Lost Mine of Phandelver - Module Review
The Lost Mine of Phandelver is the adventure module contained within the 2014 Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Starter Set. It's a staplebound module of 64 pages with full color interior.
What's my perspective?
I played this game on a very erratic schedule over 12 sessions that were 2-4 hours each as the gamemaster. All sessions were online using Roll20 with the Lost Mine of Phandelver module.
What's in the text?
Lost Mine of Phandelver is a mini-campaign of 9 adventure sites. The staple-bound book is split into 4 parts following what Sly Flourish calls the "Yam shaped" adventure: narrow intro, wide open center, funnel into a climax.
- Goblin Arrows - an opening scenario and connected, keyed dungeon with 8 locations.
- Phandalin - the central town, cowed by ruffians. The keyed dungeon (12 rooms) on the town's edge where the aforementioned gang of toughs house their operations.
- The Spider's Web - A wide open section with 6 adventure sites in the region around Phandalin. Two of these are keyed dungeons (with 13 and 14 locations), while the rest are single scene encounters and the random encounter table.
- Wave Echo Cave - the large, climactic dungeon with 20 rooms.
The narrative of Lost Mine is a classic caravan guards to heroes arc. The players are hired to drive a wagon of mining supplies and other sundries to the town of Phandalin. This simple delivery job is disrupted when the adventurers are assaulted by goblins. From there they are tangled up in the fate of the Lost Mine, located in Wave Echo Cave. Along the way, the adventurers will be exposed to the Sword Coast of Faerun and some of it's more iconic denizens and the factions.
Adventure Sites
The 9 sites vary significantly in detail and size. There are massive differences in scope ranging from Triboar Trail a random encounter table, Old Owl Well an encounter with a single NPC and Ruins of Thundertree an outdoor dungeon with 13 keyed locations. Of the 9 adventure sites, only 5 locations are significant enough to be keyed.
The text of Lost Mine of Phandelver is written in conversational prose. This makes it easy to read as a piece of fiction but there are very few ways to identify important information at the table. Within these large blocks of prose the following formatting is used.
- Keyed locations have a General Features subheading
Boxed read aloud text
- Bold and italicized phrases to start a paragraph describing features of the room or dungeon, NPCs or treasure
- Bold text identifying a monster or NPC within a stat block.
At the table
Woof. I hated running this adventure. I never had a good time and was constantly frustrated no matter the format: the paper book, DnDBeyond or Roll20 module. Whenever I needed a piece of information I struggled to find it due to the signal to noise ratio of this module: lots of text, very little information.
I was frequently unable to find the information I needed. Key details were spread across paragraphs and pages. NPCs and quests were a frequent source of annoyance. Part 2 has a bulleted list of NPCs, a wonderful resource! Except this list only tells you if they have a quest and where they are located. Nothing about their quest or their personality.
If you remember that Sildar told the party some information on Gundren you'd look to this list of NPCs and find he has two quests. Unfortunately, Sildar isn't a proprietor of any location, so you're not pointed to more information. Eventually you might find him in the Townhall entry, but if you want to know more about his background and history you have to go back to the dungeon from the prologue chapter: he was introduced there! A great deal of important information including NPC disposition, monster reactions or clues were not called out through formatting and lost in the text.
Vexation 1 - Cragmaw Goblins
After finishing Part 1, my characters wanted to pursue the Cragmaw goblins. Perfectly logical. These little bastards just defeated and captured them, the result of a total party kill. They escaped and killed the bugbear leader but knew that Cragmaw Castle was the goblin's stronghold and their employer was being held hostage there.
The adventure doesn't allow for this. No one in town knows this information and the best lead sends the party into the wilderness. My players may have been exceptionally stubborn as not even brigands harassing them in the streets of Phandalin could sway them from their revenge against the Cragmaw goblins.
Vexataion 2 - Old Owl Well
Old Owl Well, a single encounter adventure site. Brings in another problem. Adventure sites that lack compelling hooks and interaction. Best I can tell, this adventure exists to show off a Faerun staple, the Red Wizards of Thay. The Red Wizard here exists merely as a sign post toward two other minimal adventure sites or as a possible combat. The wizard is non-hostile but people who know the Forgotten Realms know that he is part of an evil magocracy and anyone can see he has zombies working for him. The only reason to kill this guy, per the text, is this meta knowledge or undead equal bad. The two quests he points you toward? A quest to slay bandit orcs and a fetch quest that blocks off the hero's ability to learn information.
The Old Owl Well adventure site brings very little to the table. There's no interesting decision for the player's to make. The ability of the heroes to interact with the situation is limited. There's no hook and no bait. In addition, it's written very awkwardly with key information on the NPC's disposition hidden deep within the entry.
Conclusion
I found running this adventure to be a chore. Nothing was easily referenced at the table. The encounter tables were anemic. There was no logic or flow to adventure sites. The final dungeon, Wave Echo Cave, was anti-climactic. I'm not sure my players even knew who the villain of the adventure was besides 100% map completion.
My players had fun, based on their own reports. I wish I could say I had a good time, but I did not.