What Adventure Should You Play in D&D 5e? | A Tutorial for New or Experienced DM's 

Out of Context DND: "is this the game I killed the kid in? "yep."

Spencer: “I get to marry this guy.” *Boop* Jacob: .... “Sorry.”

Glad I could make time to cameo in your review!

"It's really short, only about ten sessions." ok so if you take my players into account... and if someone brings their switch... carry the 2... Ok, that should only take my group about 45 sessions.

So you're saying that these "tutorial missions" are mostly for the PCs to earn XP...to level 3?

Davvy Chappy just IS the forest at that specific angle

Talks about Decent into Avernus: "this game gets dark, guys" We played it as a one-shot and our party was a skeleton, an awakened monkey, a faerie dragon, and an awakened shrub

"You have to kill a drow wizard guy" Me: don't you disrespect Magic Brian like that

Me: I wish there was a good guide for which module to get. Jacob: I’ve got you fam.

The end was really adorable.

My takeaway from this video: Dragon Heist and Curse of Strahd were worth the investment.

Re: the "The big bad shows up at the beginning and the players are helpless," it can be a storytelling tactic that gives players a sense of the stakes and (for new players) their vulnerable standing in the world. It can drive a lot of investment and curiosity in the story.

The way they fight at the end is adorable

So I guess, Heist to learn how to play, and then Strad to learn how to die horribly. Got it.

i'm running SKT right now but I'm basically ending up pulling stuff from other sources and/or homebrewing everything except the main storyline. but i'm having fun doing it so it's cool.

Would love to see an update to this with Rime of the Frostmaiden, Candlekeep, Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Strixhaven, Call of the Netherdeep, and Radiant Citadel when it comes out!

I love the shock on Spencer's face when Jacob put all the books down at once

Jacob: will you marry me? Spencer: roll a persuasion(charisma) check Jacob: uuuuh Spencer: with advantage ;) Jacob: Ooooo

Do me a favor and just turn each of these books into a video with tips on how you think it should be done, especially for new players.

The other MASSIVE thing that makes Curse of Strahd stand above and beyond the other modules is the sheer amount of polished community ressources available for it, especially on the reddit. Two full guides there expand and tweak every chapter: adding the Fanes, adding Dark Power patrons and boons, overhauling Death House, overhauling the Dinner with Strahd, overhauling the Brides and their involvement in the story, giving better directions for NPC motivations, etc. Plus, the custom OST made by Travis Savoie. No other module boasts that level of extra material and fixes.

That ending was worth the 40 minutes

“It’s really short, you can complete it in about 10 sessions.” uhhhhhhh that’s 10 whole weeks

Jacob, I think the reason Lost Mines starts out the way it does is to begin with a bang, to introduce new players to combat and show them how dangerous it can be. Some don't survive the first encounter, especially if they are surprised

I ran Dragon of Icespire Peak with some friends, and during the mimic/gnome part of the story, the mimic was hiding in a room full of props and storage containers. Each player picked an object to investigate, and one by one, they searched their object. However, the rogue (who went last btw) decided to attack his object. He rolled a crit, and everyone was so surprised (including me) I allowed him to get a sneak attack on it. So rather than talking to the mimic or having an interesting fight with the characters essentially playing prop hunt, the party all rolled high on initiative and killed the mimic before it could attack. 🙃

I didn’t expect Davy Chappy to make a cameo, but hey he did.

Before watching prediction: probably curse of strahd is the best. Edit: yeah obviously

I bought the starter set and the essentials kit to run for my son and his friends. We're Danish, and only the starter set is translated, and it is my first go as DM and dnd in general. When we're done with LMOP I think we're giving TDOIP a go. Now I know more about dnd so I'll have more time to translate the story.

“I run this campaign for my 6th-8th graders.” Perfect wife material right there. May your children have many decades worth of campaigning under their parents’ care; and may those children drag many friends into their own black hole of campaigning.

You guys are engaged!? That's amazing.

Spencer : *"Is this the game that I killed the kid in?"* What is it with red heads that play dnd and killing kids? *cough cough* Marisha Ray *cough cough*

"I feel like when we get to Hell it'll be a little bit better." -Everyone after 2020

I thought the Death House was an incredibly memorable part of the adventure, and I really enjoyed it. our DM started us there at level 3... maybe that's the thing... but we had a ton of fun there. Please, do not skip the death house.

That stare at the end hit home. I can't tell you how many times my wife and I have done that. Usually over who chooses dinner.

I tried to run tomb, but my players just ended up being potion merchants.

would love to see you guys review and play Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden!

The way our DM had us play curse of Straud was simply amazing, it turned into decent into avernus and into ancient Greece, back to curse of straud turning into my character eternally fighting another character who became the new Straud eternally

God bless your marriage. You guys are really cute and I'm super happy that you found each other. I've been watching your channel for a long time and I hope nothing but the best for you two. Stay adventurous and good-aligned. Your best adventure is each other

Just Curse of Strahd castlevania good

IMO Death House is one of the best intro adventures. It really hammers home the bleak atmosphere of the setting, and (most importantly) it sets the expectation that *not every encounter will be conventionally winnable*, which is key for surviving for any length of time in this campaign. Every time I've run death house my players have loved it

I ran decent into avernus as a first time dm, it was a heck of a learning curve, but it was the most fun game I have run so far. But I totally agree, it was only okay till you went to hell, then it jumped to a real fun game. Highly recommend

I think I missed out on a great adventure with Curse of Strahd. Our GM had no roleplaying in it and it was just a huge boss gauntlet of enemies. And the best part of it was the Death House...?

I feel like situations in D&D where there's something happening at the start of the adventure which you can't simply fight through is really good, I feel like the issue is just the DM needs to paint a clear objective in the players mind to express that A: This isn't something to fight, but B: You need to achieve something during the duration of the conflict. Having a situation where a group of death knights leads an undead hoard against the town, and the players go from trying to save Npc's, getting trapped at the walls and breaches and the streets overrun, and need to try and sneak through and escape the city with smaller-scale fights, and skill checks peppered through I feel could be done super well and make a really engaging and memorable experience. Having played Hoard of the dragon queen, I feel like the issue with the opening section is that the threat really doesn't feel all that dire, the dragon is simply a set-piece and doesn't really force action to happen, it might as well just be a Gif in the background of a video game, and the attacking army always felt more like a smaller squad of goons then a real sizeable threat.

Coming in late with this, but Dragon of Icespire has expansion content as well. A trilogy of adventures to take players to level 13 that you can get for free on DnD Beyond with a code from inside the Essentials box, which gives it even more value than just an intro campaign. Worth noting for if people want something with longevity and might be put off by the small book.

Wow, I’m really glad that I found your channel. You guys did a great job with your reviews, and you helped me decide on which module to run (CoS). I am a brand new DM in the middle of LMOP, and I am really looking forward to this new adventure. Thanks for all of your hard work on this.

I honestly thought this kid was a 16 year old high school kid with an eccentric RU-vid hobby. I had no idea he was old enough to get married. Mind blown. Congrats, man.

Jacob about Waterdeep Dragon Heist: " We played and beat this over on Arcane Arcade!" Me: "LIES! You left waterdeep and jumped into Strahd when the player interactions got a bit too complicated!" ...not that I'm salty about it or anything...

Princes of the Apocalypse is good!!! Starts out with mystery and fact-finding and intrigue, and can easily become a guerilla war between four inter-linked themed multi-level dungeons.

Useful information as I haven't played most of the modules. I especially liked your thoughts on what aspects of the modules you found fun or not fun. That's useful to know for DMs who do lots of homebrew, too.

Me: Oh boy I just started running Princes of the Apocalypse, I wonder what Jacob thinks of- Jacob: I have never touched Elemental Evil and never plan to. Its trash. Me: 💔 in all seriousness, I love Dragon Heist so much but my group had no patience for it. They immediately wanted to wander out of the city and do sandbox stuff as soon as I tried to run it. I had to switch to PotA because they were so intent on roaming. So I agree with this list but my group has a totally different taste in adventures, they'd probably love Storm Kings Thunder XD

Just watched VSauce's "What's the scariest thing?" and thought that the 40 min length was a glitch

I know its been a year, but I just wanted to say how your reviews are really informative and helpful. Its nice that you gave your honest opinions and graded them based on your own experience, but made it very clear why you are rating it in that manner and how different groups could have better experiences with the books that you did not like personally but could work for others.

I'm playing Out of the Abyss as my first full- force campaign and there are three PCs and 10 NPCs and we are all trying very hard to make our DM have a conversation with himself and keep all the NPCs alive for as long as possible :) it's a great time so far!

I would've loved to watch the extremely long in-depth version! ❤😊

Just started watching. Calling it: they'll diss Hoard CALLED IT!

31:06 the random islands were really fun, we got to over through a small government, establish democracy, kill a beholder type thing, and find out the island could talk. It was awesome and was my favorite part so far. It's a great addition to the campaign

36:17 Made me die, the way you polish the book with your top and she looks at you like “really..”

I think “Out of the Abyss” would be a good way to bring DND5e and Call of Cthulhu together and make an amazing story, IF the story was revamped

"start baldurs gate in Candlekeep* Oh dear, [laughs in Gorion]

This is an excellent video for getting an idea of how these are played. I wish more people put out videos like this. And I like that you included a player's input as well and described your experiences with each. As someone who purchases and runs these modules a big thumbs UP. I love how you also have each adventure labeled at the bottom of the video. Consider doing reviews for future D&D campaigns.

I've personally ran Death House three times, and each time me and my players have all enjoyed it a lot. It worked really well as a way to pull characters from other planes into Barovia and having Strahd waiting for them at the end to measure up the new arrivals is a great way to introduce him to the party before they arrive in Barovia proper.

The best part of this video is watching Spencer react to Jacob’s antics

Love the idea of bringing Spencer into it so we get the aspect of the player and the DM. Really solid video, yet again :)

Well, my newbie player moment was done by me... first campaign, first character... We had obtained a mythril chest from fighting a plant like boss. We were not sure if it was a mimic, but it was shut tight. Before the dm spoke about a mythril smith that could open the chest, i decided it would be a good idea to guiding bolt the chest open. The dm laughed it off, and let me roll. Nat 20. The dm, surprised, took a deep breath: and described the scene: From your finger, a beam of light emerges from it. It hits the chest, bounces off a tree, and creates a crater in the surface of the moon. The dm then smiled, and said mythril was immune to magic. The entire party, including me, died of laughter...

I'm currently playing through Tyranny of Dragons which to my understanding is Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat rewritten into a single adventure with modifications. The DM is really amazing and incorporating backstories and lots of fun RP. Having tons of fun!

Omg this was perfect timing😍 I needed this video so much right now! I'm a new dm who has to choose a module really quickly. Thank you! 😁

I've run Death House multiple times as a one-shot, and people always loved it.

I´m currently running Out of the Abyss and i gotta say it plays really well. The early on NPC Problem is easy to solve, i didn´t even have to try hard to get rid of them. One of the wererats was killed by the drow in prison, because of a tantrum and they made an example of him (great to terrify your players). The other wererat and the dwarf failed the escape, for different reasons. One out of a desire for revenge, the other made an honorble last stand, to get my players to actually escape (great way to traumatise your players). Oh yeah also a PC died. The infected drow also didn´t survive prison, because of a fight they had and the drow resentment against their traitor. To me the early deaths really came logically and were not scripted. And before sloopludop the hunting party caught up to them and almost completely overwhelmed them. A PC died, the raging Quaggoth-NPC died because they were giving the drow a hard time. The Orc and Buppido were captured. Again all as a consequence of a battle and not my initial intention. Now they are just travelling with the myconid and Jimjar, as the fishperson hermit left them after the darklake. Eventually i figure the drow will dispose of Buppido, once they realise he is a psychopath. But the dwarf and orc (who initally hate each other) will come up later on in the campaign, possibly as friends. The party is about to finish Gracklstugh and i gotta say so far it was great and i can´t wait to see their reaction to Neverlight Grove. Only thing i struggle with is how to keep the travel parts interesting. Played the darklake as it was proposed in the book and it felt a little lackluster. But it seemed important to do it that way, to give them more of a survival experience, which i made my group aware of, before we started the campaign. They knew what they were getting into. Now the journey starts to shift from a gritty survival game, to a dark epic story, as they level up and gear up and are starting to figure things out. cheers ;)

Princes of the Apocalypse is basically "whack a mole". Leave town. Find cult. Kill cult. Return to town. Rinse. Repeat. If the cultists really wanted to win they would unite. Their unwillingness to do so even in the face of defeat is implausible. And thanks for the additional "Out of the Box" plug. I was a blast writing it.

I liked Death House a lot, actually. It gave a lot of memorable moments for my party, and it certainly lived up to the name.

Spencer’s makeup is nice today.

Great roll-up of the 5e adventures. I'm running a hybrid of LMoP and DoIP - stuck a bigger plot over the two, gave different uses/histories for the quest locations, using both dragons, inserted regional politics etc. My kids are enjoying it thus far, and I think I can take a couple of the books you reviewed here and add more to the campaign. Digging your videos - thanks!

I watched this video a while back and got started with Dragon of Icespire Peak with a group of totally new players and they have all really enjoyed it so far. I recently bought Tales from the Yawning Portal and I'm considering dropping plot hooks for White Plume Mountain after they defeat the dragon. Also considering starting a new campaign with other friends starting with Sunless Citadel, and also might pick up Out of the Abyss in case they decide to delve into the Underdark, just as "sandbox" stuff. Thanks for helping my get started as a DM with this video!

“Is this the game I killed that kid in?” My dude, you have made best choice in wife

Congrats on your engagement! It's so great that you can share this hobby with each other.

I just love the last few seconds of Jacob and Spencer messing around with the order of Dragon Heist and Curse of Strahd

fantastic reviews, great team and banter, love your "tropes" comment (I've always called the demon/dragon appearances as "fun park" rides), and returning for the final ranking was of course fun. I'd love to see an update video based on what you played this year ! subscribed in hopes of more great, fun hearted impressions of the game.

I demand to see the longer video! Seriously though, it would be nice to watch videos about your in depth opinions on all of the sets. It probably is a pain to edit longer videos but I personally think that it's best to hear your complete thoughts about most, if not all of the aspects for each set. Keep up the great content!

"This game is dark as hell" you might even say, dark as the Nine Hells

One thing to note about Dragon of the Icespire, make sure the players have magic. Because there is a sections with a wererat ambush. Which is not good if you have non-silver melee classes. That or rule it so that wererats dont have immunity against nonmagic. I mean, my cleric couldve probably spritual weapon-ed her way through(dm said that I would most likely die, but I am fuelled by hubris) but it is not as fun for the other players

This is a really helpful informative video. Going through every single adventure helps new dms like me figure out what I'll wanna do after my first campaign. Thank you.

Personally, I appreciate the ending of this video

Isn’t the lost mines of phandelver what the Adventure Zone started as?

"Yawning Portal's good" I love how optimistic you were and how it tells me this was before you even noticed Tomb of Horrors.

I did run Dragon of Icespire Peak as my first DnD Experience as an DM and it was awesome

LOL, love the ending 😂 Great video overall, great to go though all the adventures and get opinions from someone who has run them - just what I was looking for 👌

Wow! Worth watching ’til the end for that unexpected super cute moment! You guys are adorable

Thank you so much, I wouldn't mind the longer 50 minn version to hear all your thoughts. Very happy I found your video. I am using D&D for my students to practice speaking and listening English as a second language so your input is useful 😊 Ps. Congrats on your engagement she seems great. Similar interests and nice. I am happy for you! 👍👍

Me: Realizes the Lost Mines of Phandelver is the campaign that The Adventure Zone started off with. Me: *surprised pikachu*

While Storm King's Thunder was on the pile, I thought it said Stephen King's Thunder.

This was a lot of fun. Great to get Spencer's input! And super cute at the very end. :)

I learned to play D&D by going through Waterdeep Dragon Heist. I played one home brew campaign. And immediately became a DM and picked up Curse of Strahd as my first time DM’ing :) I did 100hrs of prep for Strahd and we’ve now ran session 0, 1 and 2. No deathhouse! And my players love it. It’s going really well!

That ending! 😂 I'm about to finish SKT. This video was the most helpful resource yet in my research for the next pre-made module I want to run (SKT is the only one I've ran). Thank you!

That was a perfect way to end the video I love it

Wow, I can't believe there was a Davy Chappy cameo.

New to 5e and DMing and I have both the Starter Set and the Essentials Kit for my family to play. The Essentials Kit is much better in my opinion, but it's nice to have the Starter Set as a supplement because they both take place in the same town so you can pick and choose stuff from the Starter Set as extra side quests. I like how the Essentials Kit uses the "job board" quest system, it let's your players feel more like they are in control of what they want to do and where they want to go. You don't have to meet 40 NPCs to get rolling. Experienced DMs will have no problem with this system but if you are a first time DM (like me) be aware that you should do a little prepping beforehand, since you basically have to be prepared to run three different quests at any given time, because you don't know which one your players will choose. The book does a good job of taking you through each quest step by step, so it's still doable without any prep work, but things run much smoother and you can have much better roll playing experiences if you prepare first. My only real problem with the Essentials Kit is I don't like how it just drops in Wererats in the middle of the adventure without giving the players ANYTHING to deal with them leading up to it. If you're DMing with the Essentials Kit you'll want to try to plan ahead for that otherwise there's potentially nothing your players will be able to do to them due to their immunities. Either introduce a couple of magical/silver weapons before that or change the Wererats immunity to resistance instead. But other than that we're really enjoying it so far. If you can only buy one, then definitely go with the Essentials Kit. It's an overall better set that comes with more stuff (it actually gives you a DM screen). You can create your own characters... the Starter Set just gives you a few pre-made character sheets with no names on them. They're fine for new players that might not want to go through the process of character creation, but you also get some pre-made NPC characters in the Essentials Kit so you can always use one of those in the same manner. Likewise, you can take the pre-made character sheets from the Starter Set and turn them into NPCs that your players might come across at some point in their adventure. This way they don't go to waste and you can add in some customized encounters if you want. So getting both is still a good idea, just run the Essentials Kit story as your main "campaign" setting and pull what you want from the Starter Set to make it feel even more of an open world. EDIT: As a side note, if you're looking for a place to go after completing the Dragon of Icespire Peak, the Rise of Tiamat could work well. I'll preface this with saying that I haven't gotten that far yet, I only just got the Rise of Tiamat book yesterday, but looking through it I think they'll go together well. The Essentials Kit plus the Starter Set will give your players plenty of things to do to get them up to level 6 or 7, plus you get to fight a dragon! Rise of Tiamat is intended for levels 7-15 and it does NOT require you to run Hoard of the Dragon Queen first, so you can totally skip that. Rise of Tiamat has an option that lets you come in with a new set of adventurers, and just saying that another set of adventurers completed the events of Hoard of the Dragon Queen but died heroically in the process. They've heard tales of your exploits so they invited you to come aid with the new problems. This works well since having killed a dragon at the end of the Essentials Kit story makes for the perfect hook to that. Rise of Tiamat starts in Waterdeep which isn't far from the smaller town you're based in for the Essentials Kit, also adding to the idea of your players kind of working their way up and building their reputation. And there are still elements you can pull from the Starter Set that will eventually tie in with Rise of Tiamat, like the dragon cultists and one of the Phandalin NPCs being a member of the Zhentarim. Both of those could be subtle plot points that players won't think much of at first, but then can connect the dots once Rise of Tiamat kicks in. With a little extra effort it shouldn't be too difficult to make it all feel very seamless, like it was all part of one big story all along.

my man! Thank you so much for this video. I've been interested in DMing for the first time and want to run a pre-written game, this video was awesome to help me choose!

“Is this the game I killed the kid in?” “Yup” YOU CANT YADA YADA OVER KILLING A KID!!

My dm improved on storm king's thunder by including some of the dungeons from tales of the yawning portal. For the first mission, we went to the sunless citadel, and he worked it in the story.

I really needed this. Thank you so much! And thanks for all of the tips & suggestions. I sort of wish you had delved even more into more details in some of them.

for that you reviewt so much content i dont think it was to short. it was very helpful for me because i am a brandnew gm and i am searching for my fist adventure after the starter set. ty:)