Getting with a bunch of noobs into pathfinder - module suggestions

[Snorkack]

Ahoi Codex! I've been into pnp on and off for almost 20 years and throughout all this time I almost exclusively played with the same old school friends. We started with AD&D but moved on towards more complex systems like traveller or the dark eye.
But after college everyone now lives in another city or even another country and we get to play together maybe twice a year. So I assembled a bunch of new friends in my area that have barely any pnp experience (feels like cheating though :D ). I don't want to repel them with complicated systems like the above-mentioned, and since I got a whole bunch of pathfinder rulebooks from that humble bundle a few weeks ago, I figured this would be the system of choice. I'll be the DM obviously.

Spare time has become a rather rare good for me and the days where I could spend nights after nights writing my own modules are long over. But on the other hand, most pre-written modules catered for beginners are incredibly insulting to the intellect that it almost hurts.

So I'd like you to share with me what good low-level pc modules are out there that have a good story and yet are straightforward. So, no multi-layered intrigues up the political ranks that need to be thwarted, but also no 'local authority asks a bunch of nobodies to get the macguffin out of the nearby dungeon'. Either Pathfinder or easily converted.
Thanks and cheers!

 

[Ninjerk]

Night Goat

 

[deuxhero]

This may be of interest
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/best-prewritten-adventures-any-system.107723/

3.5/PF Modules I've read and heard some praise for

Age of Worms is a pretty simple module (a lot of it is a dungeon crawl). There's some politicking in Diamond Lake, but it's fairly simple "the mine managers are dicks, this managers hates that managers and is trying to push him out so that manager allies with another manager against this manager. One of the managers accidentally unsealed an undead wizard who is forcing him to do stuff". I felt the dungeons were too linear for the praise I've seen but I really love Diamond Lake, the corrupt mining town is a great starting location.

Kingmaker's first module is pretty simple "map out this wilderness and kill the local bandit lord" and the main story is just "evil fey queen was here" (though the ones for the modules themselves are decent). The second module onward have their own subsystems though and are a bit finiky, though supposed to fun.

Red Hand of Doom is pretty simple (a starting level of 5 requires a bit more helping new players with chargen, but really level 1 3.x is super swingy and offputting to new players IMO), but there is a built in time limit (you're racing an oncoming army) that might turn off new people or require fudging. There's a handbook for GMing it that covers potential issues, some suggestions for altering the difficulty level (WotC modules of that era are pretty easy, as they didn't really understand how easy it was to break) and adapting it to most major settings.

Rise of the Runelords gets a lot of praise. Only read the first part, but seems decent.

 

[Severian Silk]

I wish I had friends.

 

[Snorkack]

This may be of interest
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/best-prewritten-adventures-any-system.107723/

There are a few excellent modules in that thread, but stuff like the Enemy Within campaign are the exact opposite of what I'd like to throw at the players. Thanks for the other suggestions! Kingmaker and Rise of the Runelords sound pretty interesting.

I wish I had friends.

Sorry to hear that. Wish I could help you there. But well, you look like a potato. Kindly leave my thread now, thanks.

 

[Severian Silk]

But I like this thread!

 

[rashiakas]

There are a lot of Adventure Paths that could offer what you want. I personally run Carrion Crown with a almost all newb party and it worked great, probably because they were new and a lot of the stuff in this AP was scary to them, because they didn't know what awaited them. You have to do some alterations to the story to tie everything together in my opinion, because if used as written it has a lot of plot holes and fails at foreshadowing the BBEG.

As for level 1 modules, there is always crypt of the everflame. Its like THE beginner module imo and is a great introduction to gaming. Its pretty boring for vets though.

 

[Havoc]

Way of the Wicked is quite nice. Allows a lot of player choice in dealing with problems. Read Grunker's LP in the Playground.

 

[rashiakas]

Yeah but I would not recommend it for new players. Playing the bad guys is something you want to do after you saved the world a couple of times.

 

[deuxhero]

Plus it requires better knowledge of the group and GMing to keep them from going totally off with their ability to be evil.

 

[Scroo]

Crypt of the Everflame is a very good introductory module for noobs. It's a straightforward but fun dungeon romp with a classic introduction for fresh heroes. I used it myself to introduce complete noobs into pnp twice already.

Another great introduction is Hollow's last Hope as a short module followed by Crown of the Kobold King. Again a really good starter module (well one and a half modules) with a really fun dungeon and some hilarious encounters. I also used this one already and can recommend it.

 

[Snorkack]

Way of the wicked sounds like a really fun module, I will keep that in mind. However, for my purposes I think I'll stick to the usual PCs are the shining heroes stuff.
I have ...obtained Crypt of the Everflame and after a brief read it seems like it is pretty much what I'm looking for.

 

[Havoc]

Yeah but I would not recommend it for new players. Playing the bad guys is something you want to do after you saved the world a couple of times.

Then I'm the odd one here. I started from playing evil guys.

 

[deuxhero]

Also took a look as CotEF. Looks like a good tutorial module.

Also looked at Crypt of the Everflame's sequel, Masks of the Living God, looks kinda crap. It doesn't seem to work much with the motivations for PCs who would naturally come up from the background of the first module ("PCs participate in a harmless ceremony that goes horribly wrong" to "fighting evil powerful cults for some info for a piece of treasure the PCs don't necessarily know they have to stop a bad guy they don't really know about") and any route but "PCs are drugged and captured" is just a sidebar. Also one prominent NPC is described as "More than a little dimwitted" and "cruel and stupid. He rarely gets jokes, even those made at his expense" yet he has above average wisdom (13) and 8 intelligence. Maybe the third module, Realm of the Fellnight Queen, will be better when I look at it.

 

[Night Goat]

Night Goat

I haven't played any of the adventure modules, and the only adventure path I've played is Carrion Crown (which I wasn't impressed by). People seem to hold Rise of the Runelords in high regard, and Iron Gods looks pretty cool.

 

[Luckmann]

Ahoi Codex! I've been into pnp on and off for almost 20 years and throughout all this time I almost exclusively played with the same old school friends. We started with AD&D but moved on towards more complex systems like traveller or the dark eye.
But after college everyone now lives in another city or even another country and we get to play together maybe twice a year. So I assembled a bunch of new friends in my area that have barely any pnp experience (feels like cheating though :D ). I don't want to repel them with complicated systems like the above-mentioned, and since I got a whole bunch of pathfinder rulebooks from that humble bundle a few weeks ago, I figured this would be the system of choice. I'll be the DM obviously.

Spare time has become a rather rare good for me and the days where I could spend nights after nights writing my own modules are long over. But on the other hand, most pre-written modules catered for beginners are incredibly insulting to the intellect that it almost hurts.

So I'd like you to share with me what good low-level pc modules are out there that have a good story and yet are straightforward. So, no multi-layered intrigues up the political ranks that need to be thwarted, but also no 'local authority asks a bunch of nobodies to get the macguffin out of the nearby dungeon'. Either Pathfinder or easily converted.
Thanks and cheers!

How did it go?

 

[Snorkack]

Never happened. We had to delay it again and again until we finally managed to sit together and play this summer. But in the meantime we realized that Pathfinder is not the kind of system we are interested in. Instead, we play Dungeon World now, which is awesome.

 

[Grunker]

Dungeon World is p. cool!

EDIT: Wrote a post about it here procrastinator https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/attention-od-d-ad-d-fans-this-ones-for-you.120860/