This is an absolutely top-quality campaign, as detailed, well-written, and complex as any official campaign book I've purchased. I haven't run it yet, but am prepping to start doing so. Here's what I've found so far.

Pros:

• Clearly organized and laid out, with a helpful table of contents and easy reference for important people and locations
• Detailed, imaginitive, and complex storyline full of mystery and intrigue
• A mix of skill, social, and combat checks
• Excellent writing from both a technical and style perspective
• A full setting and campaign, not a single adventure

Cons:

• This is not a simple campaign; a number of characters, locations, and threads intertwine. That makes it interesting and fun, but challenging to wrap your head around and run.
• A few "printing error" typos here and there. Not the kind of thing I'd mention in a cheaper product, and not enough to damage readability, but for the price it is worth noting.
• The read-aloud text blocks are very long. They're beautifully written, but I prefer to skim and summarize RA blocks in my own words, and that's hard to do when they are multiple paragraphs. Despite the excellent writing in them, they are actually my biggest qualm with the book. I would love to see an update or supplement that takes the information in the RA blocks and condenses them into concise bullets for GMs like myself.
• Something this large and complicated could really use GM cheat sheets. I find myself intimidated to start because I'm afraid I won't keep things straight (especially with some scene information burried in the read-aloud blocks).

All that said, this product was clearly made with a lot of love, and I'm really impressed with it. I note the cons above only because GMs should know what they're getting into, and every product can be improved on; but the depth and breadth of this campaign make it absolutely worth the price tag.

Really great resource! I especially appreciate the section on converting to Forgotten Realms. Since most 5e content is written for FR, the lack of offical guidance for converting Saltmarsh (especially the larger political themes), has been my only complaint with an otherwise awesome adventure and setting. A better adventure hook was also needed. My players are already involved, so I didn't get to use this one, but it's a valuable addition and I'll almost definitely use it next time I run Saltmarsh. Overall great work by the author!

Wonderful detail, excellent rules, and delightful craftable items. Will definitely be incorporating this into my campaign.

Wonderful resource, and I can't wait to use it. Full of creative items with just enough detail to breathe life into them. I have a scholar in my group, and in our first session she found a bookseller. I've never had to think so fast, haha.

There are a couple of things that would be fairly easy to add and would make this even more useful, though:

• A table of contents by topic. The book is broken up into topics anyway, so why not make it easier to find them? Seems like a glaring omission, especially in a PDF-only book that doesn't allow actually "flipping" through the pages.
• An alphabetized index by book title. I'm 100% sure my players are going to write down the title and lose the notes about what's in them, because that's how DnD goes.
• In addition to the master random roll table, random tables for each topic. I'd like to have little more control over what my players find, without eliminating the randomness altogether.
• A print-friendly version without the weathered background. I want to print these, cut them out, and hand them to my players if they decide to keep a book.

All that said, these quality-of-life issues don't outweigh the usefulness of this resource. Add them in, and I'd rate it 5 stars; but even without them, it's still a solid 4.

The quality and appearance of this reads like part of the official book. I usually find random encounters frustrating distractions from the things I want to accomplish, but the ones in this book are much more than simply being attacked by randomly spawning monsters. Rather than taking away from the story, these add to it in small, simple ways. I also appreciate that as well as rolling for the encounter, most involve rolling a second time for the specifics of that encounter.

A couple of my favorites:

• The characters encounter guards who might be: trying to rescue a cat from a ledge, battling smugglers, or two other options. Helping the guards improves the characters' relations with them.
• They hear a song that might be: harpies luring prey, merfolk mourning a loss, a hag setting a trap, or (the best one) an awakened killer whale who might lead them to treasure.
• They come across a magic fountain that has wonderful effects the first two times they drink from it, but the third time is nearly deadly.

There's 60 more of these, most with at least 4 possibilities to roll within them!

Another great feature is the ability to roll based on location in the world, whether town, coastal, or aquatic. There are even notes for scaling the encounters past Tier 1. All in all, this is a wonderful book in concept and execution, and it's well worth the few dollars asked.

Truly delightful content. Love the detail, the characters, and the sense of whimsy. I want to make friends with that fairy dragon. The adventure hooks are intriguing and detailed. My only worry is that if my players go in here, they may never visit any other location in town again. A+, five stars, the content this hobby needs!