This review is after reading the core rulebook and running some missions based of the Easy Mode mission and the Starter Kit adventure. Overall I like the system, I feel like I still haven't 100% "gotten" it yet.

I'm playing in Foundry VTT, and combat feels like it takes a little long, I'm wondering if I'm missing some tactics to speed things up. But I really really like the Netrunning and the Apartment was a very fun scenario.

I'll try and come back and update this review after running some more sessions.

I used The Apartment Scenario in the Jumpstart Kit to do a second learn to play experience with my friends after running the Easy Mode scenario. We took time to do a session 0 and create characters then I got to build out the apartment and it was A LOT of fun. I like the Cyberpunk system in general, I'm still learning it and getting comfortable with it, but the players overall enjoyed it a lot, very solid scenario.

There is errata in a pdf to update The Apartment per the core rules, but I wish they just updated the Jumpstart Kit as well.

I've run all of the Ravenloft Misthunter adventures so far, this was our epic finale for the year!

What I liked: For a tight 3 hour runtime the format works pretty well. We started and went through part 1 within 10 minutes of the estimated time for 3 groups and then part 2 was a tense race. 2 parties succeeded and 1 failed so the difficulty looks like it's right on the money. The escape is a bit on the easy side but it feels more like a victory lap at that point.

Dinner with Azalin was also really nice little roleplaying opportunity, and the effects of finding the different parts for the apparatus throughout the adventure were measurable but didn't trivialize the adventure.

What I didn't like: Scenarios 2 and 3 were particularly weak, not every scenario tied into having a fellow adventurer to rescue which was odd, and I would have preferred some final confrontation with Azalin Rex instead of just a flesh golem. Also once again the price for these adventures, all together it's $150 for the whole adventure line at retail. That is not something I'd recommend spending that much money on.

Great map, lovely colors and includes a lot of visual qeues that are great help to running the adventure!

I've run all of the Ravenloft Misthunter adventures so far.

What I liked: This was a great journey into Darkon! I liked the structure and the players enjoyed exploring Castle Avernus! Coming in to Lychgate and having the opportunity to do some exploration/social interaction to get past the barrier is a fun first portion of the adventure. There is the opportunity to have combat in the first part so having these 3 pillars feel more supported than normal is nice. Also getting a bit more of the info dump about the BBEG for this adventure series is, while in my opinion too late, still nice.

Castle Avernus itself is a little simplistic but still nice. You essentially have 3 paths to choose from and the magic item of the module helps players make an informed choice to navigate it.

The final encounter with the Black Shadow Dragon was also a very cool social encounter, very tense for the party.

What I didn't like: This adventure didn't feel fleshed out, especially for it's price point. My party got through it in about 2 and a half hours and that is after I used opportunities to extend the adventure. Some alterations I recommend:

1. Irik Zal'honen's encounter should be some sort of trap. There should be an incentive for the party to get him to turn around, and then they accidently witness his horrifying visage.
2. The three paths are nice, but one undead path should be "yellow" and one "green". In addition there should be additional treasure for picking a more difficult path via the compass.
3. The castle should be deeper, 6 encounters and 6 traps allowing the party to traverse 2 layers of each as they travel would be very helpful in making Castle Avernus feel deadlier and more of a dungeon to crawl through.
4. There is an Ancient Black Shadow Dragon! Somehow that should be attacking or confounding the party, add some more hostility to the encounter finishing out the adventure, it feels anti-climactic as is.

Overall one of the better adventures from this series, but not living up to the high points like Valachan.

I've run all of the Ravenloft Misthunter adventures so far.

What I liked: The core concept is neat. Take a break from the larger adventure and play as another set of characters while learning. And it's finally time to learn about The Apparatus and what happened with it before! Playing as a ghost is also a neat idea with the unfinished business that needs to be resolved providing a mechanical benefit.

The ambush by the NPC specifically equipped to beat up on the undead is also a lot of fun.

What I didn't like: There isn't really a lot to do in this adventure. The unfinished business is super easy to accomplish. The manor has a table of rooms to explore but the instructions provided to the players at the beginning (get the rod of houtras) doesn't incentivise them to explore the manor. The party just wants to meet the Darklord. Maybe what needs to happen is some sort of challenge to actually get the rod, because as written it's really just, "go ask for the rod, convince the darklord, head back, combat encounter, over" and that's not a lot.

Choices for the players to have to make between resolving their personal stuff for the ghost PCs and getting the rod back would have made this more engaging to play. As is it's a necessary adventure for the overall structure but finds itself lacking in content.

Because this adventure needs to fit into the Adventurer's league structure it also presents a real problem for new players. AL games are oneshots by nature. There is a chance that this might be a player's first adventure. It's a feel bad situation when a player creates a character, comes to the table, and then the DM has to say "set your character sheet aside, pick from these characters instead".

Here would be my proposed fix, make this a 2 part adventure like the others. Have the ghosts possess the PCs and flesh out challenges that occur in the material plane in Mordent, then also in the border ethereal. That way the PCs get to play along with the ghosts, and adding in challenging choices for players to make between progressing towards getting the rod quickly and solving side ghost problems would be an interesting dynamic. The ideas for a fun adventure are here, but it's too bare bones to recommend as is.

Some great maps to use, would have liked some more visual aids, for example a visual representation of castle Avernus and the King's Tear or the Amber Maze. But here is everything you need to run the epic, lovely art and detail for the Apparatus!

Overall a great introduction into Cyberpunk RED. I think I would have liked more guidance in the stand alone adventure at the end.

Some ways to improve would be:

A read along section for players in the adventure (When the GM asks for this check, here's how it works) I know that information is in the bulk of the rulebook but having it repeated in some bold text would be nice.

More guidance in integrating the lifepath system, it felt superflous in our play session and I wasn't sure how to get the players invested.

A second adventure option using netrunning to have that with an example.

But still Cyberpunk RED was fun and I'm looking forward to trying out the full ruleset with another module soon!

Pretty good, but missing a few encounter maps.

The big one being a large ballroom map representing the possibility of a fight in the final encounter.

For context, I have run RMH-09 and RMH-10 back to back with the same group of players for cohesiveness. After enjoying RMH-09 as much as I did I was pretty excited about this one, and overall, it's great!

What I liked: Once again a lot of great content is here. There's plenty of different encounters and the way the approach the players take affects their hunter score with Chakuna close on their tails was a lot of fun. In addition the encounters are tough! This module does a GREAT job draining party resources in order to prepare for a very tough final encounter. I almost had a party wipe with Chimali as they felt pressured not to take short rests due to Chakuna hunting them. I would have killed the whole party if not for running out of time and having to end the adventure due to players needing to leave.

The ambush by the Mist Placed is also a great encounter, and was a very fun fight.

What I didn't like: I would have liked more of an interaction with Darcalus, some sort of revelation from the Scion of Darkness, something that would drive player curiousity into the next adventure. That's the only thing missing here.

THE BIG PROBLEM: The beginning of the adventure has some vague reasons to go to Valachan. We know there is an Amber Sarcophogus there, but still don't know why we care about it or what's in it. Other than vague reasons that the bad guy wants it. With 10 adventures in, more concrete details are needed to motivate players across the overall story.

Another helpful set of maps, letting you not have to worry about making your own for RMH10, greatly appreciated!

This was a super fun adventure to run! I prepped and ran this as a oneshot in Talespire with my friends. We were limited to a 3 hour session unfortunately so I had to speed some things up, but this was still an excellent time.

WHAT I LIKED: The adventure structure is robust and a lot of fun. You spend the first part researching targets and picking one. Then you have a small encounter of varying types to get into your statue. Then you explore the inside of the statue. Then you complete your mission and get out of dodge. There are some great NPCs to add to your Waterdeep campaign (and I heavily recommend including this as part of the ongoing events of Dragonheist). The driving action is simple enough, and it's a great opportunity to explore the famous landmarks of the city that the rest of dragonheist doesn't really touch. The rival party is a nice addition to give your group of adventurer's some complications to deal with. For my particular run of this adventure I changed them out for some existing rivals. The new monsters were fun variations on statblocksm and the reward item is useful and thematic!

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Nothing really! Almost a prefect adventure, the only problem for me is a missed opportunity in the premise of the adventure. Sure zapping a Walking Statue away and then making a clean getaway is fun. But there is the Walking Statue of Waterdeep statblock. It would have been so very fun to PILOT a statue! So I did for my group. Their task was not to just steal a statue, but to relocate it and use it to create a passage from Waterdeep straight to Skullport. I added some rules for how to pilot the statue, the 4 metal plates allowing the party to control different limbs instead of vanishing the statue, and then there's the oppotunity for statue on statue combat with another one commanded by Blackstaff or some Gargantuan monster or something else! The party had a great time. This is again a very minor nitpick and doesn't lower my score of the adventure, it's great as is, I just saw a bit of a missed opportunity at the end.

I have run all of the season 10 adventures, so naturally I wanted an opportunity to run this one as well. I ran for a mixed group of players, some had done all of the Plague of Ancients adventures as well, others had a few under their belts, and others hadn't done any.

What I liked: The non-stop combat sets a tone for the adventure that Wyrmdoom Crag is really under attack. The complications by 2 previous story awards are nice to see.

What I didn't like: The combat didn't feel super hard, I ran it at very hard for a party, and ended up combining the Tier 2 and Tier 3 combats to give the party a challenge. Certain sections don't feel super complete, the Far Realm maw needed stats. I really really don't like that the Chardalyn corruption didn't come into play in this adventure (or anywhere, that's really disappointing for the whole season). I also think the relationship between Kaskur and Ogalai should have been incorporated into the encounters. But the biggest issue is the ending. The ending takes all agency from the players, Kaskur dies, Oagalai dies, Suuk saves the day. This was really unsatisfying, I ended up changing the ending to give opportunity for the players to save Ogalai. It made a huge difference in their enjoyment of the adventure. Some sort of ending rewrite to involve Ogalai, Kaskur, and Suuk more as well as have the characters impact the very ending would be a simple change to really improve this one.

I didn't love this module. I've run it twice so far for different players in Adventurer's League and I've found the same issues both times.

The module is pretty unfocused, it's really mostly a journey from Wyrmdoom Crag to the Id Ascendant and makes some assumptions about how the party makes that journey that don't provide alternatives to modes of travel that characters in Tier 2 might have access to (especially if they've already visited Id Ascendant). The module I think is heavily reliant on the players having explored Xorvintroth before but doesn't lean into that hard enough to leverage previous knowledge, Season 10 feels more serialized. But the writers want to pretend that each module can be run as a 1-shot. Players that hadn't done DDAl10-06 and DDAL10-07 didn't care about Xorvintroth's horrors or the Goliaths that were already killed (too late to save them). Players that did play those modules before wanted to explore this ancient Abierian city and not wander in the wilderness. Players who hadn't played the hard cover killed the Carrion Crawler Mounts when they met them and didn't have a way to find Id Ascendant. Players who had played Id Ascendant wondered why it crashed back into Icewind Dale AGAIN after lifting off. The combat for the first parts was mostly trivial and just a slog to eat through the monster HP pools. The Young Remorhaz didn't pose real threats to the party. They potentially posed threats to the Carrion Crawlers but the party wasn't incentivized to save Carrion Crawlers (even if they are domesticated). The ghost encounter was also a pretty trivial distraction. The final battle is entirely optional and doesn't have a reward attached to it, which was unsatisfying for my players. 1 group bypassed it entirely because the mission is to retrieve the squidlings, and they follow anyone with the glove. That being said, the Star Golem is a great legendary monster statblock, and posed a great threat against a strong party that confronted it. The lair actions were terrific ways to claw back action economy and it was a lot of fun to run. I just wish there was a better reward to winning the fight. If you're running Season 10 as one campaign, I'd recommend picking and choosing the bits of DDAl10-08 that you like, as it's not a super cohesive or super fun module to play through or run.

For context, I have not yet run RMH-10, but I have set it up and am planning on running this adventure and RMH-10 with the same group of players to provide some needed context and cohesiveness. I was a bit hesitant based on the mixed bag the "Part 1" adventures in each Domain have been so far, but The Deadliest Game exceeded my lowered expectations, and I would recommend it to be run!

What I liked: The overall content is great here. Once you get to Oselo the party has a clear goal: survive the Trial of Hearts. This gives immediate incentive to the players to have their characters interact with the other teams, the Oselo citizens, and try and gain information. This was a great hour spent doing character stuff and planning strategy.

The encounters themselves are a great group of options. The structure of a real time aspect to the adventure with Chakuna hunting the party, the competing groups, and the individual encounters to deal with. I like that there is a good mix of combat, exploration (kind of also puzzle solving in a more natural way which is great, example: 'cross the bridge with these restrictions'), and some social stuff. The fact that resting takes up a resource is also great.

Meeting one of the teams at the end of this adventure is also a nice touch, and I highly recommend running the encounter with that particular team leader beforehand to enable some tense encounters.

The encounters work to drain party resources so the later encounters feel dangerous and deadly. I also liked the math behind Chakuna hunting the party, before I ran the adventure I thought it was too likely to get amputated, but the party managed to barely avoid her so it was more tuned than I thought, and I ran 6 encounters. I think a more traditionally heroid party would get punished more, but I think this is a good thing for a Domain of Dread.

What I didn't like: The very start of the module is thematically fun, but takes away player agency. The presentation makes it seem like an encounter when it is actually just character introductions. I think I would recommend just having the party know ahead of time that there will be werepanther citizens and then let them do introduction in a tense social encounter. Having the players describe escape and then winding up at Oselo anyway feels frustrating.

I would have liked a keyed map for DMs on the encounters, that way I could give a map to players and have their encounters be determined by player paths. I think that would have added a lot to player agency. I ended up doing that myself, and having the players roll survival checks to navigate the jungle, success and failure determining how lost they get and time taken, allowing more time for Chakuna to catch up to them.

The adventure needs an opportunity to long rest at the end, if you are running this back to back with RMH-10 then there needs to be time to long rest and level up between adventures, but the ending of this module implies a great time constraint which makes that feel like a poor decision. Some sort of storm or choppy waters to keep the characters on the penninsula for 8 hours would be a good inclusion.

Also, this is super minor, but there is a T-Rex in part 2 of Valachan, but no other dinosaurs in part 1. I ended up adding 2 more dinosaur encounters. 3 Allosaurus' stalk and hunt the party, 12 Velociraptors are attacking 2 Triceratops' that the party runs into, and if the party flies up to the top of the treeline the party a Quetzalcoatl attacks.

THE BIG PROBLEM: The beginning of the adventure has some vague reasons to go to Valachan. We know there is an Amber Sarcophogus there, but still don't know why we care about it or what's in it. Other than vague reasons that the bad guy wants it. With 9 adventures in, more concrete details are needed to motivate players across the overall story.