D&D 5E Phandelver starting to show up in the wild. NewbieDM looks to be the first!

[mamba]

My understanding is that it was blended with Keep on the Borderlands as Against the Cult of Chaos during D&D Next. That adventure, sadly, is nowhere to be found on DMs Guild and I've had it on my watchlist at Noble Knight for years with no luck.

yes, would be nice if it were available officially, until then Google might be able to find it

 

[aco175]

I know my DM @GuyBoy combined Phandelver with Forge of Fury from Yawning Portal. He said it worked really well. There’s the black dragon!

I did the same thing and posted the adventure on DMsGuild. I think it was called Forge of Phandalin. It worked ok with my group. I even mixed a bit of the Essentials into the start with the dwarf excavation crew.

 

[MockingBird]

I don't think it was a great adventure for new DMs even when it was released.

Is it an adventure I adore and have run many times? Yes. But a good adventure for new DMs? Not really.

Keep on the Borderlands has a fundamental flaw: The Keep, which isn't described in a way that someone new to DMing has anything to work with. And then it puts a massive barrier between the players and the fun bit (exploring the caves), because they don't know where the Caves of Chaos are.

I'm tossing up between The Sunless Citadel and Lost Mine of Phandelver for the best of these adventures. Lost Mine probably gets it, not because it's flawless, but because it has a greater range, both providing a directed experience while allowing the players agency.

Cheers,
Merric

I definitely agree with the last part. Sunless was fun and so was Phandelver. I've combined the two and it's super easy to fit Sunless into Phandelver.

I never ran Keep so I can't comment on it.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

That's one of the major reasons I like home-brew worlds, I can change things and drop them in wherever without anyone knowing. Change a few names, home brew a few stats, and any module from just about any fantasy game can fit.

Well you can do that for lots of established worlds too.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And murdered in our beds by cultists coming through secret doors in the inn!

Speaking of which, how do you suppose they managed to put in secret doors in the inn, after the cult took over?

"Pardon our construction dust; we're turning the upstairs rooms at the inn into places to murder infidels in our quest to better serve you, our customers."

 

[Reynard]

Speaking of which, how do you suppose they managed to put in secret doors in the inn, after the cult took over?

"Pardon our construction dust; we're turning the upstairs rooms at the inn into places to murder infidels in our quest to better serve you, our customers."

Nah. The inn was probably originally a brothel popular with the nobility, so secret passages were a must from day one.

 

[Nikosandros]

It always amazed me that N1 was intended for novice-level DMs. Running undirected investigations is difficult.

Cheers,
Merric

Indeed. And the final part is quite deadly, as I recall. Too harsh for novices and still very tough for 1st level characters. Overall, as you note, a strange choice for beginning players.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That distinction is still held by Keep on the Borderlands.

Keep on the Boarderlands was awful! It's only redeeming feature was it wasn't quite as awful as Caves of Chaos. Only the rosiest of rose-tinted nostalgia-specs could prevent anyone seeing these for the piles of garbage they were.

 

[Nikosandros]

Keep on the Boarderlands was awful! It's only redeeming feature was it wasn't quite as awful as Caves of Chaos. Only the rosiest of rose-tinted nostalgia-specs could prevent anyone seeing these for the piles of garbage they were.

Thank you for your persuasive post. Now that I've seen the error of my ways, I shall remove my colored glasses and stop appreciating that module.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Thank you for your persuasive post. Now that I've seen the error of my ways, I shall remove my colored glasses and stop appreciating that module.

Maybe you should try and persuade me why it isn't garbage. Because what I see is a pseudo-medieval settlement so bland and generic it makes Phandelver seem like the Far Realms, populated by implausibly high level NPCs far more capable of dealing with any problems than the players, that doesn't present players anything more interesting to do than jump back on their horses and ride on in search of something more interesting. Near by is a cave network populated by generic humanoids devoid of personality and interesting combat abilities, segregated by ethnicity and level, that do nothing but sit around waiting for someone to come and kill them.

And this dates from the same period that gave us brilliance like Castle Amber, and in other games, Twilight's Peak (Traveller).

I prefer The Forest Oracle. At least it's bad in interesting ways.