Lost mines of Phandelver

[MustacheManny]

So I'm in a new group running the starter set as most of them either haven't played before or only played a little bit. I've never run the campaign before but so far am having a good time. If possible, without spoilers, what do you think of the starter campaign?

[rooneg]

I've read it, but not actually played in it or run it, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. As far as I can tell it's pretty spectacular. The first part (where you're level 1) looks like it can be a bit of a sweat, since level 1 PCs are prone to dying on you, but assuming you get past that the whole thing seems really solid. I also like that there are some enemies you can encounter (but that aren't required) where it is by no means a sure thing that you'll be able to defeat them. Honestly, I've been reading it over again this weekend, and I'd really love a chance to run it some day.

[Innocent_bystan]

I used it to introduce a couple of friends to Dnd and it worked really well.

The storyline isn't the most complex, but it gets the job done. Towards the end, I had to spice up the encounters to keep them interesting.

Search the forums for threads about enhancing the Lost Mines, I leaned heavily on the suggestions given there.

[Franbo]

It's a nice campaign that embodies many of the key/core concepts of a classic D&D campaign with a nice mix of town, wilderness and dungeon ramblings.

It introduces a number of iconic D&D beasties with a pretty nice variety and mix of opponent complexity levels and difficulty while not overwhelming new players with too much.

The storyline is far from perfect with a few jarring and unconnected transitions and plot holes, but generally speaking if you have a decent DM and players who aren't too pedantic these can be glossed over.

I definitely think that augmenting the adventure a little with a few bits and pieces makes it transition from "Very Good" to "Truly Great".

If your DM is experienced he/she will likely do this as a matter of course, if not: the good news is that there are many suggestions out there on how to enhance it (google is the DM's friend).

If your DM is also relatively new a good starting point for some "vanilla" help is the series of pact of the tome write-ups (I suggest you don't read these if you are playing):

I can't post a link so search for "pact of the tome gathering a group" in google to find what I am talking about.

If nothing else suggest to your DM to read this.

It can be run as is and will be fun but I strongly recommend to the DM to check out some ideas and resources to round it out a little bit.

[Fishyninja]

I am currently participating in two versions of this campagin simulataneously, one straight out of the advetnrues guide and one that has been home brewed and agian it is a strong campagin, to reinforce the above post there is a good mix of social interaction, combat, dungeon diving and provides a lot of opprtunities to test out the mechanics of 5e.

[Finback]

I came to 5e with it, and ran it for a mixed group - people who'd played 3.5, 4e and 5e, and some who'd never picked up dice before. We didn't use the pre-cons, as I wanted the new players to feel really into their characters.

Overall, it's a solid introduction, with each level growing to match the players - but my one rule? Don't play hard and fast. The players WILL go off the path in new ways. My players did some very left field things that did not fit the storyline as written, but player enjoyment trumps the written page nine times out of ten. Similarly, there are things in there they will NOT be ready for, so be prepared to explain sometimes discretion is the better part of not getting your face eaten.

But overall, yes, a definitely strong intro point.

[Captain Morgan]

From the above responses, it seems popular for experienced DMs with first time players. I'm an experienced player being run through it by a first time DM, and it hasn't given me a favorable impression. My perspective is only from one side of the screen though, so take it with a grain of salt-- couldn't tell you how much is failings on the AP vs the DM.

The adventure seems to be very sandbox oriented, bristling with different NPCs you can encounter, and different quest lines you can choose to follow. This strikes me as really hard to prepare for properly for a DM. If you don't know what path your players will take, you either have to prep for everything or effectively nothing.

Also, playing a bard in a sneaky party has let us pretty trivially bypass many of the encounters and/or solve them without fighting, which makes sense from in an in character perspective. But almost all of the XP is tied to actually fighting those encounters rather than accomplishing goals, so you get a lot of meta pressure to grind some mobs or have to come to an understanding with your DM.

There's also various things that are annoying-- you get a lot of gold but nothing of interest to spend it on. It's very keen on genocide for bad races. And the aforementioned plot holes really hurt my head at times.

But again, I can't say how much of this is to blame on the DM. I obviously haven't read it myself. The issues the DM struggles with do occasionally strike me as poor design of the adventure for it's intended purpose though.

[Theodoxus]

i enjoy it - I ran it first straight out of the box - both as a learning tool for the differences between 5E and Pathfinder (as we were transitioning) and just to see what it was like sans mods.

I've run it 3 more times since then, once on Roll20 which was amazing and twice others rolling into Horde of the Dragon Queen - the Horde conversions were heavily modded to allow for a seamless transition, and allowed me to mod Tyranny of Dragons to better suit my needs...

Anyway, much like 5E in general, LMoP is very robust, capable of being stretched and modded without breaking the premise: a module for beginners.

As for your viewpoint, Captain Morgan, I agree. It's probably best run either with a fully new crew (who won't see the plot holes or grok the finesse true system mastery entails until they've got a few sessions under their belt) or with an experienced DM and new or mixed players who can test the DM on their own preparation skills...

I would hope, as an experienced player, you're providing help to the new DM - or at the very least, not being problematic :) I learned that lesson last night myself. I came into a new to me group, using my tricks of the trade and confused a lot of the very new players (a couple who hadn't played a TTRPG before, but had done their homework and read up on the rules). I had to reign back my behavior and basically take them under my wing. It wasn't what I was looking for in the game, but it was still an enjoyable experience.

[Captain Morgan]

We have indeed done our best to assist the DM in various ways, including picking out which quest to follow a week ahead of time so he has a chance to prep for that. We also had an experienced player acting as a co-dm once or twice, which worked really well. While the main dm focused on the stuff out for the book, the co dm kept the ball rolling with improvised flourishes and roll playing NPCs and such.