So, a Cleric and a Vampire walk into a tavern... is an encounter anthology where each encounter setup is based on a person or persons you meet in a tavern. The encounters range from the titular cleric and vampire, to a girallon to one of the PCs, and lots of other interesting characters.
There are 12 separate encounters contained within this product. There is art on the cover, some internal art, a relatively plain, but functional layout, a table of contents page with short author intros and a list of sample tavern names on the last page. It comes in 2 versions: print and interactive. The interactive version has working links for the various authors and the print version is formatted for printing.
Pros
I really liked the Cleric & Vampire, Dwarf & Elf, Werewolf & Prey and Victorious Adventurers encounters. Those really stood out for me as fun encounters that I'd like to incorporate into my games.
I really liked the idea of a themed setup product. This one really embraced one of the oldest and most cherished cliches in D&D, and worked very well as a result.
A number of the encounters gave suggestions for how DMs could incorporate the encounter into their game and use them as springboards for other plotlines and story seeds. I really like practical DM advice like that in a product.
Though I called out a few of my favorite encounters, I honestly liked all of them and could see myself using them in my own game. Some would require more work than others, but the relatively self-contained nature of the product theme goes a long way towards making the encounters drop-in ready.
Cons
The product really could have used some more proofreading and editing. There were several misspellings, misused punctuation, and grammatical issues. Nothing truly egregious, but it definitely could have used some more eyes on it.
Conclusion
I really like the concept and execution of this product. I can't think of anything more D&D to me than getting into some kind of encounter in a tavern. I really hope to see more themed encounter products like this in the future. I'd have happily paid money for this, but it's free. Download it now! You won't be disappointed.
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