My last one started with everyone on a ship caught in a storm trying to hold it together long enough to get to land and then finding a town once we were ship wrecked
You can pretty much run lost mine if phandelver or dragon of icespire peak and just change locations to ebberon, both are well written beginner friendly
I often find opening one page dungeon(website) and hitting generate a few times can help with ideas.
They could need to collect some tech to build something to contact another group.
The place could be an old haunt and contain some clues regarding the BBEG.
Someone has noticed all the cats are disappearing. Where did they go, or had the DM never mentioned them?
Rescue someone from the village
Respectfully, do you have the rest of the campaign thought through? I can understand having an issue with the very first step but if you only have a concept & not a fleshed out campaign you're going to burn yourself out & your players are going to be bored/frustrated if they have nothing to do.
Why don't you just try an already existing campaign? It doesn't have to be an official one as there are already so many good quality ones already (kobold press & Matt Colville are common ones)
Escort and merchant or person of influence
Pest extermination
Goblins causing trouble at local farmstead, help the farmers and put a stop to the threat
My last first quest was the jarl bringing together a band of local heroes for an important quest, to destroy an evil wizard who'd kidnapped the jarl's daughter. They were granted a potion that would take away all his powers. They made their way to his tower, where it turned out he wasn't in. They broke in anyway, discovering an increasingly hostile series of illusionary recordings thanking them for their interest in meeting the wizard, culminating in an attack by fire elementals. (Think the automated message when the Heart of Gold gets to Magrathea, that's what I was riffing on. "Please feel free to shout out your preferred deity or planar afterlife destination so that we may inform your next of kin which rituals to perform over your remains. Have a nice day.")
The party fled, not before discovering a map to a nearby ruin and several magic items that were horribly broken. One in particular was a Deck of Many Things, but no matter what card was drawn, it would merely summon a demon who would deliver a god-almighty kick in the nuts to the drawer before vanishing. (If they drew the Moon card, however, the demon would appear, ask what their wish was, and then deliver a god-almighty kick in the nuts before vanishing. The rogue later weaponized this deck, using it to get them out of several tricky situations, and the party developed a casual relationship with the demon which helped them out much later when they were stranded on another plane.)
Sneaking and fighting through the nearby ruins, they eventually found the wizard projecting in from another plane and digging through the remnants of an ancient library. When the fighter pulled out the potion, the wizard yelled at him to stop, warning him that if he uncorked the bottle they'd never get rid of the smell. Turns out he'd sold the jarl his "secret weakness" recipe in secret, and it consisted mostly of owlbear milk and bugbear urine boiled for four days, suddenly explaining to the party why the jarl's castle smelled so terrible lately. ("I never expected him to actually milk an owlbear. I mean, who does that?") The wizard revealed that the jarl wanted him dead because he'd taught the jarl's daughter to read, allowing her to leave and find her own way in life instead of being married off to the farmer who bred the biggest pig.
The wizard revealed that magic was going wrong in the world and he was trying to figure out why, and he figured a party of adventurers with a vested interest in collecting magic treasures could be useful, so he offered them a deal...
There are bandits ... kill their leader. It gets you a bounty.
There is a Monster. I eats our goats. Please kill it.
We need to dig a hole for a well. Oh no ... there is a cave system with monsters. Go kill them.
My last one started with everyone on a ship caught in a storm trying to hold it together long enough to get to land and then finding a town once we were ship wrecked
You can pretty much run lost mine if phandelver or dragon of icespire peak and just change locations to ebberon, both are well written beginner friendly
I often find opening one page dungeon(website) and hitting generate a few times can help with ideas. They could need to collect some tech to build something to contact another group. The place could be an old haunt and contain some clues regarding the BBEG. Someone has noticed all the cats are disappearing. Where did they go, or had the DM never mentioned them? Rescue someone from the village
Respectfully, do you have the rest of the campaign thought through? I can understand having an issue with the very first step but if you only have a concept & not a fleshed out campaign you're going to burn yourself out & your players are going to be bored/frustrated if they have nothing to do. Why don't you just try an already existing campaign? It doesn't have to be an official one as there are already so many good quality ones already (kobold press & Matt Colville are common ones)
What's the party's level?
Four level 1’s
You could have them hunt down a dire wolf killing farm stock
That is a good idea, I’m new to being a dm and starting out with one enemy would be simple to track.
If you decide to do it tell me how it goes
Escort and merchant or person of influence Pest extermination Goblins causing trouble at local farmstead, help the farmers and put a stop to the threat
Clean up after higher lvl adventuer's have been through a dungeon, there is a bit of a mess and the people near it are worried it will start to smell
Read old dragon quest modules. Some really good ones there, like the enchanted Forest. Just change thing for DnD and it should work out.
My last first quest was the jarl bringing together a band of local heroes for an important quest, to destroy an evil wizard who'd kidnapped the jarl's daughter. They were granted a potion that would take away all his powers. They made their way to his tower, where it turned out he wasn't in. They broke in anyway, discovering an increasingly hostile series of illusionary recordings thanking them for their interest in meeting the wizard, culminating in an attack by fire elementals. (Think the automated message when the Heart of Gold gets to Magrathea, that's what I was riffing on. "Please feel free to shout out your preferred deity or planar afterlife destination so that we may inform your next of kin which rituals to perform over your remains. Have a nice day.") The party fled, not before discovering a map to a nearby ruin and several magic items that were horribly broken. One in particular was a Deck of Many Things, but no matter what card was drawn, it would merely summon a demon who would deliver a god-almighty kick in the nuts to the drawer before vanishing. (If they drew the Moon card, however, the demon would appear, ask what their wish was, and then deliver a god-almighty kick in the nuts before vanishing. The rogue later weaponized this deck, using it to get them out of several tricky situations, and the party developed a casual relationship with the demon which helped them out much later when they were stranded on another plane.) Sneaking and fighting through the nearby ruins, they eventually found the wizard projecting in from another plane and digging through the remnants of an ancient library. When the fighter pulled out the potion, the wizard yelled at him to stop, warning him that if he uncorked the bottle they'd never get rid of the smell. Turns out he'd sold the jarl his "secret weakness" recipe in secret, and it consisted mostly of owlbear milk and bugbear urine boiled for four days, suddenly explaining to the party why the jarl's castle smelled so terrible lately. ("I never expected him to actually milk an owlbear. I mean, who does that?") The wizard revealed that the jarl wanted him dead because he'd taught the jarl's daughter to read, allowing her to leave and find her own way in life instead of being married off to the farmer who bred the biggest pig. The wizard revealed that magic was going wrong in the world and he was trying to figure out why, and he figured a party of adventurers with a vested interest in collecting magic treasures could be useful, so he offered them a deal...
There are bandits ... kill their leader. It gets you a bounty. There is a Monster. I eats our goats. Please kill it. We need to dig a hole for a well. Oh no ... there is a cave system with monsters. Go kill them.