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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Burnside" data-source="post: 7767587" data-attributes="member: 6910340">I received the second installment of this a few days ago; figured I'd continue to review.PROS- Again, the quality of the materials is great for the money, and I can easily see myself re-using elements of it. Two more very nice and large full color battle maps - one city street and one interior of an inn with plenty of tiles to use to re-dress them for various scenes. Thanks to the tiles, I actually think you could use the city street battle map for most of the random encounters here. - While the adventure in box one was solid, this second one is better. It's a city-based adventure offering multiple possible encounters across three neighborhoods, then eventually funnels into a series of climactic set-pieces. It's enough of a sandbox to be fun and allow player agency, but still limited enough in scope to be easy to prep. So far, I would be more enthusiastic about running this campaign than Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (and there are some similarities; this is more coherent). One set-piece does rely on 5E's dubious chase rules, but I've long since replaced those with somebody's more fun homebrew rules. - Twelve flat plastic minis with bases that relate to the adventure, and three Reaper minis that don't at all. Again, it would be better if the minis represented characters and monsters in the adventure. Still, I can't really complain as this month's box featured an extra mini (I got a female human rogue, female human sorcerer, and six giant rats). I'm sure I'll get use out of them at some point (especially the rats - I didn't previously have any, and of course they're in lots of adventures). CONS- Again, they really shouldn't make the "everything you need for the adventure is in the box" claim in their marketing. it just isn't. Like the previous adventure, the bulk of the action for the first half or so relies on (well-done) random encounters, and they couldn't possibly include everything you'd need for all of them. -Which brings me to an interesting point about these first two adventures. Something that struck me in reading them is that they seem like they would lend themselves really well to being run theater of the mind. As if they have a writer who does really good TOtM adventures, but they've got him working on this concept product where the hook is that you get the battle maps and pawns. Anyway, next month looks to be the first dungeon crawl of the campaign. It will be interesting to see if it still leans heavily on random encounter tables, because if you wanted to you really COULD put everything needed for a one-shot dungeon in one of these boxes (especially if the minis were featured in the adventure). - This is inconsequential, but every adventure includes these little AL-style story award stickers that come in "secret envelopes". The stickers were there, but just loose in the box this month - no secret envelopes (which are unnecessary anyway). - The adventures are marketed as forming an episodic story, but also capable of being run as stand-alone pieces if you're not doing the whole campaign. I don't see how that's the case with this episode. The beginning would be awkward if the players were not familiar with a key NPC from the previous adventure, and the ending is a total cliffhanger for next month. The story is interesting enough that I think most people would enjoy the continuing series, but again this strikes me as inaccurate marketing. As a stand-alone one-shot this month's adventure would not work.OVERALLNext month will be the final installment of my three-month trial with this. I'm on the fence about continuing, but leaning towards yes. On the whole, there are problems here that have to do with the actual product not always fitting the advertised concept of what Dungeon in a Box is "supposed" to be. But the bottom line is that the quality of both the adventures and the included support materials are strong and the price is fair. I hope that in time they'll refine this product to make the most of a great concept and really get the adventure and the accessories totally in sync, or else dial back some of the inaccurate marketing.</blockquote>

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