D&D Adventure books frequently have to strike a balance in terms of appeal. An adventure book is something for Dungeon Masters rather than players, and they are always fewer DMs than players. The way round this is to make something about the book appeal to everyone; in the case of Call of The Netherdeep it’s the fact that it’s entirely set in Exandria, the world that all of Critical Role is set in. The adventure takes the party across the world, a sort of whistle-stop tour of the popular and well known world.
The book also formalises an old D&D trope, the rival party. This is nicely done, as the rivals aren’t exactly villains (so your party can’t simply slaughter them) and allow for the DM to throw something in when there is lull in the action. The rivals are an integral part of the story; the idea is that they ‘set a clock’ against the party making the whole adventure a race of sort. They’re very well detailed and do their own thing regardless of player actions, making the story feel like a living world.
The adventure itself is a nice blend of ancient mystery, cosmic horror and under-water exploration. These are all well-trodden D&D tropes (and draw heavily from some classic horror ideas), but that doesn’t make it any less fun. Unlike other D&D adventures books Call of the Netherdeep finds the balance between an open world and getting your players to engage with the story.
It’s not as limited as say Tyranny of Dragons but nor is it a pseudo-setting book like Icewind Dale. Just enough push is given to keep the party on track and in many ways it really feels like the sort of adventure you see played on Critical Role. There’s also enough setting material here to make it a solid companion to the two Exandria books out there such as Tal’Dorei Reborn and The Explorers Guide to Wildemount. Nothing here is especially ground-breaking, it’s just very,very well done.
The map is still connected via perforation to the book. It’s a lovely map, but it would be nice if you didn’t have to perform surgery on the book to access it.
The horror/weird aspects are also done very well, especially for D&D Fifth Edition. To our lack of surprise, Cassandra Khaw and Sadie Lowry worked on this and if those names don’t ring a bell we advise you seek them out and thank us later.).
Over-all, if you’re a busy person looking to DM and game of D&D, this is a great pick because all you need is this book (and perhaps a D&D Beyond account), the basic rules and you are good to go. You absolutely do not need to be familiar with Critical Role to enjoy this book, but if you’re a fan of the show this is (likely) the closest you’re going to get to being DM’d by Matt Mercer.
