Which Adventure To Play: January 2017 Edition

In late 2015, I published an article that considered and compared each "official" D&D Fifth Edition adventure released at the time. As my fifth most popular article of all time, and with two new adventures released by Wizards in 2016, this seems like an opportune time to update it. If you're a Dungeon Master trying to decide what adventure to run in the new year, this article is for you!

In this article, I'll walk through each hardcover adventure that Wizards of the Coast has released at the time of this writing (plus Lost Mine of Phandelver, which comes in the introductory Starter Set). I'll discuss the selling points of each one, as well as some pitfalls you might expect while running them.

Why listen to me? While I haven't played through each of these adventures to completion, I've spent a lot of time reading each of them along with internet reviews and actual play reports. In addition, I've been a dungeon master for all but Out of the Abyss, and played a character in the Tyranny of Dragons adventures as well as Out of the Abyss and Storm King's Thunder.

Before we start, I'll point out that these descriptions are, by their nature, likely to spoil the content of the adventures discussed. I’ll try not to be too specific about plot points, but if you want to play through any of these adventures blind, don’t read ahead. In other words, SPOILER ALERT!

Curse of Strahd, Abridged

Strahd is easily in the running for D&D's
most iconic villain.

Several of the Fifth Edition adventures released so far are based on adventures from earlier editions of D&D, and Curse of Strahd is no exception. In 1983, Tracy and Laura Hickman released Ravenloft for the first edition of "Advanced" D&D and the adventure became an instant classic. Ravenloft introduced the iconic villain Strahd von Zarovich - a vampire lord with a tragic background - and his domain, the cursed castle of Ravenloft.

Curse of Strahd is a compelling adventure. It's completely different from the hack-and-slash heroic fantasy of Tyranny of Dragons or the madcap adventure of Out of the Abyss. Instead, players must confront the depressed land of Barovia and a tragic yet irredeemably evil villain. However, the adventure also spans ten levels and likely months of play for a regular group.

As a DM, you might wish to run just the original Ravenloft adventure, getting a taste of the unique horror of Barovia without dedicating an entire campaign to it. The good news is that all the elements you need to run Castle Ravenloft as a one-shot are contained within Curse of Strahd. In this article, I'll walk through the changes you'll need to make in order to run just the "classic" portion of the adventure. Depending on your group's play speed, this might take from six to twelve hours - perfect fodder for a long day or a few sessions of adventuring. In this article I'll be referencing the Curse of Strahd book, as well as map locations on page 35.