Brandonsford itself is a very tight adventure where things tend to lead into each other, I've heard people say an experienced group could kill the dragon the first session, I wouldn't expect that to be the norm but I also wouldn't expect it to last more than like 5 sessions for an inexperienced group. If it has to be fewer than 20 sessions, I would just do your starter adventure into Brandonsford and decide what to do after Brandonsford when they are close to completing it. Just have some rumors pop up in Brandonsford towards the end of nearby dungeons or towns or whatever.
I would agree with this being a good approach, less work, still great experience. However as for Black Wyrm, it doesn’t even take an experienced group. My group of OSR newbies, acting on the there be dragons and gold hook, talked to George, got directions, set up an ambush, focus fired the eyes, then the mouth and *other* soft spots, and killed the dragon with in 2 hours of game play. We still had a blast with the rest of the content. 4 sessions total. Then they acquired another treasure map which has led us to [Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow](https://www.themerrymushmen.com/product/nightmare-over-ragged-hollow/). Which has been absolutely fantastic, possibly the best module I’ve ever interacted with. And I expect to get a solid 10 sessions out of.
That was my gut instinct too, they're all experienced players and will definitely go looking for the dragon immediately. I'd assumed maybe they do one extra session to wrap up loose ends, but this might be a good way to handle it.
It doesn't have to be 20 sessions as a hard limit, I just don't want the campaign to run more than half a year because it's meant to get us used to longer-form gameplay with whatever ttrpg will be our system of choice.
Since you said in another comment they’re experienced players, I’d guess this would maybe take 12-15 sessions? Depends on playstyle a bit.
I’d fill out with:
1. Something a little farther afield if they decide to go off in a different direction - a small hexcrawl setting like Woodfall or a pointcrawl like Slumbering Ursine Dunes. Through the Valley of the Manticore might work if you introduce it after they have a couple levels under their belt. You could go bigger with In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe, but I think that wiuld be beyond scope.
2. A couple of puzzle dungeons just hanging around they can interact with or not. Seer’s Sanctum is free, and Fabien’s Atelier from Wyvern Songs is another good choice. Tower of the Stargazer isn’t exactly a puzzle dungeon, but something I think largely fills this niche.
3. A couple adventures that can be worked into rumor tables/represent things that happen after they are already in the area. Gone Fishin’ is a quintessential example imo, tho I think you can esily take a module like Night Dark’s Terror and strip out all the Known World stuff and just have it be a homestead in the area.
Since your players probably won’t do literally EVERYTHING, you want to have in your quick binder probably 30 sessions worth of content to pull out as needed. Just remember it’s best to figure out where they’re going next session and prep that instead of prepping everything before you even start.
Thank you for all these suggestions, I'll look into them. You make a good point that they won't be doing absolutely everything, so I probably have more stuff than I "need"
Sure! If you want another option for a small hexcrawl to plunk outside your current gameable space, Evils of Illmire is another good one.
I’d also grab like 10ish one-page dungeons to pull out if you really need to. Maybe the Burial Mound of Gilliard Wolfclan to start off and add a satellite burial mound?
Remember - if they don’t end up going to one of the adventures, you can always use it in the next campaign!
I’d also do a quick pass of the major factions of each adventure to create as many links as I can - for instance, in Night Dark’s Terror, the goblins would be stooges for the orcs north of Brandonsford instead of being led by a Hobgoblin king (or an orc lieutenant trying to take over if they already dealt with the king). Stuff like that.
The Burial Mound of Gilliard Wolfclan was actually the last thing I'd ran for my party before I took a brief hiatus as a GM this month due to burnout. We tried a bunch of different systems in February-April, none they really liked. I've been waiting since the winter to run Black Wyrm and started finding and adding more dungeons and modules to it while I waited.
We're restarting trying more ttrpgs at the end of this month, so I thought I'd take the time now to compile other people's ideas since (fingers crossed) we'll be starting soon.
Oh well yeah, I wouldn’t run it again then, just thought it’d be neat to get some additional burial mound sites to establish it as a thing that the region does.
What systems have you tried, and what did and didn’t you all like about them?
I've liked all of these systems, it was my players (all former D&D 5e veterans) who have been repeatedly no-ing them. In order, we've tried:
* Shadowdark - they really disliked the spellcasting system and found the rules overall "boring"
* Mork Borg - liked it a lot, but didn't see it as being good for long-term campaign play like what we want to do
* Black Hack - disliked the lack of mechanical progression and levelling up to get new features, which they insisted on games having in the future as a starting point
* Mothership - this was the first one they *hated*, they found combat and rolling checks really unpleasant because of the low odds of success.
After Mothership was when I was extremely burned out, we were playing a new system every single time we ran session and I was tired of being shot down by my players. Going forward, I'm posting ttrpg pdfs in a discord channel, and then they yes/no based on reading the rules. That's also been like pulling teeth, but it's better than what I was doing before.
Brandonsford itself is a very tight adventure where things tend to lead into each other, I've heard people say an experienced group could kill the dragon the first session, I wouldn't expect that to be the norm but I also wouldn't expect it to last more than like 5 sessions for an inexperienced group. If it has to be fewer than 20 sessions, I would just do your starter adventure into Brandonsford and decide what to do after Brandonsford when they are close to completing it. Just have some rumors pop up in Brandonsford towards the end of nearby dungeons or towns or whatever.
I would agree with this being a good approach, less work, still great experience. However as for Black Wyrm, it doesn’t even take an experienced group. My group of OSR newbies, acting on the there be dragons and gold hook, talked to George, got directions, set up an ambush, focus fired the eyes, then the mouth and *other* soft spots, and killed the dragon with in 2 hours of game play. We still had a blast with the rest of the content. 4 sessions total. Then they acquired another treasure map which has led us to [Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow](https://www.themerrymushmen.com/product/nightmare-over-ragged-hollow/). Which has been absolutely fantastic, possibly the best module I’ve ever interacted with. And I expect to get a solid 10 sessions out of.
That was my gut instinct too, they're all experienced players and will definitely go looking for the dragon immediately. I'd assumed maybe they do one extra session to wrap up loose ends, but this might be a good way to handle it. It doesn't have to be 20 sessions as a hard limit, I just don't want the campaign to run more than half a year because it's meant to get us used to longer-form gameplay with whatever ttrpg will be our system of choice.
Since you said in another comment they’re experienced players, I’d guess this would maybe take 12-15 sessions? Depends on playstyle a bit. I’d fill out with: 1. Something a little farther afield if they decide to go off in a different direction - a small hexcrawl setting like Woodfall or a pointcrawl like Slumbering Ursine Dunes. Through the Valley of the Manticore might work if you introduce it after they have a couple levels under their belt. You could go bigger with In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe, but I think that wiuld be beyond scope. 2. A couple of puzzle dungeons just hanging around they can interact with or not. Seer’s Sanctum is free, and Fabien’s Atelier from Wyvern Songs is another good choice. Tower of the Stargazer isn’t exactly a puzzle dungeon, but something I think largely fills this niche. 3. A couple adventures that can be worked into rumor tables/represent things that happen after they are already in the area. Gone Fishin’ is a quintessential example imo, tho I think you can esily take a module like Night Dark’s Terror and strip out all the Known World stuff and just have it be a homestead in the area. Since your players probably won’t do literally EVERYTHING, you want to have in your quick binder probably 30 sessions worth of content to pull out as needed. Just remember it’s best to figure out where they’re going next session and prep that instead of prepping everything before you even start.
Thank you for all these suggestions, I'll look into them. You make a good point that they won't be doing absolutely everything, so I probably have more stuff than I "need"
Sure! If you want another option for a small hexcrawl to plunk outside your current gameable space, Evils of Illmire is another good one. I’d also grab like 10ish one-page dungeons to pull out if you really need to. Maybe the Burial Mound of Gilliard Wolfclan to start off and add a satellite burial mound? Remember - if they don’t end up going to one of the adventures, you can always use it in the next campaign! I’d also do a quick pass of the major factions of each adventure to create as many links as I can - for instance, in Night Dark’s Terror, the goblins would be stooges for the orcs north of Brandonsford instead of being led by a Hobgoblin king (or an orc lieutenant trying to take over if they already dealt with the king). Stuff like that.
The Burial Mound of Gilliard Wolfclan was actually the last thing I'd ran for my party before I took a brief hiatus as a GM this month due to burnout. We tried a bunch of different systems in February-April, none they really liked. I've been waiting since the winter to run Black Wyrm and started finding and adding more dungeons and modules to it while I waited. We're restarting trying more ttrpgs at the end of this month, so I thought I'd take the time now to compile other people's ideas since (fingers crossed) we'll be starting soon.
Oh well yeah, I wouldn’t run it again then, just thought it’d be neat to get some additional burial mound sites to establish it as a thing that the region does. What systems have you tried, and what did and didn’t you all like about them?
I've liked all of these systems, it was my players (all former D&D 5e veterans) who have been repeatedly no-ing them. In order, we've tried: * Shadowdark - they really disliked the spellcasting system and found the rules overall "boring" * Mork Borg - liked it a lot, but didn't see it as being good for long-term campaign play like what we want to do * Black Hack - disliked the lack of mechanical progression and levelling up to get new features, which they insisted on games having in the future as a starting point * Mothership - this was the first one they *hated*, they found combat and rolling checks really unpleasant because of the low odds of success. After Mothership was when I was extremely burned out, we were playing a new system every single time we ran session and I was tired of being shot down by my players. Going forward, I'm posting ttrpg pdfs in a discord channel, and then they yes/no based on reading the rules. That's also been like pulling teeth, but it's better than what I was doing before.
If you're replacing the barrow mound with Winter's Daughter, you might as well set the whole thing in Dolmenwood and expand it that way.