A well composed supplement, especially for someone new to DM'ing in general and who might be overwhealmed by the options presented in Dragon Heist. Great suggestions on how to proceed into the various chapters of the adventure, when and where to use factions and their representatives, as well as the general repair and running of Trollskull Manor.

Super useful!

A solid 45 pages of adventure, which is honestly incredibly thick. The amount of content here is above and beyond most of the adventures you'll find on the guild, and it ends in a way that's exciting and fun. A solid pace keeps everything interesting and a colorful cast of characters (both allies and foes) will remain memorable for your table long after they've completed the adventure.

If you're running this along side Dragon Heist, do know that it will have lasting consequences at your table even if your villain isn't Xanathar. Also two magic items (Disco Ball and "Wizardry For Dummies") are both so jokey, it was a detractor for me. But the adventure is great and I doubt there's anyone out there who would be stopped by two silly items.

Gothic is sometimes a hard theme to play on with D&D. After all, we're essentially pulp heroes in a world of often black and white morality (although we all know the best adventures are where that isn't true). This adventure pulls off the gothic feel perfectly, and is a fantastic adventure to boot.

However, I knocked a star off because there was some editing mistakes and some very powerful magic items for the party level. But overall I don't feel either of these things detract from the meat of the adventure and highly recommend running it in your own games!

Six properties await the perusal and purchase from your players. These locations grant alternative solutions to adventurers who want to invest in Waterdeep, but don't want to run an inn or tavern. This product comes with a variety of complications that can plague any business owner, as well as a worksheet to assist in tracking how well (or poorly) said business is doing.

If you like this product, then I highly recommend "The Press of Waterdeep" that is also from this author.

All this being said, this is a simple product and will require work on the part of the DM to wrap the adventure around any of these locations. Should your players already be working on Trollskull Manor, the adept title "Durnan's Guide to Tavernkeeping" costs more, but comes with a LOT more content.

Are you looking for a bit of lore from Volothamp himself, about the broadsheets of Waterdeep? Are you looking for descriptions of all the various outlets and rags of the city, along with the various npcs who are employed by them? What about 12 replica broadsheets that could be printed and used as handouts?

Well then for just under a buck, this is what you want. And if you didn't know you wanted those things, you do.

Great in theory, mechanically it's shakey.

So you get faction benefits (as you would expect) for belonging to a faction. This comes in the form of discounts, favors, or items. Likewise, you can earn the anger of a faction, and suffer punishments from said factions in the form of markups, targeted harassments, and so on.

This is fine. I particularly enjoyed the results of being targeted by a faction.

My only real problem is that while the Zhentarim are in here, that's the only default faction. And while I can understand wanting to draw from lore and expand the factions, it was all filled with factions from the author's game. It would be arbitrary to map these to existing factions (either from 5e or earlier) but it is a bit of a disappointment.

As someone who played Expedition when it came out, long long ago, I was excited to find Wizards was coming out with a follow up (and one that was entirely for charity, to boot).

This adventure is presented with 8ish hooks that can be used in combination with most WOTC hardcovers from Tomb of Annihilation onward. There should be no problem dropping this adventure into most campaigns and it even has guidelines on how long to run it (as a 4 hour one shot, as a few sessions of "short play" or as a huge adventure).

The artwork is all of different styles, but that's a minor hiccup when compared to the pure dearth of content available here. Looking forward to finishing this adventure up!

A systemless expansion of monsters, all familiar yet entirely new. Things like, "sure we have owl bears, but what about a snow owl-polar bear (Powlbear)?".

If you read the Baby Beastiaries, you know the quality Metal Weave Games is known for but if you haven't, this is the perfect place to start.

Delving head first into the mature topics of love, sex, and romance, Ashley breaks down the various tropes of the genre and how we might apply them to our dungeons and dragons games. It's a friendly approach written in an easy to read matter-of-fact tone. As someone who never included romance beyond "off screen" stuff, it's given me inspiration to try to GM games where it doesn't take such a backseat.

My rating of 4/5 represents the quality of the product (high), the editing (this product is clear and concise) and how useful the supplement would be at ANY given table. I feel that while it's useful for some, it might not be for everyone. However, as usual the author knocks my expectations far and away, this is certainly more of a 5/5 if you plan on having romance be an important component at your table.

It's worth noting that the author has previously written on the topics of love and sex as it relates to workers in that industry. That supplement was a pure 5/5 for me, so perhaps that speaks more to my table than this supplement will. That can be found over on Drive Thru RPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/247842/The-Best-Little-Whorehouse-In-RPGs

a 2e book that still has relevance today, Elminsters Ecologies is a huge tome of lore for all across the north west realms.

A non-edition specific tome of lore. Fantastic for anyone (ANYONE) running games in the realms.

What's presented here is clear, concise, and so far as we've used it at my table, balanced.

My score reflects the usefulness and the construction (layout, organization, and so on) of the manual here. This is a fantastic book that, as a PWYW title, everyone should grab. That's not to say every variant rule will see use at every table, but the way the author describes the variant, and then reasons why you'd use it or not use it, is an excellent way to put these ideas to paper.

Ignores, re-writes, and disrepects existing lore. There is nothing I'd use from this. However, if you're looking for something very different from Dungeons and Dragons existing cosmology, give it a look. PWYW means there's no commitment, although if you do like it, throw the author some pocket change to show appreciation. Or leave a review!

The print on demand option is fantastic, this made for an excellent supplement at my table. The archetypes range from "middle of the road" to "woah, it can do WHAT?!" without ever being over or under powered. The adventure was perfectly timed for me, as I was running Tomb of Annihilation, but that won't be the case for everyone. The new backgrounds were fine, although some of them seem to imply your character has a FAR more interesting background than suited for a 1st level character.

My only negative impression was the optional rules. They're... not elegantly designed. It's fine, but nothing I'll be using personally.