This is an excellent set of adventures to include in any Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Nearly all of them can be placed within the hex map, to be randomly encountered or intentionally encountered with some of the hooks provided. There are morale dilemmas, comedic moments, and interesting stories. Some of the adventures are short (~1 hour), some are long(~3-4 hours); so you get to choose which you prefer to run! I love (LOVE!) encounters that scale, particularly so I do not feel like I am rushing to run it before it lacks any challenge to my party, and each one of these adventures scales. My only complaint is that the adventure "If Looks Could Kill" provides too much NPC information for the level of interaction proposed in the adventure (yes, I'm complaining about too much info). However, if you do want these NPCs or location to become recurring in your campaign, this is great for you. I recently ran DDAL07-04 "A Walk in the Park", which includes a mudslide encounter as well. The Mudslide! in this product is far more engaging.

Out of all the ToA/Chult supplements I have purchased (which includes 17 of the AL and DM's Guild Adepts), this is my favorite.

This is a large supplement. I honestly didn't look at the new feats, spells, backgrounds, class features, races, items, or monsters; but I didn't buy it for those reasons. My judgement on this product is specifically about the story.

I disliked Part 1 of Chapter 2 (essentially the hook for the entire adventure). Mixing in the setting of the Feywild, rather than kicking the adventure off with something very Chultan, felt odd but is a reasonable way to get the PCs from any location eventually to Chult.

I do think that the author did a good job of reminding the DM that the death curse plotline from Tomb of Annihilation is looming in the background. There are many instances where the DM is reminded of this. However, this supplement offers itself as a lead into Tomb of Annihilation, but disrespects the urgency by which some of the sideplots in Tomb of Annihilation plan to resolve. I do not think this is a problem, as I disliked that sense of urgency anyways. Certainly, the DM can fudge a timeline enough to accomodate for players spending time in this adventure.

The worst part of this storyline is part 3. It boils away to just another setting to potentially provide some information to the players (most likely the location of part 4), but seems more for the purpose of getting them from one level to the next. I do not think that was the author's intent, but the outcome of part 3 has no bearing on the plot of part 4, thereby diminishing the actions of the players. Even a slight adjustment to difficulty would have been sufficient for the players and/or dm to feel like there was some bearing between parts. The DM is quite capable of altering this to have the players' actions feel impactful, but the author, particularly in their acknowledgement of this possibility (see pg. 25 The Ritual) should have been more considerate.

Beyond that, I think the encounters are good. The story is fun, but not very unique. I like the possibility of multiple endings, but my players circumvented this. It does leave a rather large gap between the adventure ending in the Valley of Dread and getting the PCs somewhere else (likely Port Nyanzaru), but I don't think that is necessarily the job of the adventure.

I think this product is an excellent example of what the DM's Guild Adepts format can provide. While my critique of previous Adept work has been that each encounter is unconnected, these encounters provide a nice blend of adventure in a wilderness setting. Most of them are short and easily placed within a campaign for brief interludes to a major plot arch. Do not expect much story from this supplement, but it can provide narrative hooks or connection points between your own plot devices.

While there is a nice mix of exploration, social interaction, and combat, each encounter is disjointed from the rest. While this is ok for the number of contributors, each encounter falls flat on delivering a cohesive and unique experience. For example, the City Chase hooks seem more like combat encounters because their plot dead ends as soon as the chase is over. I would have loved to seen those chases tie into another of the encounters.

Alternatively, creating a narrative that utilizes the frameworks established in Tomb of Annihilation would have been nice. Instead, these encounters reference that framework, but still force the DM to build off it, merely providing another avenue at which to approach the framework. For instance, one of Crime and Punishment's hooks reference the Merchant Princes. The ecounter focuses on Executioner's Run rather than fleshing out what I consider to be the more difficult part: the story behind why the party ended up there.

Couple this with repetitive encounters (2 Executioners Run), a missed opportunity for new mechanics (the suspicion system) and some downright bizarre encounters. Overall, this document is a real disappointment because it feels like each DM Guild Adept focused on their own encounter and let the opportunity for collaboration, with the potential to build something better, fail.

Of the DM's Guild Adept products I've gone through, thus far, this is my favorite. It has a good narrative structure, although some pieces are missing (the Flaming Fist describing their battle) or found in odd places (refer to the Background at the beginning of the document for what Rhana shares). Its setting is good and creates a thriller atmosphere, but it sometimes forgets itself (hearing screams across a valley during a torrential storm, or huts catching fire from a lantern in a torrential storm). NPCs are well developed, and almost too much time is spent on them (my group always struggles to remain attentive if the number of NPCs outnumbers the PCs in the group). I love the movie Predator, and can't help but like this product.