August 2022 Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A Thread

It definitely swings towards a dark atmosphere but I think having descriptions of all of those worlds can fit in a lot of RPGs. You can use it as lore discovered by the characters as they learn more of other worlds. They might find portals to these places in the deep. If I think about the City of Arches, it's a perfect supplement to include strange worlds beyond this one. It's definitely dark fantasy but I think it has a lot of versatility showing off dark parallel worlds. Maybe it's because I gravitate towards places like that because they're so ripe for adventure.

I would definitely check out Esper Genesis by Rich Lescouflair: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/240798/Esper-Genesis-5E-Scifi---Core-Manual I did a spotlight on the talk show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRyFq4wZwcE&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=30&t=132s You might also check out Stars Without Number: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/226996/Stars-Without-Number-Revised-Edition

Hi Joe! I didn't port them over directly, although you can see a bunch of 5e compatible cyphers in Arcana of the Ancients by Monte Cook Games. Instead, I built random lists of items with origins, conditions, and powers. You can read about them here: https://slyflourish.com/relics.html I also have generators for them in the Lazy DM's Workbook and Lazy DM's Companion: https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/the-lazy-dms-companion https://shop.slyflourish.com/products/the-lazy-dms-workbook

I'm a fan of giving the players information their characters don't have but I probably wouldn't do something where the the players know the truth of a big mystery and then have to roleplay their characters as though they don't. Better might be if the rest of the world doesn't realize the king is a bad guy but both the players and the characters do. Half the fun can be the characters trying to *prove* that the king is a bad dude and discredit him in front of his court. Think of it as a detective story where the detective is pretty sure who did it but has to prove it instead of one where the detective doesn't know the real answer.

Hi Joshua! The Campaign Truths and Secrets and Clues are really different animals. Campaign Truths are *intended* to be known by the characters. If you have a campaign truth that *isn't* intended to be known by the characters, that goes somewhere else. You can note it for yourself if you need (although I probably wouldn't bother). Instead, think about what makes your campaign world different from others so you can tell that to your players. Of course, you're free to do them however you wish but this is how I think of them. Take a look at the various one-page campaign guides I've done for examples: https://slyflourish_content.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/frostmaiden_one_page_campaign_guide.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/empire_of_the_ghouls_campaign_sheet.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/avernus_campaign_one_page.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/witchlight_one_page_campaign_guide.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/eberron_campaign_one-sheet.pdf https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/ghosts_of_saltmarsh_players_guide.pdf

Hi Cirosmar! I'm afraid I really don't have great advice for this. I've never played in a play-by-post game. I'd recommend digging around Reddit or seeking PbP Discord servers to see what you can find. Good luck!

Hi Jonathan! I think any of them can work with some careful modifications. None but Icespire are specifically written for it. I wrote more about running one-on-one games in these articles: https://slyflourish.com/running_one-on-one_dnd_games.html https://slyflourish.com/balancing_combat_for_one_on_one.html https://slyflourish.com/framework_for_one_on_one_dnd.html Hope that helps!

Hi Schizogen! I'm certainly no expert in this topic. I think the first thing I'd recommend is actually getting diagnosed. Seek out a professional who can give you good proven tips for navigating all parts of the world - not even just D&D. There are some Discord servers that support neurodiverse DMs. I'm seeking them out now. Found it! https://discord.gg/xfXenQ2M Good luck!

Hi Chappy! I'm not too unhappy with how it's been in 5e so far. I have lots of little nitpicky problems but that wasn't one of them. So I really don't have an opinion on the matter. Sorry!

Hi Joe! I never tend to worry about. I, or the player, tends to remember and we just go with it. Sometimes we forget and roll back the concentration saves to see if it goes out at the moment. The best trick I heard for this is using an LED tea-light for each player and the DM. If the light is on, they're concentrating. For online play, using some sort of token marker or other way to represent concentration can work. If you use a text-based combat tracker (https://slyflourish.com/text-based_battle_maps.html) you can put a "C" next to the name of someone concentrating. Depending on how you show or use initiative you can put something there like a little red C or something.

I was really curious how this topic breaks out for people so I ran a YouTube poll and the results shocked me. You're right, few people (about 1 in 20) almost always land good conclusions to their campaigns. About half of respondents say they rarely or almost never reach a satisfying conclusion to their game. This is dismaying! Here's a link to the survey: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxLwNm6lkRgwZISW1_G5pLQxBvKF1Cjyrf I think I really need to dig into the problem more to see what I can do but I'll offer up some hypothetical reasons why some groups reach good conclusions and many do not: 1. Run shorter campaigns. The shorter the campaign, the more likely it is to finish. I haven't had a campaign take more than two years over the past eight. Most of my campaigns are 8 to 16 months long. 2. Focus your campaign on a clear goal. Stick to that goal. Keep the campaign focused. 3. Be willing to continue on even if players leave the game – be it for a short amount of time or a long one. 4. Be ready to add new players to your game even in the middle of a campaign. 5. Play at a consistent time every week if at all possible. Don't try to schedule games one game at a time. Schedule a series of games. Those are probably my best advice for now but this is clearly a topic I want to spend more time with. Thanks for the fantastic question!

I don't think I have any outstanding advice for this. Most games have useful introductions to help teach the mechanics and flow of the game. Some complicated games are harder to pick up than simpler ones. Whatever you do, I'd try to get into the game as fast as you can instead of reciting rules for most of the session. Good luck!

Hi Scott! I have a couple of articles on this topic that might help: https://slyflourish.com/ability_check_toolbox.html https://slyflourish.com/passive_perception.html https://slyflourish.com/flow_of_trap_detection.html I think the middle of those answers your question. If players have made choices to put a lot into perception, I think it's fun for them to detect traps even if it's automatic. It still tells them something about the world. Good luck!

Hi Bernie! Good question! The treasure table is there to give you an idea how much treasure the characters should get over a level but you're free and encouraged to drop that treasure where it makes sense during the adventure. The Companion assumes four treasure parcels per level dropped somewhere during the adventure – often a hoard held by some monster or bunch of baddies. They could also be the reward from a patron. You can vary it up by rolling or mash together multiple parcels for one big hoard if they only get one in a level. The intent is that the characters find treasure in the world during the game – not just be rewarded it when they level – but its often easy to tie the two together. If you find you haven't rewarded any treasure for a while, drop a bunch of parcels together. Your players won't mind.

Hi Thiago! I think its perfectly fine to slow down leveling and let them get comfortable with their characters. If you're using experience points, it's unlikely they'll get so many experience points from just killing monsters to level up quickly. You can always switch to event-based leveling and let them know which events will level them up (or offer enough experience points to do so). That way they can control what they do and where they go before they decide to level. Really you control when they level. The D&D Adventurer's League lets players choose to level after each adventure – they don't have to. You could do something like that too. In short, if they're not comfortable leveling, I don't see any reason why you should have to push them to do so.

Hi Richard! This is sort of two questions, I think. First, I think anthologies are great products to put out in conjunction with larger campaigns. I think Wizards is taking the right approach. I think its particularly useful to use anthologies as a way to work with a lot of freelance writers so each writer gets their own slice of the book to work on independently of all the other chapters. I think big campaign adventures work best when they have an overall voice writing most of the adventure. I think I've seen this change in quality between the various hardcover adventures. There were lots of writers for Descent into Avernus and Rime of the Frostmaiden and I think they suffered for it. Meanwhile Tomb of Annihilation, Curse of Strahd, and Wild Beyond the Witchlight had fewer writers and they felt more well tied together and easier to run. I think books like Candlekeep Mysteries and Radiant Citadel work much better for lots of writers. I also think both formats are very useful for DMs. Do you want a bunch of one-shot adventures or do you want a big campaign? Each product serves each of these purposes. As far as heists are concerned, I'd want a published heist adventure to follow the model I prefer, of course: https://slyflourish.com/running_heists.html

HI Brian! Regarding the OGL, it's worth reading it over carefully and understanding what's there. It's also worth reading various blog articles on the topic to be sure where your boundaries lie. Regarding publishing in general, I have an email I send out on such requests which I'll post below. I try to keep it up to date: To start, I have a few links that may help. These are shows I either made myself or was on where I talk about making D&D stuff overall but might have some insights into what I’ve done and what worked for me. https://youtu.be/sOgJiqr5-rg https://youtu.be/TCqFPkFIdSA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmEgKbfLVXU https://inspirationpoint.buzzsprout.com/1192916/8912449 This one is out of date but might have some info: http://mikeshea.net/kickstarter_experiences.html Teos Abadia also has a series of videos that talk more about this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC2nUvBg384O-Rm7SqBDxjnYwotF6IzOH Some things I’d recommend, recognizing that advice is bullshit (http://mikeshea.net/advice_is_bullshit.html) I’d start with a smaller project than a big one. Check out MT Black’s Iskandar sourcebook as an example of what to put out before one puts out a big campaign book. The same is true for Kickstarter. No one I know goes from not having published anything to making significant money on Kickstarter. There are some but I expect they have some weird behind-the-scenes marketing thing going on. Start with print-on-demand. It’s much easier to do fulfillment this way. Only if you’re going to ship like 5,000 books should you start worrying about doing off-set printing which is a HUGE step. Work with partners who can give you things you know you can’t do yourself. I ran all my Kickstarters myself until this last one where I counted on a handful of other companies to help me manage the Kickstarter, handle fulfillment, and actually print the books. Know what each person you work with brings to the table and how much it’s going to cost. Lots of people out there are happy to take your money for no real benefit. Hire a good editor who understands the system you’re writing for. It’s a specialized skill and hard to find. If you can’t do the layout yourself, find someone who can do the layout for you. I learned a little bit at a time over ten years of doing this sort of thing. I haven’t found a crash course that offers all the experiences. Put out small projects and learn from each one of them is the best advice I can offer. And, oh yeah, be lucky =)

I think its worth having a mid-campaign session zero. Tell your whole group that you're going to spend some time in the next session orienting the new participant and also checking in with everyone else – doing character introductions, talking about the big things going on in the world at this point, going over safety tools – all the things you'd normally do in a session zero but re-baselined for the current spot in the game.

Hi Mick! I think these are the things I'd focus on: https://slyflourish.com/getting_started_with_dnd.html and https://slyflourish.com/top_advice.html

Hi Casey! I think if you have a way to show off some of the art, that can help. The art in Numenera is the best in the industry and really captures the ideas of the game and the world. This page has good intro information: http://numenera.com/what-is-numenera/ I think some of the key features I might recommend are: * Flexible three-variable system for character creation: You're a blank blank who blanks for example you are a Graceful Glave who Rides the Lignting. * Far future science fantasy in which our heroes progress by exploring the fantastic world all around them. * A traditional RPG experience but within a fantastic world with creatures, locations, and treasure never seen before. * Fast and simple gameplay. Easy to pick up and run in a single session.

Hi Josh! Great question! I'd say the strongest criticism I get is that being lazy makes for a bad game and working harder makes games better. That can be true but I think that philosophy discounts understand the value of the work we do to the game we run. The philosophy in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master focuses on being *efficient* in our prep – really asking the hard question on whether the thing we're doing to prep actually brings joy to the game we run. I think even strong critics would agree with that logic. I've certainly seen arguments against the specifics – that certain types of prep I discount make a big impact on other people's games. Things like setting up rigid scenes with clear threats, environments, puzzles, combatants and the like. I've seen a lot of criticism recently about fudging too much behind the scenes. The whole question of the "quantum ogre" and removing agency from player decisions. I can see the concern but I think when our head is in the right place we can have both flexibility in how we run our game and still give meaningful choices. I improvise a *lot* in my games and still the players have very meaningful choices. Everything I read and hear influences my views. I try to understand and consider any point of view but I haven't seen anything that completely changes my views...yet!. Oh, other criticism I sometimes get is "this is all obvious stuff. Any good DM knows this already." I don't know if they were expecting some sort of magic bullet but my whole drive in the ideas of the Lazy Dungeon Master is to try to take what has worked well for lots of people and distill it down so we can all learn from it. If it's obvious to you, great! But I'm pretty sure it isn't for everyone and I know that having it articulated into one book (or series of books) has made it more available to more people.

Hi Axel! I see many secrets as being "actionable". Sometimes you might learn a piece of lore or history but the big question I ask "what can the characters learn". A secret should matter to the characters. It might not be "actionable" but it should be something useful in some way even if it's just learning about the world. I don't think I'd say that every secret should be actionable because sometimes it just fills out part of the world but maybe half should be. The important ones should be. Good question!

Hi David! I got this question a couple of weeks ago. My answer isn't a great one but here's why I don't run streaming games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5jcy8HoqF4&t=2858s

Hello! I don't have a great way of doing it. I have a big 5e folder filled with PDFs. I also mark ones I find particularly inspirational with a file tag so I can pull up all the inspirational material and sift through it but I tend not to do that very often. The answer is, I don't really have a great way of sorting through this stuff. This previous Q&A might offer more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2kVG2w73Z8&list=PLb39x-29puaoZke5BVk7fjyyyjWXcxCu1&index=8&t=2129s Here's the Twitter thread I mention in the video: https://twitter.com/SlyFlourish/status/1470177247025848320

https://slyflourish.com/lazy_dnd_with_notion.html =)

The adventure in chapter 3 of Ghosts of Saltmarsh does a good job of this – the adventure Danger in Dunwater. The lizardfolk aren't keen on visitors but they're not bad. Having them approach the characters with a suitable force but making it clear that they're not attacking can help. I find most players roleplaying "good" characters won't attack unless attacked first. You can also just tell them "your character doesn't think they're overtly hostile, just cautious" so they get the message.

Hi Jill! You might point them to the "This Is Your Life" tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. It's towards the end of chapter 1. It has great random tables for building a backstory. If they dig that sort of thing, it can really help. If not, it's totally cool to let them choose how much backstory they want. Random tables do a great job of shaking peoples' brains in interesting ways.

Hi Ryan! I'm glad you like my stuff so much! I'd move Ithrix to the swamp with the lizardfolk and maybe tie it to the evil lizardfolk tribe. You can have it wreck towns within the swamp and expand his territory out further into the mainland, threatening Whitesparrow itself! I think you can do a lot to foreshadow the coming of the dragon without having them face it too early. Good luck and enjoy!

Ask and you shall receive! This past week I did a Numenera Deep Dive specifically looking at how D&D DMs can use ideas from this in their game: https://youtu.be/QUyyVU4IUV8 You're right about the "eating your own arm to avoid being it" problem but, in gameplay, it hasn't been that much of a problem.

I've given it a weak flip-through and I dig everything I'm seeing so far. I'll do a spotlight once it's available for sale.

I give my players the option to use non-lethal force such as knocking the enemy out with the pommel of the sword or strategically placing spells. So they can engage in combat with adversaries that aren’t necessarily enemies without feeling like they are murderers. Adds a chance for roleplay with the remaining monsters, a chance for you to add reinforcements when they wake up, or a potential future ally when they need a bit of support.

Hi Barbercat! I haven't actually seen the full adventure yet so I can't say for sure but reading the free Spelljammer Academy adventures on D&D Beyond; I think those would be great for new players. I think Spelljammer is a fresh enough alternative on the typical fantasy take to excite new players. Give it a shot!

Hi Ken! I never know where the City of Arches is going to go. You can always steal ideas from other city books like Waterdeep City Encounters or come up with your own and expand it as you need. I'd probably keep things inside the walls. The map is meant to be abstract so you can expand it in any direction you see fit. Glad you enjoy it!

Hi Kevin! I'd still rank it the same. That ranking is *without* dreadful incursions mostly because I felt like adding such things is completely optional and up to individual DMs. It isn't a "fix". Hope that helps!

Hi Rich! As for ways to disclose secrets, this may help: https://slyflourish.com/revealing_secrets.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qxYK2DgmW4 I have to say that I typically don't struggle with how to reveal it. Often NPCs just say it. Other times the characters learn it. There's nothing fancy about it. It might be something like: "On the wall you can see silvery figures fighting some huge four-armed beast. Your training in history shows you that the four-armed beast is known as the Armageddon Beast and that silvery army is the 'Silver Glades' a group of powerful extra-planar mercenaries hired to fight the beast. They weren't able to defeat it but instead trapped it in a tomb. This might be that very tomb!"

Hi Cassie! I did a video with Shawn Merwin who wrote a whole bunch of one-hour adventures. It's really hard to do one hour. You'll get maybe a quick intro and one big scene and then it's done. I'd try to find one way to put all three pillars together. You can have a combat encounter where the characters are interacting with NPCs and discovering things about the environment while fighting monsters to get roleplaying, exploration, and combat all into one scene. Here's my video with Shawn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rWFXTpmZj8 Two other tips: Keep it low level, no higher than 3rd. Run with as few players as possible. One (with a side kick) and no more than four. Any more players will make it hard to finish. Split up into separate groups if you have more players than that.

Hi Nate! I prefer what they refer to in the Dungeon Master's Guide as "story-based leveling" which is what most everyone else calls milestone leveling. In the DMG, milestone leveling means earning experience points for milestones in the story like you would defeating monsters. I like story-based advancement because its the laziest method. Matt Coleville had a great video about how to give players agency in the options they choose and still offer story-based advancement. I did this in my Wild Beyond the Witchlight game. "Enter Motherhorn – Achieve 7th level!" or "Enter Yon – Achieve 5th Level". If you have a more open game, you can tie leveling to certain quests or say "any of these three quests gets you to 4th level on achievement" and they choose which ones. I don't think it takes agency away from the players any moreso than only awarding exp for the monsters they fight – you're still choosing the monsters. Hope that helps!

I actually had a show with Matt Mercer many years ago where I asked him this question. Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVKvjSLt2d4 He recommended this site for finding accents across the world: https://www.dialectsarchive.com/dialects-accents Be careful not to be too stereotypical. Another trick is to try to mimic actors in movies you watch. Grabbing an interesting character and speaking as they speak can help. Practice it by yourself if you want.

I don't know the best way to help you with the anxiety other than to say "don't worry about it" which doesn't help. In reality, I doubt your players even notice. It's just some friends around a table having fun so don't put too much pressure on yourself. One thing that may help is to jot down a short list of prompts the NPC might speak to. What are the important things they want to say? Just as you are nervous presenting your NPCs, people who are nervous when they're about to present likewise handle this nervousness by trying to clarify the things they want to say. Hope that helps!

I'm no expert in that field so I can't say for sure what works but I think adding one small thing each session can help. Writing them down on an sticky note or index card you keep in front of you during the game can help too. Hope that helps!

Honestly, not really. Almost every published mystery I've tried to run and the problems I noted with mysteries. One notable adventure is the first adventure in Kobold Press's Midgard Sagas in which the clues the characters find *dictate* who the murderer is, which I found to be an interesting idea but highly impractical in play. Mysteries are hard!

That's a fantastic question. I'd say two things leap out right away: the video game Elden Ring and the cover to the Iron Maiden album Powerslave. Oh, and of course, the poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelly: I met a Traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

HI Stellar! I don't know that I have a fantastic answer here other than just slowing down progression. If you use story-based leveling where certain events in the story result in the characters leveling, you can move these out so they only get one every two or three major events. Many of the Wizards of the Coast adventures take characters to the third tier (11th level and beyond) but usually not much further than that. Only one I know of goes up to 17th level or beyond though. I think, if you use story-based leveling (see chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master's Guide). Hope that helps!

I can't answer your question, but I found this tool really useful for my group that was larger than the assumed, and went to a higher level than assumed: https://haluz.org/lmop/

Good question! Be vague and mysterious! Use the trick fortune tellers use and make predictions that can clearly happen a lot of the time. "I sense great danger ahead!" or "a fortune awaits you" or "your destiny lies at a little tavern known as the Rampant Roach". The vaguer you are, the more likely you can work it into the story.

Hi Ryan! I'm a huge fan of reskinning for this sort of thing. I think we overweight the value of mechanical changes when descriptive changes can change everything. This is something Numenera taught me well where a level 6 planar assassin and a level 6 datasphere house-sized spider are the same mechanics. We change things in how we describe things. That said, you can have a list of some plug-in mechanical effects if you want. Things like pack tactics or a bonus action charge or hide. Steal a handful of mechanical effects and drop them in when you want. Uncovered Secrets Volume 2 has a monster builder page in it with a handful of effects like this you can use.

Hi Eric! I don't have great advice for this – it's not really in my wheelhouse. When I pick up a new system I read it and I try it out. If you have friends willing to experiment, you might find one or two of them take enough interest to dig in too. I had trouble learning Blades in the Dark, for example, but a couple of my players were more than happy to jump in. So I'd say, falling back to your friends can help. Good luck!

Hi Chris! That's a really good and really hard question. I think its really important to ask yourself what you need to have to run your game. If you're one of the few rare people who can improvise most of it at the time and it's working for you and your players, that can be just fine. If you do need some sort of prep to feel comfortable running your game, you don't have to subscribe to any given system. Instead, ask yourself what parts you *do* enjoy pondering. If you find you enjoy *thinking* about your game more than writing down your prep, that might work too. Remember that you only need to write down what you don't think you can remember when you're actually running your game. You also don't need to have just one moment in time where you do your prep. You can prep little bits here and there wherever you are. In a boring meet? What's your strong start for the next session? Stuck in traffic? Think through a list of the characters to see what pops into your head to draw them into the game. In line buying groceries? Think up some secrets and clues. One reason I love Notion is that I can jot stuff down in it just about anywhere. What is a system you have on you already where you can capture these sorts of thoughts? Finding a system you love and enjoy is really important. If you're not liking the prep you're doing, finding a new angle can work. Most importantly, none of this means you're not cut out to be a DM. If you love running games, you're cut out to be a DM. Hope that helps!

I don't think I have answered this question before but thanks for checking! I think there's a nice clean way to do something like a quest board. Essentially, for every two levels you have three quests. I'd probably have one of two quests for 1st level characters (because 1st level is really its own game). Whichever one they pick, the other one gets resolved. Then three quests at 2nd and 3rd level. They pick two of those three – the third quest is resolved without them. Then three quests for 4th and 5th level. They pick two and the third is done. This "best two of three" idea means the players have some agency over which quests they want to do and you're not prepping so much that you're throwing away. I'd try to work it out that the players choose a quest at the end of a session so you know what to prep. At 5th level, they're really ready for bigger adventures and I don't think a quest board best serves them. You can always keep side-quests on the quest board for fun. Small dungeons and small goals (see the tables in the Lazy DM's Companion for ideas) but they should be on to bigger things by that point. Great question!!

This is a fantastic question and, this Sunday, I'm going to do a Numenera deep dive I think. The book has very little to say about "balancing" encounters other than use what makes sense which is hard to do when you don't know these monsters at all. Page 343 of Numenera Discovery has some loose guidance about what sorts of opponents are difficult for what sort of beginning characters but that doesn't really extend up. I don't have a deadly encounter benchmark for Numenera. I should really have one by this point but its hard to figure out. As the characters go up in tier, they can handle more and more dangerous creatures. I ran three level 6 monsters and they were really hard at tier 4. Though Numenera has really clear math, it doesn't have a clear system of encounter balance. That's a drawback. Again, I don't need much, but knowing where the line is for "deadly" would help.

Hi Eric! The only rules-lite RPG I've really played is Fate Accelerated with I love. It's the only RPG I've played where you can build characters in just a couple of minutes. I love the look of Mork Borg but haven't had a chance to play it. There are a lot of cool rules-lite systems out there. For me and my groups, though, we like something crunchier.

Hi Andrew! Congratulations on such an epic campaign! I find that players enjoy the opportunity to build characters again in a new campaign. I usually have a couple of suggestions but one that I tend to recommend. So far, my players have all gone with the one I recommend. If /I'm/ excited about it, they're excited about it. I wouldn't open the floor to anything. It's important that whatever you run speaks to /you/. You're going to be doing the bulk of the work so grab one that you want to run. Good luck!

Hi Cormac! I'd probably do something with Dendar the Night Serpent. A huge gate that leads to the Night Serpent's twisted realm out there in the multiverse. I had hints about Dendar the Night Serpent in my own Tomb of Annihilation game and loved the idea. Good luck!

I'd go with Dragon of Icespire Peak. The quest-board structure is really easy to understand and it's a nice pure D&D adventure. It has lots of exploration, NPC interaction, and all the rest. There's a nice overarching plot and some interesting factions with the Talos cultists. I think it's the most well put together adventure I've seen. If I had it, I'd also introduce people with the new Starter Set adventure, Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. I like it a lot.