I'm thinking of starting a new campaign with the same players. The first campaign I ran was 5E, which would not have been my choice but I like my group, and had wanted to try running it. I had great success with The Fall of Whitecliff and then ran a mash up of The Night Below and Storm King's Thunder which weren't bad but not nearly as fun.
Sick of running 5E, my players have indulged me in Campaign #2 by running Into the Odd/Electric Bastionland. It was a breeze to run, but the lack of classes and progression didn't thrill my players. I switched to The Black Hack, as it seemed it would fix those issues while maintaining some simplicity and ItO's core roll-under mechanic. I'm waiting for feedback from my players on both system and campaign...we had fun with Tomb of The Iron God, Fever Swamp and most recently Kidnap the Archpriest. So Bryce's list has been super helpful in picking out this module (also thanks to Melan for recomending Huberic of Haghill which gave us some town adventures for a bit). But in my own estimation, the campaign has suffered from lack of direction beyond the PC's paying off their debt.
I would like to run an old school or OSR type campaign with a system they're happy with. I think Five Torches Deep might fit the bill - it's compatible with 5E so my players should be comfortable with it, but it looks much simpler to run, with gold for XP, non-superhero PC's, resource management and generally deadlier play closer to the old school ideal I haven't yet been able to reach with this group.
Campaign wise, I'd like a 5E compatible sandbox with factions and at least one megadungeon. Five Torches Deep goes to 9th level, so I'd like the possiblity of going that long without the obligation to do so or a dungeon that goes past that since there's no real rules beyond that. I'd it to be low maintenance from a DM standpoint.
With that in mind, I've been looking at the following: Into the Unknown (Goodman Games combo of In Search of the Unknown and Keep on the Borderlands), Barrowmaze 5E, The Forbidden Caverns of Archaia 5E, Rappun Athuk 5E, Tegel Manor and Stonehell. I'm open to other suggestions, but I'd love thoughts on which might fit what I'm looking for.
Here are my own thoughts so far:
Into the Unknown
Pros: 5E compatible, Keep on the Borderlands is a classic.
Cons: Not very interested in In Search of the Unknown. Not sure if there's enough for a campaign by itself with Keep (I've never been able to find out how many sessions it would take with 4 1st level characters).
Barrowmaze:
Pros: 5E compatible, very well reviewed by Bryce, good feedback from actual play reports here and elsewhere, larger sandbox than Into the Unknown, possible linkage with Forbidden Caverns of Archaia
Cons: I feel almost all the monsters being undead are going to get really, really tiresome after more than a few sessions. We played Tomb of the Iron God in the past year and while it was good, I can't see an entire campaign based around it.
Forbidden Caverns of Archaia:
Pros: 5E compatible, Big sandbox, lots of factions. Seems like a bigger Keep on the Borderlands, more variety of monsters than Barrowmaze
Cons: Bryce's review was less than glowing, haven't seen other reviews/actual play
Stonehell:
Pros: Seems easy to run - love the way it's laid out. Well reviewed by Bryce and generally well regarded.
Cons: Not 5E compatible, no town. Those may seem easily fixable but converting to 5E can be a pain, and I don't want to build a town from scratch.
Rappun Athuk:
Pros: 5E compatible. Bryce calls it the platonic ideal of a megadungeon.
Cons: Seems like it might be unwieldy. I don't know how deep the players will be able to get if they max out at level 9 (I'd like them to have at least the opportunity for a sense of resolution).
Tegel Manor 5E:
Pros: 5E compatible, heard great things about the original.
Cons: Haven't heard anything about Frog Gods 5E conversion. They warn about not approaching it until level 3 at least, and I want to start the players at level 1
If you put a gun to my head now (please don't)...I'd probably choose Keep on the Borderlands and maybe have Archaia
Sorry for such a long pre-amble...this has been helfpul just to get my own thoughts down. But given what I'm looking for, I'm hoping that those of you that have played any of the above have advice on which of the above would make the best sandbox experience for a 05R/Five Torches Deep campaign. I'm also open to suggestions not on the list. Thanks in advance - Mark
Sick of running 5E, my players have indulged me in Campaign #2 by running Into the Odd/Electric Bastionland. It was a breeze to run, but the lack of classes and progression didn't thrill my players. I switched to The Black Hack, as it seemed it would fix those issues while maintaining some simplicity and ItO's core roll-under mechanic. I'm waiting for feedback from my players on both system and campaign...we had fun with Tomb of The Iron God, Fever Swamp and most recently Kidnap the Archpriest. So Bryce's list has been super helpful in picking out this module (also thanks to Melan for recomending Huberic of Haghill which gave us some town adventures for a bit). But in my own estimation, the campaign has suffered from lack of direction beyond the PC's paying off their debt.
I would like to run an old school or OSR type campaign with a system they're happy with. I think Five Torches Deep might fit the bill - it's compatible with 5E so my players should be comfortable with it, but it looks much simpler to run, with gold for XP, non-superhero PC's, resource management and generally deadlier play closer to the old school ideal I haven't yet been able to reach with this group.
Campaign wise, I'd like a 5E compatible sandbox with factions and at least one megadungeon. Five Torches Deep goes to 9th level, so I'd like the possiblity of going that long without the obligation to do so or a dungeon that goes past that since there's no real rules beyond that. I'd it to be low maintenance from a DM standpoint.
With that in mind, I've been looking at the following: Into the Unknown (Goodman Games combo of In Search of the Unknown and Keep on the Borderlands), Barrowmaze 5E, The Forbidden Caverns of Archaia 5E, Rappun Athuk 5E, Tegel Manor and Stonehell. I'm open to other suggestions, but I'd love thoughts on which might fit what I'm looking for.
Here are my own thoughts so far:
Into the Unknown
Pros: 5E compatible, Keep on the Borderlands is a classic.
Cons: Not very interested in In Search of the Unknown. Not sure if there's enough for a campaign by itself with Keep (I've never been able to find out how many sessions it would take with 4 1st level characters).
Barrowmaze:
Pros: 5E compatible, very well reviewed by Bryce, good feedback from actual play reports here and elsewhere, larger sandbox than Into the Unknown, possible linkage with Forbidden Caverns of Archaia
Cons: I feel almost all the monsters being undead are going to get really, really tiresome after more than a few sessions. We played Tomb of the Iron God in the past year and while it was good, I can't see an entire campaign based around it.
Forbidden Caverns of Archaia:
Pros: 5E compatible, Big sandbox, lots of factions. Seems like a bigger Keep on the Borderlands, more variety of monsters than Barrowmaze
Cons: Bryce's review was less than glowing, haven't seen other reviews/actual play
Stonehell:
Pros: Seems easy to run - love the way it's laid out. Well reviewed by Bryce and generally well regarded.
Cons: Not 5E compatible, no town. Those may seem easily fixable but converting to 5E can be a pain, and I don't want to build a town from scratch.
Rappun Athuk:
Pros: 5E compatible. Bryce calls it the platonic ideal of a megadungeon.
Cons: Seems like it might be unwieldy. I don't know how deep the players will be able to get if they max out at level 9 (I'd like them to have at least the opportunity for a sense of resolution).
Tegel Manor 5E:
Pros: 5E compatible, heard great things about the original.
Cons: Haven't heard anything about Frog Gods 5E conversion. They warn about not approaching it until level 3 at least, and I want to start the players at level 1
If you put a gun to my head now (please don't)...I'd probably choose Keep on the Borderlands and maybe have Archaia
Sorry for such a long pre-amble...this has been helfpul just to get my own thoughts down. But given what I'm looking for, I'm hoping that those of you that have played any of the above have advice on which of the above would make the best sandbox experience for a 05R/Five Torches Deep campaign. I'm also open to suggestions not on the list. Thanks in advance - Mark