Pre-made D&D Campaigns

[Trenloe]

Everything is driven by you, the DM. You're controlling the story and what you share with the players. If you want to share something, you have to share it. There is no auto sharing of information based off player proximity or anything like that.

As you are just starting out with role-playing games in general I would strongly recommend you read the D&D basic rules before the Players Handbook (PHB) or Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG). The basic rules are better laid out and introduce more starting concepts than the PHB or DMG. Plus you'll have less text to read through, etc..

The recommendation for anyone is *don't try to run before you can walk*. Keep it simple and expand as you and your players gain more experience.

• Play using the basic rules - they are free from the Wizards website and so your players can read the player info as well, without any purchases. https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
• Run Lost Mine of Phandelver - this is specifically designed for beginning DMs and has lots of useful tips to get going. Read through the first few sections and thin through how you're going to

***SPOILERS***
Here is a overview of The Lost Mine of Phandelver in Fantasy Grounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrQ3jHv3-so

You can see a play though here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YyGfv-oa1M (Plus the following parts). This should give you an idea of how the players and DM interact and what to show in FG.

[LordEntrails]

...
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?...

Nope, the players can never see red pins. Remember, FG really doesn't know where the players are. Yeah, they might have tokens on the map, but their no no sense of location etc.

If you want the players to be able to see a pin, and the story that is linked, right click and Share the pin. This pin will then turn green on your map so you know they can see it and it will show up on the players map too and they can then click it to open the story entry.

Generally you don't want to them to see the pins or read the entries that go with them. But, I do use it for things like;
- "You are Here" story entry. I may update this story entry with the boxed text / read aloud text from the location they are at.
- On overland maps, I may make party story entries for areas they have visited and pin and share them on the map, such as "Bandit Camp" with some info on what they know. Or "Langer's House" with info like he is their Lord's Alliance contact and a retired adventurer etc.

[Zacchaeus]

The Reference Section in Lost Mines of Phandelver is fully linked at appropriate places to the Basic Rules (or PHB if you have that). It is designed for first time DMs and has a lot of great advice for running the game and walking you and your players through the rules. I would highly recommend that you start with LMoP rather than Strahd.

[JohnD]

Yeah 5e, LMoP is a way better starting point.

[SirGraystone]

LMoP as been created as an introduction to the game and is always a good start.

Another option is to run the Death House, found in Curse of Strahd (I seem to remember it being in one of the Appendix), either as an introduction to CoS, or just to try learning the game before jumping into the larger campaign.

This website have lots of interesting information about Curse of Strahd
https://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.ca/...-curse-of.html

[damned]

@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.

Hi Trenloe you might notice that I advised to read goodly chunks about the story and then...

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

Once the game has started I pretty much always run every thing from the map. I find that way easier than running from the story.

Most adventures (including Curse of Strahd) dont come with a reference manual. In the future these big name ones will more likely also have reference manuals perhaps but most dont.

[HarryPotter]

Hi guys

I'm currently tinkering around in FG and getting to know the program a bit better. We are going to test out the " Death House " in Appendix B to get our feet wet here and level from 1-3. Death house says to start with the "creeping fog" module from chapter 1 to rope the players into the Death house. My question is -- Am I to just start the dialog here? This is where the game begins and I describe to them that they are camping in the forest ( I won't write word for word just because of the potential spoilers ) but ultimately it says to " refer to chapter 2 for Area A " I'm lost here and I think once I understand what they mean by Area A or C etc.. I'll know for every chapter of every game. Is this telling me to use the map of Barovia for this portion? I'm looking for Area A in chapter 2 and I just don't know where to navigate to.

I'm such a bonehead and I know that please forgive me.

[Trenloe]

Have a look on Youtube for some play through sessions - search for "curse of strahd fantasy grounds" and look through how others are playing it.

But, as you are all beginners to RPGs, not just Fantasy Grounds, it's been recommended by a number of experienced people in this thread to try Lost Mine of Phandlever first - this is targeted at making it easier for beginning DMs and players to get started. Get your teeth sharpened playing that first, then move onto Curse of Strahd which is a lot less newbie friendly. The Death House is designed to get beginning characters going, it's not specifically designed for beginning players and DMs - which is what Lost Mine of Phandlever is designed for - and it's a really good mini-campaign too! Find it here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store...?id=WOTC5ELMOP

[HarryPotter]

Lost mine of Phandlever it is. I just relayed this to a couple of our party members and expressed my own concern with moving forward in Strahd and they have agreed to begin in LMoP. Just a quick question -- Will this adventure guide me through navigating scenarios as well so situations like I ran into with Death House in Strahd will be better understood?

[Zacchaeus]

Yes, LMoP has many links. In fact I updated it recently to include even more links to make it even more user friendly. Find the reference manual from the library list and you can read through that just like it was a pdf or a book.