Great adventure for newbies. Some practice at the start which is a part of the storyline. Then into the main meat of the game. Thanks

An easy-to-run and engaging generic fantasy advenutre, ideal for new DMs and players. You'll be up-and-running after a read-through.

Paired with a sidekick guide, this is fine for a single player and DM.

I ran this duet with my son, and we had a blast. He now has a best friend, a magic door. Easy to run. Well written.

Great adventure! Very easy to run for an inexperienced DM. We had a lot of fun playing it.

Bought this to introduce my girlfriend to d&d, we never got round to playing it in the end, but I read through it and it looked like a great 1 to 1 introduction game. Starting with some role playing and a tutorial type introduction to ability checks, saving throws and combat then opens up a great story.

I bought this series of adventures with the hope of running a duet campaign with my brother. Having read First Blush and the beginning of Second Glance, I'm not sure I will actually use it, though.

The first module is full of errors, inconsistencies (including between the maps and description), unexplained/unexplainable coincidences (Why on earth would you build a prison and then make it so easy for exactly the person you imprisoned to get out?), and essentially ends with a cutscene/deus ex machina. If I do use it, I will be rewriting/rearranging and fixing almost every part of the 'real' dungeon in particular. I resent having to do the job of editing, proofreading, and playtesting a module sold as finished.

But the real issue I have has to do with the 'DMPC' that the player PC is saddled with for the series. I'm not sure why the creators thought that it was a good idea to give the DM their own avatar in the game to outshine the player and become the center of the plot, but it was a terrible, terrible idea long before they even decided to make him an immortal LG paladin with memory issues. (And no, it doesn't help that the player can control him - the player chose/made their own PC for a reason!)

And that's the other big problem. You are given pregenerated characters, but told that you can create your own. However, the hooks into First Blush are significant, and make very serious demands on the PC's backstory. The adventures are also supposedly standalone, but there is no real way that they can stand alone while also revolving around the DMPC introduced in the first adventure, at least not without very significant surgery.

This was a great start as someone who had never DM'd before, with a player who has very little experience playing D&D. It was easy for me to follow the instructions, and the information that was given and the player enjoyed it as well. My only thing was I didn't know what some of these festivals were, and all that so I had to do my own research on few parts but nothing too hard or annoying. Thank you for making a good guide/adventure.

I'd really love to give this adventure a 5-star rating, as it does a good job of introducing combat, skills and it essentially works like a "video game tutorial".

However, there are two major problems with the module that could be rectified with just a bit more work. I personally believe the re-cap on the DMPC/Duet rules should have just been an appendix, rather than re-stating materials in Tasha's at the front of the adventure.

First, there are a large amount of details missing from the beginning which a starting DM should sort of be given (since the sourcebooks aren't present), and it forces the character into a specific role (member of a noble house) rather than give two or three options for the character's role in that house. The setting occurs in Amn, but doesn't really define a city where it takes place. There's very little description to the area in which the adventure takes place. The Fey Day and Fleetswake information has to be retrieved from external sources (IMO, this should have been present). This required nearly an entire re-write of the beginning or opening scenes, which any DM SHOULD be able to do, but it really should not be neccessary for an intro module. Especially because the first "encounter" is all about those events.

The areas are well designed, and getting to the "final room" has multiple avenues, there's a decent amount of treasure and the characters are easily made memorable and can be swapped out without too much difficulty depending on who you need for future adventures. Those are all positives, and the actual dungeon part of the adventure is superbly written.

I think my last complaint is, for a first time DM, the ending is a complete railroad. There is no defeating the last enemy, the events MUST play out in a certain way, and player agency is removed. My SO came up with a brilliant idea, which should have been pretty obvious, but I had to invent the mechanics on the spot. As written, it would tend to create bad habits for new DMs in my personal opinion, letting them think that they just dictate what happens and the player has few options is a regular practice in DND (which would be a huge faux paux in a regular table game). A few additional paragraphs on alternate methods to deal with the end guy would have taken about half a page, and would not turn the encounter into a literal ending cutscene with a few "quick time event" difficulty checks for the adventure.

A fun short introductory module! It's a relaxing and effective tutorial adventure for 5th edition. We ran it on a day when we had some absences in our group for our ongoing campaign. While the plot has little room for player agency since its so short and relaxing, we didn't mind. We had two players take on the role of the two friends rather than run it solo. It required almost no preparation, at least if you are an experienced referee. I would consider running it again to introduce a player to 5th edition and I am curious about the sequel. If you are brand new to roleplaying games, this could be a fantastic entry point. It is easier for a new DM or referee to run than most modules. Its easier to find a group of 2 people than a group of 4+ and in many ways easier to run a game for a 1 player than 3 or more. And its lower pressure to run something like this than to run something longer, more complex, or open-ended like the Start Set or Starter Kit. I have run the Starter Set, completed a three year published adventure for 5th edition, and run probably over 35 modules over the years. If I was advising a brand new Dungeon Master or referee who wanted to learn 5th edition (the currently most popular edition), I would recommend they begin by preparing and running this short module. Then maybe run its sequel. These making great stepping stones. And then trying to run the Starter Set or Starter Kit. And then after that I would suggest they follow their interests, whether they are homebrewed or published.

I ran this duet as an impromptu one-shot with my dad, who hasn't played D&D in forty years. I've been playing D&D 5e for a little over a year, and was excited to run this module for him to show him how D&D has changed and stayed the same (hopefully).

I admit I didn't get a chance to do more than skim through this module and print the maps before we started playing, and we didn't have time for a session zero, so I highly recommend DMs read through it fully. He said it was entertaining and is interested in playing the sequel, but his PC had a lot of questions for the NPCs that I didn't know, so had to scramble to find information. This was my first duet, and I usually am able to plan the next moment better as PCs roleplay. Since it was a solo player, it was a lot of waiting for me to go back and forth between pages to find the information he needed.

All in all, he enjoyed it, had fun, and wants to play again. So that's what matters.

TL;DR: Fun duet one-shot, took about three and a half hours. Requires a thorough read-through and preparation with your PC beforehand, or several story elements will be confusing. Nothing wrong with that and isn't the creators' fault, just wasn't what I expected based on other reviews.

was a great starter adventure. My husband nor I had played DnD in almost 30 years, so there was a big learning curve for us both. This adventure was put togehter to allow for that and introduce may aspects. We did it in about 2 1/2 very slow moving hours (we were learning).

This is a great and short introduction for brand new people trying to figure out whether or not D&D is something for them. I ran this 1-on-1 with my girlfriend and she enjoyed it a lot and it helped me a ton as a brand new DM. The only dowbside was that it is short (something that is also a benefit, that just depends of how you both feel).

Just ran this with a completely new to gaming player after a long break myself. Very fun and easy to run, nice use of game mechanics to show potential in the future. Look forward to the next one in the series.

These adventures set up for 2 players are great. Had a blast running the entire series, and a few NPC's from them still pop up in my campaigns.

My daughter and I have played a few D&D campaigns with a larger group. We got quaratined this week (we're fine) and this was a great opportunity to get my feet wet DM'ing and get her more experience with the RP end of things. She mostly just eggs everyone on and participates in the combat with our larger group, without doing much RPing. This was perfect way for us to spend an afternoon and hone our skills. We immedately bought the second in this series and are looking forward to running it tomorrow. Thank you so much for creating this!