Product is everything you could hope for from this topic.

PDF version is complete and text-searchable.

Print version is high quality and, to my mind, entirely interchangeable with the original book. Spine does NOT have any text on it.

Contents of the book cover everything you could want to know about the Cult of the Dragon - a full biography and multiple stat blocks for its founder, a full history of the cult including timelines and references to events in novels that featured them, dragons serving the cult, life as a low-tier cult member, hooks for adventures on behalf of the cult or thwarting it, and the traditional handful of new spells and magic items. If you're running an adventure featuring the Cult (for example the 5E Tyranny of Dragons adventures) or just looking to flesh out a campaign-level evil organisation for your Realms game, this book provides everything you want. It is, of course, set in the 2E era of the Realms, but the cult seems to have changed little in the 100+ years between that and 5E.

If you're not already interested in the Cult of the Dragon, your mileage may vary, but this material is still very easy to drop into any Realms campaign. Alternatively, it would require very little work to port some or all of it to any other setting where "wizards who worship undead dragons" is a concept that basically makes sense.

Uninspired dungeon crawling.

Dues for the Dead presents a short delve into Phlan's Valhingen Cemetery. It's pure dungeon crawling - no investigation phase, just straight underground. Roleplaying and consequential choices are limited to the presence of a fairly generic hireling, and a brief encounter with (unnamed) bungling thieves.

It's all very obvious. Players who looked at the title and assumed they'd be exploring a tomb and fighting skeletons, zombies and ghouls will have no surprises at any point. A strong warning from NPCs against stealing from the tomb will cause all but the most larcenous of players to skip much of the module, and the remainder consists of stock undead battles that anyone who has ever played D&D has likely seen a million times.

The sole interesting feature of the module is the detail it lays on about the strange and varied burial practices engaged in over Phlan's long history. There's a lot of opportunity here to world-build in Phlan that other modules don't necessarily provide. Unfortunately it's largely in the form of a guided tour, where players move through a mostly linear series of rooms, marvelling at each new funeral practice but not really having much option to interact with it. Moreover, little of it interacts with the aspects of Phlan's history already established in canon. Miltiades' tomb is here (far underground, contradicting Pools of Darkness) but players can't visit it. There's no interaction with Phlan's historical worship of first Tyr and then Bane. Characters from early adventures who are likely to be buried here (Igan Sokol, for example) go unmentioned.

It's not a terrible adventure, just a terribly generic one. Nothing to see here you haven't seen elsewhere.

A mixed bag, but I'd always prefer Adventurer's League modules be too ambitious than too dull.

For the first time in the Tyranny of Dragons path there's a good mix of exploration, roleplaying and combat here, with a central mystery to solve, fun characters to interact with, and a climactic battle. It introduces some great NPCs who'll likely hang around in your campaign - Alleyd Burral isn't given much to do here, but she returns regularly along the path. Elisande is the sort of easily-adoptable character likely to become a party mascot.

On the other hand, there are some serious mis-steps. The villagers were probably intended to draw from the long tradition of sullen Lovecraftian rural cultists, but the description of their village "huts" and the unfortunate choice to give them accented dialogue makes them instead read as exceptionaly racist stereotypes. Some DM finessing - most notably to their dialogue - is needed to salvage them.

In addition, the plot of the villains ends up being overly complex, and ultimately pointless. The McGuffin the villains are searching for is not to be found in this module, or indeed in this campaign, and players can be left thinking it's important when actually they'll need to pop over to the hardback Tyranny of Dragons campaign to see what has become of it. The DM will need to be careful and creative in giving the players enough exposition to understand the events they have just been involved in.

Finally, the "guardian of the cave" is an odd squib. The setup suggests that the lone monster patrolling the woods is a serious and frightening threat, but stat-wise it's not even a match for a single martially-oriented level 2 character. Our group murdered it before it even rolled an attack.

Still, a definite improvement over Defiance in Phlan and Secrets of Sokol Keep, and a good fit for anyone looking for a short tier 1 adventure that's more than just a dungeon crawl.

Top tier one-shot D&D

I can't praise A Boy and His Modron highly enough. This is everything you want from a one shot D&D game - memorable characters, a story with real heart, rollicking comedy, meaningful decisions, a focus on roleplaying - and everything laid out in a highly readable and easy-to-follow manner. It cleverly uses familiar tropes to cue players to their roles, but they're tropes more at home in an 80s family tearjerker than your average D&D game, and they're used here to great comedic and emotional effect. Also, it has modrons.

This would be highly recommendable as a premium price module, but given it's a pay-what-you-want release it's just a shame there's not a sixth star to rate it with. Definitely run this one ASAP.

Another Adventurer's League linear punch-up, for better or for worse.

If you're buying Adventurer's League modules, you know what you're getting - a short, railroady one-and-done outing on the Moonsea, and that's what you get here.

Despite what the module cover says, this is NOT an appropriate adventure for a first level party, even using the scaling information supplied. The final battle includes multiple monsters that can one-shot first level characters, and there's explicitly almost no opportunity for players to use cleverness or stealth to mitigate the difficulty of that fight. Consider level 2 a minimum baseline for punters.

The other major gripe is that this is not, ultimately, a one-and-done. The villain does not appear in this module. I'm not sure if there are other modules continuing this series but if you run it as a stand-alone then players may be disappointed with a lack of closure at the end. A certain amount of player failure is also inevitable - despite the suggestion that this is a rescue mission, no one is walking out of this alive except the players, which again left my players feeling underwhelmed.

What Wreckers does offer is a series of atmospheric fights themed around a sea cult, and a long linear walk down the Moonsea coast. Players who ran the Tyranny of Dragons AL modules have seen all this before in DDEX1-02 and 03. There's one brief environmental hazard which offers players some meaningful choices but largely it's just a sequence of two or three stand-up fights. The module initially seems promising with entirely different chapters if players travel by sea or land, but the chapters are largely the same - players going by ship skip the environmental puzzle but start from a worse tactical position for the first fight. There are no meaningful conversations, puzzles, or moral choices to be seen.

Probably the best aspects of the module are that it will absolutely fit into its advertised two-hour length, and that it's cheap. As I said, if you're buying AL modules, you know what you're getting, and this more or less lives up (or down) to those expectations.

Another solid outing that struggles to find its tone

At its heart, Secrets of Sokol Keep is a ghost story, but it never really capitalises on its promise. Despite that, it's solid, easy to run, and entertaining.

One of the key problems with the module is that it feels like three different genres mashed together. The first act offers a cliched tavern brawl scenario, or otherwise a fairly grounded investigative/conversation section for less confrontational players. The second act is a classic haunted house story, as the players search abandoned rooms while a spectral presence watches. The final act is a Lovecraftian tomb-delve in flooded caves. None of the three sections really fit well with what's around them, and (as is the unfortunate case of many D&D ghost-story adventures) there's a ton of backstory informing everything that players just aren't going to know anything about unless the GM straight up explains it at the end.

As with many of these Adventurer's League modules, with the exception of the first act it's highly linear. The investigation phase offers a list of locations that can be ticked off as players search, without much opportunity for players to express themselves or take alternative paths. The tomb delve at the end is literally a straight path from encounter to encounter. That's par for the course for this format and to some extent necessary for the environment, but always a little disappointing.

My biggest disappointment was that there just wasn't much opportunity to make use of the ghost, either in terms of interactivity or atmosphere. The mansion needs a lot more meaningful doors to swing shut, chandeliers to drop, lights to extinguish, et cetera. The third act cave does better at this, but still needs some significant DM input to find its full potential.

This is supposed to be a two hour adventure, I think, but I can't see it possibly fitting into that timeframe while giving players any chance to make meaningful decisions. It took us five hours, and we skipped a side-location in act one and a fight in act three.

Problems aside, the module is generally clearly written; the NPCs in particular stand out as well-developed and memorable; the fights are enjoyable and the story more or less makes sense. My players had fun.

A generic but flexible intro to 5E.

The module consists of five short mini-adventures, each running in about 60 to 90 minutes.

We used this in our home group as the module we ran on the same night as character creation, knowing that rolling characters would take most of the night and therefore we could play as many or as few mini-adventures afterwards as we have time for.

The mini-adventures vary in quality. There's three traditional very short dungeon crawls, which are all about standard for this kind of thing. There's a mystery/investigation plot, which would be good except that the underlying mystery is disappointing and random. And there's a plot which sees the players running a sting operation on an illegal dragon egg sale, which is the best of the bunch by a fair margin with lots of opportunity for comedy, suspense and action.

Despite the underlying theme of the mini-adventures ("something is going on with dragons"), they're all very low stakes and don't exactly create an epic feel for the ongoing campaign. None of the NPCs here get used again in the adventure path, and there's not a lot of opportunity for players to have a personal stake in any of these outside of their faction contacts. Nor is anything that happens particularly memorable - there's a strong sense of having done all this before in D&D many, many times.

That said, it's solid, it's easy to run, it's flexible, and my players had fun.

A forgotten oddity, poorly presented (As of 6 Feb 2018)

Note: I do not have direct experience with the original publication of this module to compare with.

About the PDF: The PDF product contains one file, being a reasonably faithful scan of the original contents of the DLE1 module. It is NOT text-searchable, but it does have PDF-format bookmarks for each chapter. As with many of the Wizards Of The Coast scans of classic modules on DriveThru, the scan is quite low resolution - it looks fine on a screen but quality degrades sharply if you zoom or print it. Text is readable but quite faint. Interior pages are black and white only, with the exception of the maps and token pages, which are in full colour. Unfortunately the large colour hex map that is central to the adventure is reduced to a series of unconnected A4 pages with substantial white gutters and is completely unusable in the digital format. Customers will have to print their own copy and then stitch it together with scissors and sticky tape to make it work out of this release. The DM's copy, in black and white, is confined to a single A4 page and may be enough to run the adventure.

About the Print On Demand: The Softcover Color Book (Standard Heavyweight) is outwardly a gorgeous product that will look good on a shelf, with a disappointing interior. The physical object is the same width along the bottom edge as the original module but is about a centimetre taller. (In my printing that additional centimetre appears to be distributed evenly across the top and bottom of the printing.) This makes it a comparable size to the 1E/2E core books and will fit flush on the same shelf. The cover is a beautiful full-colour glossy print on thin card that feels very faithful to the quality and texture of the original book. The perfect binding creates a thin true spine (unlike the original module which merely came to a point) but there is no printing or book name on the spine, just a continuation of the cover colouring.

This is a 78-page perfect bound single volume. (I.e., the interior portion is NOT detachable the way the original module was.) The change in format means that the interior table of contents is no longer accurate. Maps are included in colour at the rear of the book but are again NOT detachable. The problems of the PDF version continue here, so again the large colour map is completely unusable. Interior text quality is good, and adequately readable, but it suffers from the original scan being low resolution, and from the generally cheap and unpleasant feel of this printing process generally. In one benefit that's nice but unlikely to be used, the front and back of the token pages are aligned perfectly, so if you're inclined to cut up your book to use the included tokens, it will at least work properly.

Overall it's adequate to run the adventure from, and a little easier to safely store than the original module, but collectors will still probably want to get their hands on the original

About the module content: In Search of Dragons is an unfortunate adventure, in that the adventure itself is actually quite well designed, mechanically, guiding the players through an interesting and varied series of encounters while feeling like an explorable sandbox - and yet, it doesn't feel right. Nothing about it feels like Dragonlance - the whole thing gives the air of fanfiction written by someone who's not quite read all the original material. There's a missing air of authenticity that makes the whole experience feel a bit dirty and shallow. Plus it ends with the unfortunate trope of having two NPCs punch each other to death while players watch and wish that anything they'd done actually mattered.

Maybe that's just me. If that doesn't bother you, and you're either okay with the ending or willing to fix it, there's hours of solid adventuring included here, supporting a lot of different styles of play and featuring tons of imagination and creativity. The relative obscurity of the module is actually a plus, in a way - unlike the Chronicles adventures, or other core Dragonlance supplements, which players who've read the novels may already feel they know the plot of, this is all virgin territory, and a great surprise for the Dragonlance player who thinks they already know their way around Krynn. The story takes place in Northern Estewilde, an area otherwise largely ignored in Dragonlance canon.

The module claims to support both AD&D 1E and 2E play, although the included statblocks are closer to 1E format than 2E. As with most D&D modules, you will need a copy of the core books to play. Most combats have statblocks but a copy of the Monstrous Manual for the relevant edition and some Krynn supplements and sourcebooks would not hurt. As far as I can tell the module (fairly unusually) does not specify what level range of characters it supports, but it appears to cover Levels 1 to 4 of 1E, or 1 to 5 of 2E. The story is continued in DLE2 and DLE3.

A classic module, and an adequate DriveThru reproduction (As of 31 January 2018)

About the PDF: Upon first release, the PDF of this module contained significant errors and omissions. As of late January 2018 a new PDF has been added which corrects those errors, and the full text of the module is now readable. The font and typography are still different to the original module, presumably as a result of making the text searchable (which it is) but this is a minor quibble. More disappointingly, the images are still much lower resolution than the original print copy, but the maps are legible and there is nothing that should stop the module from being run as originally printed.

The rest: Putting the poor scan aside, this is a classic AD&D 1e module, the first in the long-running original Dragonlance DL series of modules. You will need a set of AD&D 1e core books (Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual) to use this. (Most monsters are provided with full stats but a few, including the dragon, refer back to the expanded descriptions in the Monster Manual.) No prior knowledge of Dragonlance or other Dragonlance supplements are needed - the module gives you everything you need to start a new campaign in Krynn.

The module provides about 15 hours of play, divided over three parts (if you stick to the key encounters), or significantly more if you use random encounters or players stray from the main quest path. Part 1 is an overland "hex crawl", although sadly there is little incentive for players to visit most of the included hex map as the shortest path from the start to Part 2 bypasses the majority of it. Part 2 and Part 3 detail the surface and undercity of the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth in a fairly traditional dungeon crawling format. Groups who successfully complete the module can continue the story in DL2, "Dragons of Flame".

Other than the fact it begins the long-running Dragonlance brand, DL1 is most memorable for some of its unique design decisions. The first is that the module asks you to use the pregenerated characters contained within, representing the Heroes of the Lance from the Dragonlance novels. These characters are wildly unbalanced, ranging from a level 3 wizard to two level 6 (!) fighters (one of whose stats are just better across the board than the other). There is no real reason you can't use your own characters, although later modules reveal Krynn's elves, dwarves and gnomes differ from the traditional tropes in ways not really explored in this module. Also, PC clerics will have particular trouble for reasons unique to the module's setting. A second standout point is an included song, with sheet music, plus a long poem. The module is illustrated with evocative professional art throughout, and of course modern players with Google also have access to the wealth of stunning Dragonlance art depicting many of these characters and encounters which TSR and Wizards of the Coast have commissioned in the years since.

The module contains several maps in colour, semi-colour, and black and white, and these have been faithfully reproduced in the PDF, albeit in lower resolution than the original publication.

What the module loses in solid game design, it makes up for in passionate world-building, and even at this early stage it's clear that Dragonlance is a product with a wealth of backstory and internal consistency.

The module as-written can be fairly easily converted for use with other editions of D&D other than Basic or 4E. An official simple conversion exists for 2E in a compendium with the next three modules, although as of this writing that particular item is not currently available through DriveThru. Sovereign Press did an exceptional conversion for 3E that significantly improves the modules, updating many elements of the game design to more modern sensibilities, and that one IS available through DriveThru, and forms a wonderful additional resource even for those wanting to run the module in its original form.

A fantastic example of what a fantasy adventure module should look like. A great stand-alone 3.5E Dragonlance module, or a detailed and flavourful expansion of the content of the original DL module series for 1E or 2E.

I bought this as a companion to a 2E Dragonlance War of the Lance campaign and am deeply impressed by the content. The flow and key encounters of the original modules are retained, but fringe areas are expanded, providing new paths linking the key milestones and minimising the "railroad" effect of some sections. Areas that are suggested as important in the original modules are expanded.

For example, there is better support for players to reach Xak Tsaroth by ship, or to visit Haven, or to take a path out of Solace that passes through Darken Wood. Random encounter tables are largely replaced by detailed, relevant events. Where random encounters remain, they're much better suited to the areas they occur in - the Xak Tsaroth table, for example, is now suitably swampy. A timeline of world-level events allows you to let players feel time pressure if they're dawdling, but can be ignored if it's unhelpful. Scales on the original DL1 maps are fixed to provide more believable travel times, with specific examples given of journey length between key locations. NPCs mentioned in passing in the original modules now have names, and in many instances can be recruited. The politics of powers in the region, such as Haven, are better explained, giving the DM more freedom to deal with "what if" scenarios and therefore giving players more agency.

There's better DM guidance as to which encounters are expected to be trivial, meaningful, or nigh-unbeatable. Introductions to key areas of the campaign remind you of 3.5E rule systems that may be relevant and direct you to where in the core books to find them. There's explicit effort to let player-created characters replace and take the role of key NPCs like Goldmoon rather than just let you be their sidekicks. Ideas that don't sit well with later canon are removed - gone, for example, are the generic baby black dragons in the Xak Tsaroth swamps.

I could go on, but the theme is clear - this is a loving, exceptionally detailed, and well-designed reworking of the DL modules, with an eye to keeping all their original quirks and diversions but benefiting from the decades of worldbuilding and game design that have occurred since. Absolutely a must for anyone running a War of the Lance campaign, in any edition.

Minor issues: Monsters are not statted; you will need the 3.5E Monster Manual and 3.5 Dragonlance core books to use them. Illustrations throughout the PDF are exceptionally low resolution, almost to the point of illegibility. Higher resolution maps have been added to the end of the PDF, which is welcome, but there's no such treatment of the art. As far as the illustrations go, few are new, being mostly re-uses of existing Dragonlance artwork. Finally, despite many welcome improvements, PC motivation to take part in the early parts of the quest is mostly limited to "the gods told you to", and those not on board with Christian theology may find the religious elements, and the general themes of faith, awkwardly preachy.

This is a 16-page PDF in quite large font that describes itself as an "ashcan, which is indie game-ese for 'I didn't do any playtesting'".

It details a beer-and-pretzels game about street lugers who are famous to their mums and, if they're lucky, to a handful of other people. Many of these street lugers look to some extent like Vin Diesel. Despite the Diesel connection, it's much more Wayne's World than Fast and the Furious.

You could play the game but honestly you'll probably get your money's worth just reading the rules out loud to your friends and leaving it at that. You can buy it with the change left over from a coffee and honestly you get only a little more than you pay for. It's almost exactly a dollar's worth of joke and it's hard to complain about that. Buy it if you want to hear the joke (or just feel like giving the creators your pocket change). I have no regrets about my own purchase.

The PDF is searchable, although I don't know what you'd search it for.