I loved being able to offer my players something out of the ordinary. The level of excitement was almost tangible! I look forward to replaying this in the future as well. Fun mod!

Some clunky parts, some fun parts. I feel like the suggested adventure hooks are kind of misleading as they suggest the point of the adventure to be the investigation against the yuan-ti. In actuality, that whole conspiracy plot just felt like an excuse to have a giant dinosaur race.
The betting in part 1 is a bit hard to grasp (it's only one race, how can there be multiple winners?). I do like all the fluff included in the registration though, my party greatly enjoyed coming up with a mascot. Part had the actual race itself and the whole setup was very grand and fun to imagine. Especially liked the multiple different stages here. Some of the stages were really clunky though, like the fishing for stones bit which felt kinda static (not many options besides a bunch of Ivestigation/Perception checks) or the triceratops at the end which has the potential of really dragging on.
Would recommend against using rolls for "The Others". Feels like the opposition would be lagging behind too much going by the book. Instead just handle the enemy factions from a pure narrative perspective to keep it as a neck-to-neck race.
The fight at the end is fine but as always, zombies can be very problematic in Tier 1 unless the gorup has some clerics/paladins as it's kinda hard to deal enough damage to make them fail their con saves. This is a great opportunity to use some of the dino zombies from "DDHC-TOA-3 - Beasts of the Jungle Rot" though.

This is my favorite 5e adventure! The dinosaur racing rules in the Tomb of Annihilation are a bit vague. This adventure greatly expands on those rules. My group loved it so much, they want to do it again!

I really liked this module as it's different than the traditional kill everything mod.It allows the players to take part in several events, and use skills instead of weapons. I ran this a couple of times and both tables really enjoyed the race. I do feel it's not one to pick up and run on the fly, it takes some prep if you want to give the table the best experience. It offers a lot of opportunity to add some flare, and let the players rp.

Great introduction to ToA, particularly for new players. The race is a great balance of roleplay and skill challenge, and really gives life to the Port as a location.

Theres not a lot of combat in this, but the combat present is interesting.

Not a very combat-heavy adventure, but the races in this adventure were varied and fun! The race included parts on ground, in air, and across water, and all the legs of the races were handled very smoothly by the adventure's design. It can limit creativity though for some characters who depend on magic and don't have very could skills used in the races.

(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS-- and tips for GMs preparing to run this adventure)

My group of 4 level 3's played this over the weekend. It took a little over 3 hours to finish; I would budget at least 3 hours for a newish group of PCs.

The introduction and betting fell a little flat. The main NPC has a dialect that is difficult to get around-- I worked it by simplifying the dialect a bit, and prefacing the RP with "this NPC has a difficult accent, and that's deliberate." I also had had pre-existing contacts between NPCs and the players-- Pock Marked Po made a return in this adventure to serve as an introduction.

The betting scene was very basic-- the avarice-minded PC was into it, but nobody else really was. They all wanted to examine the animals before the race, partly for evaluating their bets, and largely because they thought there was a big cheating investigation plot they needed to pursue. They were doggedly pursuing as many clues and leads as they could, but the reality is, this module is a bit thin and doesn't support it. There's no guidance for which dinosaur in the betting round has been doped-- and there really ought to be.

If I were running this again, I would beef up the cheating angle, and flesh out one of the rival teams in the race section as a more dedicated cheater, so the PCs have someone to accuse.

The race was surprisingly engaging for the players. They had previously played the dinosaur race mission in 0701, so I worried that they would find this to be "old hat." It was not-- the different mechanics were engaging, especially when I made comparisons to the Triwizard Tourney at Hogwart's. In the second major section of the race, they really got into the interference aspect of the race-- and here again, the module didn't strongly support counter-interference from the rival teams. They were rather pre-programmed and weren't set up to do anything to retaliate against the PCs. If I were running this again, I'd have one of the rivals cheat more heavily, and use all manner of dirty tricks against the PCs.

The final encounter felt tacked on, and the PCs got very frustrated with the terrified little girl. They had little patience for a non-combatant who had no agency. I don't think I'd run that section differently, but it would have been smarter in hindsight to have introduced her before the races, when the PCs went down to the animal pens to do their investigation. Then they'd have seen her normally, and would have felt some kind of connection there. You could even put in a clue or two earlier where the PCs might spot the yuan-ti woman, or have better foreshadowing.

I give this a 4 out of 5, largely because there are enough places where you really need to tweak the adventure to make sense, but the bones are there, and you can make those tweaks without really taking it out of the Adventurers League format.

There are two distinct parts to this mod. I'm going to call them the 'race' and the 'fight.

The race is brilliant. Lots of small skills that don't see enough use, and it's just plain fun to run & play. It takes a little effort by GMs to adjudicate off-the-wall ideas that players can come up with, but that's normal, even if this even inspires more of it than usual.

The fight is extremely tough. I've seen it be fair, I've seen it be horrible, I've seen it be unwinable. The issue is that two hour mods simply do not have the time for a standard array of fights, and the challenge level short-rest and long-rest characters can absorb is simply to wildly variant. DMs need to be aware not just of your party's by-the-book, power level, but it's short vs long rest power levels -- if the party is heavily weighted with short rest characters, be aware that they may not actually be as strong as the level numbers indicate. They need two short rests to the long rest to match the long-rest characters, and the lack of a refresh on their short rest abilities make long-rest characters much stronger than might otherwise be apparent.

The majority of the module consists of the race and it provides different mechanics for each leg (4 in total). This keeps the event for turning into a bland series of ability checks as each leg has a different goal and allows different characters to shine. The combat at the end provides an opportunity for more combat orientated characters but feels unnecessary and only really helps to connect this module to the next one in the trilogy.

I enjoyed the lack of combat for the majority of the module, and the final combat was fun and interesting enough to keep the players engaged. The roleplaying at the beginning was also very fun, as my players tried hard to solve the mystery before proceeding onto the race. The race itself, as many have pointed out, is far too clunky to be fun or engaging. It amounts to just constantly rolling dice, both for the players and the DM, and the rules are not laid out in a clear manner. I would have preferred something more akin to DDAL07-01.

A day at the races was a nice intro to Chult and racing. I thought the lack of combat (until the end) was going to be problematic but they seemed to get excited about the race and non-combat rolls just as well as combat.

A day at the races is a well balanced 2 hour story for organised play. You really get the feel of dinosaur racing in this story. The story also allows starting DM's to unleash all that first timer excitement and energy into this story and it will only make the story even better most of the time. If you have the time, make it a 3 hour trip and really set the scene and introduce the characters to Chult and Port Nyanzaru. The hardcover has plenty of information/culture to really add some flavor to this module.

The story itself was average. The feeling crept up on me that dinosaur racing was the main setting and everything was ready to go, and only then, a story had to be build around it. Some motives were unclear and shrouded a bit to much. As a DM you really need to emphasize that it is the instability of the region that the enemy is after.

The adventure does provide enough backstory/hooks to be creative as a DM, even without the hardcover of ToA available. However some things might be unclear, for example that multiple bets can be made in a single race besides just betting on who wins. But as I said, there is enough to work with, I myself implemented a team that raced for the glory of Amn. I reflavored some things to suit the adventure better and make motives of the enemy more easy to comprehend for the general public.

All in all, this is a solid adventure and very suitable for running in stores, it will most defeniatly bring people back to your stores for follow up D&D encounters.

Nice blend of fun mechanics. Not your usual combat slog but fits nicely with previously Chult adventures story wise. Racing is always good.

I enjoyed both running and playing this module. It provides a different blend of options than most adventures, but the first dinosaur race needs a better explanation of how to run it. A list of 8 dinosaurs with odds, die to roll, and to win rolls requires more than a "pick one" description. Should it be based on the player's bets? Should the selection be made randomly? Should each player be rolling for their particular choice of racer? If there are multiple rolls and wins, wouldn't that indicate multiple races instead of a single one? So many questions, but those aside, the rest of module is relatively solid.

This module serves as a good introduction to the tier one trilogy. It has a fun array of challenges for the players and has the potential to familiarize the players with the city, culture and problems of the port.