At the end of our fourth session with the D&D Starter Set, the party had made their way to the frontier town of Phandalin after experiencing the horror of a doppleganger and the psychoses of goblins. They had learned of the death of Bran’s brother-in-law, Thell, and the disappearance of his sister, niece, and nephew as well as about the Redbrands, a gang terrorizing the town. Various interactions with NPCs had given them various bits of information, some allies, and, most likely, some enemies. Baren had left town with two young clerks and two oxen from Barthen’s provisions to recover the supplies and wagon the party had left behind. The others had gathered at the Stonehill Inn to get rooms for the night and to have some lunch. While the others continued to relax at the inn, Feran left to go buy some arrows on his own. Shortly after leaving the inn, he ran into trouble.

There are potential spoilers below the break for the Starter Set adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver. This write-up is from yours truly. My GM comments, as typical, are in [brackets and italics].

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When we last left our party, they had set out in search of their missing oxen and had found a small cave containing some goblins. The party’s exploration had led to Corlinn hitting his head against some rocks and being knocked out (i.e., zero hit points). Valanthe had attempted to bluff the goblins in essentially surrendering. Instead, she ended up making a deal with one goblin to take on a little mission on his behalf. He, in exchange, would release a prisoner they were holding once the mission was completed. The party was just getting started on this “mission.”

Before continuing, we’ve got some happy news! Todd has a schedule that now allows him to join us in playing! Rather than take one of the characters of off the hands of Rachel or RJ (who are both playing two characters), we all decided that it might be best for him to play his own character. Bran Hornraven, a human wizard, makes his debut this session.

There are potential spoilers below the break for the Starter Set adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver. This write-up is from yours truly. My GM comments, as typical, are in [brackets and italics].

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We’ve now finished three sessions with the D&D Starter Set. We simply have not gotten that far into Lost Mines of Phandelver because: 1) we’re slow; and, 2) we started with a little intro adventure. That said, it has been working for us so far. The rules feel simple and non-intrusive. There is a nice level of abstraction which accomplishes this and allows space for interpreting and narrating the results of dice clattering about the table. I know it is only three sessions but it strikes me as a solid D&D style game.

In our last session, there was some depressing closure brought to the events that happened at Crellar’s Trading Post, the characters gelled as a party, and headed on their way towards Phandalin. They also experienced their first combat as a party (the only other fight so far was one-on-one between one PC and a monster). The combat did illustrate that the amount of damage dealt by even relatively weak monsters (i.e., goblins) can be sufficient to take down 1st level characters.

In fact, Baren, the party’s cleric, was taken down and then, in some subsequent exploration, Caelynn also suffered enough damage to fall into the cool embrace of unconsciousness (although neither were actually killed). We left the party soon after Baren regained consciousness and Caelynn was still unconscious (and the party had no magical healing available). The party was faced with a difficult decision…to push on as they had some very compelling reasons to do so (spoiler so below the break)…or to rest and recover.

There are potential spoilers below the break for the Starter Set adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver. This write-up is from yours truly. My GM comments, as typical, are in [brackets and italics].

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At the end of our first session, the party had discovered the culprit behind the murders that took place at the trading post. They had just finished putting many of the pieces together and, as dawn broke, began to realize the magnitude of the tragedy that had befallen the outpost. We pretty much started the second session with the burial of the deceased. After…of course…a good bit of socializing AND tasty Indian food from Tallahassee’s best Indian restaurant, Mayuri.

Bridgett was able to join us and she played Feran. There are potential spoilers below the break for both the Starter Set adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver, and for the old Dungeon Magazine (#28) adventure, Night of Fear. This write-up is from yours truly. My GM comments, as typical, are in [brackets and italics].

A few comments on how I think this new edition of D&D has been playing so far (they are positive after our first two sessions).
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