Found the Journey to Silverstone Mines and used it as my first outing as a DM. It was really helpful to have all the tips and hints throughout, as well as the necessary info all in one pdf. I led it for four players, and had them play it at fourth level; I also took out some of the enemies out of the encounters, as I was worried it would be too challenging for them, and as I had set it in a little holiday-themed plot it was important to me that they make it out of there alive. With that said, it was still a bit of a challenge at times, but as they were all seasoned players they came up with some really great solutions. I didn't have the Broodfist brothers join the party, so if you have those two npc's join in, the fights may well be more balanced as they're written. I did find myself scrolling back and forth through the document quite a bit when trying to find the specific info that I needed in the moment (whether while rp'ing character convos or describing what was where) but I'm sure a large part of that was also due to me being a little nervous and it being my first time DMing!

We really took our time with it, and ended up having to split it into two sessions though, so in total it took us about double what the description said- keep that in mind, but also be aware that this will change from group to group; my players really engaged with everything and everyone so that's why it took us a lot longer.

All in all, a really helpful one-shot that was fun and rewarding to run, and a great start to what I'm sure will be many more Dm sessions by me. Thanks so much!

Thank you for your creation and sharing it. I'm still gathering my thoughts as I will DM this next weekend. This will be my first time DMing and I've really only played 1 campaign before, with another extremely new DM and party. So far, I have appreciated how guided it is and find it to be a fun adventure with clear customization options. I'd honestly like even more hand-holding (like telling me what to say to start it, whether I share the background outloud or in advance, whether he recommends a session 0 and how that should go, perhaps prewritten character backgrounds like for Lost Mines of Phandelver) but I did everything liam suggested like reading Part 2 of the PHB, reading all the spells, and I think I'm getting the hang of it! Again thanks. Stay creative :)