I love the Lost Mines of Phandelver. It's a great little module. It's well crafted for introducing new players to D&D. I've run it like 4 times now and each time I notice new featuresand improvements that make it more and more robust.
However, I have reached a point where I want to intentionally go in an make the module better. There are a few gaps that need filling. Or a few changes that really solve a lot of issues that might arrive. Like explicitly including Sildar as present at the briefing who is traveling with Rockeater. That really ups the stakes of the Goblin cave.
I like the Redbrands, who are your quintessential western bandits. However, why would they try to roll a group of adventurers who are coming back from taking out a bunch of orcs. So I invented a whole family of quests to fill that in: instead of jumping the adventurers and dying horribly, the redbrands attempt to recruit the players. They're always on the lookout for strong people to join their gang, right. So, I took some inspiration from Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars, where the players can join/infiltrate the Redbrands, do some missions to get their trust and then either learn about Rockseekers fate or use it as the perfect ambush to take out the leadership.
To this end, I designed a few NPCs to act as lieutenants to Glass Staff. Basically a 3rd level beserker and a 3rd level elven bodyguard kensai. Both draw a lot from Japanese archetypes from Samurai movies: the brutish bandit boss and the mad dog swordsman respectively. Both really flesh out the Redbrands presence above ground.
I also decided that the factions are (where appropriate) all looking for/interested in the location of the lost Mines. Not only that, Phandelin is full of goldrush type prospectors during the night, who might turn up dead in random encounters (likely after previously encountering the PCs on the road.) But the factions involvement gives the players a way to betray Rockseeker in favour of advancing the agenda of regional power players. I want the map to not only be "oh, here's where we have to go" but a valuable thing in itself that they might think of not letting people know they have it. That the cave isn't such a trove of magical items as hoped is just a genre appropriate twist.
I also made the process of entering the caves a little more involved. But like a magic barrier, some collapsed rocks, illusions. Just to make the achievement of getting to the mines feel a little less... declaratory?
I'm really interested if anyone else has made improvements to this module. Or any module really. But especially Lost Mines. Creativity feeds creativity after all.
I love the Lost Mines of Phandelver. It's a great little module. It's well crafted for introducing new players to D&D. I've run it like 4 times now and each time I notice new featuresand improvements that make it more and more robust.
However, I have reached a point where I want to intentionally go in an make the module better. There are a few gaps that need filling. Or a few changes that really solve a lot of issues that might arrive. Like explicitly including Sildar as present at the briefing who is traveling with Rockeater. That really ups the stakes of the Goblin cave.
I like the Redbrands, who are your quintessential western bandits. However, why would they try to roll a group of adventurers who are coming back from taking out a bunch of orcs. So I invented a whole family of quests to fill that in: instead of jumping the adventurers and dying horribly, the redbrands attempt to recruit the players. They're always on the lookout for strong people to join their gang, right. So, I took some inspiration from Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars, where the players can join/infiltrate the Redbrands, do some missions to get their trust and then either learn about Rockseekers fate or use it as the perfect ambush to take out the leadership.
To this end, I designed a few NPCs to act as lieutenants to Glass Staff. Basically a 3rd level beserker and a 3rd level elven bodyguard kensai. Both draw a lot from Japanese archetypes from Samurai movies: the brutish bandit boss and the mad dog swordsman respectively. Both really flesh out the Redbrands presence above ground.
I also decided that the factions are (where appropriate) all looking for/interested in the location of the lost Mines. Not only that, Phandelin is full of goldrush type prospectors during the night, who might turn up dead in random encounters (likely after previously encountering the PCs on the road.) But the factions involvement gives the players a way to betray Rockseeker in favour of advancing the agenda of regional power players. I want the map to not only be "oh, here's where we have to go" but a valuable thing in itself that they might think of not letting people know they have it. That the cave isn't such a trove of magical items as hoped is just a genre appropriate twist.
I also made the process of entering the caves a little more involved. But like a magic barrier, some collapsed rocks, illusions. Just to make the achievement of getting to the mines feel a little less... declaratory?
I'm really interested if anyone else has made improvements to this module. Or any module really. But especially Lost Mines. Creativity feeds creativity after all.
I ran LMoP and DoIP together as a large campaign. It was really fun. I took Venomfang out of Thundertree and put her domain in the mine.