D&D Starter Set: Lost Mine of Phandelver

(NOTE: Significant spoilers in everything on this page!!!)

My Alternative Spins and Twists

Why change anything from the Starter Set as written?

Short answer: Making the players care about the story, its characters and adversaries.

This was a new campaign for all new players (some my kids aged 9+), with my past experience playing AD&D (1st edition) from 6th grade through college. I had not touched a tabletop RPG in about 20 years, and while initially tempted to use the old school rules, I was impressed by 5th Edition streamlining, so grabbed this module and started the sessions off verbatim.

Then reading ahead to plan out the game sessions, and recalling the tendencies of my start as a 10 year old, I wanted to emphasize the storytelling and unfurl the wonderful depth of the Forgotten Realms world rather than get stuck in a pattern of what we used to call "monster cubbies" - and now is termed "murder hobo". (I should also note I wanted to make as much of the game social, physical and tactile as possible in deliberate contrast to video games and tablet addictions - so in-person around a table, with dice, miniatures on battle mat, paper character sheets, etc.)

• The people and creatures are more than cardboard props.

• They live in this world of wonder and have their own stories and motives.

• Even the "bad guys" are not simply acting out of "being evil."

• While not diluting the struggle of good vs. evil,

  • "Evil" can be "Selfish" or "Apathetic Ambition" - more than merely hate and malice.

  • Being "good" can mean acting selflessly, supporting others, offering mercy.

Essential Elements of the Alternative

Changes and additions toward these goals, building on the wealth of creativity in the links above and in the wider world of the Forgotten Realms.

• Fleshing out the BBEG ( big bad evil guy(s) ) - why care?

  • Who is he? Where did he come from?

  • Why is he doing what he's doing? Why here? Why this way?

  • Revised / Invented Backstories (see the links)

    • The Redbrand leader/wizard Glasstaff (Iarno Albrek): why he turned against Sildar/The Lords' Alliance, how he was a member in the first place, what alternatives he might seek in place of fighting to the death, what he might do after...

    • The Black Spider (Nezznar): why there is a Drow here, why he has those minions (and not other types you would expect), why the level of power vs. ambitions...

• It's Dungeons & Dragons - punch up the love of both of those D's

  • A dungeon (Wave Echo Caves/Phandelver) worth exploring - with mysteries and monsters and loot!

    • First off - the suggestion to use a looped sound of crashing waves to remind the party of that feature of the place was awesome! Especially making it more prominent and reminding of the shaking as you near the source. (That sound also conveniently masks combat noises and such, compartmentalizing encounters.)

    • Second - I loved (and then the players loved) the idea of the puzzle-keys as conceived and described in the Game Night Blog (introduced in session 13). I made mine out of heavy cardboard instead, but each time handed out the party was excited and immediately started trying to make it into something. It also lets you spread them around to give a reason to further explore the place. These pieces become essential not only to unlock the room with the Forge of Spells, but then also as the key to reawaken its power (in the other shape configuration).

    • I did not, however, do the Lolth intervention craziness from that story - but I instead set up the encounter with Nezznar to begin with seeing him speaking through a magical Zoom session kind of thing to Vyerith and Glasstaff on the ground in Thundertree, having escaped being chased out of Tresendar Manor/Cragmaw - seeking Nezznar's priestess friend, only to find she and her spiders killed (by the dragon). This gave a nice loose end to revisit in later plots.

    • It's important that Nezznar has been stymied by being unable to get past both the shroom room and the fireskull. My deus ex machina here is without those puzzle-key pieces, there are enchantments in the caves that disorient explorers and magnify the threats posed by the defenses left by the original owners (and that history of the original owners becomes very important relative to the Forge - see below.)

  • The dragon (Venomfang) should be scary but clever and yet survivable for the party to tell a tale of glory.

    • A key factor here is emphasizing the characteristic of Green Dragons being deception experts.

    • Several Reddit threads consider the Reidoth = Venomfang angle (see <this> and <this> and <this>): building out the concept to later connect these into both Storm Lord's Wrath and Rise of Tiamat, I built this Reidoth-to-Venomfang backstory (more directly here).

    • Don't squander the opportunity for foreshadowing or connecting this part with the dead spider bodies near the tower. I used this to connect through a story of a companion of Nezznar's who was a priestess of Lolth who tried to set up shop in Thundertree.

    • By making the "drive the dragon away from Thundertree" quest from Reidoth a ruse, and the next part of the quest (Cragmaw) another sneaky manipulation - the party's story can both include a plausible non-lethal early success and a later shock-value "doh!"

• Worthy treasure for all the fuss and build-up of the adventure (Forge of Spells).

  • As an introductory adventure, a careful balance must be struck to deliver a sense of accomplishment while retaining play balance.

  • Random-ish magic items and generic loot miss the opportunity to lend some momentum to the character concepts being set into motion with these starting characters.

    • So building upon the whole concept of the "Forge of Spells" idea, we can redirect the various "quality items" (magical or otherwise) found along the way in the adventure to literally exploit this ex machina to reshape and enchant them into interesting and even unique items to reinforce the player's desired archetypes for the characters.

    • But in doing so, it also strongly encourages the plot line to include some form of limit (in our case the destruction of) the Forge of Spells, an enchantment machine built over 500 years ago using science-sorceries guided by descendants of the Netheril working with gnome inventors and dwarven miners of the very special ores of the Sword Mountains once refined into the materials that composed the mythallar of the floating cities.

    • I built a fancy visual for the process (see below) or <Google slides here> or <PowerPoint original here>.

How did it play out in our game?

Taking these events in chronological order, with links to the campaign journals (index here), the story unfolded like this...

1. (Story Begins) Venomfang played them so expertly (being honest here: retroactive story-writing on my part) in Thundertree, she has become an ongoing character in the campaign. Seeking Reidoth to heal the fighter's severe burns sustained in the battle with the Flameskull, her story is awkwardly revealed ("You can call me Djennie") and a sort of alliance has emerged.

2. (At Cragmaw), the party took down King Grol, Vyerith nearly killling Gundren before vanishing with the map (and leaving the Rockseeker unable to speak from a throat wound) - but the party showed mercy to the lowly goblins, so when Targor later returned to find his rival Grol (and hobgoblin henchmen) dead, the goblins spared - his fortunes were clearly the result of that party - and he has a turn of heart, becoming a more respectable leader than Grol, and later even coming to the aid of Phandalin with his forces, honoring the party.

3. (Seeking the Mines): Ultimately it was Hamun Kost the Red Wizard Necromancer that correctly directs them to the location of the cave entry, after they pushed off the orc problem that had been annoying him. Hamun later connects with Mormesk the Wraith and they form a buddy team (he helps Mormesk possess a dwarf's body, Mormesk in turn begins to work with Hamun in the study and exploration of Netheril ruins - Mormesk in life having been a Netheril descendant).

4. (Wave Echo Caves) This link takes you to the first of three journal entries about the dungeon adventure, with a nice climactic ending in the (Finale). For the layout of the Wave Echo Caves, I really really liked <this map> as discussed <here on Reddit>:

   • the mine cart tracks really brought to mind the prior use as a worksite

   • the layout of key areas worked much better for me (temple, lake, wave area, fungi area, bellows and empty canal...)

   • the vault with the Forge of Spells fit much better into the idea of needing magical access and then housing the machinery I describe above.

5. (BBEG) Nezznar is at first captured and taken to Phandalin - the party re-equips and returns to the caves to take on the Flameskull and find the Forge. Nezznar escapes, aided by his Zhentarim contact in town, who is playing all sides of the situation to profit no matter who comes out on top. In the return to the caves, the two members of the Order of the Gauntlet have a take-down item: a spike to drive into the ground and water (the barbarian peed on it) to grow into a root-tree-thing that collapses the whole place on itself. (The motive being to take the Forge off the table entirely rather than have it draw great powers into conflict to control it -- Harpers, Lords Alliance, Dwarves, Drow, Orcs, Red Wizards, Shadowvar, whomever...)

6. Glasstaff and Vyerith escape and reconnect with the party in a wholly different context much later - their Zoom meeting call with Nezznar a reminder to the party of their being around, and an excuse to share the side-story of Nezznar's friend the priestess (giving an ah-ha back to the spider bodies found on the way to fighting the dragon).