Homebrewing Lost Mines of Phandelver — Neverwinter Winter Fair
If you have played D&D in the past ten years, chances are high you have heard of The Lost Mines of Phandelver, Wizard of the Coast’s introductory adventure. Likely you’ve played it. Once, twice… maybe more.
Ironically while I’d heard of the adventure, I had never played it when one of my groups asked if I would be willing to DM. The pandemic had just begun and Roll20 made the intro adventure free to anyone who wanted it. I said yes.
As we got into the adventure I quickly found that the parameters of the story were a bit narrow. My deviations started small. En route to Thundertree the party rescued a traveling merchant who asked them to escort him to Neverwinter, where he would be selling wares at the Neverwinter Winter Fair, something added solely because I enjoyed the sound of Neverwinter Winter Fair. Then came the fair games and opportunity for one of my favorite aspects of the game — flavorful magic items.
There were five games and a silent auction for various items. Playing the games cost tokens (which could be bought) and prizes were more tokens, all of which were usable for bidding in the silent auction. Thus these only had to spend minimal gold to get started and from there could use winnings to keep playing or spend in the auction.
Turn Up the Heat Hot Wing Eating Contest. Characters must make Con checks to avoid puking or guzzling the milk.
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Break the Ice. Strength contest
Icicle Darts. Three ranged attack throws
Temperature Limbo. Created especially for one of my players who rolls notoriously low. Each round DC (i.e. limbo pole) drops. Players want to stay below the threshold. They roll a d20 and add their character’s height in feet (making it extra fun for the smallfolk)
How Many Snowballs? Classic guessing game — I allowed characters to use Int or Wis based check for their guess.
Tomorrow I’ll cover the silent auction items!
Thanks for reading!
