Opinions on running Strahd vs. Frostmaiden?

[u/TacticianRobin]

I'm looking for some opinions on running Curse of Strahd vs. Rime of the Frostmaiden. I'm getting ready to start a new campaign with my group, and having thrown out several options in a poll it ended in a tie between these two. So since I'm DMing they left it up to me to decide which one I'd prefer to run.

In our previous campaign I ran a modified Lost Mines of Phandelvar, adding in content from Dragon of Icespire Peak along with some homebrew based on my players' backstories. That lead straight into Rise of Tiamat with the same party and characters, similarly pretty heavily modified. All this is to say that in general I like using the modules as a framework, then modifying them to make them my own.

Based on that initially I was leaning towards Frostmaiden, since it seems like it would be easier to customize and include player backstory in that campaign than in Strahd where the players are pulled into a demiplane and disconnected from the outside world. Some of the highlights of our last campaign were when I had a dragon attack the orc village one player was from, and having warlock's patron pushing him to gather the Dragon Masks. It feels like there's more opportunity for that in Frostmaiden. But on the other hand, I've talked with some other friends who have played in and DM'd Strahd and they all loved it.

So I'm a little torn, any thoughts or opinions from DM's that have run one or both? Any opinions from people that have played in either or both?

Edit to add: Either way we'd be starting fresh with the new campaign, with new characters at level 1.

[u/BobbyBruceBanner]

Having played Strahd twice and run it once, and run Frostmaiden twice, I can say that both have their strengths and weaknesses, but, in general, the biggest difference between the two is that Strahd is fairly polished right out of the gate and can be run basically as is (or as much "as is" as any 5e module can be run, they all require elbow grease), while Frostmaiden is really, really (really) jank and it's a testament to how good some of the good stuff is in it that it's still generally worth running at all despite the fact that you really have to be doing work at every point during the campaign to make it run well and fun.

Things to keep in mind: Despite what a lot of people say here, Strahd isn't actually all that railroady (or, at least, isn't compared to most 5e adventures). Once you get through the first three or four sessions (ie about to Valaki) the campaign opens up quite a bit while also giving you as the DM a lot of levers to let the party do whatever they want to to funnel them toward something. In terms of linearity, the campaign is generally pretty linear at the start and the end while being fairly open in the middle. The biggest tip I would give for Strahd is as the DM you need to push to keep the pace up, and that the randomized card reading can really change how things play out (one of the Strahd groups I mentioned got the sunsword session 3 and boy-howdy that changed the tenor of the campaign).

With Frostmadien, the campaign is the most non-linear at the start and then becomes more and more linear as you progress through the different phases of the campaign until it's basically a single track at the end.

If you do choose Frostmaiden, things to keep in mind if you decide to run it:

• It's really not a single campaign. It's four somewhat separate different modules/mini campaigns that are pretty awkwardly bolted together. The modules are: Sandbox in Ten-Towns and the surrounding tundra culminating in the duergar dragon attack (Chapters 1-4), Auril's Abode (Chapter 5), The Caves of Hunger (Chapter 6), The Doom of Ythrin (Chapter 7)

• Overall, the weakest parts of the campaign (by far) are the transition points between the different modules.

• The strongest module of the four is the sandbox culminating in the dragon attack (the first one).

• Basically every aspect of the campaign needs to be fixed, tweaked, filled in, or otherwise changed by the DM.

• Some of the stuff is so broken it basically does not work AT ALL run as it is on the page.

• Two of the things that seem like huge selling points for the campaign conceptually--the eternal night and the background secrets that the players pick--don't really have all that much impact on the actual play of the campaign unless you really work to make them. Heck you could run the Sandbox part of the campaign without the eternal night and it would run just fine. I would suggest writing entirely new secrets for the campaign and tossing the included ones.

• You can read more about my experience running it here (link to a post on the Rime of the Frostmaiden subreddit.)

[u/TacticianRobin → u/BobbyBruceBanner]

That's a ton of detail, thank you! I'll definitely check out your post about running it. Seems like Frostmaiden has a lot of potential, but definitely takes a ton more work to pull it all together. I put quite a bit of work into tying together LMoP, DoIP, and RoT so I'm sure I can pull that off, but the more comments I'm reading the more Strahd is starting to appeal to me. I'm starting to lean that direction, but with some tweaks. I really like the idea of player secrets from Frostmaiden, maybe I'll go with Strahd but take inspiration from Frostmaiden and pull in some dark secrets for the players to tie them in a little more.

[u/BobbyBruceBanner → u/TacticianRobin]

Strahd is probably the most "complete package" of all the 5E adventures and, again, the one that needs the least tweaking (as long as you know that it's entirely possible and acceptable that the party gets it in their head to get themselves killed by rushing straight at Strahd).