Customer Reviews

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Starter Set (D&D Introductory Game)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are new to 4th Edition, or new to Dungeons & Dragons entirely, and are hesitating to invest in the books -- I actually recommend starting with the module that Wizards of the Coast released before any of the books, and before the Starter Set -- It's called Keep on the Shadowfell (Dungeons & Dragons, Adventure H1), and it's a module for first to third level characters. Because it was released before any of the other materials, it has all of the Quick Start rules that make it a stand-alone product, and has the versatility of being an enjoyable module in tandem with other books (Player's Handbook, Adventurer's Vault, Martial Power, Dungeon Master's Guide, etc.) should you decide to go ahead and purchase them later.

That said, if you are new to roleplaying games altogether, there are probably things for you in the Starter Set that wouldn't be in Keep on the Shadowfell. I've just been helping people get into 4th Ed. since before the Starter Set existed, and wanted to share the Keep on the Shadowfell option with the Amazon crowd.

- L. R. Steventon

Note: this is a STARTER set not a BASIC set for those of you old enough to remember the pre 3rd ed days...in other words it will get a group started (and with a bit of work on the new DMs part will take a group to the end of 3rd level) but it is not supposed to be a self contained game and you will need to eventually get the core books.

This is a GREAT product for a new group or a player who wants to have a go at DMing.

It consists of 16 page Players Quickstart Rules booklet. This is divided into a good 6 page overview of the mechanics of the game and a how-to-play with the final 10 pages devoted to 5 pre-generated characters so the players can jump right in.

The real beauty of this product is in the 62 page Dungeon Master's book. This is roughly divided into a 33 page Dungeon Master Quickstart Rules which includes a short 7 page introductory adventure and a 29 page Monster Manual. This booklet really breaks down the basics of running a game in an easy to understand format and provides the basics for creating your own adventures/dungeons or adding to the existing adventure. The adventure is a simple mini-dungeon crawl which is made easy to run whilst at the same time giving the new DM the chance to get a feel for running the game (and the players a great introduction to the game). It will, perhaps, take the players to 2nd level. There is the option to easily expand this adventure using just the DMs booklet or to slot this adventure into the H1-3 series of published adventures. Finally, the monster section details about 60 of the most classic monsters for low-level adventures.

Finally, there are over 50 monster and character tokens and a selection of dungeon tiles that are provided for the introductory adventure. As usual the quality of the tiles is great and with the tokens this will provide an atmospheric introduction to the game for the players. There are also 6 standard dice.

All in all, this is a fantastic product providing both player and DM with an easy introduction to the game and their roles. It is easy to understand and simply explained and is also self-contained enough that a new DM could use this product alone to create their own adventures and take players to the end of 3rd level. The only potential downside is that it does not give the player's the tools to create their own pc's so the pre-generated characters (dwarf fighter, halfling rogue, eladrin wizard, human cleric and dragonborn paladin) are all there is. In that sense the set is aimed firmly at the budding DM or new group rather than the individual player. But as an introduction to the game and especially DMing and creating your own adventures this product is fantastic.

The Starter Set is specifically designed as an introduction to 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons for new players. It contains everything you need to learn the basic rules of the game and play a session or two with pregenerated characters. By the time you have played a few sessions, you will probably be ready to pick up the Player's Handbook and create your own characters.

What's in the Box?

- 16-page Quick-Start Rules book
- 64-page Dungeon Master's book
- 3 sheets of Dungeon Tiles
- 1 sheet of character and monster tokens
- A set of six polyhedral dice

The Box Itself

Let me rant for a minute about boxes. I really like good game boxes because you can chuck all kinds of goodies in them like dice, miniatures, pencils, etc. The boxes for both versions of the 3rd Edition D&D Basic Game were a little big, but sturdy. The box for the Starter Set sucks. It's not really a box at all. You just get a thin, outer `shell' with a cardboard liner to give it some stiffness. It is not useful at all for future storage of the Dungeon Tiles, tokens or dice that you get in the set. I give it a D-.

Quick-Start Rules Book

This is a very quick and dirty introduction to the rules. The booklet does a pretty decent job of covering the game's major concepts in a short span of six pages. The focus is on the game's tactical elements - movement and combat. The rest of the book's 16 pages are taken up by five sample characters; a Dwarf Fighter, a Halfling Rogue, an Eladrin Wizard, a Human Cleric and a Dragonborn Paladin. Each includes enough information to advance the character up to 3rd level. Unfortunately, there is basically no advice on actually playing a character; just the nuts and bolts of how to move and fight.

I would have also prefered that each character had been provided on separate sheets to hand out to players or even if WoTC had provided PDF versions of the character sheets on their website. As it stands now, you will have to head to the photocopier/scanner or rip up the book.

Dungeon Master's Book

As the name implies, this book is designed to be read by the Dungeon Master (DM). In D&D, the DM bears a heavy burden. It is his responsibility to know the rules, create the campaign world (including adventures) and run adventures in that world. He is also ultimately responsible for a large part of what makes the game `fun'. The DM's book puts it this way:

The book provides a suprisingly good introduction for the prospective DM. Good advice is given on everything from playing monsters fairly to vividly describing combat. Also included is plenty of crunchy stuff including most of the same combat and encounter rules from the Quick-Start book. You also get a (very) short three encounter adventure and rules for building encounters, running skill challenges, traps and hazards, and creating dungeons. The book is rounded out with a surprisingly robust monster section. If you count all of the individual types (five varieties of goblins for example) you get more than 50 different monsters from levels 1-4.

The Dungeon Master's book is the strongest element of the Starter Set. The only problem that I could find with it is that it leaves out rules for some of the monster abilities like insubstantiability for the Phantom Warrior and disease for the Dire Rat. It also makes a cardinal sin for me by not including an index. Any book of this length (especially one designed for a beginner) should include an index.

Dungeon Tiles

The Starter includes three sheets of WotC's nicely produced Dungeon Tiles. All three are from previously released sets. Two sheets are from DT7: Fane of the Forgotten Gods and one sheet is from DU1: Halls of the Giant Kings. The tiles provide a pretty decent selection of generic elements, but the inclusion of the tile from DU1 has less useful stuff like giant-sized doors. I have a sneaking suspicion that these particular tiles might have been included because WotC had a surplus of them, but that's just a guess.

Token Sheet

The token sheet is of the same thickness and material as the Dungeon Tiles. The art is nice and taken straight from the DM's book. The monster tokens are all double-sided with a different monster on each side. I thought it was a nice touch that you get eight tokens each for common monsters like orcs and skeletons. The five player character tokens have a green normal side and a red `bloodied' side. These are really nice and make for a great portable alternative to miniatures.

Conclusion

The Starter Set is a decent enough introduction to 4th Edition D&D, but less successful as an introduction to roleplaying in general. I also think it is more valuable to prospective DMs than it is for prospective players. With the Starter Set and a Player's Handbook you could actually get started running a campaign with no Monster Manual or Dungeon Master's Guide. If you are interested at all in 4th Edition D&D, pick it up and see for yourself.

This starter kit comes with everything you need to start playing D&D and for the money, it's the best "first D&D" purchase. The only complaint I've heard from D&D players is that the kit doesn't contain the rules allowing you to generate a character and thus you are limited to the 5 characters provided. To work around this, just search for the D&D character generator and download the demo from the Wizards of the Coast website. This lets you generate new characters of level 1-3 without any rule books.

And this makes a great gift for someone that might like D&D!

Ok, I'm a 41 year old nerd who used to play with the original basic and advanced sets when I was younger. After seeing that Wizards of the Coast was releasing a "fourth" edition, I waited for months for this basic set to be released so I could introduce my son to the world of D&D.

For a "basic" set of rules, it seems awfully complicated. The created characters are interesting, but the rules seemed really confusing to me. I remember in the original set where some pretty awkward things happened because the system was so simplified... well now it seems overly complex.

With the basic rules back then, you could do everything from creating new dungeons to new characters - you'd never NEED to buy anything extra, they just had the advanced books for gamers who really enjoyed it - and we did. There's nothing here about creating your own characters. They give you five characters, but don't tell you how they came up with any of the character's values.

In the original edition, you'd have a list of all the basic supplies you could buy and how much they cost. Now, realistically, you could price things based on supply and demand, but the new rules don't even give you a starting point. There's no chart that shows you that X type of armor gives you +Y armor class, and adding a particular shield or helmet gave you more...

In fact, they tell you nothing about that sort of thing at all. As another poster commented, it's all an advertisement you have to pay for.

So the characters finish the first encounter... the enemies had weapons that the players took... but how much damage do they do? Can our player characters use them? How do I figure the modifier for each character? I DON'T KNOW. And that's the problem!

Props to Amazon for the cheaper price, which made it more worthwhile. The included tiles are VERY GOOD quality, I have to admit. The quick-start guide, with the exception of the pre-built characters, is bird cage liner. The longer booklet that comes with the set has the exact same information in it.

The problem I have with the tiles is that I have no idea what they are. So I have dozens of two sided "chits" with different "monsters" on each side... and then you encounter some goblins... well, which ones are goblins? I DON'T KNOW! And who knew there's like four different kinds of goblins? I do now! Only I don't know off hand what the artists who made the chits thought they looked like. So I was doing these encounters and I was like "Well, there's three of this type of goblin... I'll just use these chits to represent them, and two of these other types of goblins... oh... these look like they'll work." Of course, I could have spent a half hour looking them up in the back of the book and then flipping the chits over and over again trying to match their pictures. Because... well... that'd be a LOT of fun, wouldn't it, while my kids are waiting for something to happen.

But at least they were good quality.

Playing was OK, but it just didn't seem nearly as fun as when I first learned. We were all excited at that time to get the advanced books; now it's like we have to buy the core books to do anything worthwhile at all.. you MUST buy them if you want to make your own player characters, for example.

I suppose we will keep playing; I'm hopeful it will get better after getting the more advanced books, but for a starter set, I was very disappointed. I think the simplicity of the original Dungeons and Dragons "Red Box" was one of the things that made it work... so involved, so much information, yet it included enough detail so that you could do anything you wanted. Not so the fourth edition starter set, where you barely get enough to get by, and then you can't do anything without buying supplements. Just terrible.

So, as a bottom line, as for playing the game, it was fun. The kids liked it, I liked it when it seemed like we were on a roll. We'll be getting the "core" books as a package, and a few other things to go with it. The game seems overly complex, but I think we can handle that.

But this is a review of the "starter set," and as a starter set, not D&D 4e. I was really disappointed. It's like a monopoly starter set with only the first side of the board (as opposed to, for example, getting a whole playable game but omitting some of the more complex features of monopoly, like hotels and mortgaging, but the game would still actually be usable).

So... Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition, based on what I know so far, I'd optimistically give four stars... but this starter set... two. That's what happens when a huge company buys you out, I suppose, but it beats going out of business completely.

Now just to rant... why'd they have to keep changing it? It was pretty darn good back then. I suppose you have to keep changing to get people to keep buying.

Do not buy this! Buy Keep on the Shadowfell instead! It has the same exact starter books and rules and this product is a complete waste of your money unless you need dice and a few dungeon tiles.

This does give a good view of what the new rules are like, but why they did not make "Keep on the Shadowfell" the official starter's set by including the dungeon tiles from this set only points to the fact that Wizards is still all about money more that about making their customer's happy. In fact, the adventure that comes with it is a basic three part encounter with Kobolds which is VERY DISAPPOINTING!

If you are new to D&D and roleplaying, the intro to these rules will not make a whole lot of sense. It seems they were aimed at people like me who wanted to get a taste of the new rules before buying the three main rule books.

Conclusion: you want to see what the new D&D has to offer, ignore this useless product and buy "Keep on the Shadowfell" instead. You will have a good introduction to the new D&D rules and a great adventure!

i went to a local gaming store with some friends, and purchased this, by recomendation of an employee. he claimed it was a great was to learn the rules and to get some basic knowledge of dnd. he was wrong. there was no clear explination of how to fight monsters, and it took us 5 mintues to decide how to deal damage. our wizard was almost killed in one hit by a grossly OP goblin.

later on we made up some rules and my friend dm-ed and i controlled all 5 pre made characters in a dungeon he made. it was fun, but making up completely new stats for the monsters was a drag.

the dice have been criticised by many reviews i have read, but i liked them. they were simple dice, and colored differently, which helped avoid confusion because i could just say roll the orange one instead of looking for numbers to see what die it was. the dungeon tiles were also pretty cool, but weren't worth the price (18$ after tax)

Quickly: Disappointing for me but would be great for a new DM/group.

Summary: This starter set includes everything a group of players and DM need to get into the new edition of the rules (minus pencils and paper). There are two books included, a small pamphlet like Quick Start Rules Book and a Thicker Dungeon Master's Book. The DM's book is quite large for a starter set measuring 60 Pages. Also included are a set of gaming dice, three sheets of Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Tiles and a sheet of counters to represent a wide range of players and monsters.

The Quick Start Rules cover all your basics, explaining the D20 system, how to make skill checks, how combat works, how to read a power, etc. It also includes 5 pre-generated characters.

The DM's book starts with a bit about what a DM does and includes the quick start rules again but in more detail, giving information on how to set Difficulty Classes and other DM specific information. After that is a short adventure set in the same area as described in the full Dungeon Master Guide and featured in the official WotC H series modules. The module uses the dungeon tiles and chits included. Then the book goes into some detail about creating adventures, giving information on how to set up an encounter, the monster types, how to pick monsters and even providing tips on building an interesting encounter. The book finishes off with a Mini-Monster Manual.

In all the book includes enough information for a group of players to start off with the module in the book and then using the rules in the DM book had the DM build adventures to get the characters to 3rd level.

The Good: One of the best Dungeon Master books I've seen in a starter set. I've never seen a starter that talks about monster types, how to build a dungeon and how to make fair encounters. Usually these types of boxed sets give you a huge block of monster stats and an unkeyed dungeon and that's about it. This is an awesome resource for someone who is considering getting into 4th edition but isn't sure. At about $20 this is a very cheap way to 'test out' the new rules. You basically get a full RPG that is good for 3 levels of play for that price and that's hard to beat. Adding to the value even more are the dungeon tiles, dice and encounter tokens. The dungeon tiles included are some of the most useful ones out there and include a variety of doors, some statues, various sized difficult terrain, A table with chairs, a switch, and a couple large rooms and a few corridors. Everything you need to get you started, and actually a great addition to the existing tiles as it will give you duplicates of some rather useful tiles.

The Bad: I ran the included module last night as an intro to 4th for my players and it was lackluster. It was alright but barely had any roleplay in it and only included 3 small encounters, the last of which seemed way too powerful for 1st level characters. There was no wrap up at the end either, it just ended with no notes on finishing it up. I know what I'm doing when behind the screen so this wasn't much of a problem and I just improved but for something supposedly for new DM's this was a bit odd. Minis would have been much better the counters, though you do get a lot of counters (way more then if they had included minis).

The Ugly: What really frustrated me about this is that I expected a Starter Set like previous ones that had been released. There would be a series of short encounters that each explained a section of the rules. This what had been done in the past. I really wasn't expecting one tiny adventure and that's it. Also the Quick Start Rules are nothing new and are identical to the ones that you can now download free on the WotC site and match the ones that come with Keep on the Shadowfell. The first half of the DM's book is the same thing: there's nothing new. I was surprised by the sections on designing encounters and the slew of monsters in the back half of the book, but this is totally unneeded if you have a copy of the actual DMG and Monster Manual. I would say this start set is only actually useful to someone just getting into the game for the first time.

Overall: This is a great starter set for a group taking their first steps into 4th edition of D&D. All of the rules you need to get a group from 1st to 3rd level are here. The Dungeon Master's book also includes a full Monster Manual for levels 1-3. The problem with this set though is that it's only actually useful for a new group. The quick start rules have been published before and are now free, the module included is not worth running if you aren't new to the game and you can get a set of 6 dungeon tiles cheaper then the cost of this set. So if you are thinking of getting into 4th edition this is a good place to start, if you are already in, skip this one and spend your $20 on some minis or some Dungeon Tiles and have some cash left for a new D20 for your next character.

I bought this looking for a quick and premade dungeon that would get my group acquainted with the 4e rules.

The tiles are nice and of great quality, the dice aren't pretty to look at but they will certainly get the job done.

The problem I had is their "pre-made adventure" which "can take you characters from level 1 to 3!" consisted of 3 maps, and that's it. After that they have an area that says "Dungeon Continues?!?!" and then they tell you to get off your butt and create the rest of the adventure. The rest of the book is a short monster manual.

Do I have a problem making adventures, nah, but I pretty much bought this in the hopes of saving myself an afternoon of planning so we could just open the box and jump right in. Sure we could jump right in for about an hour, but then the dungeons would be over.

If you don't have any of the other books, players/DMs/Monster, then this would be a great a little starter. But if you do have the three core books then just stick with those and create your own adventure, this won't get too much actually going.

Because they gave me some quality tiles and they sum up the rules of the game pretty well I will give this 3 stars, not bad, but not close to what it could have been!

I bought this Starter Set along with: Dungeons & Dragons Basic Game (2006) (Dungeons & Dragons Game). I bought this one because I learned that there are different versions of the game and the game has evolved quite a bit in the many years it's been around. The difference between this game and the other one is this game is a good intro to the latest D&D version 4, where as the other one came out in 2006 and includeds miniatures. I really like the Miniatures which are small figurines all painted up and seems like it would be cool to use them. But I also wanted an up to date version, and acording to a local Comic, Magic The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons brick and morter store that also host these games. They said that most of the players that play there don't use the miniatures. So I wanted to try this game that did not have them so I could check out 2 versions of the game and decide what I like best. I also like the books that come with this set: 16 page Quick Start Rule Book, 64 page Dungeon Master Book from what I have read through they are both great to start with and to learn what each has to teach you would in my opinion give you a great foundation to learn to be a Dungeon Master and/or a Player. You also get 3 sheets of Dungeon tiles and 1 sheet of Tokens, all made of very thick glossy cardboard and very nicely illustrated. You also get 6 dice to get you started. The Tokens will take the place of the miniatures, and all dungeon tiles and token sheet are double sided. As a total newbie I think if I would have gotten just one game I would have been happy with this set. Because of it introducing you to D&D v4, and I am not sure about playing with or without miniatures at this point. I would recommend this game to newbies like me who know nothing about D&D because I am sure I will get a good foundation to start with. But I must add the Miniatures are really cool and you should really check them out too, I just love the Dragons!