The following contains some spoilers for the Lost Mine Of Phandelver adventure included in the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. Not too many, but enough that as a player you might not want to read this.
Interestingly, the players did not learn their lesson with regards to splitting up their party. Well, it was a mixed lesson.
The players, 4 of them, each in 6th grade, do not have the experience that somebody in their character’s position would. This comes in especially for the third example.
Still playing the Lost Mine Of Phandelver adventure from the Starter Set, the boys have finished their clearing out of the goblin lair, the first real “dungeon” they come across. Since we had all the adventurers together again, before getting into the dice rolling part, there was a bit of exposition that needed to happen.
It is important to remember the set-up for the scenario, that a dwarf, Gundren Rockseeker, hired the party to accompany his wagon of supplies from the city of Neverwinter to the small town of Phandalin, a few day’s journey to the south. Gundren needed to get to the town quicker than his wagon, and so he and a human companion, Sildar Hallwinter, went ahead on horseback. Goblins ambushed the party on their way to Phandalin, but didn’t make the connection between the two dead horses in the road and their employers. Even when they went to town they were tasked with stopping the raids that have been bothering the supply chain to Phandalin. They went back to the location of the ambush, tracked the goblins to their lair and set to work clearing it.
Because we had one adventurer miss the last session I wrote him out by falling, hitting his head and becoming unconscious. The party found Sildar, but not Gundren, and I altered the narrative to have him be unconscious as well. I wanted to see how the party would deal with two unconscious people. And that is where we left the last session. The party decided to carry the unconscious people back to Phandalin, then return with a wagon to retrieve the supplies found in the goblin lair.
Again I changed the narrative a bit for this session. I wound up having both unconscious people wake up on the way to Phandalin and used the opportunity to perform some story exposition. I would further alter the narrative to eliminate the Iarno Albrek character, but not Glasstaff. I also made Sildar a bit more of a companion to Gundren than some hired help who overheard a few things. This is when the players learned about the mine, the map, and some character named Black Spider.
Headed back to the goblin lair, this is where the party first split up. I wasn’t going to have an encounter, I didn’t plan on it, really, but rolling a 20 meant I had to come up with something. While the rest of the party went on to the lair to retrieve the supplies, the wizard stayed with the wagon on the trail. That’s when a wandering orc happened by. What they don’t know is that orc was a scout for a much larger party that is on the other side of the mountain from Phandalin. The wizard barely survived this encounter, and the only thing they took away from that encounter was that orcs travel in groups, so they left as quickly as possible.
Back in Phandalin the party encountered a group on the street that “asked” them to leave since they saved the town from the goblin raids. This wound up escalating from a shouting match to something of an armed brawl. Sadly our heroes left a few bodies in the street. This is where the party split up again. Here the wizard fell and was clinging to life so the cleric stayed behind to heal him. The rogue and ranger ran chasing the final ruffian, but lost him as he ran between buildings. Fortunately, this splitting of the party did not have any adverse affects.
Finally, as the trail (and story) led to the hideout of the ruffians, the party split up again. Without getting into specifics about where, I will say after one room was cleared some party members searched the room while the ranger went down a hall. The rest of the party eventually found him prone at the bottom of a 20 foot pit.
This is where the last session ended. Two out of three times the party split up something bad happened. And particularly frustrating for me was nobody, especially the rogue, examined the area to see if there was a way around the pit.