Lost Mines of Phandelver - Session 3

We picked back up about half a day outside of Phandalin after clearing out the Cragmaw Cave. The party awoke in the morning and decided that they needed to discuss the plan going forward with Gundren. The 3 went off on their own to discuss. Gareth and Nefresil wanted to know what Gundren's plans were for the mine, and if he was going to need them for anything. Gundren told them that he and his brothers would need help clearing the cave out based on their last venture into the cave. Gundren's two brothers are supposed to be at the cave guarding it, lest someone else discover it and attempt to claim it. Gundren offered the Nefresil and Gareth a 10% share of the wealth produced by the cave (5% each) in perpetuity. The party decided that they would need help to go into the cave and sweep it clean, based on observations from Gundren's previous ventures into the cave. Gundren offered to fully fund a base camp outside of the cave, and to fund the provisions they needed, but insisted that the party pay anyone they were going to hire to help with the cave. Nefresil and Gareth agreed to this after some discussion.

The party made its way back to Phandalin with no troubles. Connal, Dhugal, and Nigel left the party and went their own way. Gareth and Nefresil made their way to Barthen's Provisions to collect payment for taking Gundren's goods to the town. They then moved on to the Lionshield Coster to sell a jade statue they recovered from the Cragmaw Cave. The owner, Linene Graywind, told them it was worth 40gp. Gareth was able to persuade her to pay 50gp for him, and the party left happy. Upon returning to the inn, Gundren gave each party member 25gp for rescuing him. By the evening they noticed that the people in town that know Gundren, had a lot more respect for the PCs.

The party decided to recruit some fighters, and, in addition, see if anyone approached them hoping to gain some renown by helping. During this time they were approached by Anlow, a woodsman in the area that was willing to help in order to help remove any threats from the area. The bard, Cale, that was in the Stonehill Inn performing approached the party saying he wished to join the venture as it would make a good story. Finally, a young woman approached the party, sneaking up on them, and expressed an interest in joining. Nefresil expressed his interest in not hiring her. She was unwilling to give a reason for wanting to join the party other than for gold, and that did not sit well with him. Gareth agreed and they politely declined her services. In addition to Anlow and Cale, the players were able to hire 2 fighters; Daylen and Feck.

DM Recap

This session started out with a discussion about the world change that I sprung on the players last session. I won't get into that, see the previous post entitled Change and New Worlds for more information. Once it was decided to move back to Forgotten Realms and retcon the previous session away things went smoothly. I was not really prepared to run anything, but since it was mostly planning that occurred, I decided to go ahead and wing it. Once again the players have decided to employ hirelings to help them clear out Wave Echo Cave. After some discussion, we decided to have the players each run 1 of the hirelings, specifically the 2 fighters. This was to prevent my as the DM monopolizing the combat.

Loot and XP

No loot or XP was awarded for this session. The players were awarded some loot in game for clearing out the cave. The received 600cp, 110sp, and a Jade statue.

Change and New Worlds

Well, things seem to have changed in the game yesterday. I had a discussion with my players prior to the session, and I found out that changing the world on them was not received very well. They felt that the move was jarring and severing their backgrounds and taking them away from everything they knew took them out of the game. We talked about what could be done to salvage the game so that it does not just fall apart. There were a couple of solutions.

First, we could just keep going forward and hope that things got better. While the easiest of the solutions, it had the most potential to go wrong. What happens if they players are not able to get invested again? What if they do not feel that they belong in the world? While this would be the easiest for me in that I had material ready, and had been doing some world building, it was not the best solution.

Second, we could take a step back out of game, and make slight changes to the characters so they were no longer strangers in a strange land. This was a better solution than the first option, as it would allow me to continue to use the material I had, and would allow the players to make the necessary connections for their characters.

Third, we could hand wave the previous session away, and pick back up in he Forgotten Realms with the players and their group on their way back to Phandalin. This would render all of my world preparation worthless, but would allow the players original character ideas to continue to be used.

After much discussion we decided on the third option. The players leaned towards wanting to go back to Forgotten Realms with their characters. Did this make some of my preparation material worthless? Sure. Was I upset by the decision? Not in the slightest. I want everyone to have fun, and if this is what helps the players to have fun, then I am 100% on board with it.