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I've DM'd Goblin Arrows many, many times as a training exercise for new players. My latest group was torn as to whether to follow the goblin trail or move the horses and push the cart on to Phandalin. They worried if they left the cart it would get pillaged. Their solution was to write "CURSED" in horse blood on every inch of the surface of the cart in every language they knew. I'm so excited for them to haul it back to Phandalin!
You know one thing you can do: Play with pronunciation of names. Rather than saying it as "klarg" extend it. "My name is 'Klaaaaaaarg'" "Klaarg?" "No, not 'klarg' 'KLAAaaaarg.' 'Klaarg' means strong, and I am more than strong, I am 'KLAAAAARG!'" It can give an NPC some personality, especially a strong, dumb enemy.
Love the tutorial, but I disagree with cutting a lot out. This may be the first time for many players. The Traps for example, can be used to teach mechanics players may not think of on their own. Ex. Passive Perception to investigation to disarm trap. How to safely get free using team work, how to avoid a pit after sprung, looting a disarmed trap, luring enemies into trap etc.
Just ran the hideout with my group of 6. I had them level up after the ambush and buffed the encounters in the hideout. The druid wildshaped into a spider and started exploring the cave, relaying the location of everything, unfortunately for her she rolled a nat1 on stealth and some Gobbos spotted the spider and attempted target practice on the spider in the ceiling. I had the Gobbo roll at disadvantage since he was aiming at fast spoder but he got a nat20 and a nat18 so he sniped the spoder reverting the druid back to herself, alone, in the deepest part of the hideout (by the pools). She entered combat by herself, Klarg got allerted and joined the fight, but miraculusly, the Gobbos missed 5 attacks in a row, so she managed to wildshape into a falcon and fly the fuck out of there. I love D&D :)
@@raccoon3164 A lot. We actually turned the campaign into Waterdeep: Dragonheist (An extended version with all villains from level 5 - 14) after they finished LMoP. We have played every other week for over two years and we have about 4-5 sessions remaining of it. One of the final boss battles today actually
Hey that's cool, hope everything turned out chaotic good! I actually had the same idea as you about leading into Waterdeep : Dragonheist just cause it sounds fucking cool, even though we just barely started Lost Mines. From one GM to another, any tips on how you segwayed from LMoP to Dragonheist would be super appreciated dude!@@reinpogo4601
I'm running my first campaign as a DM tomorrow and these videos have been suuuuper helpful. I saw this cave and was like ummm I'm not super confident they're gonna get through all of this hahaha. Great videos!!
That ending bow and foreshadowing section was awesome I'm stealing that for my own games going forward! I ran this a few years ago as my first time DMing and I wish I had seen these back then some great tweaks!!
Oh rad Butcher! It's a real handy trick to keep all the crucial information compartmentalized and stoke the players' interest for next session. Also it's super fun doing an over-the-top narrator thing :D If you're subscribed, keep an eye out for the rest of the series because I've just crossed the halfway point -- I'm writing about the Redbrands right now! Hopefully it's helpful if you decide to run Lost Mines again
Yeah keep it up man! enjoying the content! Found your channel when I was working out cool ways to run chase scenes and now im just binging your full catalogue in the background when doing prep
This is great! I think it's the best guide on Lmop and I've seen many. Love the way you tweak stuff, for example how to make the hideout a one session lenght dungeon to keep a good pace. How you describe teasing Phandalin in the end was an amazing cliffhanger I definitely will use that in my own campaign. Keep up the good work! :)
Agnar that's such a kind thing to say - thank you! If this series became the go-to guide for Lost Mines, I'd be stoked. I haven't seen the competition though, so I'll take you at your word and make sure the later episodes keep the standard high :)
When I DM Lost Mines I will have Sildar join the party on the trip and partake in the Goblin Ambush. Replace him with Glass Staff in the cave. That makes it so when the party saves the "captured" man, Sildar is grateful and can potentially join the party. Additionally this will make the players feel completely betrayed when they discover the true identity of the towns bBeG.
For context, my party is new to dnd, and so am I, I'm a first time Dm. We're all freshemn in high-school. So my party decides to go to Cragmaw Cave after skipping it and going straight to Phandlin. They make their way brutally killing Yeemic and reach their way to the water holding area. The Druid decided to use mold earth to try and capture the goblins in that room. 1 of them is captured and the other two escape but are then killed by the claric and Rouge. After this they try to befriend the one that they did capture. They end up making friends with her and she is now the party wizzard. They then stormed clargs room with their goblin friend. I explane how clarg was smoking before I could explane further my party cut me off and in unison exclaimed that they wanted to smoke with him. I asked them to roll persuasion and they all rolled below the DC, but then the bard asks if their goblin friend can roll. I sad yes, and then watched in awe as the goblin friend rolled a Nat 20. They ended up smoking with him and hotboxing the whole cave.
At my table, Yeemik became the big bad of LMoP. He believed that goblins together = strong, and after the party created a power vacuum in the Cragmaw tribe, he seized power and united a horde of communist goblins who attempted to take Wave Echo Cave and establish a permanent goblin settlement.
My party freed the wolves and then climbed the chimney. My bard then charmed Klarg and through a series of checks and saves got the VIP tour through the hideout and walked out with Slidar...
Yes! He's a big stoner with a goofy, gravelly laugh - he laughs a lot. Very chill. So I imagine Klarg as being a very affable doofus who is super casual about all the evil stuff he does.
I've got six players and they absolutely STEAMROLLED the whole hideout and the battle with Klarg, but haven't gotten to the Yeemik room yet. I'm thinking about adding a hobgoblin attempting to make a deal with Yeemik. Only by teaming up can the hobs and gobs defeat the Bugbears. But the hobs plan to subjugate the goblins when the bugbears are out of the way, and vice versa. Only the players can tip the balance...
Awesome stuff! Been looking forward to this video for a week now. I just finished my session zero. The players got to create their own prologue for how they got the magic box. Then the session ended with a collective dream the night before setting out for Phandalin, where a dark figure (the black spider) realized the box had slipped from his grasp. Very excited to run session 1 with most of these recommendations soon!
@@heyitsMattyP Long wall of text incoming: Following your advice from the first video, each character had a connection to Gundren. He called them together and explained that he had been tracking down this artifact that contains a magical secret to unlocking "an important opportunity." Recently he learned that it would be up for auction by a woman with no clue what it really was. Gundren sent the party to the auction with twice the gold they would need, but were outbid nonetheless by a bored nobleman. The wizard's familiar and the Ranger kept eyes on the nobleman. Meanwhile, the rest scrambled to create a replica box, utilizing the fighter's proficiency in Jeweler's Tools to affix the large emerald (which they paid for with the money left to them by Gundren). The wizard then magically sealed it in a manner similar to the original (I made the box be sealed so that I didn't have to deal with them eventually opening it). At night, the Rogue went sneaky-sneak to swap the boxes while the nobleman, who looked less ornate than before, slept at his campsite. (Rightfully, the players wondered why a rich guy would camp out instead of buying lodging.) The party returned safely to Neverwinter with the box and instructions to deliver the wagon to Barthen's Provisions in Phandalin where they would meet up with Gundren. BUT that night they all had a dream of the nobleman walking through a cave with the box. As the nobleman went deeper, his features melted until he was a feature-less mass of black muscle and skin. The creature presented the box to a figure obscured by shadow (the Black Spider), who magically unlocked the box, then screamed in rage as the party's remaining gold pieces tumbled out. TLDR; The party lost an auction, so they made a replica box and swapped it with the real thing. The man with the fake ended up being the doppelganger, whose master was enraged at having been conned.
@@heyitsMattyP I haven't thought much about that. Off the top of my head, probably a fighter. He's the one who trained our fighter in the ways of the warhammer.
so many great ideas in this series! running my first campaign as a DM and this has helped me a lot and gave me many ideas of my own. one of my players is a female drow sorcerer who is deathly afraid of spiders (also summons a spider randomly when casting spells) and ik she'll be freaking out when i bring up the black spider earlier than usual, cant wait for her to find out the black spider is also a female drow, i might even make her the reason she got cursed in the first place 🤔
Oh nice! Quick question: the CHARACTER is scared of spiders, not the PLAYER, right? Because if your player is scared of spiders, you should replace the Black Spider with the Black Caterpillar or something haha
I'm getting ready to dm this adventure after a hiatus of, oh, hmm 40 years (Advanced Ediltion)? I've watched a number of other videos covering this adventure, and while some are quite good, man, yours are the best. I love your ideas, and personality. I do see how these would take a lot of work. Good luck man! I'll be looking for more from you
Thank you so much for this series! I think for my campaign, I'm gonna turn the little teasers at the end of the session into prophetic dreams for our Paladin? I did something similiar in the previous campaign and the players got really hyped about it.
Yep! So, I just mean Seth Rogen's personality, but evil. Seth Rogen usually plays dopey stoner types, with a deep gravelly voice and a super dopey laugh. So I take that energy, but he talks about robbing and killing, and he's very casual about the whole thing.
First time DM here. Love this series! I've been using a lot of your ideas as well as a few of my own and my players love it. Figured you might appreciate a quick story from our run through Cragmaw Hideout: One of my players calmed the wolves in the kennel with Animal Handling and the group explored the chimney on the other side. One of my dumber fighter players climbed up the chimney and saw Klarg sitting in his office. He decided that right then, with his head peeking out of the chimney, was the best time to strike up a casual conversation with Klarg. Klarg, obviously alarmed by the intruders, later ended up fighting them in the twin pools room, which led to some really interesting combat theatrics. Our wizard ran distraction and used minor illusion to distract Klarg while the Rogue hid behind one of the larger stalactites in the room. Klarg landed a critical hit on our fighter and dropped him to 0 HP, but the Rogue answered with a nat 20 sneak attack of his own, decapitating a weakened Klarg. I'm so excited for Yeemick to rise to power in Cragmaw Castle, and to potentially being back the tamed wolves in a street fight with the Redbrands in Phandalin! Thank you so much for all of the great content.
Woof! Love that clutch crit after the fighter drops. Thanks for sharing! My last group had a different no-name goblin they ended up convincing to believe in himself and let him leave the Cragmaw Hideout,. He ended up becoming Job the Goblin King. They fought him as he rode an owlbear in the second-last session at the Cragmaw Castle.
My first LToP goblin cave experience as DM: 1) The players surprise, kill, then revive one of the goblin sentries, roll Nat 20 and he joins their side. He is called Dugg. 2) Nat 20 animal handling check on wolves. The party now has wolves… 3) The Cleric (using the chr sheet that CAME WITH THE BOOK) rolls Nat 20 on a Guiding Bolt and 1 hit kills Klarg the bugbear leader. 4) After rescuing Sildar and being warned by Dugg that more goblins are on the way back to the cave (I needed more enemies at this point…), the party Home Alones the cave. 5) The one goblin that escaped to tell the tail of their victory is felled by a trap the party set rolling yet another Nat 20. I gave them my dice.
Hi Matthew! Here is a recap of my first session of LMoP written by a party member. Most of us are not english native speakers but we play the module in english cause we got one party member from Portland. At a cold but sunny late summer morning the band of noobs started their adventure by escorting a cart to Phandalin as an assignment for Gundran Rockseeker, when Anton spotted some dead horses in the morning mist. As the band of noobs started to investigate the carcasses, they found an empty map case with Gundran's name on it. Soon they were attacked by three goblins, two of them almost immediatly lost their lives to Anton's and Pyroxenia's rage about this ambush, but the third one could be captured while he attempted to flee. Under the pressure of Funan's forceful Darth-Vader-style interrogation he told that Gundran and his componion were captured by goblins and brought to Klarg, a dubious mobster with an reputation for ambushes of all sorts. Strengthened by their successful first encounter, the band of noobs hid the cart in the bushes and made their way to the cave where Klarg and his entourage was hiding. The group managed to enter the cave unseen and met three very unhappy and mistreated goblins holding Gundrans companion Zilda hostage, but also willing to raise a mutiny against their oppressor Klarg. A deal was made - death of Klarg against the freedom of Zilda. They went to war against Klarg with Zilda at their side - a long and dangerous battle with almost everyone looking death in the face. Finally Klarg was defeated dying in the knowledge of his misbehaviour leaving a treasure of 600 copper, 120 silver, two healing potions and a mystic frog sculpture behind. Thankfully for the death of their bully the goblins gave them some prey of their ambushes and letting them spend a well-deserved and restful night in the cave.
Keep *CLAP* it *CLAP* UP! *CLAP* I started running this campaign this week with one group and will be using your videos for another group. It'll be a fun experiment.
About the wolves, they will be worgs. My PC's will be very likely level 3, because I will play DoSI first where they get the puzzle box from the compass rose. If my pc's leave the puzzle box in the cart, they will find it missing after they leave the hideout. It will not be hard to follow the footprints and find two goblins and little further away they see a female Drow with some spiders. It will be the 2nd time seeing her. First time will be in the Dragonbreath Brewery. All PC's standing in front of the door and nobody opens. They find spiders in the brewery and after the fight. Some guys and a female drow try to move Gundren in a box out of the cellar entrance. I hope I will find more reasons to let Nezznara appear.
Zach! That's rad - you gotta let me know how you go. All these changes have worked really well for me, and I'd encourage you to make even further changes if you reckon it would work for your group
@@heyitsMattyP Will do! I am currently running two different campaigns - both in homebrew settings - so it may be awhile! BTW - I loved your Wild Sheep Chase video and pulled it out for our group when we were missing some players and I could tell we just needed a fun one-shot to break up the intensity of the campaign - we all had a blast :-D Thank you for the content you are creating for the community!
Hi Matt, just wanted to thank you so much for these videos, I ran my first ever session as a DM last night and used several of your tips and they really gave me confidence and the whole thing went over so well! In particular the players loved the little prologue before starting the adventure. Really useful for a brand new DM! Thank you!
Personally, I've ran a session 1 where the players try to get the Puzzle Box but cultists prevent them from getting it, capturing them instead. By escaping the cultist hideout and defeating the head cultist, the players gain access to the Puzzle Box and venture forward into Goblin Arrows. I did this so my players had a better incentive to hit level 2 before they arrived at Goblin Arrows, while obtaining more basic knowledge about the game. It made it easier for me as DM to play around with the Goblins' and Klarg's power level.
This was a good one. really teaches you how to adjust any prewritten adventure. I am really curious how you are going to change the wave-echo cave. Because in my experience, it was too big and had the "many unrelated monsters hanging out in rooms" Syndrome.
Thanks! I've tried a few ways to run it: with a map visible, without a map visible but using location cards, and I think the way to do it is to delineate the dungeon, add a more concrete goal/direction to the dungeon and (of course) cut half the encounters. Though I haven't written that episode yet clearly, hence the vague answers :)
@@heyitsMattyP I will patiently await. If i would do it again, that would probably be the biggest thing I would change. And i would let the Redbrands behave more like an authoritarian police force.
Gotta say, I wish this was out 4 years ago when I ran LMoP for my players. Very helpful content, have been watching it over the past few days. Finally subscribed. Please keep up the good work and make the same style videos about other adventures, Wizards' or otherwise.
So i made some tweaks like you said. The goblin holding sildar talked to save his hide and that of his friends after watching one get instantly killed. Told the party about klog and 2 party members downed by him and 3rd ran away to catch up with sildar and the 4th party member that was away. Both members down by klog rolled nat 20 death saves. Klog didn't like the dearf but tiefling he liked and agreed to spare their lives and take them to the castle to meet the king as lvl2. Im going to use the black spider story hook to entice the 2 free party members she can get their compaions free for a price. Will do a mini session with 2 players to try and make the regular session all 4 at one place.
I love the idea of playing Klarg as an evil Seth Rogen 😂 Great series on how to run this module. I used your session 0 tips last night, and my players loved the addition of the puzzle box! They decided it was going to be like the puzzle box in Hellraiser, which was great because I love when the players add their own ideas into the mix and make the thing their own.
Um. Omg. Yesterday I dmd my first game- I was feeling super stressed about it and have been spending weeks looking at different videos and reading up how to run it and just how to do the whole terrifying dm thing. Yesterday morning as a last minute desperate attempt to figure out all out I searched goblin arrows on RU-vid and found your series on lmop. Holy crapballs you saved my game! I was totally overthinking everything and just having you talk about it all so simply and the ideas for swapping things up and removing stuff was such a frigging relief! I actually had fun and I think the players did too!!! Thank you sooooooo much, I can't wait to watch all the whole series and continue the adventure!!!!!!!!!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Man huge fan!! About to DM for the first time pretty much. This has been awesome! What’s a good way to get the box thingo? Obvs don’t want it to level them or anything but what’s a good simple way to get it
At 9 minutes into the video he says don't worry about the traps, that's in between the ambush and Cragmaw hideout. Instead of skipping over something that was small I used the opportunity to create a whole other battle map using Dungeon draft to give my players more things to do. Why make things as short as possible? If there was a way for me to add a picture I would show you the map that I made but there isnt
This content is great... And terrible. Terrible because I'm a first time DM and my players are arriving in Phandalin next session, and I want to adopt your approach, but I've been running the campaign by the book so far. I don't know what to do! I do know my players definitely don't even remember Gundren's name or that they even took a job for him. Ugh. This is gonna be tricky to rescue.
My dude, I got you :) Take half an hour at the start of the session for a flashback. "Guys, I want to do a flashback now to establish some backstory stuff now that we've already played with these characters a bit and you know your characters a little better. So lets flash back one week ago..." If you want to adopt the puzzlebox idea too, you can roll that into the flashback. If anyone gets confused as to why you didn't give them the puzzle box earlier, just say you forgot - they won't mind. I would recommend blitzing through all of these videos before you decide to adopt the ideas or not, just so you've got a complete picture of this kind of story I'm suggesting. And thanks for the kind comment!
@@heyitsMattyP This is good! I'd love to hook them with a flashback. Speaking of the puzzle box, another scenario I was considering was having Bart give it to them. Like picture the players have just told him that they learned of his capture. Bart, looking distraught and troubled, says something like "Well... the last time Gundren was here, he gave me something. A package. He said if I should ever seemingly run into trouble, find someone who can help and give them this." And obviously the puzzle box is inside. Is that problematic for the story in any way? I'm still wrapping my head around the story you constructed, and haven't watched all the videos. ALSO. If you want proof that you're onto something here, I quizzed myself while getting ready today. I was like "name one Phandalin NPC from the official campaign" and I couldn't. But after just watching your video once, I remembered Bart, Molly, Sister... something, but I knew her defining characteristics well, and the townskeeper. So the fact that I absorbed that much is definitely saying something. So keep up the good work!
That's a good idea! But I would make it be one of the Rockseeker Brothers who gave it to Bart. So this way, you're establishing Gundren with your flashback, then you're getting extra juice out of the puzzle box by seeding the fact that his brothers are out there somewhere
Roger, it's a banger :) PLUS, because so many people have played Starter Set, it shifts your experiences closer to the centre of the D&D venn diagram of shared D&D memories so you can compare stories with practically any D&D fan
Yes, you should! You'll love it. My group is mid-module and we're having a complete blast. It dove-tailed nicely into my homebrew that's going to culminate in "Rise of Tiamat"... with a twist. :) Next after this (which will easily take use another 6 months) is Strahd. After that... either Icewind or Underdark. Or ... more homebrew. I'm not a bad writer! :D
My favorite thing about your videos is how quick you jump into the good stuff. Really helpful ideas to help struggling dms prioritize and organize scenes
been a player for years and just recently decided to DM for a group of my friends that have always wanted to play. this has been SUUUPER helpful. thank you!
Hey Matt! Just finished this video and your first on LMoP. I’m about to start DMing for the first time for my nephew and a couple of his friends. They’re excited to play and I’m excited to DM. These videos have been great! I was feeling nervous about running and now I am utterly inspired. Thank you for your work and your approach to describing the scenes and options for modifications. Can’t wait to watch more :)
Gotta say my dude, loving this series of videos. Soooooo much useful info and the format that you use to break it up and extract the "Point" of each part of the adventure can be used for literally any published adventure. Keep up the hard work mang!!!
Late to the party, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for this video. I'm a relatively new DM and this guide has helped me to find that right balance between a pre-written campaign and homebrew. My players are loving the experience and I know its because the story is compelling and they feel a part of it. Plus the pre-written stuff (and these videos) make prep minimal.
I forgot to post in the last video how excited I am for this series. Ive also run it many times, but starting out with some new players and will wait til the end of this series.
This video is so helpful - I've only ran these encounters once and it felt really long winded in parts, but would never have considered getting rid of the traps or making the wolves encounter less combat focussed. Really great stuff and entertaining to boot :)
Good advice all around and with a great sense of humour. I can't stres enough what you said about Room 6. Five goblins and Yeemik are far too many for four 1st lvl characters if you want to run this dungeon without the group having to stop for a long rest and drag the whole session down.
I'm about to start running my first ever game with the starter set and I'm a bit nervous. I'm over-analyzing and I love that you keep pointing out things that I noticed after my first read-through of the book. I'm going to be sure to watch as many of these videos as I can!
Cheers Chris! The general consensus I've gotten from people about this videos is something like, "Even if I don't agree with every suggestion, the videos kept me calm about running D&D." I'd recommend banging out the whole lot of videos before acting on my advice, because I there are some bits of information I forgot to front-load and it all makes better sense in context. You're gonna love LMOP! It's great :)
Matt, my dude... you are SO right. The Goblin Arrows is surprisingly lethal. Everyone thinks, "Oh, Goblins... they're not hard, right?" Wrong. They can, and often DO, kill 1st and 2nd level characters. And there are a LOT of them in this scene. And don't forget the Bugbear!
Hey there, I found your guide while preparing this as my first D&D campaign. I've always only played The Dark Eye, coming from Germany, so this is my first toe-dipping here - Thanks for the invaluable resources! My players (First time PnP-players, my Wife and 3 kids, 12-15) have deceived Yeemik into thinking they're supposed to get the hostage for King Grol, which he didn't really buy, but he struck a deal with them to dispose of Klarg. Then they deceived Klarg into believing them as well. Unfortunately, he went with them to Yeemik, to get the hostage, so he was pissed to see Klarg alive. Klarg knew, Yeemik was up to no good, so the boss fight of this cave was Klarg and the Players against Yeemik an his cronies. Not quite as I had planned, but funny nonetheless. They nearly managed to talk themselves out of everything, really good for first time players.
Oh wow! They smooth-talked their way into an impossible situation haha :) Well done! Also: since you're from Germany, you may like this free combat cheat sheet my community translated into Deutsch - www.patreon.com/posts/5e-combat-cheat-37395490
I feel like there's a weird cognitive dissonance in describing Bugbear's in 5e. Everyone goes with the big and strong description, but the character only has a 15 strength and it's most notable tactics are stealth and surprise attack, not face to face fighting. It' also has a 16 AC, for something so big and strong the abilities seem to work against that. Sure there is the Brute feature, but I don't know it's really a hard sell on strength over stealth.
Rather than a description of bugbears, it's a description of the role Klarg is meant to play in the story. If Klarg were a kobold I'd be describing him in a similar way - to make him intimidating, to signal "this is the boss!"
both times I have run this module the party has followed/tracked the big bad to Cragmaw castle rather than going to phandalan. May be I have made Gundriana (yes I made Gundren a female) to important.
I decided to play through this with a solo Fighter to see if One D&D characters are really that much stronger than base 5e. In short they kind of are but I kinda went against the spirt of the challenge by recruiting a Goblin from the initial ambush. (For context: she realized my fighter had an aversion to killing and figured she’d be easy to manipulate with a sob story about how badly Klarg and Yeemick treat the goblins. After watching the Fighter successfully kill Klarg she started having second thoughts about betraying her to take over the hideout.)
BTW, I can't say enough about how much I like/appreciate the chapters! Every time I have a question I go to the chapter I need. ...I watch these videos a LOT 🙂
Thanks for the amazing content! I'm prepping for my first ever session of DnD, with 4 friends who have also never played. I've picked up the mantle of DM, as I have been the keenest to get a session scheduled. My question would be for less imaginative people (like myself) who struggle to make things up on the fly; what would you have behind your DM screen and how would you go about organising everything? Should I take the original LMoP text, throw it in a Word doc, chop and change the bits as per your vids / my taste and then use that as my "guide" when Dming on the day?
Hey mate! I might not be the best person to ask, because I generally improvise a session within a framework. In my notes, I usually just have dot-points and little diagrams and doodles to tell me what I want to happen in the session, and then I ad-lib all the roleplaying and descriptions.
I cannot tell you how much I enjoy your style. There are a large number of great content creators teaching this adventure, but I love your approach. I am a new DM and I feel you have given me the tools to run this module the way the author intended, while leaving me the flexibility to maximize my players' enjoyment. I am planning on running my first session one on one with my girlfriends Rouge and her Wizard sidekick tongiht! Thanks for all your hard work.
Oh wow, thanks! My gameplay style hasn't changed since making these videos, but my video and presentation style has changed quite a bit as I've gotten more practice. I'm about to dip back into LMOP content this month though, so hopefully the new videos are helpful too!
My first time running this it was my first time DMing. First thing my players did (after getting washed out of the cave) was face the wolves and climb the shoot taking Klarg by surprise. I was so worried they were going to skip/miss Sildar entirely 😂
The thing is...why, oh why do you tell the players something the characters don't or can't see? The cut away scenes sounds really off for me. Too much like a movie. Just my taste.
That's fair enough! All this stuff is 70% style, so some of it won't translate. Making the game feel like a movie is exactly my goal - sometimes in descriptions I'll even frame it as a camera shot.
Again, thanks so much for this! I just DM'd my 2nd ever proper session (1st was a bastardisation of Matt Colville's Delian Tomb) and it went really well (by that I mean nothing went to plan and I had to learn to improv very early on, but I think it went well!). The guys all loved it though and gave me awesome feedback, which made all my prep (of which there was way too much) worth it. The party chased the fleeing Gobbo from the ambush site (and had a cool chase scene thanks to your alternative chase rules) and interrogated him. All but 1 one the party felt sorry for him, as he was such a grunt of a Gobbo, he didn't have a name, so they named him Steef (was Steve, but when I asked them to spell it, this is what it turned into!). Steef led the party to the Cragmaw hideout and told them about Yeemik's desire to over-throw Klarg. After the Ranger tamed one of the wolves on the way in, Steef took the party directly to Yeemik's den. Yeekmik, not happy with Steef for bringing outsiders in,, shot and downed Steef, to the parties anguish. They then tried to bargain with Yeemik, but a bad persuasion roll led to a fight. Ranger went first targeting Yeemik and rolled a Nat 20 on his animal handling for the wolf, so I let the wolf give advantage AND attack for 1d4 +1 piercing damage with a bite and the Ranger also hit hard, so Yeemik was forced to call a truce super quick. He offered to let Sildar go, in exchange for Klarg's head. The party accepted this. Yeemik, now not wanting the burden of a Gobbo he believes to be insubordinate, let the party heal Steef and accompany them. They struggled in the Twin Pools fight, with the Rogue being downed twice and ending the fight stable, but unconscious. We ran out of time there, so the party, with no spells left, no healing pots, have dragged the Rogue's body under the bridge and are going to attempt to rest and recoup for the battle against Klarg. Not sure how happy Yeemik is going to be with this, as he is impatient, so I may have to let out a cry or some noise that Steef knows signifies a sacrifice has begun in Yeemik's den (e.g. they are about to eat Sildar) and then the party will have to go deal with that first. I can give them a level up after that to lvl 2 and then they can go and try and beat Klarg, his Worg, 2 hidden Gobos, but with a pretty strong party of 4 PC's, Steef, a wolf (yet un-named) and an injured Sildar! I have said that after each session, the players vote the MVP and that person gets inspiration at the beginning of the next session and I've also used an alternative inspiration spending system (lots of cool options to choose from), so they can at least get buffed a little from that, even if they don't manage to get a full rest in, so with that and hitting lvl 2, they should hopefully be well equipped to defeat Klarg! 1 month between sessions to plan the next one! Wish me luck!
I decided to keep the goblin blind and have smoke rising from behind the thickets. I made it so the goblins are asleep on the job after a nice tasty meal, its much more fun for the players to try and assassinate them. If the players accidently wake the gobbo's, one runs for a horn which is leaned against a tree, to alert the hideout of intruders. If a goblin escaped during the ambush on Triboar trail then id probably consider cutting it.
HI! Just discovered your videos as I'm about to run LMOP for a relatively new group of players. I find the "cutscenes' and narration a departure from any other D&D game I've been in or ran. I'm concerned about giving away info to the players about what's to come or spoiling the surprise of the doppelgangers or even player knowledge versus character knowledge meta gaming issues. Have you had issues doing this? Great videos, very helpful!
Hey Joe! I don't personally mind about giving the players too much information. I see it like a movie: extra context helps people follow the story. And in the case of D&D: extra context helps the actors make meaningful decisions.
Thank you! Yeah I've got a series on SKT to finish over the next two months, but THEN there's a new Starter Set coming out on August 1. I'm going to take the month off and run the adventure for three groups simultaneously, learn it back to front and make a new series all about the new starter set adventure (which I currently know nothing about).
I play a lot of board games with my now teenage daughters, they mainly go for worker placement Euro-games like Agricola. We were researching what game to get this Christmas and with nothing grabbing us they asked ‘What did you mostly play when you were our age’…. ‘D&D’ said I. Golly they got excited once I’d explained it a bit. So 45 years since I last painted up a mini here I am. I’m certainly going to play the wolves as potential pets and cut out most of the traps. Really liking your ideas, having a ‘cipher’ treasure box that they’ll really want to solve- that’s genius. Also going for a rogue widowed wife Bugbear somewhere in the plot later on…. I’m actually getting a tad excited.
I am planning on running my youngest daughter and a few sidekicks through this very soon. We are both so very excited! Thank you so much for making this video series helping to break down the key moments and give new DM's pointers for these adventures. The module isn't always so clear cut as you explain things to be. I appreciate your work with all of your module guides. I can't wait to pour through them and get to adventuring!
After a whole bunch of careful DM prep, my party of 2, circumvented the whole thing and was able to walk in and out with Sildar without a single combat encounter. One of my PCs cast Charm Person on the goblin that ran away from the ambush and asked him to take them to Klarg. Then every time there was a deception or perception check against the helper goblin or the PCs the Cragmaws blew it (seriously, the goblin on the bridge rolled a nat 1, "go right on in, man"). Then they cast Charm Person on Klarg, who was attending to his loot pile. Klarg takes them to Sildar. Yeemik, who is highly suspicious, blows SEVERAL intuition checks, and the PCs walk out with Klarg, his wolf, their Goblin friend and Sildar. It's not until they got back to their cart and got 30ft away that they had to fight their way to actually escape (they were able to ice Klarg from the moving wagon).
Mr. Perkins, I presume? Hey Matt, just wanted to thank you SO much for this series of vids you've created on the LMoP! I've never DM'd before, but am very excited to do so for my buds. So I've been searching on "how to's" and stumbled across your channel. Let me tell you, you've got another subscriber, my dude! These vids are well done and I am excited to make similar changes to this starter set, to make my first time DM'ing a sure success!
I mean this as friendly constructive critcism, please take with a grain of salt. I stopped watching your video when you told me how not to role play a goblin. Your dislike of a shrill voiced goblin is subjective and your opinion. I clicked your video for suggestions on running the game but in this instance your telling me how to run my game. Guess what, I do a shrill voice when I run my goblins because I would imagine them having shrill voices despite your disdain. Maybe offer up advise without bringing up what you specifically hate other DM's do because maybe some of the DM's watching this actually do the things you hate. If you get an opportunity check out Verdigris Table"s videos on the same subject, I was able to watch the whole video without being insulted and came away with really good advise.
In most of these videos I say, "If you disagree with the book, follow your gut - you're right. If you disagree with me, follow your gut - you're right." It doesn't bother me what you do in your game, but I still have preferences and my own style, and these videos advocate my preferences and my style. I trust people to take what's useful to them and leave the rest.
My players convinced the second in command goblin (Yeemik) to help to make a coup against Klarg the bugbear. It eventually come to a goblin civil war and a character group rupture due to the ranger killing the victorious goblins (who were celebrating their victory) in murder hobo style.
My group of first timers barely managed to escape the ambush alive, after which they were SUPER careful and paranoid for several sessions >:( Encounter definitely needs to be nerfed!
