22 Toecap’s Puzzle House
Not all adventures have to be grand world-saving affairs. Sometimes, a small mystery in a closed setting can be just as thrilling. Toecap’s Puzzle House is an ‘Escape Room’ style encounter whose small setting and (seemingly) clear goals are good for newer players.
Like any good escape room, the Puzzle House is easy to get into but gets more complex as it unravels, meaning that the more experienced players in mixed groups won’t get bored. There are multiple interlocking puzzles to solve, meaning that the more investigative members of your group get to shine, regardless of their D&D experience. If you like the world that Christopher J Foster has created, then you can delve into the whole trilogy as well.
7 Ghosts Of The Saltmarsh
via Wizards of the Coast
Adventures don’t just occur on land in Dungeons & Dragons, there are plenty of ones that take players out into the ocean, and Ghosts of Saltmarsh is the best intro to the wonderful watery adventures this game has to offer. Ghosts of Saltmarsh includes many classic adventures from the first edition of D&D, adapted for the rules of 5e.
Designed for players at level 1 it will take them all the way to level 12 as they find themselves in Saltmarsh, a seemingly quiet fishing village that will soon become the epicenter of destruction from water-dwelling creatures, undead sailors, cutthroat smugglers, and more. Anyone wanting to experience some of the best nautical adventures of the game Ghosts of Saltmarsh is for you.
13 Candlekeep Mysteries
Candlekeep Mysteries by Clint Clearley
Released by Wizards of the Coast in March of 2021, Candlekeep Mysteries is an official anthology of 17 one-shot adventures for characters ranging from levels 1-16, meaning there are adventures for any kind of characters you might want to play.
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Dungeons & Dragons: The Best Adventures From Candlekeep Mysteries
Candlekeep Mysteries offers a bunch of adventures for intrepid Dungeons & Dragons players, and here we have the best ones.
Importantly, these adventures all take place in and around Candlekeep making it easy to run any of them once you know the setting. And they don’t all focus on combat, so if you have friends who like a mystery but who aren’t so keen on learning the intricacies of high-level D&D combat, this is a great way to introduce them to the game.
10 Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
via Wizards of the Coast
For players who are interested in D&D but not all of the more high-fantasy and horror aspects of it, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is one of the best introduction adventures you can hope for. Set in urban cityscape, players will find themselves having to use their smarts, cunning, and charm to investigate some of the most prominent figures in the city of Waterdeep, without alerting law enforcers.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is intended for levels 1-5 and is a richly detailed adventure filled with the culture and history of Waterdeep and four antagonists to choose from. The choice of the villain determines the season, meaning you get more than one unique playthrough of this adventure.
24 Truly, Madly, Deeply — Module 1
Patrick Higingbotham’s Truly, Madly, Deeply is not just a great starter adventure, this module is specifically designed to teach both players and DMs the specific fighting mechanics of D&D 5th Edition. Players don’t have to have their characters sheets completely finished, and the encounters can be adjusted to accommodate the players’ levels, but the module is intended for levels 4 and lower.
Though it’s billed as a way to get kids into the D&D 5e, this is a great intro game for anyone who’s new to the game, or even new to tabletop RPGs. If your group of newbies isn’t satisfied with premade characters or just filling out a sheet, Module 0 allows players to roleplay the character creation process.
20 Death House
Via: Wizards of the Coast
Death House is a great introductory adventure for any DM wanting to run Curse of Strahd. It’s a short and creepy adventure that will set the mood for players’ adventures in Ravenloft. As players first enter the village of Barovia they’ll encounter the siblings Rose and Thorn who ask them to get rid of a «monster» that is trapped in the basement of their house.
If the players agree to help, they soon find themselves with little choice but to brave the horrors of the house and discover its grizzly history. Just make sure no one is too attached to the characters they take in, as few ever make it out of this house alive.
12 The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse
The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse is available from the Dungeon Masters Guild and offers an adventure that is around six hours long, maybe a little longer for the less experienced dungeon master. But despite being unofficial, this adventure is incredibly well-designed and clearly laid out making it easy for anyone to run.
It even comes with maps you can use online or print out to help you set the scene as your players encounter Eelfolk and negotiate with pirates. Kelsey Dionne, the author of this adventure, also released a follow-up: The Corruption of Skyhorn Lighthouse, which is designed for players level eight onwards.
11 Tales From the Yawning Portal: The Sunless Citadel
via Wizards of the Coast
Tales from the Yawning Portal
Tales From The Yawning Portal is a collection of some of the most popular and compelling adventures in Dungeons & Dragons history. While it includes the TPK (Total Party Kill) adventure Tomb of Horrors, it also includes The Sunless Citadel which is a less brutal and more beginner-friendly adventure to act as an introduction.
The Sunless Citadel was the first published adventure for 3e and has been adapted for 5e. Players explore a long-abandoned fortress that holds many dangers, but also a tree that grows an enchanted apple. At the summer solstice, the tree that grows can grant eternal life and in the winter solstice, it steals life.
17 Prepared!
Kobold Press is well-known for publishing high-quality, unofficial adventures for many editions of Dungeons and Dragons along with other tabletop games, so it’s no surprise to see one of their works on this list. Prepared! is an anthology of one-shot adventures that range from intriguing to hilarious.
So if you need to get a group of players into the game without throwing them into the commitment of a full-campaign setting, this is the adventure book you need. It’s got everything from goblins building forts on the side of roads, to the sky falling down around the player characters, meaning there won’t ever be a dull moment while you’re playing.
25 First Blush
The hardest part of playing D&D as an adult? Getting four or more people’s schedules to line up as a semi-regular occurrence. Two people, on the other hand, is much more doable. Such is the appeal of the ‘Duet’ style of play, which only requires two players, one player and one DM.
First Blush is a good starting point in this style of play, having an easy start but ending with a high-stakes fight to the finish. The game favors an experienced DM, since they will be controlling up to two other ‘party members’ who serve as sidekicks for the player. If you enjoy this style of play, the authors Jonathan and Beth Ball published multiple adventures in the Duet style, including two follow-ups to First Blush— making it a trilogy—.
8 A Most Potent Brew
A Most Potent Brew by indie publisher Winghorn Press is a perfect introduction to Dungeons and Dragons for any group, it is played using first-level characters meaning you don’t have many abilities to confuse or overwhelm you, and it’s based entirely on the basic rule set which is available for free from Wizards of the Coast.
So combined with the fact this adventure is free, that means you don’t have to spend a penny to enjoy this entertaining take on the familiar quest of clearing out giant rats from the basement of a house. There are even handouts for the puzzles to help new players figure things out, meaning you really can’t go far wrong by starting with this adventure.
21 Storm King’s Thunder
Dungeons & Dragons has always allowed players to exist in a world of high fantasy, where they can become all manner of different creatures, wield the power of magic and fight against creatures like dragons. Storm King’s Thunder plays heavily into that high fantasy with an adventure that pits the «small folks», humans, elves, dwarves, etc, against giants, who have started to terrorize civilization.
The storm giant King Hekaton who usually keeps order among the various giant races, is missing, and the only way the small folks can even begin to defend themselves is by using the power of rune magic, the very thing the giants used in their battle against dragons.