'A cleric, a wizard, a fighter and a rogue walk into bar...' A Summary of Session 3 of Lost Mine of Phandelver

Summary of Session 3: A cleric, a wizard, a fighter and a rogue walk into bar…

In this sessions our adventures successfully attacked Cragmaw Hideout and made out like bandits with additional treasure and Sildar in tow.

Good

Even more awesome roleplay from our players, including some interactions with the gamblers in the bar and a mother lovin’ bagpipe solo!!! I was flabberghasted. A lovely moment and it made me all warm and fuzzy inside

Bad

Drinking game mini game recieved mixed reviews and my 12 year old did not like the session, he thought there was too much roleplay in general.

Ugly

The rebrand ruffian encouter was super easy.

Encounters are hard

So my gang literally mullered the rebrand ruffians. They barely even flinched, the challenge rating thing on D&D Beyond suggested this would be relatively tough for the group, but they just battered them. I am going to keep an eye on this and see how the challenge feels for further encounters.

Groups are mixed and have different opinions

Not every session can please everyone, but because I was running this group in part for my son, the feedback that he thought this session was boring was particularly hard to take. I am not planning to change much right now but will keep checking in with him to see if he is consistently feeling this way.

Adding some random new NPCs is fun

I added a clerk called Alastair who worked at the Townmaster hall, who is, it turns out, a lover of bagpipes. It was nice to be able to give the feedback to the players in game that their roleplay was being appreciated by creating NPCs who enjoyed the characters :)

Neutral/Chaotic good?

I think my group are erring on the side of either Neutral or Chaotic good. They full on murder people who outright threaten them and are brutal when they do it. They also want to do things like clean up after they’ve brutally murdered someone of no other reason than they feel bad for the bar owner.

You can see how I prepped for this session here.