'd ..., but in this case we'll do ... because ...".

You can write that into a module, but the scope has to be very very narrow (because the module can't personalize the explanation). So you end up running a tightly-railed scenario (or at best a few-branch linear one) by necessity. Still has value, but I'm not sure how much extra value over just diving in and making mistakes.

Or at least so I see it.

[DMThac0]

You can write that into a module, but the scope has to be very very narrow (because the module can't personalize the explanation). So you end up running a tightly-railed scenario (or at best a few-branch linear one) by necessity. Still has value, but I'm not sure how much extra value over just diving in and making mistakes.

Or at least so I see it.

I understand your stance and I'll refute it with a simple thought: not everyone learns best by doing.

I'm a hands on guy, I picked up the original blue box at the age of 8 and started DMing, homebrew, without a single clue of what I was doing. 32 years later I'm still DMing and I've made, and make, every mistake that can be made.

My wife started DMing, she chose to do a module since she wanted something she could study and reference as she was DMing. She's the type who learns best by reading and then applying what she's read.

Then you have one of my friends who played for close to 6 years before getting the itch to DM. He learned everything by being a player under different DMs. I can see influences of 3 of my DM friends in his style, he learned best by listening and applying.

---

I think it would be a great tool for certain aspiring DMs, and it would be a flop for others. However, it's a tool, and the more tools we have as DMs, the better.

[VonKaiserstein]

Lots of great ideas already! One of the best things about the teaching modules are the commentary for the DM, which Phandelver has. Knowing what thoughts went into crafting the adventure is hugely beneficial for a developing DM.

Now historically, the best module I've seen for it was Hackmaster's Temple of Existential Evil because of the detail it provided for the starting dungeons and town (flavor text for every room, loot and inhabitants for every house, motivations and reasons each monster was there) followed by a gradual release. I couldn't figure out at the time why the tavern in Tharp had every single inhabitant detailed, and by the time they got to Nulb it just suggested there might be some traders, a hireling, and an agent of the Temple. Looking back, it was training a DM to develop a campaign based off of player actions, and villain motives. The later levels of the dungeon weren't even mapped, just given a theme.

Something like that would be ideal for a first campaign intended to train a brand new DM.

Phandelver keeps the DM's hand firmly held, and may not teach the essentials of worldbuilding or dungeon crafting by the end.

[DMThac0]

Lots of great ideas already! One of the best things about the teaching modules are the commentary for the DM, which Phandelver has. Knowing what thoughts went into crafting the adventure is hugely beneficial for a developing DM.

Now historically, the best module I've seen for it was Hackmaster's Temple of Existential Evil because of the detail it provided for the starting dungeons and town (flavor text for every room, loot and inhabitants for every house, motivations and reasons each monster was there) followed by a gradual release. I couldn't figure out at the time why the tavern in Tharp had every single inhabitant detailed, and by the time they got to Nulb it just suggested there might be some traders, a hireling, and an agent of the Temple. Looking back, it was training a DM to develop a campaign based off of player actions, and villain motives. The later levels of the dungeon weren't even mapped, just given a theme.

Something like that would be ideal for a first campaign intended to train a brand new DM.

Phandelver keeps the DM's hand firmly held, and may not teach the essentials of worldbuilding or dungeon crafting by the end.

With that being said, and the suggestion that the training material be released as piecemeal modules. Could the modules be tiered as a form of Novice, Intermediate, Advanced so as to give more control back to the DM? It could even go so far as to match suggested player level too:

Novice module (ND-1 through 5) Suggested player level 1-3/3-5
Intermediate module (ID-1 through 5) Suggested player level 6-9/9-11
Advanced module (AD-1 through 5) Suggested player level 12+

[Imbalance]

*takes notes*

[VonKaiserstein]

With that being said, and the suggestion that the training material be released as piecemeal modules. Could the modules be tiered as a form of Novice, Intermediate, Advanced so as to give more control back to the DM? It could even go so far as to match suggested player level too:

Novice module (ND-1 through 5) Suggested player level 1-3/3-5
Intermediate module (ID-1 through 5) Suggested player level 6-9/9-11
Advanced module (AD-1 through 5) Suggested player level 12+

That is an excellent idea! I think rating the modules by levels is perfect- though I wouldn't give them titles. Gamers are very proud, and will skip ahead to the hardest setting.
I'd love to see the designers notes as an article in Unearthed Arcana, or included as an appendix or downloaded supplement. 5e seems to be very focused on its accessibility, so these inherently difficult tutorials should be probably be kept behind the scenes.

[MaxWilson]

With that being said, and the suggestion that the training material be released as piecemeal modules. Could the modules be tiered as a form of Novice, Intermediate, Advanced so as to give more control back to the DM? It could even go so far as to match suggested player level too:

Novice module (ND-1 through 5) Suggested player level 1-3/3-5
Intermediate module (ID-1 through 5) Suggested player level 6-9/9-11
Advanced module (AD-1 through 5) Suggested player level 12+

Why would you tie the DM skill level to PC level? Is there really anything stopping a novice DM from running an adventure for 8th level PCs? Sure, the PCs have more options and are more complex so the players need a tiny bit more experience, but on the DM side increases in complexity result more from changes to game structure. Something like:

Novice DM: static dungeon crawl or linear adventure.

Intermediate DM: dungeon crawl with active opponents (i.e. passage of time matters) or node-based urban mystery (each scene gives you clues which can take you to other scenes which eventually lead to a confrontation)

Advanced DM: social intrigue, multiple interlocking timelines of events (leadup to a neogi space invasion AND plague outbreak AND rare opportunity to recover a powerful magic item), and adventures that support/encourage splitting the party.

[DMThac0]

Why would you tie the DM skill level to PC level? Is there really anything stopping a novice DM from running an adventure for 8th level PCs? Sure, the PCs have more options and are more complex so the players need a tiny bit more experience, but on the DM side increases in complexity result more from changes to game structure. Something like:

Novice DM: static dungeon crawl or linear adventure.

Intermediate DM: dungeon crawl with active opponents (i.e. passage of time matters) or node-based urban mystery (each scene gives you clues which can take you to other scenes which eventually lead to a confrontation)

Advanced DM: social intrigue, multiple interlocking timelines of events (leadup to a neogi space invasion AND plague outbreak AND rare opportunity to recover a powerful magic item), and adventures that support/encourage splitting the party.

I suppose a novice DM package could include modules that ranged all the way up to a 15-20 level adventure. I just feel that there is too much going on for a novice DM at that high of a level, without understanding the class features, the actions and reactions of legendary creatures, and the complex fights that would normally occur. It would be a very thick module, as a 20th level adventure, trying to give the novice DM enough information to try to handle all those complexities. Capping it at a particular level, say Tier 2 (5-10) would be a bit more manageable. lt could allow for a few months of game play and some good variety of modules if you included 3 adventures per tier, which is easily 3-9 variations. Especially if you made each of those variant modules under the headings you just used for the DM tier (static/liner, dungeon crawl/node-based, Mystery/complex).

[BurgerBeast]

DM skill should be tied to PC level because of complexity. It is my opinion that making levels 1 and 2 into “quick” levels is a disservice to beginning DMs.

I’m currently going through all of the D&D modules from basic through AD&D, and it’s interesting that the conclusions of this thread are essentially to go back to the original design.

BECMI was literally Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortal.

The adventures were “modules” and the B series (such as B2 - Keep on the Borderlands) was Basic, X series (such as X1 - The Isle
of Dread) was eXpert, etc.

Someone mentioned an old adventure that guided DMs in the design process - this is B1- In Search if of the Unknown.

Also, the modules could be interchanged as desired, but there were suggested lines, such as G-D-Q, which was Against the Giants (G1-3), Vault of the Drow (D1-3), and Queen of the Demonweb Pits (Q1).

[Yora]

Lots of great ideas already! One of the best things about the teaching modules are the commentary for the DM, which Phandelver has. Knowing what thoughts went into crafting the adventure is hugely beneficial for a developing DM.

The adventure telling the GM how it's meant to work. What a radical new idea. :smallbiggrin:

This should be standard.

[BurgerBeast]

I’ve been putting some real thought into this for a few years. I used to be a part of a group that used rotating DMs, and so we would pass our notes along to the other DMs. One of the other DMs really liked the way I organized and presented my session notes and suggested that I write something up for DMs Guild.

Procrastination blah blah blah... I haven’t done it.

However, to my mind, it would go something like this: the adventure would have a flow chart of scenes presented up-front, with minimal description - but that description would relate to how to run it and nothing more or less.

The scene design would be an exercise in minimalism. Each scene would have 2-3 “buttons or knobs.”

This would form the basic adventure structure, and would require very little (1-2 pages) to present. Then, every button or knob would have a collapsible side-bar of an additional 2-3 buttons or knobs, and potentially one more level of collapsibility.

The idea here is that additional information is not relevant to the critical path, and is only useable by those parties who decide to make use of it.

You could imagine the whole adventure as a hyperlinked document, with each hyperlink potentially containing two more nested boxes of two-three links. As a written document, it would be accomplished by spreading the critical path of the adventure very thin across multiple pages. The collapsible information would be arranged around the main text in exploded boxes, to be used only as needed.

The rest of the design decisions would be around how to provide the necessary game information to the GM so that it’s ready at hand.

- - -

Another thing that could work well in the particular case of location based adventures is to provide an empty site map, keyed, and then to provide, separately, a monster roster which gives the monsters in groups along with their general habits. This roster could be “keyed” as well.

I was getting into the idea of building the Exploration component of an adventure first, with an XP budget of 1/3 of the adventure; and then layering an Interaction component on top of this worth 1/3 of the adventure; and then layering the combat components on top of this, worth 1/3 of the budget.

[Yora]

I really like the idea of having the core framework, which might be a critical path depending on what the adventure is meant to be, spelled out in the most basic terms at the start of the first pages. The things the GM needs to stick to for the other things to still make sense and work. Everything else can be more like suggestions how the NPCs can be played, depending on the GMs taste and what feels appropriate at the moment.
Basically identify which parts of the adventure as presented are the hard parts that define the overall structure, and which ones are the flexible parts that can easily be changed without interfering with the main structure.

[Unoriginal]

So, what monsters would be a good learning tool?

The Bandit NPC or Guard statblocks could be good for this, since they're pretty straightforward, and then it could follow with goblins.

[BurgerBeast]

So, what monsters would be a good learning tool?

The Bandit NPC or Guard statblocks could be good for this, since they're pretty straightforward, and then it could follow with goblins.

If you’re interested in choosing simple-to-run monsters (I’m not sure you need to be), then anything with additional traits or actions is relatively problematic. So goblins having the bonus action is more complex, in this sense, than other choices.

I personally wouldn’t worry too much about this, and would think that most CR 1/8 and CR 1/4 monsters are fine (including goblins).

[Yora]

Simple to run is good. But I think one of the big failings of a very great number of D&D adventures is that they make the lower levels too mundane and somewhat bland. I think you really should pull out the fantastic weirdness right from the start.

To make it easy on new GMs, I think the key is to use encounters in which you only have to make yourself familiar with one new ability at a time. The rust monster is actually a really good candidate for this. It's really not that complicated, but far more interesting than bandits and giant rats. Or maybe take fire beetles. They don't do anything, they just look interesting when first encountered.

I feel like most adventures are playing it too safe when it comes to making the game world fantastic. Of course, there is a place for magical rennesaince fair campaigns and they have their fans. But I think there should also be much more fantastical stuff out there. (Though judging the WotC 5th edition adventures by their covers, they don't appear to have any issues with that.)

[Unoriginal]

If you’re interested in choosing simple-to-run monsters (I’m not sure you need to be), then anything with additional traits or actions is relatively problematic. So goblins having the bonus action is more complex, in this sense, than other choices.

Which is why I'm suggesting to use them after the mooks who don't have those.

Increase the monsters' complexity gradually in a way.

Though of course, you're right that it's probably not necessary.

Still, a bandit or pirate attack can make for an awesome introduction. Especially if it's followed by a more atypical boss.

[Bjarkmundur]

I was Actuslly picturing a small story arc with about half of the written content being within the arch and half outside of it.

Things like fey crossings, "skill challenges", random encounters, travelling merchant, ambush in the forest, trading cart that fell over, social encounters with various tribes and races.

I don't think a module is the medium for teaching a DM how to write a story arch, but a very good thing for teaching "life is what happens when you're busy making plans".

I can write a story.

Boy meets girl
Girls gets kidnapped
Boy rescues girl.

It's the things that make the world feel alive that needs to be tought, and they aren't necessarily a part of some grand scheme, it's just people living their lives, and your path bumping into theirs.

... Oh yeah, and flavour text. Lots and lots of flavour text. Finding your voice as a DM can be tricky at first.

P. S. Hyperlinks are tight

[Laserlight]

I'd like each room /zone's description to be organized with the high priority stuff up front. No more "This room is 36 x 42, lit by five torches, with tapestries depicting blah blah blah, and the floor tiles form a mosaic with symbols of blah, and in the corner is a statue nearly seven feet high, crafted of blah blah, oh, and after four hundred words of describing the filigree and the furniture, we'll get around to mentioning that there are four ogres, roll initiative."

I'd much rather have
At first glance: Four armored ogres in a 30x40 room with lots of furniture and decoration.
Spend an action to look: You see stuff
A minute to search: You see more more detailed stuff.

[Yora]

I was just thinking about creating content for the start of my next campaign and how I can avoid using the generic rats and bandits stuff. Coming up with something new from nothing is very difficult, and having just looked into a thread discussing the interesting uses of certain spells, I decided to first take stock of what stuff I have to work with just from the PHB and MM.

But I think this actually really fits into the discussion we had here so far.

What 1st level class features, cantrips and 1st level spells, and monsters up to CR 1 have great potential for creating greater variety and introducing players and gamemasters to other aspects of the game than straightforward combat?

Of course, you can't make an adventure depending on the players having specific spells or class abilities at hand. But you can always introduce their potential to the players through the hands of NPCs.

Aaracockra: Can fly and use ranged attacks.
Animated Armor and Flying Sword: Great way to introduce hidden monsters.
Blights: First plant monsters for new players. Weak Stealth users and vine blight has constricting attacks and an environmental attack.
Bulywug: Amphibious, camouflage, and leaping alllow it to make great use of water and ledges.
Cockatrice: Petrification that lasts only 24 hours.
Crawling Claw: No abilities, but nice way to surprise players.
Darkmantle: Hides and uses darkness.
Imp and Quasit: Invisibility and shape change, fun introduction to demons and devils.
Dryad and Fairy Dragon: Lots of potential as a friendly magical creature.
Flumph: Because flumph.
Shrieker: Great for comining with other creatures in a nearby room.
Violet Fungus: Opportunity to introduce the creepiness of necrotic damage.
Grimlock: Does not rely on sight, which encourages creative use of objects in the environment.
Jackalwere: Low level shapechanger.
Kenku: With good Stealth and ability to immitate sound you can lure the party around the dungeon.
Magmin; Small elemental that deals small damage when being killed.
Mephits: So many abilities.
Gray Ooze and Rust Monster: Damages metal weapons and armor while moving very slow.
Shadow: Creepy and Strength damage until next rest.
Stirge: Grabs onto the target and leaves after dealing 10 damage.
Thri-kreen: It's an insect man.
Fire Beetle: Can be harvested for a non-burning light.

Not the greatest of lists, but it beats rats and zombies.

[MrStabby]

Really interested in this thread. I started DMing about 4 years ago with no experience and almost no non computer D&D experience in the group (even after 4years the campaign is still going strong).

I have never seen a published adventure or what in for goes in there. I am curious as to what I am missing. Very interested to see the other styles out there.

Personal view is that I don't see massive benefit in starting small for the sake of small. Start at a scale appropriate to commitment.

With that in mind, I think a good adventure should be one where you can rescale it as needed. Now... how to write that into a campaign is harder.

[2D8HP]

One of the Basics Sets from either 81 or 83 had a starting dungeon that had most of the treasure and monsters noy assigned to specific rooms. I think it also had some guidance on how to place them in ways that make for fun play. It's still highly regarded by players of Oldschool D&D.



"...Someone mentioned an old adventure that guided DMs in the design process - this is B1- In Search if of the Unknown...."


Yes it was (I had it in my "Basic Rules" box when Carter was still President, it taught me the game) and there's an updated to 5e version of it called Into the Borderlands (http://goodman-games.com/store/product/original-adventures-reincarnated-1-into-the-borderlands/) which incorporates B1 In Search of the Unknown (the first module I every ran) with B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and a short linking adventure, and from the same publisher there's also The Isle of Dread (http://goodman-games.com/blog/2018/08/24/the-isle-of-dread-chris-doyle-interview/), which is a "Hex crawl" rather than a "Dungeon crawl".

There's also a fun video of folks
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XNadAu7vM9o


"...a bandit or pirate attack can make for an awesome introduction. Especially if it's followed by a more atypical boss"


I think that just doing The Seven Samurai would be AWESOME!!! (Maybe make the bandits Hobgoblin).


I was just thinking about creating content for the start of my next campaign and how I can avoid using the generic rats and bandits stuff

["....."]

Not the greatest of lists, but it beats rats and zombies.


Giant spiders and skeletons worked in '79, should still work 40 years later.

And FWLIW I thought that the "Bear Hunt" introductory adventure
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VACoyvdUdJwnw_luqmcG-F-RA9NsP_f-/view?usp=sharing worked well to teach it's system, and I think something like that could work for 5e D&D.

[JNAProductions]

So what are the things we've learned from this thread?

[MaxWilson]

I was just thinking about creating content for the start of my next campaign and how I can avoid using the generic rats and bandits stuff. Coming up with something new from nothing is very difficult, and having just looked into a thread discussing the interesting uses of certain spells, I decided to first take stock of what stuff I have to work with just from the PHB and MM.

But I think this actually really fits into the discussion we had here so far.

What 1st level class features, cantrips and 1st level spells, and monsters up to CR 1 have great potential for creating greater variety and introducing players and gamemasters to other aspects of the game than straightforward combat?

*snip*

Not the greatest of lists, but it beats rats and zombies.

These constraints look redundant to me. If you're already planning on making non-combat interactions an important mode of play, it's not important to restrict yourself to CR 1. In some ways, the bigger you go the better, and the more obvious it will be that you're not "supposed" to just fight the thing.

If 1st level PCs meet a Dire Wolf that's treed a funny little man in a red hat, they might assume that this is a combat challenge and they're "supposed" to kill the wolf. If they meet a Tyrannosaurus Rex who's treed a funny little man in a red hat, they should probably realize that they're not required to kill the T-Rex, and that feeding it a horse instead is perfectly acceptable, and so is tricking it into chasing one of the PCs (maybe the Expeditious Retreat Wizard) who will then hide in a cave that's too small for it, or using Silent Image to create a decoy. It's not that you can't kill a T-Rex at first level, but it's so out of your normal league that players are IME more likely to clue in to alternative approaches, and that sets the tone for a thinking-outside-the-box campaign.

I therefore suggest the following non-combat-centric interactive features for an intro adventure:


T-Rex that's too big to fit into the labyrinth but lurks around the exit
T-Rex that just wants food (will attack and eat the largest creature it sees, each time you meet it)
Mind flayer seeking a steady supplier of brains, prepared to pay 100 gp/week for 2 brains/week
Large tribe of orcs and orogs who demand tribute to cross their bridges. Members of the tribe are exempt from tribute demands, and if you win an arm-wrestling contest with the biggest orog you can be adopted into the tribe.
Green Hag who appears when the situation is most dire, offering information in exchange for a favor to be named later (adventure seed: favor will probably be ethically shady but not overtly murderous, e.g. stealing three hairs from a powerful wizard's comb, or pouring a vial of liquid into a unicorn's drinking hole).
Redcap treed by T-Rex, owes you a favor if you can save its life and get it safely out of the tree.