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We just played through the Reclaiming of the Greydelve and it's raised some interesting issues for my campaign.

1) Based on the decision of my players (to join the army Frár was assembling), I just skipped over two years of the campaign, as the PCs battled alongside the other warriors and mercenaries reclaiming this ancient Dwarven fortress. I almost feel bad for doing so, and am tempted to play through a skirmish or two that happened during this time (though I likely won't).

2) This was the second "chapter"/adventure (from Darkening) that we did this evening, and it felt even stranger to give them the full Experience Points (the same amount they'd gotten for the previous chapter/adventure during the session), especially as there hadn't been a single roll, and thus no Advancement Points gained. But that full amount of EP wasn't very much, considering that narratively two years went by (the equivalent of 2-5 adventures that the characters "missed out on" if they hadn't chosen to help their Dwarven ally).

3) There's no mention in Darkening, but this seems a good opportunity to bestow some cool weapons and gear on a few of the PCs. For one, Frár promised them "Dragon-gold and Dwarven-steel", and in addition I've got a couple of players who have never successfully gotten any of the great Magical Weapons or Armor (whereas one other player now has two). Considering the tougher opposition they'll be facing as we get deeper into Darkening, and due to the promise made to them, as well as the unluckiness of some of the players (plus they've done a good job of focusing on story things rather than trying to get treasure) this seems like the fairest thing to do.

I think that the Greydelve is one of those spots in the campagin where the LM should either plan some kind of Mass Battle (using probably some house rules or an adaptation of the Battle of the Celduin way of solving things), or a dungeon-crawler-type adventure that implies a Big Boss that has its lair in the Greydelve (as Bilbo and Smaug, or Frodo/Sam and Shelob). The Forest Dragon could be an option. Also the Great Vampire that is featured in the Darkening Campaign could be moved from the Mountains of Mirkwood to the Greydelve. Although vampires and bats are told to live in the Mountains, the Werewolf's lair also lies there. The Mountains could get a bit crowdy with big monsters.

I had some very rough drafts on how to conduct the taking of the Greydelve before stopping the campaign. What I was sure to do was to have an Adventure and Fellowship phases where the players had to get allies for the battle: they could hire some with money, but they would be of low-quality and moral. Or they could ask their patrons, reclaim favours, etc to be granted the help of elite warriors from the Free Peoples. The dwarf player, for instance, always asked to every important character he met (Thranduil, Bard, etc.) for armed help in the future after the group had accomplished some adventure, instead of Treasure points or any other favour.

Why skip one of the coolest chapter in DoM? Of course, the retaking of Greydelve is one of the chapters in DoM that would need the most work from The LM. Perhaps with a mass battle that Farenthal suggests. I am planning to use a map of a Dwarven city from some other RPG module and have the party do some actual dungeon crawling for a change, to weaken the defenses from the inside while Frar lays siege to the stronghold. If you don't have the time to expand on it I would probably just skip it. My players would have issues with going through a description of them fighting countless orcs and trolls in the realms of an old Dwarven city without actually being able to play it!

That said, if you're going with the approach of retelling the tale I wouldn't give xp or magical items based on what happened in the narrative. The players should have to deserve those rewards in actual play I think.

I can't wait for the Greydelve adventure to arrive... I'm not 100% how I'll handle it, however (especially via PbP). One part of me is tempted to make it some sort of epic adventure, taking an inordinate amount of time to resolve (we usually get through a game year in about three months, but sometimes we take longer and sometimes we can get one done a bit quicker). Another part of me wants to use some variation of house rules to resolve the adventure, and another part wants to just narrate it as a thing that happened and get to the crux of the conflict.

In any case, I think that it's okay to hand out XP and magical items for even a narrated resolution. The heroes still experienced those trials, it's just that we didn't get to see them 'on-screen' or they happened in-between chapters or 'off-stage' or whatever mental model you want to use to accommodate the fact any game has some abstractions.

Thanks, all, that's some good feedback. I'm leaning now towards actually focusing a session or two on this period. Perhaps one with some mass battle, and another more 'old skool' dungeon crawling.

I was looking forward to the Greydelve but unfortunately my players were perceptive enough to not trust Frar sufficiently to go along with his plan. It didn't help that he attempted to steal the Staff of the Roadwarden a few years earlier.

Dunkelbrink wrote:Why skip one of the coolest chapter in DoM? Of course, the retaking of Greydelve is one of the chapters in DoM that would need the most work from The LM. Perhaps with a mass battle that Farenthal suggests. I am planning to use a map of a Dwarven city from some other RPG module and have the party do some actual dungeon crawling for a change

Sounds like a good idea. Maybe the new D&D line planned by Cubicle 7 could have a dungeon for that? Would be neat.