Temple of the nightbringers has become my go-to one shot to kick off any new campaign

I've read most of these and ran three as a part of my Storm King's Thunder campaign - mainly using them when my party is either missing a lot of players or as a travel encounter one-shot. SKT has a lot of really unfulfilling side quests so being able to add these in, and adapting them to the events of the campaign, has helped to add a lot of flavor.

In general, MT Black did great with these, and if you've read his other book, Anatomy of Adventure, you can even get some insight into how to run them better. The core ideas for most of the adventures are fantastic, so even if things go off the rails (which happened frequently for me since I was running many of these adventures at a higher level than recommended), they still work great. My only general suggestions for other DMs is to ratchet up the sense of urgency to keep things moving.

Specific thoughts:

Terror at Triboar

This one was fun. I wish I had played up the bits with the election and political intrigue more and played down the bit with the farmer and his missing wife - my party rolled poorly on their investigation of the farmer's demolished hut, and became obsessesed with trying to find his missing wife instead of pursuing the forces at play behind it. Still, lots of fun and I plan on slotting some of the unused encounters into a different quest.

Shadows of the Long Road

My players LOVED the eerie, disgusting vibe of this one - lots of good feedback on mental image of the manor, the putrid marshy basement, the squalor and filth of the jail cell, etc. You really want the party to interact with this one as designed - the social interaction with Grundy and Lord Giddeon and wrestling match sets the tone of the adventure - but getting there can be a bit difficult because the manor is suspicious out of the gate. I even set up some red herrings from the outset to try to disarm the manor a bit, but it was still tough to get them to go in.

I wound up pressed for time since they spent so much time trying to stake out the manor and debating whether they should even approach it. But in a way, it worked out - I cut the fight with Giddeon to save time, planning to put him in the last fight with the Offspring but by the end, my party was so intrigued I kept him alive. He's now biding his time to get revenge for killing his "daughter" :)

Giantslayer

This one was absolutely perfect for me since I'm running SKT. You could easily tie this to the hill giant plot to add more flavor to that and work in some of the campaign lore. It scales pretty well too by simply adding more hill giants to the final encounter. Perfect mix of the three pillars, and the diplomacy felt of actual consequence.

Will add more as I play them.

A lot of nicely-written adventures in this collection. I've read most of them and I've run "Terror at Triboar" and my group had a lot of fun with that one. I like how that one is organized - giving the DM several ideas of little encounters to throw into the adventure as they see fit. I also like how it lets the players go about their investigation around town however they wish to do so.

All of MT Black's works are fantastic. I have run several of these adventures -- either as stand-alone adventures or intergrating them into larger campaigns -- with minimal effort to prepare since it's all set up for you. However, the true test of brilliance is that my son took an adventure (Tower of the Mad Mage) and ran it for his first session as a DM to great success. To me, that is the sign of a well-written adventure.

M.T. Black is my favorite author on the DM Guild. His name is synomous with high quallity adventures that I can either run as one-shots or expand into mutli-session quests. I've put off writing this review for far too long since I haven't been able to run or read all of the adventures in the collection but I figured it was time since I am not able to review his works individually. From this collection I've ran Temple of the Nightbringers, Terror at Triboar (twice!), Giantslayer, and Wizard in a Bottle. So far all have been excellent. I will caution that while I think they can be used fine "as is" they really benefit from adjustments to make the adventures tie-in with hooks from your players. Overall this bundle is a fantastic value and will result in months of memorable sessions.

Pros.

These adventures have a tone and lore that fits well with existing Forgotten Realms 5e products. All adventures I've run give players an opportunity for hitting combat, social, and exploration in a single session.

While most of the adventures can be moved wherever the DM pleases, by default all take place near Phandalin so they can be used with the Starter Set, Essentials kit, or even Storm King's Thunder with little effort.

I find these adventures very easy to customize to my own tastes and often spark my imagination. Sometimes minor characters included in these adventures have developed into allies and enemies that have lasted whole campaigns.

I like that Black uses abstracted to hit/damage values in a couple of his adventures to make some of the more complex battles easier to run for the DM. With creative use of a veteran and hill giant stat blocks, Black was able to create a truly epic finale for the "Giant Slayer" adventure allowing parties to take on a foe normally far above their weight class.

These adventures occasionally encourages the DMs to improvise! I feel like this allows the entire party to have more ownership over their experiences and drastically change the outcomes of some of the adventures. It has helped me grow as a DM and makes the adventure feel less canned. If the improv isn't going well there is enough structure to fall back on and continue the game. I would compare it to the feeling of having a belay harness while rock climbing. Similarly the adventures have open-ended epilogues meaning you can often conclude the adventure on your own terms.

Neutral.

While I am a fairly new DM myself, my players are veterans who have seen it all and aren't easily impressed by goblins or skeletons. When running MTB adventures I sometimes find myself subbing out the monsters for more exotic variants. I doubt this would be an issue for groups just starting up. The adventures often include decent black and white maps usable on a VTT but I often switch them out for ones of my own design.

Cons.

A few of these adventures, such as "Terror at Triboar" which is set town might benefit from time requirements that prevent the players from taking too many rests. It can easily be worked around by putting pressure on your players to keep the action going.

Some of these early adventures don't "scale" in level with level as well some of M.T. Black's later offerings.

Boxed text mileage may vary. Its a matter of preference.

This was the first collection of adventures that I downloaded from the DMs Guild. It has a nice variety of low- to mid-tier adventures in different settings with different focuses on combat, exploration, and social encounters. The writing style is concise and straight-forward, making the adventures easy to run. A lot of them work well as one-shots, introductory adventures, or to scatter throughout the world in a larger campaign. Would definitely recommend this collection to all DMs and new DMs in particular.

I mean, M.T. Black has quickly become a hero of mine. I thoroughly enjoyed his Anatomy of Adventure book and these early adventures of his are worth every penny. I've never just read adventures for pleasure but that has changed thanks to some of these adventures. Structured elegently and efficiently they read fast and are perfect to just jump in and plug-and-play at your table at the drop of a hat. Highly recommend!

A great range of shorter one-shots that are easily adaptable to any number of settings. Also the adventures very easy to elaborate on to if you have homebrew stuff to include.

This collection of adventures is a blast for my players and I; they'll fit in nicely with my campaigns for quite some time!

very worthwhile. Ive dmd most of the adventures within and theyre great for a quick session with friends. some stuff had to be leveled up a bit for my groups but we had a great time

Just thought I would finally write a review. I have run nearly everything in this collection at one point or another, some multiple times, and every single one I have found easy to run, engaging for the players and a nice balance of the three pillars. I recommend this collection over and over to anyone who wants a well written group of one shots with a lot of variety. Even though it has been a really long time since I bought this set, I still find it enjoyable to run these. Thank you M.T. Black for your quality work.

Amazing set of adventures. I have ran almost all of these and have been able to conveniently drop them into whatever campaign I am running with a very minimum of changes. Most of them allow you to just "port" characters in however you want to and the Longsaddle wizrd crew make it easy to put them back, too! Have fun mixing these adventures into seemingly unrelated campaigns and still be able to weave the story!

Wow! These adventure are great!

M.T. Black has a really great writing style for all of his adventures.

They are all very straightforward and easy to understand but they all contain really great situations, NPC's, puzzles, and combat encounters that your players will love.

You should definitely pick up this collection.

Specifically Reviewing Into Ivy Mansion and Magic Village for Sale!

I recently ran both of these modules and my players loved them. We've been playing 5E for about 3 years now and one of my players thought Magic Village for Sale! was the best session he had played so far. As a DM I thought it was really easy to get across who the Harpells and co. were as characters, and the slightly silly premise of both adventures led to a lot of fun moments. My group of four level 3 players actually managed to kill the Oni in the Ivy Mansion, but I didn't play him too agressively in the battle. Overall both are high quality adventures.

Quality varies, but you can't beat the quantity

(Review will be updated as/when we play more of the modules in the pack.)

The Complete Adventures of MT Black Vol 1 offers no less than 14 complete modules for D&D 5E, all of them roughly Adventurer's League length or a little longer (between 3 and 6 hours). It contains the entirety of the material offered in the adventure packs "Tales of the North", "Triboar Trilogy" and "Harpell Hexalogy" - although note that these are loosely themed collections, not continuing adventure paths. None of them are Adventurer's League legal, but in many ways that makes them even more suitable for a cosy home-table environment. It's a lot of gameplay for your money - but the quality definitely varies from module to module.

The adventures are set firmly in the Forgotten Realms - specifically, on the northern Sword Coast, in and around the Dessarin Valley and the nearby towns of Longsaddle, Triboar and Red Larch. This makes them a great companion to the Princes of the Apocalypse or Storm King's Thunder campaigns, which also explore this area. At the same time, they're generic enough that you could plausibly move them elsewhere in the Realms or to a range of other campaign worlds. Most of the modules are of the "town and down" genre, with the PCs setting off from a town to explore a nearby local dungeon / tower / enchanted forest / haunted mansion.

Monster stats and magic item descriptions are not included in the modules, and you will need to have the Monster Manual and DMG handy. Most modules include a serviceable map of the environment - the artistic quality of these varies. The game balance genuinely leans heavily towards the "tough" end of their intended level range - parties within the suggested levels will need optimised play and some experience with the rules to succeed; newer groups may want to treat them as a level higher than advertised.

So far my group has played the following modules:

• Giantslayer - 4 stars

Balanced for four 1st Level characters.

The "dungeon" in this module is of the "magical forest" variety, populated with assorted fey weirdness. The virtue of the module, though, is in the roleplaying, which makes it a meatier and more satisfying expedition than some of the other adventures in the collection. The party are off to find a legendary giantslayer and bring her home to defend the village she grew up in. It's got plenty of character potential, while remaining simple and relatively uncomplicated. We had a lot of fun with it, and found some genuine emotion in its interactions. In terms of flaws, the various forest encounters are a bit random and disconnected, and the final fight presents some challenges to find the fun spot between "trivial" and "lethal". It may take the intervention of a more accomplished GM than the module anticipates. Not worldshaking, but worth your time and money; recommended.

• Tower of the Mad Mage (Harpell Hexalogy 1 of 6 / Tales of the North 1 of 3) - 3 stars

Balanced for four 1st Level characters.

A fairly standard "magical dungeon" romp, full of weird elementals and "what is even happening here" gimmick rooms. Players who like that kind of thing will be entertained. Those who prefer cause-and-effect and an ability to reasonably anticipate danger will be frustrated. The adventure hook is problematic - it asks players to murder an otherwise unthreatening tribe of goblins in order to steal their treasure. The "pet goblin" trope makes an appearance, with a comic-relief goblin sidekick following the party around for the duration. Good for a light palate cleanser, nothing to particularly recommend.

• Doorway To Darkness (Harpell Hexalogy 2 of 6) - 1 star

Balanced for four 2nd Level characters

A quick guide to everything you shouldn't do in writing an adventure. It's basically a linear dungeon crawl. The central route features repetitive fights against a single enemy type. Side passages punish exploration brutally and without warning. The story is completely generic, there are no meaningful character interactions, and no meaningful decisions to be made. An NPC guide is used to strongly railroad players into staying on the main path. A backstory exists explaining what is happening but there is no provision in the text for players to learn it, and it is instead left to the DM to insert. DCs are punishingly high throughout, with only the luckiest characters able to avoid traps or learn anything meaningful from investigation. Difficulty of the module overall will be affected strongly by whether the party includes a cleric with Turn Undead. Very much not recommended.

(Review and rating will be updated if more modules are played.)