Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden Hire a 55 year old to go over your plans.

[jasper]

4 out 5 stars.
You know with Home Alone they say villains should hire a 5 year to go over your evil plans. Well WOTC should hire 55 year to go over you plans. Especially, your maps. Repeat after me. Maps are not art. Page 69. Page 97, Page 123. Page 135. Page 147. Page 152. Page 247. And some part of page 128. Hint to map makers if you are going to use dark colors on your map, make the grid lines white. 1/2 star off for unusable maps. Stacey Allan, Will Doyle, Mike Schley need to do better.
The other sore points. The Chapter 3 or 4 decision. Choose one way, you skip a whole chapter. Some of the art work is muddy, because the use of shades of same color. This works some times and does not work at other times. Travel times over ride PHB times. And more detail is needed on sled dogs.
What is great.
Story is great. You are fighting a minor gawd. You can have multiple endings. Lots and lots of quests. Some very beautiful artwork.
What is so so
Some monsters are there for jokes but the jokes are lacking. Some of the horror is hinted at but left to the DM to flesh out.
I will do an update when my Adventure League group finishes it.

 

[tommybahama]

Does it feel like they had a team of separate writers and mashed it all together like Avernus? Or is it consistent in theme, story, and mechanics all the way through?

 

[jasper]

You can tell different writers wrote part of it. Their names are print in the chapter they wrote. The theme is consistent, and occasionally you can tell when the authors switch. I have found a few minor editing issues. One of the speakers changes npc classes.