Interest Check: D&D 5e - Lost Mine of Phandelver

Hey all. I'm currently wrapping up a campaign I've been running for a while, and one of the games I play in is coming to a conclusion as well. This has opened up a lot more free time than I usually have doing PbPs.

I haven't had a lot of luck signing up for new games as a player lately, as the last four or five games I joined resulted in the GM abandoning their game. I've decided to take a break from joining anything new for a while, but I would like to run a game of D&D 5e.

I've been playing and running different games since I was a little kid, and while I currently run a game of B/X D&D irl one day a week, and am a player of 5e one day a week, I'm pretty new to 5e (I have maybe 6-8 hours as a player, and have read, or at least familiarized myself with the three core books).

With that in mind, I would like to give DMing a spin, and would prefer to start with PbP before trying my luck irl. For that reason, rather than making my own campaign, or using one of the heavier prewritten adventure modules for the game, I think I'll start with something smaller and easier for players and DMs to wrap their head around. Lost Mine of Phandelver immediately comes to mind.

Lost Mine of Phandelver is a pre-written adventure module which comes with the D&D 5e Starter Set with the intent of teaching both players and DMs how to play 5e. It is made for 4-5 PCs starting at Level 1, and by the end of the adventure the PCs should be around Level 4, approaching Level 5. The module generally gets favorable reviews.

This game would be open to anyone, no experience with 5e necessary. That being said please remember that my DMing experience using the 5e rules is pretty much non-existent as well, so this is an opportunity for me to learn what I'm doing, and how to run a game, though with the slower pacing of PbP allowing me to check the notes and books more often without interrupting pacing, I'm confident we won't experience too many glitches or hangups.

I am looking to run the game at a speed of 1 post per day. Obviously life happens, which is why many of us are using the PbP format, so I understand if players miss a day or two each week. So really, I'm looking for 1 post a day per player pacing, but expecting a game of about five posts a week per player.

As far as character creation goes, instead of randomly rolling Ability scores, we'll just use the simple and speedy allotment of the scores 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15 before Ability Modifiers are applied for Race/Class, as per Page 13 of the PHB.

Any Race and Class available in the PHB is available to play. Nothing homebrewed or 3rd Party. I don't have a legal copy of Zelligar's book, so we won't be applying anything from that book to character creation. Again, these will be characters straight out of the PHB only.

Obviously, if you have played/read through Lost Mines of Phandelver, I'd ask you refrain from applying so as to avoid metagaming and spoiling the experience for others.

I'm hoping to get about 4-5 players for this campaign.

I want to join.

Sounds great! I've just finished DMing Lost Mines for my daughters and their friend using roll20 so I won't apply.

I’d be up for joining as well

Do count me in for that. Lost mines sounds like fun.

@dankel: Running it over roll20 for my daughter and some of her wrestling teammates is sort of my long term plan as well. Getting some time in a couple campaigns in PbP and irl, and running a PbP game will hopefully ensure I have some of my ducks in a row when I have to DM it in real time.

Alright, I have Mallow, Sassafras, and GeneCortess. There's room for one or two more interested players, and in the meantime I'll get a game set up today and send Invites out to those that showed interest.

Hi, I'd love to play. I'm familiar with 5e rules, and was just going to start playing LMoP before the pandemic hit, so would love to continue in the PbP format.

Hello! I'd be interested in playing. I've got a lot of experience with 5e, but none with PbP so I feel like this might be a great springboard to learn from!

@ctme2000: I'll approve your request to join.
@AOC1996: I'll send you an invite.

That should make up five players, so I'll get the Caharcter Creation and OOC threads started and we can begin. If anyone else is interested in joining, please let me know. Right now, I want to keep the game limited to 5 PCs, but should any invites be ignored, I'll put you in line as alternates on a first come/first serve basis.

Why is it that Lost Mines of Phandelver is so popular here these days? This is the third game I've seen advertised for it by 3 different people. I'm in one of them but the last post was April 13th (by me) so it's not just you, fungiguy, who sees a lot of their games go under.

At least for me, the draw to this particular campaign is that it's a pretty simple and straightforward adventure with a layout that teaches players how to play, and DMs how to DM. It doesn't get excessively complicated, and basically relies on the idea that you really just need some very basic understanding of the system and everything should work alright.

Ideally, my two goals are to be able to run this game in-person or over voice chat and feel comfortable that I have enough practice so as to minimaize the hangups and hiccups that might occur, and to be able to convert a couple of interesting AD&D modules over to 5e and run those. Both those goals are a bit down the road, I suspect, but this particular module in PbP format seems like a great weay to get some practice in.
It's been pretty lousy the last few months. Before it seemed like there was always issues with players flaking out mid-game, but in the last year or so, it's been people that decide to run a game, and then decide shortly after the game is underway that maybe they found something else they would rather run, and they just bail on the players. Sometimes they delete the game without a word to the players, sometimes they just ghost. I went back and forth between hosting this game here or in the PbP forums at dndbeyond, and opted here because I'm familiar with how to post and roll dice, and what capabilities and limitation this website has already.

I'd love to join. :)

I had hopes to join as well. Hmmm...

If you want more characters, I'm ready to jump in coach! :)

Sorry. For now I think I want to keep the group size at 4-5 players, until I feel a bit more confident at my DMing abilities. Hopefully later I will feel more confident with adding extra players and adjusting the adventure accordingly, but for now I'm trying to play it as close to as designed as possible. Thank you for the interest though. If things run well, I'm definitely planning on running more 5e in the future.

Smiles. Yeah Mr.Armitage I'm awaiting a chance too.. I missed mine cause I was a bit to slow.

I’m always up for more 5e. :) I’m already running 3 games though. I’ll stick to adding additional games as a player. Haha

Zelligar's book? Is this a typo for Xanathar's guide to everything? Or is there some book out there that everybody except me knows about?

Best of luck with LMoP - I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with it.

Yeah, haha! That was a typo, or a slip-up, or something lol. I meant Xanathar's book. On Tuesdays I run a game of B/X D&D over Roll20 and Discord and we're doing the "B1 - In Search of the Unknown" module. In the pre-written module, the PCs loot a abandoned dungeon originally built by a fighter named Rogahn the Fearless and a wizard named Zelligar the Unknown. I guess Zelligar is leaking.

Yeah - I know that leaking feeling. At least I don't have to worry about players bringing a copy of Zelligar's to the table.

I ran that for a group but like always I never run them verbatim I usually grab a couple of more modules along with my ideas and mix them all together this helps prevent meta-gaming by the players because even if they have read/ran or memorized the original module they are never sure what to expect. That and I am always tailoring the game to the characters the players bring as if there is an element that would enhance game play if there were a dragonborn in the group but there is no dragonborn in the group then I phase that out or if there is one in the group then maybe I figure out how to phase something in.

I am always looking at a module as a means to a campaign, the the Lost Mines kind of do that if I recall but I think I played around with theirs to create a campaign story I wanted to tell. I would encourage all GMs -- even first time GMs to augment/adjust the module and make it your own -- never run some cookie-cutter one module fits all kind of game -- look at what characters there are being played -- and ask yourself how might you personalize some of it to those characters --- what if instead of this monster we go with these others because that character might enjoy that more due to their background and such -- also I sometimes alter the monsters such that the players -- if they have learned not to hack-n-slash everything might be able to turn these potential enemies into allies. Never judge a book by its cover as sometimes the contents just might surprise you.

Also I know that many folks say be careful with giving out magic -- but I do not adhere to that -- I have yet to find a player that did not want to have a neat-toy but often they have to wait forever to get one --- so I started trying to figure out how to give folks neat-toys from get go --- using the concept of like legendary weapons that basically grow as you grow kind of thing -- they start fairly weak but as you adventure you learn how to unlock new elements of the item until eventually you have a really nice toy

Now this toy does not always take the form of a weapon, sometimes its additional abilities, or just about anything. What it actually ends up being depends greatly upon the character and their backstory. Some folks come with pre-built toys (aka something that I augment) while others require me to slip them one of these toys without them knowing it.

The end of all this is to strive to make whatever you are doing match what you think is fun for you as a GM and perhaps even more important what you think the players might really enjoy seeing. Remember the players out-number the GM and you cannot have a game without them so tailor it some (or a lot) to them and everyone ends up having a lot more fun.

And do not let being a first time GM daunt you it really is not that difficult to tweak a module and you might find it is a lot more fun to do and it helps you to start to learn how to make your own that way.

Hi, I’m brand new to the game and site. I’d love to play if you have room

Hey FoxofFinch, we have a full party and already started, sorry. Good luck finding a game. Quite a bit of 5e gets posted here.

Hi funfungiguy, thanks for the reply. I got into a game in the end. Hope you all have fun