Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game: An Essential D&D Starter (4th Edition D&D) [Game]

Wizards RPG Team (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 7, 2010 | Series: 4th Edition D&D

The best way to start playing the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons® Fantasy Roleplaying Game - in the classic D&D Red Box.

Designed for 1–5 players, this boxed game contains everything needed to start playing the Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game, including rules for creating heroes, advice for playing the Dungeon Master, a solo play adventure, and group-play adventure content. Learning the game has never been so easy!
 
Several different character races (dwarf, elf, halfling, and human) and classes (cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard) are presented, along with powers for each race and class. As the players’ heroes advance in level, they acquire new abilities, and the adventures become more challenging. This boxed game is designed for characters of levels 1–3.
 
Game components:
 
• 32-page book for players, with rules for character creation and a solo adventure
• 64-page book for Dungeon Masters, with the rules of the game, advice on how to run the game, and adventure content
• 2 sheets of die-cut tokens for characters and monsters
• Cardstock character sheets and power cards
• Double-sided dungeon map
• 6 polyhedral dice

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Game: 96 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast; Brdgm edition (September 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786956291
• ISBN-13: 978-0786956296
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9.1 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (109 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

402 of 407 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Buy it. May 1, 2011

By michael a. higbee

Format:Game|Amazon Verified Purchase

The bottom line is, D&D is a lot of fun. But it's confusing at first. You have to do some homework, familiarizing yourself with some complicated rules. But soon it all starts to flow and you get the idea. Don't listen to all the other whiners about how the 4th edition rules ruined everything about the game, etc. Rules just provide a rough framework. The role playing/imagination element is up to the people playing the game. This isn't chess. You CAN just make it up as you go. The starter set gets you going and has what you need to make several cool characters and take them through a pre made adventure with battles and challenges up to level two.

However, the D&D product line is very frustrating and confusing for the beginner, like me. It's full of redundant products, so I couldn't figure out what I really needed to buy beyond the Starter Set. I've wasted a lot of money. So here is what I wish someone had told me.

You DON'T need to buy the "Core Rulebooks" ($66). They can be easily substituted with other things. For instance, if you buy the Starter Set, you'll make characters using powers and abilities that don't even come from the Player's Handbook (PHB), but come from "Heroes of the Fallen Lands", which is a "supplement," but fills the same role as the PHB. If you buy Heroes of the Fallen Lands instead of the PHB, you'll have info about making characters that's more compatible with your Starter Set.

What about the Dungeon Master's Guide(DMG)? Buy the Dungeon Master's Kit instead. It comes with an equivalent book, plus a bunch of tokens for characters and monsters, maps and a cool pre written adventure to take characters from level 2 to level 4. Oh, and a dungeon master's screen, too.

And the Monster Manual?... The "Monster Vault" has an equivalent book (a few less monsters, but still plenty to work with) plus more monster tokens, maps and another adventure ready made to send 4th level adventurers up to level 5.

To summarize, if you get the "Core Rulebooks" you'll spend $66 and have three cool books, but no stuff with which to actually play the game (maps, dice, something to represent characters, monsters, etc. and you'll have to create your adventures from scratch, which can be fun but difficult. OR, you can spend $73 for the Starter Set, Monster Vault, DM Kit, and Heroes of the Fallen Lands and have the equivalent of the core books, PLUS all the other cool stuff to play with and get characters up to level 5 and beyond. By then, you'll have all the experience you need to create your own adventures a lot more easily. You won't need to buy minis, graph paper or battle mats or anything, except maybe a few more sets of dice for each player.

You'll probably end up buying the core books sometime anyway, just because they're cool. But do it only because you want to, not because you think you need them to start and enjoy a long career playing D&D. Read more ›

108 of 120 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars What it is, what it isn't September 16, 2010

By Cinemaphile

Format:Game

So I've read through and examined all the contents (a sample copy) and here's what you need to know. The Red Box is NOT a "basic" set, in that it would provide you everything you need to create a character and play through at least 3 or more levels of the game. This is not at all like any of the basic sets that TSR or Wizards of the Coast have published to introduce new players to D&D.

It IS a "starter" set, in that it will be a good intro for new players or those new to 4th Edition D&D. As a starter set, it excels by giving you a run-through adventure, a Dungeon Master book, cardstock counters, a map, etc. to learn the game. The quality of the kit is not in line with the previous 3.0+ D&D box sets, (this set has flimsy cardstock and uses counters instead of miniatures) but the price is right for what you get--especially on Amazon.

Main Strength?
I'm not a 4E fan per se, but there's a lot to like with this introductory set, that simplifies the rules and provides a very easy to grasp description of the main game elements. It would make an excellent gift for someone who might be interested in trying the game (great for kids).

Main Weakness?
The main downfall is that once you understand the game, you're never going to need it again. It's a springboard and little else. You'll need to buy the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Compendium anyway. In that sense, it makes this box crippleware, but really good-looking, fun to unwrap crippleware!

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent but limited starting point September 12, 2010

By F. Uy

Format:Game|Amazon Verified Purchase

This new presentation of the renowned classic RPG was designed to appeal to old school gamers who did the boxed set & ADnD back in the day, like me. I hoped it would be a good way to introduce the hobby to my children, and those hopes were well-founded. The kids are having a blast. It's a fabulous starting point for D&D 4th Edition.

BTW, 4E is vastly different from any previous version, barely recognizable compared to 1E. I think that the changes are for the better, but YMMV.

My main gripe with Red Box is that it very carefully fails to include any straightforward listing of class features, weapon & armor stats, prices, etc. For example, my son wanted to use a bow, but it wasn't an option in the book. I ended up just winging it. There's really no way to use this box alone and run a proper campaign for 2 or 3 levels, the way that the original box set could do. This is a starter set, and ONLY a starter set. If you want to continue, WotC expects you to buy the (more expensive) followup books.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Effective introductory product, with some mistakes October 8, 2010

By Benoist Poire

Format:Game|Amazon Verified Purchase

This introductory boxed set to the 4th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons is mostly "hit", with a few "misses". Generally, it is way better than any of the other introductory product to the game that preceded it during the 3rd or 4th edition of the game.

It is *not* the equivalent of the legendary "Red Box" D&D authored by Frank Mentzer in 1983, in the sense that it does not provide a fully functional game system in and of itself. It is more comparable to the Holmes "Blue Book" D&D of 1977, in fact, in that it does provide a few character levels, means to create characters via an entertaining "choose your own adventure" text which also manages to teach you some of the fundamentals of role playing games, and then provides whoever chooses to run the game as "Dungeon Master" with enough material to run a few adventures up to the end of the 2nd character level, at which point it assumes you will upgrade to the full D&D Essentials line of products, that is, Heroes of the Fallen Lands: An Essential Dungeons & Dragons Supplement (4th Edition D&D) for players, Dungeon Master's Kit: An Essential Dungeons & Dragons Kit (4th Edition D&D) for DMs, and Rules Compendium: An Essential Dungeons & Dragons Compendium (4th Edition D&D) for both players and DMs, at a minimum.

You get a lot of stuff for the price you pay.... Maps, tokens to represent monsters and characters, seven sheets of power cards (9 detachable cards per sheet), four printed character sheets, a coupon giving you access to another "choose your own adventure" module you can download from WotC's website, a set of polyhedral dice for use with the game, the Player's Book, and the DM's Book. That's a very good value for the amount of money spent on the product, in my opinion, whether you end up playing the game or not.

Now, there are some areas in which the game can be confusing. Some options in the "choose your own adventure" Player's Book might make you miss some steps in building your own character, which you'd have to figure out on your own by flipping back and forth through the book at some point. Some of the powers and abilities for characters described in this book does not match the powers and abilities of characters in the wider Essentials line of products. There is a strong emphasis on tactical, board-based game play, which may or may not be a plus to some people, depending on their own play styles and tendencies.

So it's far from perfect. Nonetheless, I think that it does its job nicely. It's a decent, good game product that you will play for a little while, before upgrading to the other Essentials product. In that sense, it hits the mark. In the sense of a fully playable, self-contained and endlessly replayable game, it fails miserably. But that is not what this game brands itself: it is an introduction product, and I rate it as such: Good, or 4 on 5. Read more ›