We need some advice picking a new adventure

[Ronin Sama]

Hello everybody! Let me apologize in advance for what will probably be quite a word-ee post. I started playing D&D when I was a young boy back in 1978. Not too long ago, while digging through some old boxes that we had in storage, my 12-year-old son found a small box containing all of my old hand painted miniatures. He was very intrigued and quite curious about them. After explaining what they were and what they were for, to make a long story short, the next thing I knew I was the Dungeon Master for him and two of his buddies. We now have a party of seven adventurers that meet almost every Friday night and they simply cannot get enough! As a dad and one of the “Original Nerds” I can tell you that there is nothing cooler than seeing these boys so into something that has no electronics involved!!! We are just about to finish up the Lost Mine of Phandelver and we are going to need a new adventure. Everyone will be 4th or 5th level by the time we wrap it up.

What do you suggest???
Where should we go?

I have to admit, with all the information that is out there today, I’m a bit lost!

Also, working full time +... the less prep and/or tweaking I would have to do, the better. However, I would rather have to spend some time prepping something cool for them rather than something lame that I wouldn’t have to do anything to.

Any insight or suggestions you all could provide would be invaluable!!! Thanks in advance for your help! :)

[TyGuy]

What do your boys enjoy the most? Combat, dungeon delving, roleplaying with NPC's, exploration, good mix?

The top modules all offer a different focuses and strengths.

Oh, and since they're younger, do your players benefit from something that's more railroaded or can they handle big open sandboxes from what you've seen?

[Kane0]

Storm King's Thunder is notable for going well after Lost Mines, it's first chapter is essentially 'get the PCs to level 5 ASAP' before the real adventure begins and can be omitted with 0 impact to the adventure. Curse of Strahd has Death House for the same effect but is actually quite good by most reports.

I believe Tomb of Annihilation and Princes of the Apocalypse can also be run after LMoP but i'm away from book at the moment.

[Ronin Sama]

What do your boys enjoy the most? Combat, dungeon delving, roleplaying with NPC's, exploration, good mix?

The top modules all offer a different focuses and strengths.

Oh, and since they're younger, do your players benefit from something that's more railroaded or can they handle big open sandboxes from what you've seen?

They do like a good mix, but they are definitely a bit too young for a big open sandbox. They also don't handle NPC's well; I'm hoping more experience will resolve both.

[TyGuy]

They do like a good mix, but they are definitely a bit too young for a big open sandbox. They also don't handle NPC's well; I'm hoping more experience will resolve both.

Ok, a few things stand out to me.

Tales of the Yawning portal is a mish-mash collection of small adventures that can be used as side-quests, filler, or cobbled together to make a campaign with some work. A similar book is the new coastal adventures & settings collection Ghosts of Saltmarsh. But that's brand new, so it's too early to tell how good it is and there won't be much additional guidance online like other modules.

Horde of The Dragon Queen and the follow-up Rise if Tiamat have two major criticisms. One is that it's pretty railroaded, which sounds fine for your table. And the bigger issue is that they're unwieldy and require more prep and organization on your part.

Lastly there's the very straight forward Dungeon of the Mad Mage, the follow-up to Dragon Heist. Now Dragon Heist would probably be a waste for your table because it's mostly social and for levels 1-5. Mad Mage on the other hand, is a couple dozen levels of mega dungeon delving. This honestly sounds like your best option in my opinion. It's linear nature makes it easy for you to organize. And its entrance/exit is in the Yawning portal tavern which means your table can take breaks from the dungeon to goof around in the city and think up ways to spend their treasure.

[DrKerosene]

If you think the younglings would be able to handle running from clearly over-powered enemies, then Curse Of Strahd may be fun. I don’t think any of the content would have been troublesome for me at that age. Also there is a subreddit “Curse Of Strahd Reloaded” which expands a fair bit (if you don’t mind Druidic elements).

If you think the younglings would prefer gathering forces for an epic battle with dragons and armies, and later fight an avatar of Tiamat, then you should be able to find (on the forums here) a 5e port of the Red Hand Of Doom adventure module (using some homebrew and some monsters from Volos or Tome Of Foes).

If you want a shorter adventure that is roleplay focused, the 3.5e adventure “The Standing Stone” only really requires you to pick a half dozen caster statblocks that are close enough, and maybe re-asses the traps in the one dungeon. Using a few ghosts, an earth elemental, some Fey, and one Treant, should cover the rest of the possible encounters.