Pre-made D&D Campaigns

[HarryPotter]

Hi guys

I've purchased Curse of Strahd and loaded it up. My party has all connected to my game and begun the character creation ( were flying off the seat of our pants here ). They have been working on that for about 3 hours figuring it out and so far what we have learned is - I've shared the basic D&D 5E rules, Curse of Strahd modules. They were able to drag and drop classes to the character sheet and it seems to pre-fill the character sheet, minus the stat distribution which we have learned the basic stats are 15,14,13,12,10,8 which can be arranged however the player wishes to stat their hero. ( Are we on the right track so far? ) This is among selecting skills, gear etc to start with.

The scary part for me is once they have finished creating the characters they are simply waiting on me to get their journey started -- this is where I'm having a bit of a panic attack. I've navigated to the "Story" tab and I can see all the chapters here and I imagine from here I can post up maps that correspond with the specific area of the campaign we are on?

I'm sending out a plea for help here if anyone knows of some video guides that will be able to help me out with starting the campaign from the Tarokka deck reading to the introduction and where the players start off. We are all fresh to D&D. To me I would imagine I click on the story, chapter one and start from there along with the map for this area.

I can see this being loads of fun once we have it all figured out but as of right now its a large learning curve especially for the DM running the game.

Thanks again !

[JohnD]

Don't let yourself feel crushed by the learning curve. You will work through it, although the FG university in Discord would be helpful to you.

[Zacchaeus]

You can find a walkthrough on character creation here. (Put the stats in first before you add race, background and class in that order).

Before you start running your campaign - read through the module at least twice. Start with the first Story entry (called (Curse of Strahd)) and keep that window open since it is handy index of the contents. Each story entry will have links to maps, encounters, NPCs and parcels. Use the maim map to navigate the story. Use the pins on the map to open the story entries for that particular area.

And - most important - before you jump into your campaign proper have a couple of sessions where you just play around with encounters and other things so that you can work the CT properly and the players get used to rolling attacks and damage and saving throws etc.

You might also be interested in catching some classes at the FG College

[damned]

Hey scarhead the buys above are giving good advice.
Get Character creation in the right order and you will get a better result - even if it means running up your characters again (this time it will take less than 30mins).
Then do have a couple of practice fights so you and they get used to targeting, using attacks and using spells.

As for the adventure... you picked a good one!
It is a big adventure and does require the GM to have a big chunk of knowledge and understanding of the adventure.
I dived right in on CoS and have made a few errors along the way...

I would read the following -
00
01
02
03
17
18
21
And that will take you some time...

Then when you play dont work from the story - work from the maps starting from Map - Barovia and let the pins guide you around.

[Axoid]

Coming in late to the game here, but I wanted to give my 2c.

Curse of Strahd is a fantastic campaign book, probably the best one out there (Storm King's Thunder is in that running as well IMHO). But it's probably not the best way for players and a GM that have never played 5e before to learn how to not only play the game, but play using FG.

My suggestion is to start with something a bit easier, like Lost Mines of Phandelver. This has some similarities to CoS, in that it has some sandbox elements to it (freeform story that let's you explore stuff organically and not as a must follow story path). You can still use the characters you created and once you finish LMoP, you could port everyone into the Mists, maybe in the final fight in the Wave Echo Cave some magical vortex opens and sucks the party through.

You'll learn a lot about both D&D and FG by starting with something easier, and not feel like you are missing out on all the cool stuff Strahd has to offer (or feel overwhelmed with all the story options available).

[damned]

LMoP is a much better starting point!

[HarryPotter]

Thanks again guys I'll take a look into LMoP. I've saved the character creation guide and will forward this to my players.

Also a good bit of info -- I will start with the Map ! I for some reason had it in my mind that I was going to be starting with the story. Its a bit more pressured for me because my group is very anxious to play and I can't blame them I too am quite excited to get into the world of D&D

[Trenloe]

@Harry Potter - if you don't have them already, I'd recommend scanning through the D&D Basic Rules - PDFs available here: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules The mechanics of these rules are in the Basic Rules modules in Fantasy Grounds, but you may find it easier to go through these documents in order to learn about playing and DMing D&D.

Additionally, when you first start with a FG adventure module (well, any module in truth) look for the "Reference Manual" entry for that module in the library. This is usually a nicely formatted layout that mimics the original document and is much easier to read and step through. Then look at the story entries - I wouldn't recommend jumping straight to the map when you're first learning an adventure module.

For example, here's the beginning of the Reference Manual for The Lost Mine of Phandelver:



There are also Reference Manual entries for the Basic Rules modules which have a similar layout to the PDFs linked above.

[LordEntrails]

LMoP will be much easier for you to start with, as players and a DM. It's really good for first time players and DM's as it doesn't railroad the adventure, but has a limited set of things that can happen and leads to follow. Not too many moving parts Do note, that it doesn't mean they can successfully follow any lead, but just make sure to give them outs or ways to know they shouldn't continue on their current path*.

It is also relatively short (shorter) that means you can say to everyone, "Hey, we're going to play this adventure so we can all learn how everything works. Any ruling and houserules are for this campaign only as we all learn, when we do our next campaign we will all know what we are doing and can do things right (or more right!)."

!! LMoP spoilers!!
*example: My son is a first time teen DM running our group through LMoP. Our group retreated from the goblin hideout after getting our butts handed to us due to poor tactics and went into town, still first level. Found out about the thugs terrorizing the town so we decided to waylay some of them between the tavern and their manor house. Because we were so outclassed, he said they were drunk, which gave them the poisoned condition and gave them disadvantage on attacks. Because of that we won, but we also knew because they were able to make two attacks each round and such that they way outclassed us. So, we left the others alone, left town and went back to the goblins (who had since setup new defenses). We were more cautious attacking the goblins this time (and were now second level) and slew them all, but it was still a good hard fight. Now we have to go back to town and see if the thugs are looking for us or what.

[HarryPotter]

@Harry Potter - if you don't have them already, I'd recommend scanning through the D&D Basic Rules - PDFs available here: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules The mechanics of these rules are in the Basic Rules modules in Fantasy Grounds, but you may find it easier to go through these documents in order to learn about playing and DMing D&D.

Additionally, when you first start with a FG adventure module (well, any module in truth) look for the "Reference Manual" entry for that module in the library. This is usually a nicely formatted layout that mimics the original document and is much easier to read and step through. Then look at the story entries - I wouldn't recommend jumping straight to the map when you're first learning an adventure module.

For example, here's the beginning of the Reference Manual for The Lost Mine of Phandelver:

There are also Reference Manual entries for the Basic Rules modules which have a similar layout to the PDFs linked above.

More great advice ! I've got the players handbook here with me today at the office so I'm reading through it to learn some more of the basic D&D rules. I will also be reading through the DM guide. One question I do have regarding the red pins on maps -- I shared a map with the group last night so they could get an idea of how I'm going to be displaying portraits and scenes throughout the campaign.

These maps had red pins for me to see which they confirmed they cannot see and upon clicking one it tells me some dialog along with an encounter. This probably be answered in the DM & player hand books since its a general D&D game play question but do these pins get activated only when the players move near them or perform an action that would expose the pins events?


Thanks again folks I can't wait to get home and open up FG so I can thumb around with the new ideas and get my bearings for the campaign. I can tell D&D mixed with FG is fairly complicated to learn BUT once the learning curve is over we are going to have loads of fun.