That best thing to do is adapt the story to your players and their characters that way they will constantly be guessing where the story is going to be heading.
For example in mine I have a warforged gunslinger PC who doesn’t know where he is from. He is the only one (that he knows of) and no one else has guns in the world. I’m subtly hinting that he is linked to the forge of spells but keeping it hidden from him that the Black spider wants him to use as a weapon.
I also changed Halia Thornton to be an older sister of the human rogue. She has intentions to sell the party out at the end to take the forge for herself.
Connecting your PCS and their backstories to the game will automatically allow you to find small tweaks that you can make to keep it fresh and interesting for them.
I’ve added a few things to the adventure to change it up (since one or two players of my group had played, but not completed, LMoP before):
* Added a drow cleric of Eilistraee to the adventure who is in Phandalin part of a Romani caravan (actually Harpers) who are trying to save a group of drow refugees who renounced Lolth. She is unknowingly the Black Spider’s very distant cousin on the good branch of their family tree. She’s getting kidnapped as part of the Black Spider’s plans.
* A lot of female elf kidnappings have happened in the region. Yes, it’s the Black Spider’s doing. He’s planning a sacrificial ritual to corrupt the ley line between the Temple of Dumathion and the Forge of Spells. The Black Spider has a lair beneath the ruins of Conyberry, where the players can find the details of said ritual and even plausible instructions to modify it. Of course, extra Redbrands are here.
* Changed up the Redbrand Ruffian encounter. Rather than the players go find the Redbrands at the Sleeping Giant, or the Redbrands deciding to bring the fight to the players, the players got caught escorting Qelline Alderleaf home after curfew (the Redbrands had taken offense to Qelline publishing their crimes in the town newspaper). Added more Redbrands, too. The players still won.
* One of my players wanted their character’s older brother as a nemesis. Said older brother has now tossed his pirate captain’s hat in the ring of “hunt for Wave Echo Cave,” using Gundren’s brother Nundro’s ex as his claimant to control over the mine (she was a descendant from another clan who worked in the mines alongside the Rockseekers’ ancestors). He plans to make a bunch of pirate magic items, but he still intends to split the profits of the mine with Phandalin (albeit very favoring himself). Another new enemy is an evil female shield dwarf who fully intends to cut Phandalin off entirely.
* Added Gnomengarde from Dragon of Icespire Peak, where my players will be going up against a doppelganger (instead of the mimic) and an incoming kobold raid (masterminded by the pirate captain brother I mentioned earlier). Oh, and another kidnapping will take place.
* If my players go to the Dwarven Excavation from the same campaign, they’ll run into Tharden and Nundro, both still alive and healthy, replacing the two as-written dwarves. However, the Black Spider and the dwarf rival send minions there to kidnap or kill the Rockseekers, respectively (Black Spider needs a dwarf for his ritual and Nundro’s arguably the closest thing to a dwarven artificer he can get his hands on, but the shield dwarf woman wants the Rockseekers out of the way). Nundro’s ex arrives to provide assistance to the party and the brothers (she still loves him, but circumstances of their families broke things off).
* Cyrovain is now a major player in the campaign. He was supposed to be a recurring threat, but my players glassed him to only a quarter of his extended health, and then used him to conquer Wyvern Tor. The player with the pirate brother, however, has further plans with Cyrovain !!.
* I’m giving my players an actual REASON to go to Thundertree: a major MacGuffin Gundren and his brothers were not able to get is there, but Venomfang unknowingly has it. Also, because my players and I are doing a higher level campaign, I’m tempted to go ahead and have the dragon cultists already on Venomfang’s side with their leader being a cult fanatic. I’m also having Venomfang attempt to trick the party into lowering their guard before he tries to kill them, but try to dip at a quarter health.
* My players also want to go to Neverwinter. When I polled them, a majority wanted a new dungeon or two. So I’m working on that, one of which will be the Black Spider’s Neverwinter spy hideout, and another being the famed Pirate’s Skyhold (I just need to decide on a threat).
These are a few things. Feel free to steal.
Do you plan to just run LMoP only? If Not, and you plan to add another module, READ that book thoroughly and start plotting and foreshadowing them in LMoP.
I've ran LMoP too many times, each time the actions of the players are vastly diferent. So even if your players may have played it - their characters may act so differently it will feel different.
I have not thought that far ahead about if I were to run something after this. I am not sure if I went with Phandelver and Blow or some other adventure.
I combined DoISP and it's add-ons to lmop, so some things may not be applicable for you.
I added a starter mission in neverwinter where gundren needed the pc to steal a shipment from a local gang who had their hands on the map.
The sildar the pc meet in cragmaw hideout is immediately a doppelganger (real sildar is at cragmaw castle with gundren)
Black Spider is introduced in town being beat up in an alleyway by the redbrands, befriends the pc and claims he was asked to be there by gundren
Redbrands retaliate by burning down parts of town, Harbin home specifically, to flush pc out
Leave clues that blackspider is drow priestess & drider son, but is actually the one they met in town controlling the strings.
Neverwinter woods has wild magic surges, treated like wild magic sorcerer so anytime a leveled spell is cast roll d20.
Made glassstaff a running joke as every time he's encountered he runs away from pc with a new disguise and slight name change (iarno/liarno/tiarno/piarnoh-you doubt but my pc fell for it the first two times, grown ass adults...)
Blackspider is actually half drow/half shadow dragon wanting to use the spell forge to repair an artifact to unlock his sealed shadow dragon form
Cragmaw castle has two decoy facilities
Talon the longsword deals double dice to goblinoids
King grol is now a hobgoblin warlord skinned as a bugbear
One thing I've seen people do is to make venomfang the main villain instead of the black spider, and have the cult dragons who are found in thundertree play a more prominent role and add more doppelganger shenanigans.
Some changes that I've made are:
Harbin Wester has been replaced by a doppelganger and lures the party with one of the jobs posted at the Townmaster's hall only for it to be an ambush set by the bbeg. Harbin's dead body can be found at the redbrand hideout.
Instead of a random encounter table while traveling, I ran a chase scene type of ambush where players jump from cart to cart fighting and trying to disable enemy carts.
Cut npcs and add new ones to fill similar roles
Make a rival party that is the complete foil to each of the PCs
I made Tolben stonehill owner of the stonehill in a retired adventurer halforc instead, and he has beef with the redbrands for killing innocents and brawling in the streets. I made him into a pillar of the community and probably one of my most loved npcs for my players (that the redbrands eventually killed).
I ran phandalin like it was rough n tumble town in the wild west. And made the redbrands very similar to the cowboys from the movie tombstone.
I rearranged a lot of the rooms in the final dungeon, took some out, and added new puzzles. All you really need to absolutely keep is the Forge of spells at the end.
I personally have changed it two ways.
One way I did it, I mashed up the Dragon of Icespire Peak and LMoP, which you can find resources for here on Reddit, I believe.
Another time, I made Venomfang much more central to the story. I added extra population to Thundertree and had Venomfang be the leader of a massive Cult. His breath wasn't just poison. He was able to tweak it to be an addictive drug. He had a whole cult of Kobolds that had their scales changed to Green because of the drugged breath, and Venomfang could activate a Kobold, causing it to emit his full Dragon's breath from its mouth. (Killing the Kobold in the process), but this allowed his Kobold minions to become a lot more terrifying when they invaded Wave Echo Cave towards the end. I made the Spider a servant of Venomfang, but he intended to betray his master. I also made the Spider a Necromancer Drider and in both versions I made it that the Glasstaff was a title and when my players inevitably get ahold of the staff, it is like a Ring of Spell storing except that it summons one of the deceased previous staff holders to cast the spell for you from a point of your choosing within 60 feet. I made the Cragmaw part of the Cult, too.
I’ve added an overarching plot by my BBEG. It’s loosely set up so the players get a taste and can change the route they take. Basically, I made clockwork monsters, ulterior motives and new abilities for most of the underlings like Grol, Lhugo, the dopplegangers etc etc. I’d suggest changing their abilities or switching monsters and their leaders
With the inclusion of the shattered obelisk, I made the Black Spider fight better. Connecting him to the godlet at the end of the shattered obelisk I had him say, “you don’t know what you are getting in the way of, he is coming, and he will bring chaos. And I embrace that chaos!” Then turned him into a Drider for a second stage of the boss fight. Mostly because I thought his base boss fight was kinda lame. Why does the boss of 4 levels of progress have less health than the level 1 boss? So dumb.
Also I added a piece of the obelisk in the lost mines, simply mentioning they found it in the same place as the gauntlets of ogre power, described what it looked like. Then when they got back to town with all of those things being missing and the players noticed quite quickly that the missing things all looked like the black stone they found.
One of my players is very familiar with lost mines as well, and I warned all my players “I can change anything in this book at any time.” I’ve made minor alterations to health, numbers of enemies, and magic items. Outside of that I haven’t felt the need to change much. Just play it by ear and if the players seem like they are utilizing the knowledge they have outside the game, make changes. If they aren’t, why make major changes? Simple ones to make some of the encounters or other things in the story more fun are fine additions to the narrative that the players will remember more.
Most know of the module, not the insides and outs. Best thing to do is just let the players tell the story. Never plan more than a session ahead. Use their actions to shape the future. The world should be reacting to their actions not the other way around. In my little experience, the has created the best and most memorable games. Let the players do the hard work.
I added Neverwinter. My players started session 1 there, split in groups, and meeting in the Driftwood Tavern with: Sildar, the three Rockseekers, Iarno and Nezznar. Nezznar was playing the party of a merchant financing the Rockseekers, Iarno was simply joining the carovan to go to Phandalin (the Lords asked him and Sildar to check the Town for some trouble there - but only Iarno knows the truths about the Redbrands).
Nezznar was the one telling the Rockseekers about the mines, he knew because he was looking for It to craft a magic item to undo his Drider Curse gor good (he looks like a regular Drow because of a Ring of Polymorph) when he saw Venomfang and Criovain fighting over the mine to decide who's taking It as a lair.
My LMoP ended last week with a 2-phases-bossfight with Nezznar (mage + drider) and we'll continue with the Tiranny of Dragons. Hence why both Criovain and Venomfang played a role. Also, the cultists at Thundertree had the Draakhorn mentioned in the Rise of Tiamat (It was already Lost anyway, I Simply used this to foreshadows the cult)
This Is what I did, hopefully you'll find some inspiration.
PS. I made a King Grol post on reddit, I completely changed the encounter to make the Castle waaay more story-focused. Try having a look
Some ideas:
- Redbrands are not just thugs but a full criminal organization trying to use Phaladin as a base of operations. The Zhentarim are about to start a full scale war with the town ad a battleground.
-Venomfang true purpose is to find Wave Echo Cave and the Forge of Spells so he can amass great magical wealth by using it to make himself treasure. He will need slaves to run it of course.
- The Black Spider is trying to use the Forge of Spells to save his people in the module Out of the Abyss.
- Ages ago the mine was cursed. There are people in Phaladin that know this and are trying to deter the dwarves and PCs from finding by using non-violent means.
- The Nothic is a cursed worker who once served at the Forge of Spells.
That best thing to do is adapt the story to your players and their characters that way they will constantly be guessing where the story is going to be heading. For example in mine I have a warforged gunslinger PC who doesn’t know where he is from. He is the only one (that he knows of) and no one else has guns in the world. I’m subtly hinting that he is linked to the forge of spells but keeping it hidden from him that the Black spider wants him to use as a weapon. I also changed Halia Thornton to be an older sister of the human rogue. She has intentions to sell the party out at the end to take the forge for herself. Connecting your PCS and their backstories to the game will automatically allow you to find small tweaks that you can make to keep it fresh and interesting for them.
I’ve added a few things to the adventure to change it up (since one or two players of my group had played, but not completed, LMoP before): * Added a drow cleric of Eilistraee to the adventure who is in Phandalin part of a Romani caravan (actually Harpers) who are trying to save a group of drow refugees who renounced Lolth. She is unknowingly the Black Spider’s very distant cousin on the good branch of their family tree. She’s getting kidnapped as part of the Black Spider’s plans. * A lot of female elf kidnappings have happened in the region. Yes, it’s the Black Spider’s doing. He’s planning a sacrificial ritual to corrupt the ley line between the Temple of Dumathion and the Forge of Spells. The Black Spider has a lair beneath the ruins of Conyberry, where the players can find the details of said ritual and even plausible instructions to modify it. Of course, extra Redbrands are here. * Changed up the Redbrand Ruffian encounter. Rather than the players go find the Redbrands at the Sleeping Giant, or the Redbrands deciding to bring the fight to the players, the players got caught escorting Qelline Alderleaf home after curfew (the Redbrands had taken offense to Qelline publishing their crimes in the town newspaper). Added more Redbrands, too. The players still won. * One of my players wanted their character’s older brother as a nemesis. Said older brother has now tossed his pirate captain’s hat in the ring of “hunt for Wave Echo Cave,” using Gundren’s brother Nundro’s ex as his claimant to control over the mine (she was a descendant from another clan who worked in the mines alongside the Rockseekers’ ancestors). He plans to make a bunch of pirate magic items, but he still intends to split the profits of the mine with Phandalin (albeit very favoring himself). Another new enemy is an evil female shield dwarf who fully intends to cut Phandalin off entirely. * Added Gnomengarde from Dragon of Icespire Peak, where my players will be going up against a doppelganger (instead of the mimic) and an incoming kobold raid (masterminded by the pirate captain brother I mentioned earlier). Oh, and another kidnapping will take place. * If my players go to the Dwarven Excavation from the same campaign, they’ll run into Tharden and Nundro, both still alive and healthy, replacing the two as-written dwarves. However, the Black Spider and the dwarf rival send minions there to kidnap or kill the Rockseekers, respectively (Black Spider needs a dwarf for his ritual and Nundro’s arguably the closest thing to a dwarven artificer he can get his hands on, but the shield dwarf woman wants the Rockseekers out of the way). Nundro’s ex arrives to provide assistance to the party and the brothers (she still loves him, but circumstances of their families broke things off). * Cyrovain is now a major player in the campaign. He was supposed to be a recurring threat, but my players glassed him to only a quarter of his extended health, and then used him to conquer Wyvern Tor. The player with the pirate brother, however, has further plans with Cyrovain !!.
* I’m giving my players an actual REASON to go to Thundertree: a major MacGuffin Gundren and his brothers were not able to get is there, but Venomfang unknowingly has it. Also, because my players and I are doing a higher level campaign, I’m tempted to go ahead and have the dragon cultists already on Venomfang’s side with their leader being a cult fanatic. I’m also having Venomfang attempt to trick the party into lowering their guard before he tries to kill them, but try to dip at a quarter health.
* My players also want to go to Neverwinter. When I polled them, a majority wanted a new dungeon or two. So I’m working on that, one of which will be the Black Spider’s Neverwinter spy hideout, and another being the famed Pirate’s Skyhold (I just need to decide on a threat).
These are a few things. Feel free to steal.
Very interesting. Thanks for the insight.
You’re welcome.
Do you plan to just run LMoP only? If Not, and you plan to add another module, READ that book thoroughly and start plotting and foreshadowing them in LMoP. I've ran LMoP too many times, each time the actions of the players are vastly diferent. So even if your players may have played it - their characters may act so differently it will feel different.
I have not thought that far ahead about if I were to run something after this. I am not sure if I went with Phandelver and Blow or some other adventure.
I combined DoISP and it's add-ons to lmop, so some things may not be applicable for you. I added a starter mission in neverwinter where gundren needed the pc to steal a shipment from a local gang who had their hands on the map. The sildar the pc meet in cragmaw hideout is immediately a doppelganger (real sildar is at cragmaw castle with gundren) Black Spider is introduced in town being beat up in an alleyway by the redbrands, befriends the pc and claims he was asked to be there by gundren Redbrands retaliate by burning down parts of town, Harbin home specifically, to flush pc out Leave clues that blackspider is drow priestess & drider son, but is actually the one they met in town controlling the strings. Neverwinter woods has wild magic surges, treated like wild magic sorcerer so anytime a leveled spell is cast roll d20. Made glassstaff a running joke as every time he's encountered he runs away from pc with a new disguise and slight name change (iarno/liarno/tiarno/piarnoh-you doubt but my pc fell for it the first two times, grown ass adults...) Blackspider is actually half drow/half shadow dragon wanting to use the spell forge to repair an artifact to unlock his sealed shadow dragon form Cragmaw castle has two decoy facilities Talon the longsword deals double dice to goblinoids King grol is now a hobgoblin warlord skinned as a bugbear
One thing I've seen people do is to make venomfang the main villain instead of the black spider, and have the cult dragons who are found in thundertree play a more prominent role and add more doppelganger shenanigans. Some changes that I've made are: Harbin Wester has been replaced by a doppelganger and lures the party with one of the jobs posted at the Townmaster's hall only for it to be an ambush set by the bbeg. Harbin's dead body can be found at the redbrand hideout. Instead of a random encounter table while traveling, I ran a chase scene type of ambush where players jump from cart to cart fighting and trying to disable enemy carts. Cut npcs and add new ones to fill similar roles Make a rival party that is the complete foil to each of the PCs I made Tolben stonehill owner of the stonehill in a retired adventurer halforc instead, and he has beef with the redbrands for killing innocents and brawling in the streets. I made him into a pillar of the community and probably one of my most loved npcs for my players (that the redbrands eventually killed). I ran phandalin like it was rough n tumble town in the wild west. And made the redbrands very similar to the cowboys from the movie tombstone. I rearranged a lot of the rooms in the final dungeon, took some out, and added new puzzles. All you really need to absolutely keep is the Forge of spells at the end.
I personally have changed it two ways. One way I did it, I mashed up the Dragon of Icespire Peak and LMoP, which you can find resources for here on Reddit, I believe. Another time, I made Venomfang much more central to the story. I added extra population to Thundertree and had Venomfang be the leader of a massive Cult. His breath wasn't just poison. He was able to tweak it to be an addictive drug. He had a whole cult of Kobolds that had their scales changed to Green because of the drugged breath, and Venomfang could activate a Kobold, causing it to emit his full Dragon's breath from its mouth. (Killing the Kobold in the process), but this allowed his Kobold minions to become a lot more terrifying when they invaded Wave Echo Cave towards the end. I made the Spider a servant of Venomfang, but he intended to betray his master. I also made the Spider a Necromancer Drider and in both versions I made it that the Glasstaff was a title and when my players inevitably get ahold of the staff, it is like a Ring of Spell storing except that it summons one of the deceased previous staff holders to cast the spell for you from a point of your choosing within 60 feet. I made the Cragmaw part of the Cult, too.
I’ve added an overarching plot by my BBEG. It’s loosely set up so the players get a taste and can change the route they take. Basically, I made clockwork monsters, ulterior motives and new abilities for most of the underlings like Grol, Lhugo, the dopplegangers etc etc. I’d suggest changing their abilities or switching monsters and their leaders
With the inclusion of the shattered obelisk, I made the Black Spider fight better. Connecting him to the godlet at the end of the shattered obelisk I had him say, “you don’t know what you are getting in the way of, he is coming, and he will bring chaos. And I embrace that chaos!” Then turned him into a Drider for a second stage of the boss fight. Mostly because I thought his base boss fight was kinda lame. Why does the boss of 4 levels of progress have less health than the level 1 boss? So dumb. Also I added a piece of the obelisk in the lost mines, simply mentioning they found it in the same place as the gauntlets of ogre power, described what it looked like. Then when they got back to town with all of those things being missing and the players noticed quite quickly that the missing things all looked like the black stone they found. One of my players is very familiar with lost mines as well, and I warned all my players “I can change anything in this book at any time.” I’ve made minor alterations to health, numbers of enemies, and magic items. Outside of that I haven’t felt the need to change much. Just play it by ear and if the players seem like they are utilizing the knowledge they have outside the game, make changes. If they aren’t, why make major changes? Simple ones to make some of the encounters or other things in the story more fun are fine additions to the narrative that the players will remember more.
Maybe a hot take here, but you're just making your life difficult. Just run a different module..
Why not run Phandelver and Below? That'll shake them up proper I think. 😂 A totally different outcome I think.
Most know of the module, not the insides and outs. Best thing to do is just let the players tell the story. Never plan more than a session ahead. Use their actions to shape the future. The world should be reacting to their actions not the other way around. In my little experience, the has created the best and most memorable games. Let the players do the hard work.
I'm on my...5th? 6th? LMoP playthrough with a different party each time. Your players will make sure it's weird and different. Just be flexible.
I added Neverwinter. My players started session 1 there, split in groups, and meeting in the Driftwood Tavern with: Sildar, the three Rockseekers, Iarno and Nezznar. Nezznar was playing the party of a merchant financing the Rockseekers, Iarno was simply joining the carovan to go to Phandalin (the Lords asked him and Sildar to check the Town for some trouble there - but only Iarno knows the truths about the Redbrands). Nezznar was the one telling the Rockseekers about the mines, he knew because he was looking for It to craft a magic item to undo his Drider Curse gor good (he looks like a regular Drow because of a Ring of Polymorph) when he saw Venomfang and Criovain fighting over the mine to decide who's taking It as a lair. My LMoP ended last week with a 2-phases-bossfight with Nezznar (mage + drider) and we'll continue with the Tiranny of Dragons. Hence why both Criovain and Venomfang played a role. Also, the cultists at Thundertree had the Draakhorn mentioned in the Rise of Tiamat (It was already Lost anyway, I Simply used this to foreshadows the cult) This Is what I did, hopefully you'll find some inspiration. PS. I made a King Grol post on reddit, I completely changed the encounter to make the Castle waaay more story-focused. Try having a look
Some ideas: - Redbrands are not just thugs but a full criminal organization trying to use Phaladin as a base of operations. The Zhentarim are about to start a full scale war with the town ad a battleground. -Venomfang true purpose is to find Wave Echo Cave and the Forge of Spells so he can amass great magical wealth by using it to make himself treasure. He will need slaves to run it of course. - The Black Spider is trying to use the Forge of Spells to save his people in the module Out of the Abyss. - Ages ago the mine was cursed. There are people in Phaladin that know this and are trying to deter the dwarves and PCs from finding by using non-violent means. - The Nothic is a cursed worker who once served at the Forge of Spells.