How it went and what I did.
Last month I got my hands on all the physical swag from the Stormlight Archive portion of the Cosmere RPG Kickstarter. I’ve had a large party of 6 players chomping at the bit to give the RPG a go (though 1 had to drop out last minute). They’re all D&D veterans but only half have read the Stormlight Archive books (though some had read Mistborn).
With a whole new system to grapple with, an introductory adventure seemed like a natural and easy starting point, so I ran the Bridge 9 adventure.
You may be considering running this yourself, or wondering if you should even pick up the Cosmere RPG in the first place. As such, I’ve decided to write up my experience running this adventure to give you an idea of what to expect.
About the Bridge 9 adventure
Overview
- Adventure: Bridge 9
- System: Cosmere RPG
- Length: 4hrs
- Level: 1
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Year published: 2025
The Bridge 9 adventure is intended to be an introduction to the rules for players and GMs new to the Cosmere RPG. This isn’t a grand, sprawling campaign. Instead, it’s a one shot, taking players at level 1, that allows them to get used to various mechanics involved in the Cosmere RPG.
Players will engage in combat, conversations and endeavours. They’ll also get a chance to perform rests, skill checks and use their expertise.
It’s a fairly on rails adventure as things go. Yes, players have choices, but they are also carefully funnelled down a particular route. This isn’t because the Cosmere RPG isn’t about player choice. It very much is. But it’s more to allow GMs and players to focus on getting to grips with the mechanics of the game without having to worry too much about improvisation and players heading away from the main path.
Synopsis
Bridge 9 sees players take part in an expedition to the Shattered Plains to uncover ancient ruins. It follows a bridge crew called Bridge 9, along with the soldiers, scouts and scholars that are a part of this expedition.
Players will need to traverse dangerous, enemy territory as well as the perils of the chasms themselves.
It doesn’t directly tie into any other published campaigns, including the Stonewalkers campaign. This is very much a one shot, though I intend to continue this adventure by having players transition over to Stonewalkers next.
How did it go?
Pre-adventure
I started by giving my players a very short intro to the big mechanical differences between D&D and the Cosmere RPG. This included the likes of:
- Actions in combat
- Initiative order
- The plot die
- The 3 different defences
- Attacks
- The role of focus
- Conversations
- Endeavours
I didn’t go into loads of detail on these, I just gave a brief introduction.
I was aware that beyond character creation, most of my players hadn’t spent much time learning the rules. This was fine as learning the rules is part of the purpose of the Bridge 9 adventure. However, I was concerned they may not know enough about what they can do in combat so I printed out a list of actions they can take and handed these out and I think this helped.
We then dived in. 3 of my players opted for pre-generated characters while 2 made their own. My players seemed to enjoy the pre-generated characters and they had some reasonable depth to them and represent well-built characters for the paths they’d taken. It definitely helped them not get overwhelmed with new mechanics.
The 2 players with the most experience of RPGs in the group, opted to create their own characters (though all my players have been playing D&D for several years). They were able to do this well and made characters that were well suited to their roles with just a few questions and had a good amount of depth that I think will be interesting to explore later on.
Starting the adventure
I started by giving the characters a chance to know a bit about each other. I like to keep these things organic so I had Captain Selinar ask the characters about themselves.
I wanted the characters to dislike this guy so I made him a self-important boot licker that thinks everyone should be grateful for his mere presence. I think this mostly worked and gave everyone the chance to get to know each other.
Keeping the adventure funnelled down a particular route is mostly a good call for an introductory adventure, but did raise a couple of issues when I or my players wanted a bit more flexibility. This first came when the chasmfiend breaks the bridge.
The bridge isn’t huge and it felt to me and I think my players, that maybe it would have been possible to jump onto a plateau with the time given. I think this managed to be sort of handwaved away, but the size of the expedition implies that maybe some would have not been on the bridge at the time, which could have included players. I kind of had to force the idea that players were all on the bridge at this point. There’s often a bit of this at the start of an adventure, but I never like forcing this kind of thing.
The other time this was slightly an issue was in dealing with Captain Selinar. The adventure very much wants you to make him an antagonist, but the situation feels it could go either way. I changed this to make it so his combat could be bypassed and he could be talked down (though this wouldn’t be easy). My players attempted several times to sway him but a series of bad rolls meant that they ultimately failed anyway.
Still, this made a good introduction to combat that was surprisingly more dangerous than expected and led to Varda running away into the chasms. Who knows what might become of him (I don’t know yet).
The chasmfiend endeavour
Endeavours were something I hadn’t quite wrapped my head around until I saw it in the adventure. I actually really liked how it worked. A series of skill tests sounds like it’s just rolling dice and getting lucky, but it’s actually a series of decisions to make as well.
Having Doral the bridgeman as something that slowed the characters down was a great way to give them a moral conundrum and I was surprised at how determined they were to keep the old bridgeman alive. I think having rewards that aren’t just gold or magic items (bonding spren or earning freedom etc), helped my players to focus on what their characters would actually do, not just what would make them the richest which is a nice bonus.
They succeeded by the skin of their teeth, partly thanks to some distracting shots from one of the players.
A little longer than expected
Our session lasted about 3.5hrs before we had to call it a day. We didn’t quite manage to wrap things up with the final encounter with the parshendi scouts still to tackle. This is a little longer than expected and may be partly to do with the fact that some of the group are happy to lean into roleplay aspects a bit more and because it was a slightly larger group.
Still, things probably would be concluded at about the 4hr mark or just a bit over considering I think this encounter will end in bloodshed.
Is Bridge 9 any good?
I think for those that have already played some sessions in the Cosmere RPG, they may find the adventure to be a bit hand-holdy. For those players, I wouldn’t bother. I’d just move into something with a bit more meaty.
However, for a group brand new to the Cosmere RPG, I think it’s a really good introduction to the core mechanics and how it works. It’s got a bit of everything, from combat, to roleplaying, to exploration and more. If you’re looking for a solid introduction to how the RPG works, then Bridge 9 is a really good option.
There are a couple of segments where the outcomes feel a tad forced, but not so much so that most players would feel frustrated I think. And by the nature of an introductory adventure, this is kind of how things often are to keep the adventure a little more straightforward.
Have you played the Bridge 9 adventure yet? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below.
