Lead in to Red Hand of Doom

[Lord Ruby34]

I may have the opportunity to (re)run Red Hand of Doom for 5e. However, I don't have a lot of free time to spend preparing either plot or statblocks. I've already converted Red Hand of Doom once, and know the module well, so I figured I would run that. However, it's looking increasingly likely that the group I might end up DMing for is going to be comprised of players who have never played fifth edition before, and some who have never played a role playing game of any kind before.

This means that I feel like I should probably start them at level one. Less abilities to keep track of at the start is probably for the best. However, I don't know what module to start in, and I need it to lead into Red Hand of Doom with only minimal reskinning.

Does anyone have any suggestions for modules that might fit the bill?

[J-H]

I did a one-shot with 2nd level characters for my new players before starting the actual campaign.

[TyGuy]

https://winghornpress.com/adventures/a-wild-sheep-chase/

A fairly popular one-shot that's setting agnostic.

[J-H]

I ran this for two 5th level characters and a sidekick and almost had a TPK. It was a lot of fun, though.

[Lorka]

I used Lost Mines of Phandelver. Changed some names around so it fit with RHoD and changed the boring Black Spider into a Hobgoblin Shadowmonk, with a cool magic spider mask - it was cursed and turned into a whole arc with the Rogue multiclassing into Warlock after donning the mask. LMoP also give the PCs a deed and a map perfect lead in to RHoD, or maybe it was just me that added that ... also drop most of the LMoP side missions, they are boring unless you spend a lot of time fleshing them out.
I suggest using milestone leveling, this way you can blast thru the first 5 levels doing LMoP. Just keep to the main mission and its a quite fun adventure.

[JackPhoenix]

You may also try adapting Dragon of Icespire Peak from the starter set, if you think your players won't be bored by dragons by the end of the campaign. RHoD notably lacks a white dragon, while having every other type, so that feels like natural addition.