By skyforbes 
I look at the new starter set for Dungeons & Dragons and see how well it helps new players dive into the game.
Publisher — Wizards of the Coast
Lead Designer — Justice Ramin Arman
Art Direction — Kate Irwin and Judy Bauer
*Note* This article contains an Amazon Affiliate link as an ad.
Theme and What is it?
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role play game where players take on the role of heroic adventurers working in an area to perform missions or quests for the locals. Here they’ll be based out of the Keep on the Borderlands and dealing with both the wilderness and a network of nearby caves filled with different challenges.
The game requires one player to take on the role of Dungeon Master and run the game, keeping track of the monsters and any story that the players come across.
This box comes with a slimmed down rule set and character creation kit to help new players learn the game and gives them several hours of adventure.
What does it add?
The box set comes with quite a bit of content. There is a rules book that gives you enough rules to play the adventure included here. It also includes three setting books, one for the Keep on the Borderlands, one for the Wilderness, and one for the Caves of Chaos. It includes four premade characters with iterations of each up to level four. This includes some species and background cards to customize your character. There are a number of equipment, spell, and magic item cards. There are cards for every monster and Non-player character that make up the various towns people you’ll run into. There is a complete set of dice for the game as well as tokens for all of the creatures you’ll run into. There are also multiple maps with one for each location you’ll come across.
If you’d like a look at it, I filmed an unboxing for Instagram and you can see it here.
Do I want/need this?
Are you an experienced player or a new one?
If this is your first time playing Dungeons & Dragons and you’d like to try it out before vomiting to buying all of the books then this is a decent place to start. It is the same cast as any one of the books you’ll need to play the game and offers you enough to jump in and try it out. There are a couple of small hurdles for new players that I’ll talk about in the conclusion.
If you are an experienced player then I think that this might be a good fit as well. The Keep on the Borderlands is a classic adventure and it’s updated very well here. You don’t have to use the prebuilt heroes to play and can dive into the game with custom heroes heading in to venture explore the keep and surrounding.
Conclusions
I am a huge fan of a good RPG Starter Set. This is one of the best I’ve ever seen. All of the cards, tokens, and maps make playing this easy. Getting any bit to the table is quick and flows well without a lot of downtime. Levels for various bits are clearly laid out to help direct players to challenges that are more their level. The deck of random magic item cards help DM’s quickly reward players for the quests they’ve completed and treasure they’ve found.
The four characters set out in the box are a nice well rounded party of a fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric. Each has equipment and spells that give a wide range of things to try and look at. Equipment cards have all the rules and special abilities you’ll need to use them including any masteries and what their effects are.
The maps included are all standard one inch grids that are used in standard D&D battlemaps. Monster Cards have all necessary stats included, making using them quick and easy.
There are also several nice quality handouts for the players to help immerse them into the world.
The three adventure books have tons of information with most every possible interaction included. They do cross reference a little, I wish there was a bit more of it. It’s also a little dense for first time DM’s. They’ll need to pick a book and read large sections for when their players decide to head there.
My biggest complaint is the quick start guide. The “how to start the adventure” section is so open and vague that I feel it will be a bit overwhelming to new DM’s and players. I think experienced DM’s will be fine with what’s here. It’s the new players that the book is aimed at who I feel will struggle. Because of spoilers I won’t talk about it here. I will post an article on Friday with a more detailed look at what I think is missing and offer some advice for new DM’s to help guide their first steps into this world.
Overall, this is an amazing set. I love the condition and quality of the game and look forward to diving in for a future campaign with this as the start. This box is a great standard to shoot for with a Starter Set. This is a great onboard point for new players and a great campaign start for experienced groups. This does a great job of presenting a Legacy Dungeon to groups of all experience levels.
I hope more campaign boxes come out for D&D using this as a template.
If you’re interested in the game and would like to pick up a copy you can follow this link to Amazon and pick one up for yourself. If you do, it helps us out at Meeple Gamers and we would appreciate it.
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Until next time, stay safe and be well.
Score ~ 9.5/10