Beefed Up Lost Mines of Phandelver

EDIT: For you lot new readers, I have VERY loftier standards. This adventure is one of the best to be published by WOTC in a LOOONNNNGGGGG time.

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The start segment of the hazard puts DMs through the basics of request for checks and saving throws, every bit the characters venture into a goblin lair on a rescue mission. Once the adventurers take dealt with the goblins, they have free reign to explore the region around the hamlet of Phandalin. Iii more dungeons and five other take a chance locations provide novice DMs with plenty of material to continue a entrada going for months.

This is the starting time adventure(s) from the D&D 5e starter set. D&D finally has it'south head (more often than not) out of its ass in a set of adventures that provides a framework for the players to have fun in. This is not the "D&D turned up to 11" of some of the contempo editions, merely rather a solid 7, 8, or nine that keeps delivering over and over and over once more. Information technology provides a pretty solid foundation from which a DM tin build on, with a rough outline of action and some interesting, but not set-piece, encounters. It suffers more than little on the mechanistic way magic items are treated and in the lack of evocative descriptions … particularly for monsters.Overall though this is a VERY solid hazard in the high-C/Depression-B "Bryce has unrealistically high expectations" grading scale … even if "months of material" may be stretching things.

The adventure comes in 4 parts. The first is a small-scale deadfall and cave lair. It serves mainly as a hook. The second is a town. This serves mostly as home base with several quests that can exist picked up. The 3rd is an exploration of the region, driving by the quests in town, where several clues tin can be picked up equally to … the fourth part: the Evil Bad Guy'southward Lair. The adventure is written in a progressive rules learning style, with more than rules presented inline with the adventure near the outset and things flowing little more streamlined near the stop. Embedded in the adventure is advice for the DM, about of whig is pretty decent. Things similar "ham It upward" and 'don't go on too long" and "allow the players practise what they want."

This seems like a practiced time to cover something important. The starter prepare is intended for new players. New players will learn how to play D&D from this set up. I believe VERY strongly that the tenor & tone of of an RPG derives mostly from the published adventures. The published adventure is what the masses volition think is 'normal' or 'how the game is played' and thus the published risk from the visitor has a vast opportunity to influence the direction of the game. If it involves 3 straight up combat encounters,no roleplaying, and a skill challenge, and then people are going to play that fashion at dwelling house, published chance or no. The RPGA and con games will practice the same matter. If all you publish are dungeon crawls then people volition think that'southward what the game is near and play that way. These first adventures are important. Balanced confronting this is the very existent fact that this is, substantially, a programmed exploration of the rules set for people who accept never played before. Some things are going to be a bit clunky as the adventure holds your paw. I usually don't give a shit, an risk has to stand up on its ain merits. Im going to try and walk a finer line with this one, attempting to recognize and be generally ok with the hand-holding while withal attempting to uphold standards of good hazard writing.

Part i – The most generic hook possible: you lot're caravan guards
This was my introduction to this adventure. A beautiful little one column groundwork that an entirely appropriate length followed by a couple of sentences explaining that the party are caravan guards. That hook was NOT a strong start. It recalls every crappy adventure ever written in which there was a throw-abroad line about the party being caravan guards. No details. Yous're guards. Move along. Caravan guard is a classic trope. The classics got to be classics for a reason: when well done they are REALLY good. I recollect an adventure in Dungeon Magazine in which the party were caravan guards. It included a short section that was a dainty little realistic delineation of the duties during the day and what goes on the bivouac at night and gave the (three?) merchants a personality and some wares to sell and they interacted with the PC'south, all described in a department that wasn't overly long and used some strongly evocative linguistic communication. This ain't that. The whole purpose of the caravan guard thing is to put you lot on the road to the frontier boondocks that will serve as the parties base … so yous can be ambushed. Lame. LAME LAME LAME. Now, it turns, out, that the pre-gens all have some niggling hooks on their character sheets that motivate them to get involved in the gamble. Those hooks are pretty decent. The thief was part of the gang in town, they were framed and ready and now want revenge. In that location's a practise-gooder, a guy who has an ancestral tie to the state, and so on. These are pretty well done and should serve as some strong motivations to get to the boondocks. The pre-text then, the caravan baby-sit duty, is just the surrounding glue that motivates them to journey together at the same time. It is at this point I should disclose that I have DEEP scars about graphic symbol motivations. I've seen them used to justify some pretty crappy PC behavior, all on the grounds of "that'south what my character would do." This includes a actor having their grapheme sit out the Unabridged adventure because ether character wouldn't do that. I'yard VERY suspicious of this stuff. In this case the written text seems to piece of work well with the glue of the hook … EXCEPT FOR THE ELEPHANT, which I'll talk about later.

So, goblins ambush yous on the road. Yous chase them back to a cave, kill everything, take their stuff, rescue a dude, and proceed on the style back to town, ending part 1. The purpose here is really to demark yous to the town. There are looted caravan goods to return to the rightful owners. The dude to be rescued is moderately of import in the town. There are other clues present that can bind you to the town and kicking off that next part of the adventure. Information technology's very well constructed from this standpoint … EXCEPT FOR THE ELEPHANT. Things link together without shoving y'all downwardly a railroad. Information technology's presented as things for you to explore, and secrets for you to uncover instead of GO TO Point A AND And so POINT B So SKILL CHALLENGE AND And then POINT C You lot WIN Yes YOU. The encounters themselves try very hard. They mostly succeed. The ambush has a couple of dead horses blocking the road, with black-feathered arrows sticking out of them. Nice! The goblins in the cavern lair have some wolves chained upwards, with the wolves straining against their chains. And a goblin on a span overhead keeping lookout man. Have a low-cal?! He signals to take some flood gates broken open to alluvion out the streamed you lot are coming upwardly! One of the goblins will talk to yous if you endeavor, and bargain with you so you'll go get rid of the guy bullying the tribe. In that location are a lot of squeamish little things to ensure that every encounter feels like a unique challenge. There are notes about what the goblins tin can tell you if captured/charmed and yous tin can talk and bargain with one of the goblins! In a completely sickish move the goblins betrays you … which sends TOTALLY the wrong message. Why ever bargain with a monster if they all betray you? Just kill them and move on. Is that really the behavior you desire to encourage? Aye, I'm sure it's a deceitful fiddling creature simply … it's non stupid. I'm sick of every monster you lot tin talk to betraying their end of the bargain.

Role ii: Welcome to Adventurehookville. Population: Y'all
At some point you are going to make information technology to the small-scale frontier town that volition serve as your base of operations. There you lot will be herded towards "the best inn in town." Once there yous'll become an opportunity to exist exposed to several rumors, which will lead to many of the other seven or eight locations in town. From there you can pick up quite a few rumors and/or quests of things to investigate or expire. Some are tasks and some are things the political party might be interested in. It's skillful mix and the locations do a improve than average chore of being connected and interrelated. That'southward not exactly loftier praise since the vast majority don't do annihilation at all similar this, only, they tried and the endeavor shows. In particular, the adventure gives a brief summary of the major NPC'due south, where they hang out, and what their objectives/quests are. That's done in simply a sentence or so each. I find these sorts of references INVALUABLE. Read through the adventure once and then use the summary to trigger your memory of what you read earlier. More adventures need to practise this. In add-on, the rumors from the principal inn lead to other locations, which sometimes lead to other locations. That sort of interrelationship is a nice touch. The major NPC's have some small-scale personalities and many of them, besides keying the characters to quests, tin offering membership in a secret societies of sone sort of another. There'southward also some brief mentions of the vibe of the town. It's described in terms that make yous call up of the 'military camp'/boondocks from the Deadwood serial. IE: a western frontier town. Information technology doesn't explicitly give you that character or vibe, it just says it has a borderland like graphic symbol with prospectors, etc hanging out in town. I wish it had gone a little more in to some detail of some of those terrific Deadwood street scenes: the hawkers, characters, etc. The whole town is quite light on descriptive and evocative language/scenes outside of the cadre locations (and, I will assert later, IN the core locations equally well.) Finally the town is lacking on interpersonal relationships. I would accept liked to encounter a web of personal relationships between the various people living in boondocks. What does the guild primary think of the innkeeper, or the innkeeper of the trading visitor, or the trading visitor of the social club master … that sort of matter. These sorts of social environments THRIVE on the web of relationships between the parties. This will assistance make the town seem alive and to be outside of the interactions of the party. "Welcome to Mortistown", a zombie sourcebook for a town, did this masterfully. It suggested reactions, gave the starting positions, and suggested a timeline based on the motivations on the motivations of the NPC'due south. I'm not saying that a town supplement/section needs to go to the lengths Mortistown did, merely information technology's a good example to learn from.

There'due south a major meet in boondocks that could have been done much better. There's a gang in boondocks that kind of controls things and is bullying/extorting people. The NPC's in the chance provide some vague references to them existence neer-do-wells, but there's not much beyond that. The major introduction to them is going to exist a fight between them and the party. That'due south pretty poor. The gang needed more of a build-upwards. Show, don't TELL. Show us scenes of their petty evil … evil not enough to deserve a sword-thrust to the gut just more enough to tell us they are unsavory. You accept to build up these sorts of things. Their hideout is nether an old estate home and the exploration of that 'dungeon' is one of the major town events. It kind of feels … I don't know … lost? Tacked on? The bandits/gang don't really react to intrusions very well. They all sit in their rooms and wait to exist hacked down by the party. Intelligent creatures should have some sort of lodge of boxing for their lair. How practice they react? Who calls who for reinforcements? The dungeon is a small 1 simply has a couple of squeamish physical features, like a crevasse and a couple of other interesting features. A few of the rooms are by and large empty while most of the rooms take something going on in them. Undead. Slave pens. But it all just seems a niggling flat.

Role iii: Hex Crawl
Most of those rumors and quietists from Adventurehookville tin be followed up on in the small hex crawl presented. There are 6 to eight locations scattered throughout the region. One is medium-sized, one large, and the others smaller unmarried-encounter blazon locations. They are all within about a 2.5 day circle of travel. This allows for … Wandering Monsters! One time a twenty-four hours and once a nighttime you check for wanderers on a d20 with a 17+ indicating a monster. I'g not certain most this working. Traditionally these served the role of sucking downward the party resource but I'thou not sure how effective that is when all your HP come back after a single nights rest. I'm going to have to play to go a better view of this but it seems to me, on first impression, that someone threw in wanderers because they were traditional. Given the new rules on healing I suspect there needs to be some work done to make the wanderers "fit" over again with a decent purpose. The game is no longer about treasure, so that'southward not it. You can heal in a single dark, and then that'southward dark it. So if the wanderers are no longer a 'risk' then what purpose to do they service? IDK. I will say that the wanderers are kind of lame. Only a grow of hobgoblins has any season to them. I would have liked to take seen a piddling more than flavour, or the monsters doing something instead of the generic "they attack!"

I really liked the various locations though. You can talk to monsters and they accept a decent mix of The Fantastic nowadays. I want to mention a couple of points in detail that I liked. The first location is with a banshee. It talks to you and serves as a kind of oracle. That's pretty sweet! Information technology described near a ruined town/village that a major east-w trail runs through. Just the few words they use on the town paints a wonderful picture of some abandoned post-apoc-like setting with an important road still running through information technology. This whole thing was done really well. There'due south some other location with someone that is evil … or at least is known as the villain in most previous Forgotten Realms adventures: a ruby wizard. In this location he's not really interested in the party and isn't actually doing anything particularly evil. it'south a great example of the party encountering someone or something that can help them … if you're willing to pay the cost. These sorts of set up are SOOOOO much more interesting than a pure "THEY PUKE EVIL AND ATTACK!" encounters. Look, y'all can always hack the dude down later, considering he's evil or considering he's got some prissy loot, but, first, TALK to them. There's another location, the medium one in size that I referred to earlier, that is some other ruined little village with nine or ten piffling locations to explore. And in that location's a dragon! And information technology's in an interesting location! Alas, the dragon is given no personality AT ALL and the location i.e. Barely described. I understand and back up a terse style, just some suggesting for dragon-fighting in a ruined belfry would have been great. Collapsing floors, stairs, loose timbers, rubble, etc. This would have been a peachy place for a picayune more detail on the encounter. The dragon should accept had a personality as well, for exactly the aforementioned reasons cited to a higher place. Additionally … ITS A DRAGON. It'southward your Outset dragon. It should be impressive and full of life and personality and talk. Smaug is SO much more interesting considering it talks to Bilbo. The final location, the major one, is a small ruin with fifteen or so locations. The entryway is 1 of the simply interesting parts of this. A piffling gear up slice if you come through the front door, the rest of the site is pretty much just "room with a monster, room without a monster, room with a monster." At best you can sneak effectually or possibly endeavour to bluff through some of them. I guess I was expecting more … weirdness? Instead it's more than similar a piddling tactical assault. Except, again, there's no order of battle. The notes on who reacts to assaults and how are substantially nonexistent once you get by the gate guards. That'due south quite disappointing, especially given the layout of the site. In that location'due south a lot of doors and rubble and hallways to deadfall and exist ambushed and sneak past and then on. At that place are some overnice notes about some monsters showing upwards back abode at the end, later he major fights are over, and how the political party can deal with them. That's a nice trivial touch on I appreciated. It makes it seem like the identify is alive and exists every bit place instead of anybody simply coming out of stasis once a PC opens a door.

Part 4: Dungeon
Nope, not gonna spoil this. Decent map, dainty variety of features. A couple of skilful descriptions. Some interesting encounters. Overall, non enough to play with. There needs to be more weird and more stuff to fool around with. There seems to be a lot more risk than advantage. This might be an apt summary for most mail-"gilded every bit XP" D&D's. Why do this? I volition note that the Evil Bad Guy, in this dungeon, doesn't EXACTLY suffer from Lareth syndrome. He'southward referred to in several places by several people before you hit the dungeon. What yous don't go, though, is a sense that the dude is E V I L. Again, this goes to the "Show, don't Tell" stuff. He'south abstruse, you know he's at that place just the evidence of his evil acts is … almost nonexistent? Sure, he got some goblins to raid some stuff. Yawn. Where's the beef? I don't need gore merely you lot practise demand to set the dude upwardly better. Make the PLAYERS want to track him down instead of forcing them to make their CHARACTERS go after him "considering it's the right affair to do."

Prissy time to transition. The elephant is the moral worldview enforced by the designers. In almost of the risk y'all are expected to get do something Considering Information technology'southward the Right Thing To Practice. Chase the goblins? Clean out the lair? Return the stolen merchandise goods? Follow up on almost all of the hooks? BECAUSE … GOOD! In fact, for the trade goods, no other selection is presented. The merchandise goods get you a reward for returning them but nowhere is the value otherwise mentioned, or an literate claw if you come in to town clearly selling something looted from a caravan. That sort of view is nowadays over and over once more in the adventure. Options and paths of play are just shut down. In the instance of the trade appurtenances, it could have been an excellent choice to infiltrate the local bandit gang, or utilise in other artistic means. Merely none of this exists because the designer has decided you can't do that. The designer should EMPOWER and Aid the DM, non enforce their plot or views upon them. Brand new players are oftentimes, in my experience, the MOST artistic and providing the framework to support that inventiveness IS the designers task.

The monsters in this adventure suck. In that location should be wonder and fear when you run into something. Do yous say "you see three ghouls."? No, of course not. You describe them and what they are doing. Yous leave the party guessing. What kind of thing is that? What does information technology do? What exercise they desire? Can it kill the states? That's the kind of monsters encounter I desire to run across, ones that encourages the players to soil themselves over THE OTHER. Instead we become "you run across iii goblins" or something similar. Uncool WOTC. The monster descriptions are boring equally hell, with almost no attending paid to what the DM really needs: what the PC's Feel when they meet them. Stink like the grave? Matted patchy fur? None of that is present. And the monsters attacks are generally disassociated. Bugbears get a surprise damage bonus that is presented completely mechanically: if you become surprise you lot do 2d8 more. Yeah. Mechanics. How nearly something like "Their dark fur allows them to blend in to shadows well, giving them a plus 2d6 to impairment as they leap out in the surprise round." Again, you are teaching new players how to play and you just taught an entire generation of DM'south to say "you see two gricks." Balderdash. Shit. That'south non the D&D I want to play. That a lath game. Deliver the wonder! It's not that difficult. We don't demand a page, or a cavalcade, or a paragraph. Simply i sentence. The free Dragonsfoot "Where the fallen jarls sleep" has a Smashing description of the undead, i of the all-time e'er.

In a like vein, the magical items mostly are none too great. They tend to be very mechanical. '+i sword, deals max impairment to constitute creatures." Ok, That's not equally awful as just a +ane sword, and they mostly do present a lilliputian backstory/history for each item. That's very prissy; they don't get on for likewise long simply they practice provide a … grounding? For the characters to know what it is they are carrying and add a squeamish scrap of the non-generic. The issue is that the items are all grounded in the mechanics. Pluses, maximums, additions, rerolls … it's all very board gamey. In a game where you lot can Annihilation, literally Anything, you lot requite us an item that gives +1 to defense? Ok, that's a footling hyperbolic, but the mechanical manner magic is treated is much closer to 4e than it is to OD&D or T&T. Gems that you swallow and plough y'all in a beaver? The gem in the starting time level of the darkness beneath that shoots out flames? Neat items without a whiff of the generic or mechanical. Effects are described instead of mechanics. Information technology's like someone is TERRIFIED of the ambivalence that this sort of not-mechanical thing may introduce. Another discussion for the DM is Guess. Allow the Judge handle the ambiguity … that why they be! There is a Peachy magic particular in the hex clamber, a little statue that gives anybody an augury once. That's a nice trivial touch and exactly the sort of magic item I'm looking for. It's Non straight out of a book and information technology oozes wonder and mystery. THAT'S what magic items should exercise.

Finally, I desire to cover the user of descriptive linguistic communication. There's non a lot. The encounters and place just don't seem to pop. They are generally interesting enough, like the goblin on the rope bridge or the alluvion they release or the wolves on their chains, for example. Only they don't don't popular. They don't do a very good job of springing to life in your mind. I recall it's because of the lack of descriptive language. While reading through the adventure I was struck by the goblin lair seeming a bit generic … simply then when I looked dorsum over information technology information technology was articulate that the situations were interesting. But they didn't stay with you. They didn't seem … exciting? And I think what I hateful past this is that the encounter didn't get ME, the DM, excited about running it. In the town section this really stood out. It was either in the rumors section or somewhere else when it hitting me. There were nouns and verbs merely the adjectives and adverbs were not used very well. "The farmers wife tells you … " instead of the "the prim farmers wife tells you …" At that place's was nothing of the FAVLOR existence communicated. Floods should exist raging torrents. The NOC's should have personalities, or flavors, to help the DM and bring the encounter to life in your listen. Farmers Wife leaves a lot open. Granny, prim, biddy, lusty, stoic, proper … all of those give you, the DM, something to piece of work with. They conjure a Not-generic image in your listen that you lot tin build on. There's WAY not enough of this in the adventure. Hence the kind of "generic' vibe. Generic goblin. Generic cave. Generic wolves. This lack of descriptive material, simply a word or ii really, is a reall killer.

Y'all don't get it both ways. Yous can't claim to be a Starter Set and then not include GREAT magic items and monster descriptions. You gotta make this thing popular. You gotta brand people want more More MORE. The monsters, magic items, and descriptions don't really do that. In the finish you go a serviceable risk/ready of adventures. They are nicely continued with a home base that is ameliorate than usual. This is a decent adventure, it delivers over and over once more in a non-sucky manner. In an in a higher place average way. But it doesn't striking the highs, consistently, that the best products do. I'm disappointed in that. I wanted this to knock your socks off. It'south big. Information technology's long. Both of those are great. But the quality isn't what I was hoping for. But, in spite of the Starter Set adventure not being the 2nd-coming of Dave Bowman or Calithena, information technology does put D&D back on SOLID basis again. I'd be happy to run this. I fucking love D&D, and D&D is at present back!

Now for some self-promotion:
Did you lot seriously only read all of that? Wow. You should be playing D&D instead. If y'all're in/near Indianapolis and then you should check out the Indy Gaming meetup. My wife runs the group. Nosotros're running an all-solar day play through of the starter assail July 19th. RSVP and come along!

Want to gloat the return of D&D by being a butthead? Drib me a line! We're having a bonfire to celebrate the evening of July 11th. Feel free to bring the onetime edition; we'll need fuel for the fire.

This is available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Starter-Wizards-Squad/dp/0786965592/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=phandelver&qid=1550494610&south=gateway&sr=eight-1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=tenfootpole-xx&linkCode=ur2&linkId=cfc3967b9a107b31429d26273b785565&army camp=1789&creative=9325

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Source: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=2469