Which Adventure to Start With?

[SapienTLG]

Hello, everyone! First a bit of background on me. I used to play D&D back in the 3.0 days and never played any edition past that. I tried to play again when 4e was out but didn't really care for it that much. Found Basic Fantasy and I'm excited to play with my children that I now have.

My children have never played any tabletop RPG in their life so a lot of time will be spent on the fundamentals at the beginning. Also, I've never been a GM before which is giving me a bit of anxiety (I'll get over it ).

My question is which adventure would be the best to start with? I actually own a copy of Morgansfort (as well as the main Basic Fantasy book and the Field Guide) but I'm curious if the Chaotic Caves would suit us a bit better.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[chiisu81]

I don't think you can go wrong with Morgansfort for a first adventure. Of course, since all of our downloads are free in PDF can't hurt to check out the rest. If you're just wanting a quick one- or two-session adventure, may want to browse through AA1 and/or AA2 as well.

[SmootRK]

Both very good adventures.

That said, if all involved are very green as you say, you might start off everyone with 5000 experience and level them up. This will give slightly more array of abilities, better survival (ie more HP), better fighting (fighters will hit slightly easier), etc. In my opinion this helps new folks learn "the game" easier than the oh-so-rough level one slaughter-fest with clerics without heals, 1-off magic-user spells, thieves that seldom succeed on checks, etc.

Bear in mind, I like that grind with experienced players who ought to know how to play cautious, but it can be a real bummer for less experienced, sometimes to the extent that they declare they don't like the game. Once people have more of clue of playing the game, those dire level one adventures really do build roleplay and connections between players and their characters. Flaws established in those low level. Bias's against those creatures met in the first days of adventure appear... (ie. character hates goblins because he lost comrades fighting them in his very first outing). All good stuff. But, when you don't have a clue... sucks to just die randomly because you didn't quite know what "should have been done".

Of course, just my opinion here... fair amount of play with neophytes helped to form this opinion.

[Hywaywolf]

IMO you should never start new players at a higher level, but I admit you probnably have much more experience with new players than I do. Low hit point characters learn that stupidity is deadly so not all opposition should be met head on. I do think that after you learn the basics, starting new campaigns at higher levels or max hp is better than starting at 3 hp, but that's because must people have already learned the lesson. hard headed players may need more instruction, or move onto a more herculean character style game.

[SapienTLG]

Thank you for the suggestions! Sometimes I forget all of the content for Basic Fantasy is free on the website I'll have to read through the other adventure modules, however, I do think I'm leaning towards Morgansfort either way.

Starting at a higher level is an interesting idea, however, i did have a different approach I was thinking about. Since my kids have experience in video games (of course) I was thinking of a system similar to other games where reaching 0 hit points doesn't equal death truly. They'll be out that fight and need to be healed afterward.

The truth is even before playing the game they all already have ideas of how they want to play storywise. Since their group is made up of different races they want to be brothers and sisters from an orphanage who are traveling looking for adventure. This is a great concept, mainly because they came up with it on their own, but also leads to a basic problem. The old school death and roll another character will ruin their story, and that's something I really don't want to do. I had a GM when I was younger that liked to say no a lot when it came to story choices, and I don't want to be the same.

Prep, prep, prep

[Metroknight]

Sapien, the core rules have you covered in the optional rules section. It is on page 152 (pdf is 156), called Death and Dying.

There is two optional ways to deal with reaching 0hp and not dying. One is Save vs Death and the other is Negative Hit Points. I use the Negative HP rule in my games.

[SapienTLG]

I completely forgot that was there! I've been so busy reading the module...

Well, that's perfect then. Thank you for the assist.

[Metroknight]

No problem. Glad to help.

Going with Morgansfort? I use that as my base setting usually but I always tweak it. Instead of using the standard island ruins, I grab the moathouse map (from temple of elemental evil) and do a quick stocking of monsters in it. I have used it for bandits hangout, a ruin that has a raiding party of orcs lairing in it, or something similar. Sometimes I included a hidden dungeon under the ruins which had undead prowling in it.

[bugleyman]

I've not actually run either, but after a read-through of both, I think I'd go with Morgansfort over Chaotic Caves. I like the home base better.

[Hexamer47]

If you like Morgans fort as a home base, you could always put it in the place of the town in the Chaotic Caves module and BAM! Expanded Basic Fantasy campaign for 1-3, maybe even 4 levels.

I like doing this option and still place the old island fortress on the Chaotic Caves wilderness map, as there is a good size island in the river in that map, where the Old Island Fortress can go. Then you can place the other 2 adventures from the Morgansfort module in that same Wilderness map (or not, your choice) and still use the Chaotic Caves as part of your campaign. (I usually place the caves to the North West corner of the wilderness of the map, but that's just personal preference.

Got this idea from Shane Wards Blog over at 3 Toadstools. http://3toadstools.blogspot.com/2015/12 ... ntasy.html

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