Lost Mine of Phandelver, part 1

SPOILER WARNING: I will describe the adventures of my PCs as they sought to discover the mysteries of The Lost Mine of Phandelver. Reading this will give away some of the secrets and surprises found in this module. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

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Some explanation and character creation can be found in my previous post, here.

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Inigo Tabor (played by Gamer), Nissa Olem (played by Reader), Olva Moonsdotter (played by Goldfish), and Carlita Runeheim (played by Foghorn) were hired by a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker in the city of Neverwinter to transport some goods to the frontier town of Phandalin, about 75 miles south. Gundren and his bodyguard, a human named Sildar Hallwinter, had set off a couple of days before so that Gundren could take care of some business before his supplies arrived. The party was to deliver the supplies to Barthen's Provisions in Phandelin where the owner would pay them 10 gp  each.

The trip was uneventful until the group was about an hour's ride east from Phandalin. There, in the middle of the trail, they saw some dead horses and a turned over cart. Carlita approached the cart to find out more and recognized that these horses belonged to Gundren and Sildar. At that moment, four goblins ambushed the party from the bushes on either side of the trail. Inigo, Olva, and Nissa (disgused as a soldier) made short work of the goblins, though not without taking some damage. Humorously, Carlita wandered aimlessly off into the trees after first blocking some goblin arrows and healing Inigo.

With the goblin menace dispatched in the immediate area, Olva looked for and found the trail down which the goblins had carried Gundren and Sildar. Olva noted that Gundren and Sildar had clearly been alive when the goblins had dragged them away, and she and Carlita decided to go to rescue them. Nissa conscientiously chose to stay with the cart. After some moments of internal debate, Inigo decided to follow the other two, just in time to prevent Olva from falling into the cleverly disguised pit trap the goblins had left to discourage pursuers. After some time, the three came upon a cavern mouth, clearly the entrance to the goblins hideout.

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This first session was good for teaching everyone, including me, the basics of playing D&D. The unexpected decision of Nissa to stay behind left me in a difficult situation as she absolutely refused to abandon the cart to go with the others. I was able to get around this in the next session, but I was definitely not prepared, as a new DM, to run a game that had party members in two different locations at the same time.

Also, Carlita's actions were often a headscratcher that left everybody laughing. And it only got funnier as the game progressed.