Phandelver and Below will be "perhaps the strangest" D&D adventure yet
Phandelver and Below is a strange adventure, but not in the cosmic-horror way the marketing promised. It's strange because it's chapters sometimes feel disconnected from one another, sprinkled with some odd pacing, and forgetful NPC interactions.
And to be honest? I could live with that. I can fix some loose connective tissue. I can integrate the NPCs better so they know who Pip is after encountering him thrice already. I can make the stakes clearer. That is just part of running a campaign… Except for one tiny detail. This adventure costs 60 bucks. 60 FUCKING BUCKS! For that premium price tag, I expect a tightly woven narrative that would require little to no fixes from me.
Anyway, I am currently on Chapter 6, which opens with a series of sidequests right when the players are supposed to be racing against the clock to find the remaining obelisk shards. I read that section and immediately thought, my players are going to skip this. And guess what? They did. First thing they asked was, "We don't have time for this, do we?"
And it is a valid question. Why would they go on sidequests when the world is apparently about to end? We cannot just hit pause on the apocalypse to hunt for korok seeds or breed chocobos.
Instead, I brought back some NPCs from previous chapters and told the players they could delegate these sidequests to them as they saw fit while they went after the shards.
We will see how that goes.
