Any chances of seeing you do this kind of breakdown to any other modules? Absolutely loved this and this made me much more comfortable DM’ing it. Would love to see it.
I was about to run LMOP for the 3rd time when this guide started, it REALLY helped expand and gave me new ideas. Instead of one puzzle box, almost all my players had a locked wooden box with a leaf shaped emerald that would be used to open the door to the forge. These were taken by Gundren and his party of adventurers before he retired, then given to the players who were somehow all related to Gundren's party without even knowing it. The Rogue even had a friend from his orphanage who was adopted by the Black Spider and became like a son to her. The final battle was at Axeholm (modified from Essentials Kit) and when the Black Spider went down she activated something that made the whole keep start to crumble, players had to rush to escape alive! I really like LMOP and loved all the new ideas you brought Matt, thank you for all the inspiration.
Kinda late to the party, but I ran this campaign with new players and they had a blast, especially using your tips. I made the macguffin a magical amulet that was the first magic item made in the mine all those centuries ago. And I made the spectator into a simple creature as a simple-minded creature that causes the items to become magical, and the campaign started because he misses his friends and wants them to come back because he's lonely. I made the Black Spider an older creature that all those centuries ago led the raid on the cave and was blasted forward through time by Mormesk's sacrifice, and he's been trying to get back ever since. What I loved about how we ran it is I had a really shy player running a half-orc fighter, and I made her the hero of the end using our macguffin as a time travel amulet. When the party would approach an area of WEC, each party member could put on the amulet and see an alternate timeline where the Black Spider killed them, but this fighter could put it on and see how she escaped, and use that to help navigate traps. The climax included a fight where all the party members knew what the BS would send at them and could beat him, and everyone loved the satisfying ending where Gundren Rockseeker and the party start up the mine, and the creature got new friends.
Great job customising stuff! Now imagine if you'd just run everything by the book because the book is somehow the #1 authority on your game - it's much better your way :)
Thanks a billion for this series! Was extremely nervous about DMing, and these videos held my hand as I tried it out first time earlier this year. They're such a great way to memorise and review the important bits of the campaign, while making it easier to break from the mold and change things around and be creative. Now DMing is all I can think of, I've no idea what I was doing with my life before! Again, thank you for giving me the courage, I'm looking forward to what comes next ☆
Love the series! Watching your videos made us want to revisit LMoP after it was the first module we ever played/DMed in. I was the DM in our first round, which has since broken up due to the members moving to different places, but nearly all players are starting to DM now. Without your videos we might not have come back to LMop, which we are now even making music for. So thank you, Matthew!!!
Thank You! Just started playing D&D again after abt a 20 year hiatus. Got the guys back together and we're using Foundry VTT to play remotely since we all don't live near each other. Found this series as the party went to Thundertree and re-worked some of that and now augmenting Cragmaw Castle and Wave Echo Cave. I kept Venomfang in Thundertree and he scared the absolute crap outta the party, as a dragon should for 3rd level characters. (Sound effects of a Dragon Growling go a long way toward setting the tone of that encounter) They made the mistake of mentioning Gundren and Wave Echo Cave, so now VF has let them leave but has made it clear he plans to follow their exploits and certainly will be interested in this magical cave of wonders. So that thread is going to come back later on once they finish up LMoP. Going to set up my Guardian as Murmesk. The back story is that he and his wife were some of the final wizards defending the forge. She was captured by the invading dark wizards, and when they tried to use her as a hostage, Murmesk believed her dead. Rather than lose the forge he invoked a spell that the pact wizards prepared to lock the forge by binding his soul to it. In the final blast of energy that locked the Forge, his wife, along with the dark wizards were killed. The party learns scraps of this story from the "treasure box" which is actually a damaged page of a book that Gundren has as well as from the journal of Urmon, which they found in Glasstaff's study. To convince Murmesk to unlock the forge they will need to find the locket of his wife so that he can lay her to rest properly. Although he won't explain it that clearly, just that he wants his treasure returned - That treasure being his wife. (cue tragic love story) Her remains are in the Booming cavern in the water. The Party will have to fight the waves, risking being drowned or dragged across the rocks to dive down and retrieve this locket, and I plan to have the BS's Bug Bears show up to harass them at the worst possible time. For my campaign, the "Key" is actually knowledge that is scattered in a few places, which will force the party to really explore all of WEC and tie in clues from earlier. My fail-safe will be Nundro, who knows the parts of this story that Gundren does not. So if they miss some clues, or fail the investigation rolls needed to get all of the details, then rescuing Nundro will fill in the gaps. I would not have started to "Tweak" LMoP had I not found this series, so much appreciation for the inspiration!
Great series, really helpful for a rusty DM (didn't play for 20 years, now my son and his friends enjoy it immensely). Today was monumental. Last week, the party cleared out Redbrand hideout, releasing Droop along the way. Today, on their way to Wyvern Tor, they had a random encounter with 6 to goblins (really random, generated with rolls!). I thought it would be cool to have one of the goblins to be Droop, stopping the fight and 'saving' his saviours. Our elven wizard, with a Charisma of 8, decided to try to convince them to join the party in the Wyvern tor raid. He rolled for persuasion, and I was not seriously considering to agree, when he rolled a natural 20.... So the goblins thought it would be good idea to join! The goblins were dealt names (Droop, Gloop, Snoop, Floop, Woop and of course Poop) and it quickly was nicknamed the 'Oop squad'. Long story short, the goblins helped out clearing the cave. The party left them the cave for their own business, and took the treasure. So now, travelling on, they have some (not befriended, but let's say) not hostile goblins in the 'Oop cave' at Wyvern tor. Brilliant. I loved it. Only their 5th session, and this is what they do. Fantastic.
These are some very cool and fun stories! I've enjoyed how you've covered and adapted the campaign. Our experience with LMoP was... not great. We were just getting our heads around 5E, having dabbled a little in the playtest (I was excited to see what became of Warlord. *how naiive I was*) as a rule of thumb, our GM was going to try and run it by the book, as this was all about giving 5E an honest go. Our first encounter with the Goblin ambush set the tone for the whole campaign. The fighter died early on, being knocked out by a water trap and drowning in the stream. From there on, we were losing PCs left and right, at the rate of about 1 per session. The Redbrands especially made mincemeat of us, with their double attacks leaving plenty of room to murder downed players At long last, the original PCs long forgotten in a great mound of Adventurer corpses in Phandalin, we reached level 3, and headed to Thundertree. At long last, we had the skills, powers and abilities to win fights, and bullying the Twig blights of Thundertree got us drunk on power. You can see where this is going. The moment we hear there's a Dragon, we're up for fighting it, caution be damned. If those Twig Blights were any measure, we'd be able to walk this. Up the hill we trekked, plotting our assault, and building a rudimentary plan. A plan that never saw fruition as Venomfang acted first, Nuked us all with dragon breath and we never got to take a turn. At that point I'm not sure we'd ever heard of a Wave Echo Cave, yet alone a Forge of Spells. And then most of us swore off 5E forever. I've run a bit more myself, and I think the GM did run it kinda hardball, but the general criticism of low-level play being too brittle to really encourage any commitment to or roleplaying of characters really stays with me.
I gave Yeemik major plot armor (It was the third session ever for all of the players, including me as DM) so i pulled a sneaky "He escaped through a crack in the walls" on them. They also tried to tame one of the wolves and have become HELLBENT on getting it tame, so naturally, i let the wolf escape while they were clearing the cave and scattered some intel around phandalin about him being seen with the redbrands. At the hideout two sessions later, i replaced the three bugbears with Yeemik who got a "Promotion", and Droop was supposed to look after the Wolf but Yeemik sent him to cragmaw castle just to make Droop sad. Yeemik managed to trade his life for the location of Cragmaw Castle and escaped the fury of my murdethobos yet again. At this point, the main driving force for the PCs is this damn Wolf and Yeemik is serving as sort of a "Ice-Age-Squirrel"-Type background character messing up things just ever so slightly in the players favour wherever they go, and i could use either one of them at any point to get my players to drop whatever theyre doing and follow that lead, i might use that in case they actually follow the Thundertree-Quest to save the PCs from the Dragon. I think i might finally reward them a Buffed Wolf after defeating king Grol so they can heroically take him to the final chapter.
Loved this series. I got so many useful hints from you. You asked about stories though: Here's one for you. My party decided to impersonate Klarg and another Redbrand and bang on the front door of the Redbrand hideout demanding the use of the slaves to repair the Cragmaw Hideout. Every blasted Goblin, Hob, and Bugbear on the way failed their rolls to see through the disguises. They got the slaves and got out without any trouble. But that wasn't enough for them. The slavers had to die, so the Bardlock roused the entire town into a frothing at the mouth mob and convinced them to burn the hideout with torches and murder everyone inside with pitchforks and rusty blades. It was glorious chaos. I allowed Glassstaff to escape to serve as a recurring villain, but the whole crawl was subverted by some intense roleplaying.
Wish I had discovered your channel sooner 😁 like many I started playing dnd at the start of lockdown but I am a mum of 45 who always loved dnd (right generation and all that) but never had the chance to play. I ended up dming with no experience for my husband, 13 and 8 year old daughters who also never played /heard of dnd before. We are still paying mines of phandelver, followed the book almost to the letter until I started watching your videos. Best moments so far my party barely surviving Venomfang (my 8year old was so proud told everyone at school about it) and my 8yearold halfling rogue rolling a natural 20 to stealthily check out the Orc cave - " she was so stealthy she danced around them as a ballerina" it has become her signature move😂. I now also dm for my 8year old and her small group of friends online since lockdown 2 (UK). It has been a great experience to learn to play together as a family (still working on persuading my other 13 year old daughter to join... 😜) Thanks to your videos I feel I am becoming a better storyteller. 😁👍
The ranger rolled a 20 on the animal handling check with the wolves, so it followed around for the dungeon and they fell in love with him so I let them keep it. At level 3 the ranger chose Beast Master and it become a crucial member of the party, even using him during the Agatha skill challenge to successfully calm her. My characters weren't really addressing the Redbrands because they wanted to clean up all the sidequests Skyrim-style so when they returned from Wyvern Tor I had a Redbrand tend bar who upcharged them for drinks and "had never heard of Bart," which finally pushed them to go on the offensive. I love this series and all of the ideas that you've given! Excited to see more
My players TPKd in Wyvern Tor around level 2 or 3, fighting the orcs and Ogre, they had started strong with a brutal sneak attack on the sentries but stalled out with mixed tactics and cold roles. The entire party went down before anyone could fail a death save however, so I faded to black and called the game for the night. One of my players was very upset and emotional and I spent as much time as I could soothing them and letting them know without too many spoilers that this wasn’t the end, they needed to trust me. Our next session I had the party slowly awaken, tied up and bound by the remaining orcs. The encounter became an escape and another, more successful battle. In the end I think it felt a little forced to a few of us but all the players appreciated another chance at their characters and the happiness of their reunion paid out well for the rest of the campaign.
My party of brand new players got to Phandelin and met "Bart" and his dog "Ranger" (cuz I'm a dog person so having an old "good boy" golden retriever made sense). When they came out of the store, they were welcomed to a shakedown by some Red boys. As soon as the players started resisting the shakedown, the lead bandit pushed his poncho out of the way to reveal a sword, ready to be drawn. I started playing the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly soundtrack right at that moment. The players all started laughing, having realized the theme, and then they got super into the game. It was so much fun to see them open up like that. Unfortunately, they killed some Redbrands, but left the others to run away. I'm afraid the redbrands might come back for retribution and hurt Bart, and even Ranger. As sad as that will be, the PCs are going to be furious at the redbrands and will start looking for how to get rid of them.
I wish I had found your series before starting my LMoP adventure! Lots of good ideas here. I'm DMing for a group of all-new players with the intention of continuing the campaign after LMoP ends, so I've had to do a fair share of my own rewriting to better fit the characters' stories and seed clues for the future. Some of the biggest changes I've made are: merging the Old Owl Well and Conyberry side quests so that it's Agatha who is raising the dead in a woeful act of despair, continuously reliving the battle that wiped out her town (we already have Iarno and Nezznar as villainous wizards, no need for a third), making Venomfang more manageable by reskinning him as a wyvern, removing the dragon cult, moving Thundertree to Wyvern Tor and having Venomfang evict the Many Arrows tribe of orcs, making the orcs sympathetic characters who just want a place to stay but have now involuntarily entered a turf war with the Cragmaw clan of goblins, and who may help the party storm Cragmaw Castle.
Putting the puzzle box with either the necromacer or the banshee is a good way tot ie in sidequests as part of the main story if you want this mcguffin after having started the adventure.
@@heyitsMattyP I made some pretty major changes to the sidequests, cutting thundertree and semi cutting old owl well (location is gone but a reworked version of the undead fight, this time 3 zombies who instead always revive once, 3 skeletons and a skeleton warhorse is put into the conyberry ruins) this was where I put the mcguffin, it is found in the remains of the warhorse, as it used to belong to tharden, but when attacked by the black spider, he hid the mcguffin in his horse's dying corpse, which then rose (along with him as a zombie) and attacks the players. The banshee was largely unchanged although using some suggestions from these videos although she does point the party towards wyvern tor with the biggest change, the orcs were displaced by a gold dragon who tried to make it its lair, however is soon attacked by a PC's son (it is the dragon that cursed his bloodline as he is a draconic origin sorcerer), when confornted it attacks the son then flies off, leaving the son overwhelmed and possesed with draconic energy and he is a boss fought there. (The orcs attack the players on the way back in place of nomral random encounters, I think them attacking to try to recoup lost resources and glory makes more sense and is more compelling) sorry this is such a long comment but the sidequests have so much interesting potential if you get creative.
I Dmed Lost Mines Using This Guide And It Turned Out Super Fun. The Different Outcomes - Glasstaff, King Grol, Bart, Gundren, Sildar, And The Players Got Together And Formed A Alliences Called The Phandelvers Pact. - The Manor Is Now A Homebase For The Players. - Bart Became The Towns Mayor - And They Basically Rebuilt Everything
bang bang boom c10.patreonusercontent.com/4/patreon-media/p/post/44755589/86c46d62d7c9432e8a12eab9e7d43823/eyJxIjoxMDAsIndlYnAiOjB9/1.png?token-time=1658620800&token-hash=J6XkBxnlMRiJzaTOWTirNWxORlWMrHLPwXosaKCtXrU%3D
When my players arrived in Phandalin I told them Gundren and Sildar had some business to take care of in town and let them go about some sidequests (agathas and old owl) while at the old owl I mentioned one of the undead looked kind of like Gundren and they'd heard mentions of his brothers being out of town. At the end of the session I described them coming back to town and finding Gundren leaving the inn laughing with arms around the very same previously dead dwarf they had seen. This is where I will pick up for next session with some doppelganger fun
We are kind of in a break but we stop just as my players reached Glasstaff. He surrendered after my characters defeated the Redbrands and the Bugbears. I really want to give my players the puzzle box as well as a tea stained letter from the black spider as they search his quarters. I love the idea of a puzzle box holding a key or even being the key for future use in Wave Echo Cave
Great videos man, I've used almost every single of your sugestion in my last game! My next group I'm going to merge the Dragon of Icespire Peak. Cryovain will be the BBEG, and BS and other factions his minions, and I'm going to bring VenomFang back, but his role will be kind of a quest giver, because he will know the locations of very poweful weapons that the players could go before facing Cryovain. This locations will be some of the late side quest from DIP. But the items will be broken or inactive and then the Forge of Spells will restore them. Cryovain actually is an outcast from the Dragons Society (haven't decided the actual name) and is trying to increase power to return and fight. He will have some Ice Mephit in hiding in every mini Boss room without their knowledge (Klarg cave, KingGrowl room, etc..) to serve as spies. (actually only BS will know that Cryovain is the BBEG), thats why he needs spies And VenomFAng is an scout sent to watch Cryovain actions and report to the council. He will also have spies in every bad guy base, one Doppelganger in each base in disguise that will try to flee or even "betray their comrades" and ally with the adventures only to safely escapes the slaughter. The druid will not be a bad guy but want VenomFang gone, I'm still have to think in a compelling story for him.
The only side quest I used was a more fun version of Thundertree, called South Thundertree 10 miles east of Phandelin. We fought off the young dragon and cult, on a 2 moon eclipse night. That being the reason for the crazy vine and Twig blights, skeletons rising. Turns out this town was near the Wave Echo Cave, enhancing its menacing qualities. The Harper was named Peter , who we saved from the cultists (sister gareales brother). He knew where to find Cragmew Castle.
I just did the Agatha/Necromancer with Zombietron. Mostly your suggestions. I had the Zombietron fight them first but they had seen the Necromancer but several hundred yards/meters away. My Rogue( wants to bypass the Zombietron by having the human throw him over it so he can attack the Necromancer by himself. He wouldn't accept that none of the others could possibly throw him that far. I was too busy laughing at him to really explain. I finally said fine, if you both roll natural 20s, I'll allow it. Anything less you both get hurt. Any crit failure and you die. Argument over. Still did his thing but it worked out. Thank you very much for helping me to start dming. It's a blast.
It can be really tricky when players want to argue about stuff like that, like they're trying competing against you to win rather than working with you / trusting you to create memorable drama
@@heyitsMattyP It wasn't a serious argument. I have all new players including myself. All around 40. I encourage silliness. At the same time, I'm gradually making things more challenging. One player almost died during this. Again, thank you for all of the great ideas.
Australian, English, what's the difference? Yes, I'm kidding. My party encountered the Goblin Arrows ambush, then turned around to Neverwinter and fenced the shipment for gold. Took a bit to get them re-centered.
Excited to see this in a few hrs! Your content has helped and supported my developing a style and interesting play thru first time DMing. Glad I found your content from the Wild Sheep Chase One-Shot!
Chimney part: XD Ripper's body was decomposing and my players needed a place to sleep ...so since Klarg bailed, Ripper was stuffed into the chimney...this was after one of my players had the idea to put old Ripper into the fire pit. (burnt fur...ew). We did have the "be nice to critters" talk after.
I really like the idea of making reidoth a follow-on villain, in my game reidoth was a golden dragon in disguise, as the only appearance of a dragon and made a very minor one, it cursed the party sorcerer to gain his powers but shortened his lifespan as his body slowly turns to gold (player's idea) so I had him use draconic energy to posses the sorcerer's son as a boss fight so a draconic encounter could still happen, but not an outright deadly fight, while the dragon flew far away in search of a new lair, if the players want to continue with these characters beyond lmop, I have plans for where it ended up and how it can be reintroduced as a grand much later boss battle. (edit: this also had the great roleplay scenario where the players had to break to "reidoth"'s wife about who her husband truly was, to which she admits since her son has grown scales she suspected, and has come to terms with whatever happens to him because of how often he'd dissappear anyway, as long as she's able to raise her son safely)
Unfortunatly you missed my comment about shakira .. the shewolf .. basically my party (2 persons, my gf and a friend from across the great pond, we play with a 7 hour time difference ;) ) were wenturing in the first goblin den. I planed to have a healer (was the cart driver for them) as a side kick. They rescured the wolf from klarg ... now the halfling rouge is riding a dire wolf puppy ... quite funny ...
in my game when I ran the final fight against the black spider I revealed them as a polymorphed Venomfang the dragon and let them bamf out with dimension door. this in conjunction to using dragon cultists everywhere instead of goblins and bugbears is building up to running ice spire peak and into the tyranny of dragons questline. just as soon as my players kill venomfang....
I gave a player the back story of a brother that was always looking to become more powerful wizard until one day an accident occurred and took an eye and make his right eye turn green, not know by the player this brother is found by red brands and glass staff knowingly gives him a spell that causes him to get the curse of Vecna turning him into the Nothic in the red brand hideout. This cause auditable gasps in my group when they pieced together who the Nothic eventually was. This led to Glass staff getting hunted down and killed and the party looking for ways to remove the curse from the players brother.
@@TheAirRunner1 The way I reckon you could go about it is to limit the scope. 1. Tell the players you're going to do a 6-session post-campaign story. 2. Do a 1-year time skip so you can justifiably have this story take place wherever you want. 3. Try whatever feels natural for the homebrew, make mistakes and adjust later. 4. After the new campaign finishes, retire the characters and take all your new knowledge and skills into a different official module with a different fresh party. You'll be surprised how much you learn from a homebrew campaign, because it stretches different muscles.
Thank you! It's the Iron Patron tier (US$5) to unlock everything. My thinking is to offer lots of value, and people can sign up for a month and bail if they want, but lots of people choose to stay on for a while and help fund the channel :)
Thanks!@@heyitsMattyP I'll be a Patron soon! I've been watching tons of videos and obviously reading the start and essentials set. One thing I don't see a lot of help online with is the mechanics of playing, a ton focuses on storytelling and improv but not a lot on rolling the dice and playing the game of DnD. Right now my biggest concern is not smoothly telling people when to do the appropriate skill checks and what I am checking those against. Just some content ideas :) . Keep up the great work!
Hey Max! Glad the series has been helpful. I haven't written a prequel adventure yet. I do have something in the works for the Trade With The Black Spider scene, where TBS tries to get the mysterious puzzle box though. I expect that will be out in the next two weeks.
@@heyitsMattyP Ahh thanks for letting me know. I'm really considering subscribing to your Patreon, but I'm waiting for that adventure. The TBS trade would be cool too though!
Doubly excited for more of the Patreon content! I love having those pamphlets and notes to pass out to players at key moments. It makes it seem like I'm prepared and creative, both of which I am not. 😂 We're meeting in Neverwinter next week to meet with Gundran, grabbing our supplies, and hit the road! Appreciate all the help on my first real campaign Matthew
I was a about one proper session into goblin arrows when I found this whole thing then when they had their long rest after the first combat ran the modified prologue where I ran a drinking game and gave one a nishe magic item for beer drinking and the McGuffin this all happened in there dreams Then I had it so when they woke up they found the items they acquired from prologue night and described to them that they didn't have them previously they know that much for certain So now I'm gonna find someway to mix weird dream magic manifesting physical items to the players to explain what the f just happened If anyone has an idea please gib
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
-------------- ❤ Support the Channel ❤ --------------
💚 Patreon: matthewperkins.net/patreon
💚 Donate: matthewperkins.net/donate
💚 Store: matthewperkins.net/store
💚 DM Guild: matthewperkins.net/dmsguild
💜 Twitch: matthewperkins.net/twitch
💜 TikTok: matthewperkins.net/tiktok
🧡 Discord: matthewperkins.net/discord
🧡 Facebook: matthewperkins.net/facebook
🧡 Twitter: matthewperkins.net/twitter
🧡 Instagram: matthewperkins.net/instagram
🧡 Reddit: matthewperkins.net/reddit
✏ Blog: matthewperkins.net/blog
📧 For marketing/business/sponsorship inquiries, email: mperkins.dm@gmail.com
This series of video is still helping me. After 2 years
Glad to help :)
Any chances of seeing you do this kind of breakdown to any other modules? Absolutely loved this and this made me much more comfortable DM’ing it. Would love to see it.
I'm so sad to see this series leave, but I love to watch it walk away...
please don't objectify my video series about the lost mine of phandelver
@@heyitsMattyP it’s dummy thicc
I was about to run LMOP for the 3rd time when this guide started, it REALLY helped expand and gave me new ideas. Instead of one puzzle box, almost all my players had a locked wooden box with a leaf shaped emerald that would be used to open the door to the forge. These were taken by Gundren and his party of adventurers before he retired, then given to the players who were somehow all related to Gundren's party without even knowing it. The Rogue even had a friend from his orphanage who was adopted by the Black Spider and became like a son to her. The final battle was at Axeholm (modified from Essentials Kit) and when the Black Spider went down she activated something that made the whole keep start to crumble, players had to rush to escape alive!
I really like LMOP and loved all the new ideas you brought Matt, thank you for all the inspiration.
Kinda late to the party, but I ran this campaign with new players and they had a blast, especially using your tips. I made the macguffin a magical amulet that was the first magic item made in the mine all those centuries ago. And I made the spectator into a simple creature as a simple-minded creature that causes the items to become magical, and the campaign started because he misses his friends and wants them to come back because he's lonely.
I made the Black Spider an older creature that all those centuries ago led the raid on the cave and was blasted forward through time by Mormesk's sacrifice, and he's been trying to get back ever since. What I loved about how we ran it is I had a really shy player running a half-orc fighter, and I made her the hero of the end using our macguffin as a time travel amulet. When the party would approach an area of WEC, each party member could put on the amulet and see an alternate timeline where the Black Spider killed them, but this fighter could put it on and see how she escaped, and use that to help navigate traps. The climax included a fight where all the party members knew what the BS would send at them and could beat him, and everyone loved the satisfying ending where Gundren Rockseeker and the party start up the mine, and the creature got new friends.
Great job customising stuff! Now imagine if you'd just run everything by the book because the book is somehow the #1 authority on your game - it's much better your way :)
Thanks a billion for this series! Was extremely nervous about DMing, and these videos held my hand as I tried it out first time earlier this year.
They're such a great way to memorise and review the important bits of the campaign, while making it easier to break from the mold and change things around and be creative.
Now DMing is all I can think of, I've no idea what I was doing with my life before!
Again, thank you for giving me the courage, I'm looking forward to what comes next ☆
I just ran my first session ever as a DM, and this series has been vital in helping me prepare! Hopefully I’ll have some good LMoP stories soon too!
This is a great channel. This Phandalin series is great and fills a hole that sorely needed more content on youtube. Thanks for making these.
Love the series! Watching your videos made us want to revisit LMoP after it was the first module we ever played/DMed in. I was the DM in our first round, which has since broken up due to the members moving to different places, but nearly all players are starting to DM now. Without your videos we might not have come back to LMop, which we are now even making music for. So thank you, Matthew!!!
Thank You! Just started playing D&D again after abt a 20 year hiatus. Got the guys back together and we're using Foundry VTT to play remotely since we all don't live near each other.
Found this series as the party went to Thundertree and re-worked some of that and now augmenting Cragmaw Castle and Wave Echo Cave. I kept Venomfang in Thundertree and he scared the absolute crap outta the party, as a dragon should for 3rd level characters. (Sound effects of a Dragon Growling go a long way toward setting the tone of that encounter) They made the mistake of mentioning Gundren and Wave Echo Cave, so now VF has let them leave but has made it clear he plans to follow their exploits and certainly will be interested in this magical cave of wonders. So that thread is going to come back later on once they finish up LMoP.
Going to set up my Guardian as Murmesk. The back story is that he and his wife were some of the final wizards defending the forge. She was captured by the invading dark wizards, and when they tried to use her as a hostage, Murmesk believed her dead. Rather than lose the forge he invoked a spell that the pact wizards prepared to lock the forge by binding his soul to it. In the final blast of energy that locked the Forge, his wife, along with the dark wizards were killed. The party learns scraps of this story from the "treasure box" which is actually a damaged page of a book that Gundren has as well as from the journal of Urmon, which they found in Glasstaff's study. To convince Murmesk to unlock the forge they will need to find the locket of his wife so that he can lay her to rest properly. Although he won't explain it that clearly, just that he wants his treasure returned - That treasure being his wife. (cue tragic love story) Her remains are in the Booming cavern in the water. The Party will have to fight the waves, risking being drowned or dragged across the rocks to dive down and retrieve this locket, and I plan to have the BS's Bug Bears show up to harass them at the worst possible time. For my campaign, the "Key" is actually knowledge that is scattered in a few places, which will force the party to really explore all of WEC and tie in clues from earlier. My fail-safe will be Nundro, who knows the parts of this story that Gundren does not. So if they miss some clues, or fail the investigation rolls needed to get all of the details, then rescuing Nundro will fill in the gaps.
I would not have started to "Tweak" LMoP had I not found this series, so much appreciation for the inspiration!
Richard! I'm glad to help :) Tweaking these stories is my favourite part of the whole hobby
Great series, really helpful for a rusty DM (didn't play for 20 years, now my son and his friends enjoy it immensely).
Today was monumental. Last week, the party cleared out Redbrand hideout, releasing Droop along the way. Today, on their way to Wyvern Tor, they had a random encounter with 6 to goblins (really random, generated with rolls!). I thought it would be cool to have one of the goblins to be Droop, stopping the fight and 'saving' his saviours.
Our elven wizard, with a Charisma of 8, decided to try to convince them to join the party in the Wyvern tor raid. He rolled for persuasion, and I was not seriously considering to agree, when he rolled a natural 20.... So the goblins thought it would be good idea to join! The goblins were dealt names (Droop, Gloop, Snoop, Floop, Woop and of course Poop) and it quickly was nicknamed the 'Oop squad'.
Long story short, the goblins helped out clearing the cave. The party left them the cave for their own business, and took the treasure. So now, travelling on, they have some (not befriended, but let's say) not hostile goblins in the 'Oop cave' at Wyvern tor.
Brilliant. I loved it. Only their 5th session, and this is what they do. Fantastic.
Brilliant! But a real missed opportunity to name those goblins the Oop Troop haha
These are some very cool and fun stories! I've enjoyed how you've covered and adapted the campaign.
Our experience with LMoP was... not great. We were just getting our heads around 5E, having dabbled a little in the playtest (I was excited to see what became of Warlord. *how naiive I was*) as a rule of thumb, our GM was going to try and run it by the book, as this was all about giving 5E an honest go.
Our first encounter with the Goblin ambush set the tone for the whole campaign. The fighter died early on, being knocked out by a water trap and drowning in the stream. From there on, we were losing PCs left and right, at the rate of about 1 per session. The Redbrands especially made mincemeat of us, with their double attacks leaving plenty of room to murder downed players
At long last, the original PCs long forgotten in a great mound of Adventurer corpses in Phandalin, we reached level 3, and headed to Thundertree. At long last, we had the skills, powers and abilities to win fights, and bullying the Twig blights of Thundertree got us drunk on power. You can see where this is going.
The moment we hear there's a Dragon, we're up for fighting it, caution be damned. If those Twig Blights were any measure, we'd be able to walk this.
Up the hill we trekked, plotting our assault, and building a rudimentary plan. A plan that never saw fruition as Venomfang acted first, Nuked us all with dragon breath and we never got to take a turn. At that point I'm not sure we'd ever heard of a Wave Echo Cave, yet alone a Forge of Spells.
And then most of us swore off 5E forever. I've run a bit more myself, and I think the GM did run it kinda hardball, but the general criticism of low-level play being too brittle to really encourage any commitment to or roleplaying of characters really stays with me.
I gave Yeemik major plot armor (It was the third session ever for all of the players, including me as DM) so i pulled a sneaky "He escaped through a crack in the walls" on them.
They also tried to tame one of the wolves and have become HELLBENT on getting it tame, so naturally, i let the wolf escape while they were clearing the cave and scattered some intel around phandalin about him being seen with the redbrands.
At the hideout two sessions later, i replaced the three bugbears with Yeemik who got a "Promotion", and Droop was supposed to look after the Wolf but Yeemik sent him to cragmaw castle just to make Droop sad.
Yeemik managed to trade his life for the location of Cragmaw Castle and escaped the fury of my murdethobos yet again.
At this point, the main driving force for the PCs is this damn Wolf and Yeemik is serving as sort of a "Ice-Age-Squirrel"-Type background character messing up things just ever so slightly in the players favour wherever they go, and i could use either one of them at any point to get my players to drop whatever theyre doing and follow that lead, i might use that in case they actually follow the Thundertree-Quest to save the PCs from the Dragon.
I think i might finally reward them a Buffed Wolf after defeating king Grol so they can heroically take him to the final chapter.
Loved this series. I got so many useful hints from you. You asked about stories though: Here's one for you. My party decided to impersonate Klarg and another Redbrand and bang on the front door of the Redbrand hideout demanding the use of the slaves to repair the Cragmaw Hideout. Every blasted Goblin, Hob, and Bugbear on the way failed their rolls to see through the disguises. They got the slaves and got out without any trouble. But that wasn't enough for them. The slavers had to die, so the Bardlock roused the entire town into a frothing at the mouth mob and convinced them to burn the hideout with torches and murder everyone inside with pitchforks and rusty blades. It was glorious chaos. I allowed Glassstaff to escape to serve as a recurring villain, but the whole crawl was subverted by some intense roleplaying.
Wish I had discovered your channel sooner 😁 like many I started playing dnd at the start of lockdown but I am a mum of 45 who always loved dnd (right generation and all that) but never had the chance to play. I ended up dming with no experience for my husband, 13 and 8 year old daughters who also never played /heard of dnd before. We are still paying mines of phandelver, followed the book almost to the letter until I started watching your videos. Best moments so far my party barely surviving Venomfang (my 8year old was so proud told everyone at school about it) and my 8yearold halfling rogue rolling a natural 20 to stealthily check out the Orc cave - " she was so stealthy she danced around them as a ballerina" it has become her signature move😂. I now also dm for my 8year old and her small group of friends online since lockdown 2 (UK). It has been a great experience to learn to play together as a family (still working on persuading my other 13 year old daughter to join... 😜) Thanks to your videos I feel I am becoming a better storyteller. 😁👍
The ranger rolled a 20 on the animal handling check with the wolves, so it followed around for the dungeon and they fell in love with him so I let them keep it. At level 3 the ranger chose Beast Master and it become a crucial member of the party, even using him during the Agatha skill challenge to successfully calm her.
My characters weren't really addressing the Redbrands because they wanted to clean up all the sidequests Skyrim-style so when they returned from Wyvern Tor I had a Redbrand tend bar who upcharged them for drinks and "had never heard of Bart," which finally pushed them to go on the offensive. I love this series and all of the ideas that you've given! Excited to see more
My players TPKd in Wyvern Tor around level 2 or 3, fighting the orcs and Ogre, they had started strong with a brutal sneak attack on the sentries but stalled out with mixed tactics and cold roles.
The entire party went down before anyone could fail a death save however, so I faded to black and called the game for the night. One of my players was very upset and emotional and I spent as much time as I could soothing them and letting them know without too many spoilers that this wasn’t the end, they needed to trust me.
Our next session I had the party slowly awaken, tied up and bound by the remaining orcs. The encounter became an escape and another, more successful battle.
In the end I think it felt a little forced to a few of us but all the players appreciated another chance at their characters and the happiness of their reunion paid out well for the rest of the campaign.
Great recovery!
Amazing job as always Mr Perkins. I cannot thank you enough for the absolutely wonderful content
Thank you for this inspiring video and your roleplay ideas 👍
Cheers!
My party of brand new players got to Phandelin and met "Bart" and his dog "Ranger" (cuz I'm a dog person so having an old "good boy" golden retriever made sense). When they came out of the store, they were welcomed to a shakedown by some Red boys. As soon as the players started resisting the shakedown, the lead bandit pushed his poncho out of the way to reveal a sword, ready to be drawn. I started playing the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly soundtrack right at that moment. The players all started laughing, having realized the theme, and then they got super into the game. It was so much fun to see them open up like that.
Unfortunately, they killed some Redbrands, but left the others to run away. I'm afraid the redbrands might come back for retribution and hurt Bart, and even Ranger. As sad as that will be, the PCs are going to be furious at the redbrands and will start looking for how to get rid of them.
I wish I had found your series before starting my LMoP adventure! Lots of good ideas here. I'm DMing for a group of all-new players with the intention of continuing the campaign after LMoP ends, so I've had to do a fair share of my own rewriting to better fit the characters' stories and seed clues for the future.
Some of the biggest changes I've made are: merging the Old Owl Well and Conyberry side quests so that it's Agatha who is raising the dead in a woeful act of despair, continuously reliving the battle that wiped out her town (we already have Iarno and Nezznar as villainous wizards, no need for a third), making Venomfang more manageable by reskinning him as a wyvern, removing the dragon cult, moving Thundertree to Wyvern Tor and having Venomfang evict the Many Arrows tribe of orcs, making the orcs sympathetic characters who just want a place to stay but have now involuntarily entered a turf war with the Cragmaw clan of goblins, and who may help the party storm Cragmaw Castle.
Putting the puzzle box with either the necromacer or the banshee is a good way tot ie in sidequests as part of the main story if you want this mcguffin after having started the adventure.
Yeah I reckon so too!
@@heyitsMattyP I made some pretty major changes to the sidequests, cutting thundertree and semi cutting old owl well (location is gone but a reworked version of the undead fight, this time 3 zombies who instead always revive once, 3 skeletons and a skeleton warhorse is put into the conyberry ruins) this was where I put the mcguffin, it is found in the remains of the warhorse, as it used to belong to tharden, but when attacked by the black spider, he hid the mcguffin in his horse's dying corpse, which then rose (along with him as a zombie) and attacks the players. The banshee was largely unchanged although using some suggestions from these videos although she does point the party towards wyvern tor with the biggest change, the orcs were displaced by a gold dragon who tried to make it its lair, however is soon attacked by a PC's son (it is the dragon that cursed his bloodline as he is a draconic origin sorcerer), when confornted it attacks the son then flies off, leaving the son overwhelmed and possesed with draconic energy and he is a boss fought there. (The orcs attack the players on the way back in place of nomral random encounters, I think them attacking to try to recoup lost resources and glory makes more sense and is more compelling) sorry this is such a long comment but the sidequests have so much interesting potential if you get creative.
I Dmed Lost Mines Using This Guide And It Turned Out Super Fun.
The Different Outcomes
- Glasstaff, King Grol, Bart, Gundren, Sildar, And The Players Got Together And Formed A Alliences Called The Phandelvers Pact.
- The Manor Is Now A Homebase For The Players.
- Bart Became The Towns Mayor
- And They Basically Rebuilt Everything
Sick! Thanks for sharing :)
Awesome take on Phandalin - Where can I get Gaston's western town map!?
bang bang boom c10.patreonusercontent.com/4/patreon-media/p/post/44755589/86c46d62d7c9432e8a12eab9e7d43823/eyJxIjoxMDAsIndlYnAiOjB9/1.png?token-time=1658620800&token-hash=J6XkBxnlMRiJzaTOWTirNWxORlWMrHLPwXosaKCtXrU%3D
@@heyitsMattyP liked, subrscribed, and patreon'd. Thank my dude!
@Matthew Perkins Howdy, the link to Gaston's town map has expired; what is Gaston's Patreon or is there an updated link for this?
When my players arrived in Phandalin I told them Gundren and Sildar had some business to take care of in town and let them go about some sidequests (agathas and old owl) while at the old owl I mentioned one of the undead looked kind of like Gundren and they'd heard mentions of his brothers being out of town. At the end of the session I described them coming back to town and finding Gundren leaving the inn laughing with arms around the very same previously dead dwarf they had seen. This is where I will pick up for next session with some doppelganger fun
Congrats on the series! Looking forward to SKT, I didn’t have any plans to run it but your guides are so awesome I just might have to!
We are kind of in a break but we stop just as my players reached Glasstaff. He surrendered after my characters defeated the Redbrands and the Bugbears. I really want to give my players the puzzle box as well as a tea stained letter from the black spider as they search his quarters. I love the idea of a puzzle box holding a key or even being the key for future use in Wave Echo Cave
Great videos man, I've used almost every single of your sugestion in my last game! My next group I'm going to merge the Dragon of Icespire Peak.
Cryovain will be the BBEG, and BS and other factions his minions, and I'm going to bring VenomFang back, but his role will be kind of a quest giver, because he will know the locations of very poweful weapons that the players could go before facing Cryovain. This locations will be some of the late side quest from DIP. But the items will be broken or inactive and then the Forge of Spells will restore them.
Cryovain actually is an outcast from the Dragons Society (haven't decided the actual name) and is trying to increase power to return and fight. He will have some Ice Mephit in hiding in every mini Boss room without their knowledge (Klarg cave, KingGrowl room, etc..) to serve as spies. (actually only BS will know that Cryovain is the BBEG), thats why he needs spies
And VenomFAng is an scout sent to watch Cryovain actions and report to the council. He will also have spies in every bad guy base, one Doppelganger in each base in disguise that will try to flee or even "betray their comrades" and ally with the adventures only to safely escapes the slaughter.
The druid will not be a bad guy but want VenomFang gone, I'm still have to think in a compelling story for him.
The only side quest I used was a more fun version of Thundertree, called South Thundertree 10 miles east of Phandelin. We fought off the young dragon and cult, on a 2 moon eclipse night. That being the reason for the crazy vine and Twig blights, skeletons rising. Turns out this town was near the Wave Echo Cave, enhancing its menacing qualities. The Harper was named Peter , who we saved from the cultists (sister gareales brother). He knew where to find Cragmew Castle.
Love the homebrew!
@heyitsMattyP Thanks Matt, I'm about to map out Wave Echo Cave so I've been watching your room by room video, very helpful. Cheers
I love they way you unpack these adventures, it really inspired my current LMOP adventure. Id live to see you do the same for Curse of Strahd.
I'd love to see ghosts of saltmarsh broken down!
Now... curious if maybe you do another next, like the Essential kits campagin
I just did the Agatha/Necromancer with Zombietron. Mostly your suggestions. I had the Zombietron fight them first but they had seen the Necromancer but several hundred yards/meters away. My Rogue( wants to bypass the Zombietron by having the human throw him over it so he can attack the Necromancer by himself. He wouldn't accept that none of the others could possibly throw him that far. I was too busy laughing at him to really explain. I finally said fine, if you both roll natural 20s, I'll allow it. Anything less you both get hurt. Any crit failure and you die. Argument over. Still did his thing but it worked out. Thank you very much for helping me to start dming. It's a blast.
It can be really tricky when players want to argue about stuff like that, like they're trying competing against you to win rather than working with you / trusting you to create memorable drama
@@heyitsMattyP It wasn't a serious argument. I have all new players including myself. All around 40. I encourage silliness. At the same time, I'm gradually making things more challenging. One player almost died during this. Again, thank you for all of the great ideas.
A group of stuck together zombies is called a 'glom in Deadlands. Great minds, eh?
Australian, English, what's the difference?
Yes, I'm kidding.
My party encountered the Goblin Arrows ambush, then turned around to Neverwinter and fenced the shipment for gold.
Took a bit to get them re-centered.
Hahahahaha, well they're not wrong. Fair enough players!
Doing a similar thing for the dragon of Icespire peak would definitely be doing me a favour!
Excited to see this in a few hrs! Your content has helped and supported my developing a style and interesting play thru first time DMing. Glad I found your content from the Wild Sheep Chase One-Shot!
Chimney part: XD
Ripper's body was decomposing and my players needed a place to sleep ...so since Klarg bailed, Ripper was stuffed into the chimney...this was after one of my players had the idea to put old Ripper into the fire pit. (burnt fur...ew). We did have the "be nice to critters" talk after.
I bet 9/10 that dog or Klarg ends up in the fire in LMOP campaigns
I really like the idea of making reidoth a follow-on villain, in my game reidoth was a golden dragon in disguise, as the only appearance of a dragon and made a very minor one, it cursed the party sorcerer to gain his powers but shortened his lifespan as his body slowly turns to gold (player's idea) so I had him use draconic energy to posses the sorcerer's son as a boss fight so a draconic encounter could still happen, but not an outright deadly fight, while the dragon flew far away in search of a new lair, if the players want to continue with these characters beyond lmop, I have plans for where it ended up and how it can be reintroduced as a grand much later boss battle. (edit: this also had the great roleplay scenario where the players had to break to "reidoth"'s wife about who her husband truly was, to which she admits since her son has grown scales she suspected, and has come to terms with whatever happens to him because of how often he'd dissappear anyway, as long as she's able to raise her son safely)
Sounds like you've got a good handle on it! I just love the idea of a DRUID being the villain in general. There's a bunch of tropes to explore there.
*Grabs pizza rolls* (Out of popcorn)
Dis gun be gud
mail me a pizza roll
What video introduces the idea of the puzzlebox? I've seen 3 or 4 videos that mention it but can't find what it is... is that video deleted?
Should be the first video in the series :)
@@heyitsMattyP much appreciated! Very helpful having all these videos organized in playlists
Unfortunatly you missed my comment about shakira .. the shewolf .. basically my party (2 persons, my gf and a friend from across the great pond, we play with a 7 hour time difference ;) ) were wenturing in the first goblin den. I planed to have a healer (was the cart driver for them) as a side kick. They rescured the wolf from klarg ... now the halfling rouge is riding a dire wolf puppy ... quite funny ...
You have 6.99 subs congratulations
nice
Any suggestions of adventures to hook getting out o LMoP?
I would suggest you go into homebrew from LMOP. If you're gonna go into another module, make a new party :)
in my game when I ran the final fight against the black spider I revealed them as a polymorphed Venomfang the dragon and let them bamf out with dimension door. this in conjunction to using dragon cultists everywhere instead of goblins and bugbears is building up to running ice spire peak and into the tyranny of dragons questline. just as soon as my players kill venomfang....
I gave a player the back story of a brother that was always looking to become more powerful wizard until one day an accident occurred and took an eye and make his right eye turn green, not know by the player this brother is found by red brands and glass staff knowingly gives him a spell that causes him to get the curse of Vecna turning him into the Nothic in the red brand hideout. This cause auditable gasps in my group when they pieced together who the Nothic eventually was. This led to Glass staff getting hunted down and killed and the party looking for ways to remove the curse from the players brother.
Oh rad! The Nothic is by far the best part of the Redbrands, and seems like you made it better :)
please do a guide for the shattered obelisk
That one shot sounds great, where can I find it?
Which one shot? I don't remember what I said!
Any suggestions on what campaign to run next to continue the stories of my players’ characters from LMOP? Is this on your Patreon?
My suggestion after the Starter Set is to go into a homebrew campaign - it's the best way to develop as a DM!
@@heyitsMattyP ahhh, but such a daunting task for a new DM!! Appreciate the quick response, you’re the bomb
@@TheAirRunner1 The way I reckon you could go about it is to limit the scope.
1. Tell the players you're going to do a 6-session post-campaign story.
2. Do a 1-year time skip so you can justifiably have this story take place wherever you want.
3. Try whatever feels natural for the homebrew, make mistakes and adjust later.
4. After the new campaign finishes, retire the characters and take all your new knowledge and skills into a different official module with a different fresh party.
You'll be surprised how much you learn from a homebrew campaign, because it stretches different muscles.
@@heyitsMattyP thank you so much!!
What level of Patreon is required for the LMOP resources? I am about to be a first time DM and your videos have been super helpful
Thank you! It's the Iron Patron tier (US$5) to unlock everything. My thinking is to offer lots of value, and people can sign up for a month and bail if they want, but lots of people choose to stay on for a while and help fund the channel :)
Thanks!@@heyitsMattyP I'll be a Patron soon! I've been watching tons of videos and obviously reading the start and essentials set. One thing I don't see a lot of help online with is the mechanics of playing, a ton focuses on storytelling and improv but not a lot on rolling the dice and playing the game of DnD. Right now my biggest concern is not smoothly telling people when to do the appropriate skill checks and what I am checking those against. Just some content ideas :) . Keep up the great work!
Hey, super helpful series! Just a question, did you already finish that prequel about Gundren? That seems like a perfect first session!
Hey Max! Glad the series has been helpful. I haven't written a prequel adventure yet. I do have something in the works for the Trade With The Black Spider scene, where TBS tries to get the mysterious puzzle box though. I expect that will be out in the next two weeks.
@@heyitsMattyP Ahh thanks for letting me know. I'm really considering subscribing to your Patreon, but I'm waiting for that adventure. The TBS trade would be cool too though!
Did you ever finish that pre sequel one shot?
Yep! But it's not published yet. No set date for it, but probably directly before I publish my Shattered Obelisk guides.
In my game Nezzar became Nezzar Black Wing a Cambion and i gave her a spell to change form/appearance lol one of my players has arachnofobia
Same with my wife, but we switched her to the Black Scorpian
Doubly excited for more of the Patreon content! I love having those pamphlets and notes to pass out to players at key moments. It makes it seem like I'm prepared and creative, both of which I am not. 😂
We're meeting in Neverwinter next week to meet with Gundran, grabbing our supplies, and hit the road!
Appreciate all the help on my first real campaign Matthew
I was a about one proper session into goblin arrows when I found this whole thing then when they had their long rest after the first combat ran the modified prologue where I ran a drinking game and gave one a nishe magic item for beer drinking and the McGuffin this all happened in there dreams Then I had it so when they woke up they found the items they acquired from prologue night and described to them that they didn't have them previously they know that much for certain
So now I'm gonna find someway to mix weird dream magic manifesting physical items to the players to explain what the f just happened
If anyone has an idea please gib
Oh cool! I'm not sure - maybe your Forge of Spells has something to do with dreams or imagination?
50 minutes ago? Damn
Lets be real, GMs only give a character a british accent if they're a baddie!
👍🏻