Quote Originally Posted by Kane0 View Post
Our group really liked LMoP when I ran it. We usually do non-book adventures, so it was a different experience for them. Their favorite bits by far were bypassing the challenges and the interconnectedness. Best example I have is when they got to Cragmaw they decided to wait until dark to try and get in, but I didn't want to have nothing happen for 6 hours so I used the returning hobgoblin raid at the end of the chapter. They ambushed them, took the second-in-command hostage and brokered a deal with him to get them into the castle unmolested in return for killing big-old-ugly and leaving him the head honcho. They skipped right to the boss + doppelganger + guards, then promptly getting kicked out by the upstart when that was done.
Then next session they came up against the green dragon and instead of trying to fight it they got real devious and suggested a much better lair: a castle hidden right in the middle of the forest, complete with its own staff, just waiting to be taken...

But I digress. Every session is what you make it I suppose.
Yeah, the earlier phases of the module are more sandbox-y, the actual mine/dungeon is pretty basic.