Running a campaign with just the published adventures

[modsr]

Hey! I will be starting a campaign in a month or so, with plans to use pregenerated adventures only. We've never played TOR. I have all the published material (core, tales from wilderland, heart of the wild, Lake town and darkening of mirkwood, plus words of the wise, developed for a con, I think). How do you suggest I go about this? Where should I start, and should I follow some sort of structure or just read everything available and try to pick an appropriate adventure based on where the party is? Thanks all!

[farinal]

We started with Marsh Bell as usual. Then we played the Words of the Wise and the Tales was released and we continued from there. Now we are on the Celduin adventure and I must say the Tales makes up a very nice campaign. Not all of them are connected but the general plot and bigger picture comes to realise at the last two adventure nicely. For that time the Heart and Darkening was not released so we played it that way and now I will be using Heart and Darkening as my campaign sources. You could mix up the books now though. Check the Cubicle's own Darkening campaign thread for example.

[Rocmistro]

Agreed with Farinal. The published stuff (pre HoW and DoM) takes the players on a nice full round loop around Wilderland. If you start with Marsh Bell > Words of the Wise > TfW you'll go from Dale to the Anduin Valley and then back to Dale again. They all also intersect nicely.

As a matter of personal taste, I found "Those Who Tarry No Longer" to be the least enjoyable of all the TfW adventures and I would recommend replacing it or ignoring it all together. The last 3 adventures (Darkness in the Marshes, Crossing of Celduin and The Watchtower on the Heath) all tell the Gibbet King's story fine without introducing him in Those Who Tarry.

I have not read The Darkening of Mirkwood all the way through yet, but I would almost consider running that as it's own stand alone campaign not incorporated with the other stuff. Tales from Wilderland and it's 2 predecessor adventures (Marsh Bell and Words of Wise) take several years to tell in their own right, and if your fellowship does those first, it could be 2948/49 before they start Darkening of Mirkwood, which have them miss out on some of the early stuff.

[Yusei]

Tales from Wilderland and it's 2 predecessor adventures (Marsh Bell and Words of Wise) take several years to tell in their own right, and if your fellowship does those first, it could be 2948/49 before they start Darkening of Mirkwood, which have them miss out on some of the early stuff.

The early stuff can be woven into your own adventures or moved around in the timeline, except for a certain place that you can't easily visit after 2951.

[Woodclaw]

Tales from Wilderland and it's 2 predecessor adventures (Marsh Bell and Words of Wise) take several years to tell in their own right, and if your fellowship does those first, it could be 2948/49 before they start Darkening of Mirkwood, which have them miss out on some of the early stuff.

The early stuff can be woven into your own adventures or moved around in the timeline, except for a certain place that you can't easily visit after 2951.

Also, it's possible to roll different adventures into one. For example, you can use the events of Don't Leave the Path to spice up the journey of Words of the Wise.

[DavetheLost]

If you have more than one adventure per game year, especially in the early years it is not a great chore to integrate Tales From Wilderland and the Darkening of Mirkwood. The two things to do are to match up the season and location at the end of one adventure with the beginning of the next.

I have made some notes about when and where for the various adventures and am letting my group play semi-sandbox style. I offer them adventure hooks appropriate to where and when they are and they decide which to follow up on. I have also given some thought to what I want to happen in each adventure if the Fellowship do not undertake it. In some adventures this may mean that the Fellowship encounters a ruin instead of to thriving inn or hears news of the death of an important personage. In other cases not much will come to their attention.

There are certainly enough published adventures to keep a campaign going for at least a couple of years real time.

[delazar]

I'm planning to have the adventures in ToW happen two per year, so in 4 years it should be done.

Then I'll have the first few adventures of DoM also happen two per year, so I should be back on track soonish.

Regarding Words of the Wise, has anyone ever fleshed out the "Watch on Dol Guldur"?

[Corvo]

The Darkening of Mirkwood got A LOT of material.
I started Tales from the Wilderland, but I found the final adventure is difficult to fit in the DoM continuity, so I'm dropping it.

"Don't Leave the Path" and "Of Leaves and...", on the other hand, are easy to fit in any campaign.

[DavetheLost]

"Don't Leave the Path" and "Of Leaves and Stewed" are also easy to fit into the timeline whenever the Fellowship are in the right area. With the caveat that a more experienced Fellowship may find them easy to accomplish.

[farinal]

The Darkening of Mirkwood got A LOT of material.
I started Tales from the Wilderland, but I found the final adventure is difficult to fit in the DoM continuity, so I'm dropping it.

"Don't Leave the Path" and "Of Leaves and...", on the other hand, are easy to fit in any campaign.

I haven't bought the DoM, waiting for hardcopy to come out but I will be playing the final adventure soon. Why is it difficult to fit in DoM continuity?