Real Game Play: Onward Sehanine Moonbowian Soldiers...

So we began our campaign. I’m using the 5e starter set which contains The Lost Mines of Phandelver. (LMoP) I’m a review junkie so of course I read whatever I could find on this module, and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive for using this in its intended purpose - to introduce totally green people to tabletop D&D. After looking at what’s out there - LMoP appears to be a smallish to mid-sized campaign module, depending on how thoroughly the players explore it and follow leads. I’m hoping more for mid-sized, since I’d like some time to get comfortable with DMing before I have to sort out whatever we’ll do next.

Anyway, as I’ve mentioned previously, I really struggled with how to prepare for DMing. I’m accustomed to the DM knowing what they’re doing. I read through most of The Player's Handbook. (PHB) I started cover to cover, but frankly, I found it mind numbing because without a vested frame of reference, it was hard to attach significance to information and stay focused. I made an account at The Giant in the Playground forum and lurked. I read some advice somewhere (I wish I could remember where!) that suggested someone truly green should read some of the "cannon" Forgotten Realms novels and then read through the PHB with those characters and plot lines in mind. The suggestion was so novel (sorrynotsorry) that I decided to give that a whirl. I'd never read any of those books despite my interest in D&D over the years, so I started with the most famous one of all, The Crystal Shard: the Legend of Drizzt. The book was exactly what people want out of fandom work, and the pacing was sufficiently sprightly to propel me to the end even if it wasn't what I would normally pick up for a lazy afternoon of light reading. And you know what? That approach to looking through the PHB worked really well. I was suddenly able to attach meaning to what was being said about barbarians, rangers, fighters and wizards.

What follows below the line is a rough recount of what happened during our first session. If you intend to play LMoP you may not want to read on. I am hewing very close to the printed module. Someday I’ll feel comfortable going off trail, but that day hasn’t arrived yet.

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We have a party of four players:

Varis the half elf rogue

Malfight the rock gnome wizard

Cohen the half-orc barbarian

Carric Amakiir the elf life cleric

Varis and Cohen are adults, and the other two are teens. I started with the "hook" provided by the book, and had the party start out on the High Road together with the wagon. Carric the Cleric got taken down to 0 in the goblin ambush scene. No fault of his - the goblins had the dice in their teeth and ran away with it. It was the very last round of the fight so he was stabilized and didn't have to roll death saving throws. And then he redeemed himself a short time later because his massive wisdom modifier and proficiency in perception allowed the party to miss the traps on the goblin trail. The party argued about going on to Phandalin vs. following the goblin trail in the woods, and ultimately wound up deciding 3:1 to follow the goblin trail when Varis swung the vote. (Varis is deliciously self-absorbed and self serving, and yet has a knack for getting the group to be productive. I hope he keeps it up.)

The party was able to surprise the two goblin guards outside the cave entrance, but Varis rolled a natural 1 and wound up slipping and falling ass-over-teakettle and dropping prone. The best part was that the goblins were next in the initiative line-up, and the very next goblin also rolled a natural 1 (what are the odds!?!) and he, too, slipped and fell ass-over-teakettle. Varis and the goblin shared a special moment of commiseration before the rest of the party did the little goblin in.

They didn't get very far into the cave, but the wizard Malfight cast "Find Familiar" and chose a bat. (It was actually Carric's idea.) The bat was able to map the entire cave out for them, flying in and out of telepathic range to deliver the information. And because it was a bat, it didn't draw any attention to itself. I couldn't come up with a reason for bugbears and goblins to cast detect magic (if they even could! and these guys are too low level to have that sort of capability) at animals that are in their natural habitat. So before they even got past the 3 wolves in the cave, they knew the whole layout of the cave complex and how many goblins (and the bugbear) there were, and where they are. Also where Sildar Hallwinter was, and that he was badly injured. Amazing how one small action can change the whole way an entire complex area works out. In retrospect, I ought to have awarded Carric inspiration for that idea.

I got feedback, and the consensus that things went very well for a first go, and that it would be more fun with more roleplaying. Some of that is my fault - because learning the mechanics was a bit hard for me, I was focusing on mechanics more than role-play. I do feel like I bump up against my learning differences with the stats and mechanics of D&D a lot. It's not that I can't learn how things work... it's more like it's really "slippery" information that I learn, and can't hold on to. It helps to make use of the information in a practical way vs. the weeks and weeks of reading about how to do things that was my prep for this. I think it might really help me to listen to a serious actual-game-play podcast in order to learn the mechanics better.

In the end I did a lot of prep even though every review online says this module requires almost none. I haven't DM'd in over 30 years, and it was natural that I was nervous. Nerves make it hard to recall information I need in the moment, so it's good for me to address the anxiety. I don't like feeling flustered, but I also know that control is an illusion. So I tried to strike a balance with my prep. I suppose you can say I had a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, I sat with my worry and settled into an acceptance that things might not go as smoothly as I like. And on the other, I took action to try and make accessing information I might need on the fly easy. I made a bunch of cheat sheets on how stuff works. I know that the DM screen has a lot of this information, but I find that the act of typing out the mechanics and organizing the information in a way that seems intuitive for me really accelerates the learning process. I have a spell casting cheat sheet, a combat cheat sheet, and a player character cheat sheet with their passive wisdom perception numbers and some other quick reference details - like their abilities and their flaws - listed. When it was time to game, evidently I appeared to know what I was doing, which was nice to hear even if it didn't necessarily dovetail with how I felt.

I decided to give the party a bare-bones map from Gundren showing how to get from Neverwinter to Phandalin with a few commonly known landmarks depicted. I gave them the OOC hint that they should annotate that map as they learn where more things are.

Now I just need to get comfortable enough with being in the driver's seat so that I can actually role play the NPCs with a little more verve. I'd also really like to be better at "shooting from the hip" in terms of ability checks for wacky ideas that people toss about. But at my age, I’ve come to realize that you can only “shoot from the hip” and expect to hit your target if you’ve had a fair bit of practice and familiarity. And there’s no substitute - no silver bullet that allows you to instantly acquire the experience that you need. Oh well. If the 4 players don't lose interest and chase me out of town, I guess I'll get the opportunity to hone my skills. Lack of experience is the sort of problem that solves itself as long as you're willing to throw yourself out there.