Really enjoy this product, looking forward to using it.

I found this to be a very well thought out alternative to the standard rules for death and dying in 5e D&D. I liked the fact that each separate alternative has the potential to change a character's personality/state of being, and how each one felt unique. These ideas put forth never felt cheap, as the real mechanical alterations were both impactful and meaningful to game play (and not just a proverbial slap on the wrist). I especially liked the two examples at the end which served to illustrate how one might actually incorporate "Tales of the Low Roads" into a regular D&D session. I look forward to trying out these rules with my group of players, and also look forward to seeing what else this author comes up with.

On the negative side, there were quite a few typos and emissions of words which served as a distraction to the reading over of these fine ideas. But as I feel that these distractions can easily be edited/corrected, I am still rating this product 5 stars.

I've never been a big fan of character death, unless that's what the player wanted to happen to their character. I understand the need for consequences to prevent things from devolving into a game of chicken with the DM, but I get invested into my characters, and would rather find a more interesting consequence after failing my death saving throws.

Given that bit of background, it was no surprise that I enjoy Tales of the Low Roads. It establishes that PCs are more than ordinary folk, and when most people would experience common death, heroes travel the Low Roads, returning to tell the tale. But this can have consequences worse than death.

The first two pages of this sourcebook talk about death in the Forgotten Realms and provide some context around what the book is attempting to do. I appreciate that it discusses having open communication between the DM and the players before agreeing to using these rules. And agreed-upon social contract is critical to a good campaign.

The next eight pages cover the consequences to returning to the mortal coil. These offer a combination of mechanical and narrative effects. Some of the mechanical effects are more punishing than others, but none are so bad that they'd lead to a death spiral (at least not after a sufficient time to recover from the initial return from the Low Roads).

As a 13th Age GM, I would likely use these as negative backgrounds (backgrounds that offer a penalty instead of a bonus) while they're in effect. The narrative portions of these consequences would be a lot of fun in the hands of the right players. I could even see using them as a PC background before I started playing a character. These consequences could work particularly well with 13th Age Glorantha's Heroic Returns rule (itself being an alternative to resurrection magic, since Glorantha lacks such magic).

There's a page that explains how the Low Roads rules impact existing spells, while adding some new spells that remove the mechanical consequences of characters' returns as well.

The last page offers a couple examples of how these rules would work in play.

If your game is inspired by earlier editions, and you enjoy death coming fast and furiously to the PCs, I'm not about to tell you that you're having the wrong kind of fun -- continue to enjoy the game, and perhaps this isn't the right book for you. If you carefully consider your character's backstory and lie awake at night thinking about how the recent campaign arc would influence the PC's choices when leveling up, I'd definitely check this out.