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Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game: an Essential D&D Starter

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 246 ratings
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  • The ultimate game of your imagination, complete with monsters, magic and treasure.
  • For 1 or more beginning to intermediate players. Ages 12 and up.
  • Dungeons & Dragons Essentials
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Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game: an Essential D&D Starter

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Product Description

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

Important information

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Basically unused. Unpunched tokens and player cards. Comes with dice that are not the original. Everything looks to be in good condition!!

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
246 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the product easy to use and a good value for money. They find the game fun and exciting, with simple character creation that takes characters to the second level of experience. The pre-written adventure is also appreciated, as the Dungeon Master creates the story.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
Ease of useValue for moneyFun gameCharacter creationPlayer book contentStorytellingTokensQuality
113 customers mention "Ease of use"82 positive31 negative

Customers find the product easy to use. They appreciate the introductory rulebooks and cards, which provide a simplified introduction to the game. The books are detailed and the cards and pieces are useful additions. It's a great starting point for D&D 4th Edition, with a simplified version of the rules that shows how stats work.

"...-PC and NPC tokens for easy referencing on a map or even just a table..." Read more

"...It is a very simplified version of the rules that will show you how stats work, and ease you into learning about roleplaying...." Read more

"...I imagine it's even better for truly new players who don't have 30 years of legacy D&D knowledge rattling around in their brain." Read more

"...Everything you need in one red box of goodness. It has all the rules, tables, dice, counters, cards, maps, (beautiful btw) and character sheets you..." Read more

57 customers mention "Value for money"54 positive3 negative

Customers appreciate the value for money of this starter set. They find it a good quality product with clear instructions on how to play the game. The box has a classic look and comes with enough to get you started.

"...Not made of jade or anything exotic, but they are fine starter dice. Only missing d% which isn't necessary to play...." Read more

"...For that, it loses points. It does have some neat items that allow you to get a feel for the game, such as a dungeon map and little..." Read more

"...some other rule books to expand your adventures, but this is a GREAT starter set...." Read more

"...The cards are not of card stock quality, but are serviceable enough...." Read more

38 customers mention "Fun game"38 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the game. They find the beginner's quests entertaining and helpful for continuing playing new adventures. The player starter book and the beginner's quest are a classic that help them learn game mechanics. The children enjoy playing the scenario, but there is very little explanation of the game.

"...It is inexpensive and it will ease you into gaming in a way that can make it easier for some people to understand...." Read more

"...Sure, the choices are a little limited, but it is a wonderful way to learn game mechanics...." Read more

"...Full color, easy to read, quick to follow and fun even if you dont know the first thing about RPG's or fantasy gaming..." Read more

"...All in all, this is a pretty entertaining, if simple, tactical combat game with RPG overtones...." Read more

25 customers mention "Character creation"20 positive5 negative

Customers enjoy the character creation in this product. They find it easy to create characters quickly using the simple essentials character sheets. The product introduces new players and DMs to the basic 4th edition rule set. It helps children enhance their creativity and build teamwork skills.

"...You actually play during character creation, and the story is affected accordingly! Pros:..." Read more

"...of the rules that will show you how stats work, and ease you into learning about roleplaying...." Read more

"...The adventure that comes with this starter set is very cleverly designed for a new player...." Read more

"...My last gripe about this is the fact this book can only generate first level characters...! Seriously?..." Read more

13 customers mention "Player book content"10 positive3 negative

Customers find the player book content engaging and easy to follow. They describe it as a complete boxed set for new players to get started with D&D. The player and dungeon master books are written clearly, and the quick reference allows them to play without needing additional books. The starter kit includes everything needed to start playing, including tokens for characters and monsters. It introduces solo play to help you decide if you want to try it.

"...Its easy to follow and it even introduces solo play to help you decide if you should be a fighter, wizard, cleric or rogue...." Read more

"...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..." Read more

"The D&D red box starter kit is a decent guide for any new player just starting out on D&D. It gives a basic introduction to some Races, Classes,..." Read more

"...It is a complete boxed intro to gaming and adventure...." Read more

13 customers mention "Storytelling"13 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the storytelling in the game. They say it's set up with a particular story, fantasy, and roleplaying. The dungeon master creates the story, plays the role of monsters, and decides what. They appreciate less dice rolling, more imagination, and basic combat with more details on gameplay in the group adventure. The mission inside keeps everyone interested until the DM can get their stuff together. The book comes with a code to download an extra story from the Wizards website.

"...You actually play during character creation, and the story is affected accordingly! Pros:..." Read more

"...a bunch of tokens for characters and monsters, maps and a cool pre written adventure to take characters from level 2 to level 4...." Read more

"...The DM book comes with a single adventure, and only the ability to get to level 2...." Read more

"...meaningful tasks, within defined rules but with an emphasis on creative thinking...." Read more

11 customers mention "Tokens"11 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the tokens. They mention that the product includes cardboard tokens to represent players and monsters, dice, and cards representing skills and items. The box contains neat-looking character tokens, but that's its only strength.

"...It has all the rules, tables, dice, counters, cards, maps, (beautiful btw) and character sheets you need to start playing right out of the box..." Read more

"...comes with a nice looking double sided map, some cardboard tokens to represent players and monsters, dice, and cards representing players skills and..." Read more

"...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..." Read more

"...Giving players cards to hold and use, a nice map for layout, and in my opinion, a better to-the-point character sheet, made all the difference here...." Read more

12 customers mention "Quality"3 positive9 negative

Customers are dissatisfied with the quality of the product. They mention the cards are not made of card stock, the books are printed on poor quality paper, and everything is cheaply made.

"...They aren't high quality, but they will introduce you to the concepts...." Read more

"...The cards are not of card stock quality, but are serviceable enough...." Read more

"...is built into the introductory adventure, and the components are of a high quality...." Read more

"...it's job pretty well, although I have a problem with the quality of some of the materials and the lack of some important info in the books like..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Adam W McBride
    5.0 out of 5 stars My girlfriend and I are newbies, this rocks!
    Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Hello all, long time gamer here. Always had an interest in Pen and Paper games but never had the friends (a common problem I hear). Well my girlfriend and I bought this just for fun to try together, and let me tell you what: This is a fantastic little box o' goodies. I doubt we'll even PLAY DnD 4th edition (3.5 is just far too appealing for me to deny), but that doesn't even matter. For the price of a movie ticket, I got this beauty delivered to my door!

    It has been designed EXACTLY for people who have no idea of what to do, but need a little push out the door to get started on their own adventures. The "player's book" is where you should start, and helps you through the otherwise daunting process of character creation. You actually play during character creation, and the story is affected accordingly!

    Pros:
    -SUPER, SUPER high value purchase for anyone even remotely curious about DnD 4th or a newbie in general
    -Nice fold out, double-sided map with several different areas to use for referencing
    -PC and NPC tokens for easy referencing on a map or even just a table
    -Almost full set of dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) Not made of jade or anything exotic, but they are fine starter dice. Only missing d% which isn't necessary to play.
    -Both the Players Book and Dungeon Master's Book (Not the full, core rulebooks, but still PLENTY of information given)
    -Classic box design graphics. It feels like I'm stepping back in time 40 years when I look at the box and realize how much fantasy games have come over the decades. Very, very cool feeling of "coming home" as a PC gamer who never played growing up.

    Cons:
    -DnD 4th edition in general seems to favor schwag items (things that are only aesthetic serving and even sometimes required?). The biggest thing comes to mind is the grid-based combat and the almost literal need for an ARMY of miniatures in order to play by the rules. I personally prefer using my imagination and maybe just a token with the number of enemies. The drama and suspense felt between the DM and players could easily be ruined by instead players trying to better position themselves on a grid for numerical advantage.

    -Combat is perhaps over-simplified. I have dual degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science, and I was almost insulted coming to this from my 3.5 players manual. Wizards rolling like fighters for attack rolls? I can't even find a spot for concentration checks in this little set, so I'm guessing they are removed from 4th?

    Final Words: I was trying pretty hard to think up Cons for this package, but in all fairness they are null and void given what you DO get. Buy this now, maybe several. They could change a young girl or boy's life forever as gifts, and at less than $15 for this you would be hard pressed to find a better value for your money.
    8 people found this helpful
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  • GoodBetterBest
    4.0 out of 5 stars Know what you're buying, and you'll be all set
    Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    We bought this boxed set of the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition starter set for a specific reason: To introduce our children (and reintroduce ourselves) to D&D.

    My husband and I haven't played any tabletop RPGs since we stopped playing D&D 2e when we were teenagers. We recently decided we wanted to get back into playing the games, and also to introduce our children to gaming as well. After a bit of research, we bought all 3 core rulebooks from 3.0e because that was what seemed to fit best with how we wanted to play. We also bought a few rulebooks from other rpg systems to play around with.

    But what we really wanted was a simple way to introduce the concept to our children without having to go into great depth and losing them with too much info all at once. This set is perfect for that.

    It isn't the same rules that you'll end up using if you get the core rulebooks and make full characters from scratch. It is a very simplified version of the rules that will show you how stats work, and ease you into learning about roleplaying.

    We have only played through the first 'solo adventure' so far. It's basically a Choose Your Own Adventure that dumbs everything down, assuming that you have zero idea of what you're doing. It doesn't allow for rolling for stats, it gives you a basic set of numbers with modifiers for certain races and classes. I don't know if this is exclusive to this set, or if this is how D&D 4e works, but I certainly hope it's just this set.

    The adventure is actually pretty confusing, so I wouldn't just hand it to someone and tell them to have at it. Even when you 'choose option a and go to section 25' as instructed, you will inevitably skip over parts (like how many HP your character gets)that are integral to character creation. You'll be confused until you figure out that because you didn't take damage in your first combat encounter, you accidentally skipped the part where it explained how many Hit Points you are allocated.

    I don't see this as being a complete boxed set that will get you started in D&D. I see this as more of a starter set that will introduce complete newbies to the concept of pen and paper gaming. If that's what you're looking for and you can get this for a good price, I say go for it. It is inexpensive and it will ease you into gaming in a way that can make it easier for some people to understand.

    This item does have a few glaring flaws, such as the solo adventure being confusing to follow. The writers seem to be aware of them without having fixed them, they tell you at the end of the adventure to 'go back and fill in what you missed'. For that, it loses points.

    It does have some neat items that allow you to get a feel for the game, such as a dungeon map and little cardboard tokens to use as characters and monsters. They aren't high quality, but they will introduce you to the concepts.

    If you prefer something that doesn't cater to small children, I would go ahead and buy a used set of the core rulebooks from an earlier edition such as 3.0. You can buy a full set of 3 for under $20 on Amazon, so it isn't a huge investment to start. A lot of people still play with these rules, so you are bound to find some people to play with.

    If you are aware of exactly what this item is and what it can do, it can be a good buy for you. But don't think that it's something it isn't, and it isn't a full introduction to Dungeons and Dragons.
    5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Jason T
    5.0 out of 5 stars great deal
    Reviewed in Canada on August 26, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I enjoyed everything about this, and it made me want to expand the collection.. It is alot of fun and highly recommended
    Report
  • Boone
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good for an Introduction
    Reviewed in Japan on May 27, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    If you want to join a 4th edition D&D group, this is a great way get started on your own without anyone calling you a n00b, Books walk you through a legitimate campaign while helping you build a character you can use with other players later.

    It didn't work for my purposes. I want to introduce a group of teens to D&D, who've never played it before. Further, it looks like ALOT has changed since I played the first edition back in the 70's. I've ended up having to buy the core books in order to learn enough to teach my teens. This was a waste of my time and money. But that's not the fault of the product; it's the due to poor product presentation. I'll try to resell it later.

    But again, if it's just you and you want to save face by getting up to speed on your own before joining a group of veterans,
    OR
    if you have a small group and none of you have ever played before, and y'all want to try it out before sinking all that money on a full set, then this set would be IDEAL.

    For either of those situations, I couldn't recommend it enough.

    It's reasonably priced, and it ushers new players into this incredibly complicated but fascinating and academics-annihilating pass time. It starts off like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books where, based on your decisions, you are advanced to certain pages and instructed how to build your character in the process. By the end, anyone using this should be able to play without any trouble.
    Report
  • Cass
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Product
    Reviewed in Canada on December 12, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This is a great starter pack for beginners! It has a beautiful box and nice little tokens and booklets inside. However, it's not very interesting. The race and class selection is very bare; It pretty much only teaches you the rules, and that's it. The first adventure was essentially fighting 2 wolves and 2 goblins, and that was it. There's one more that I haven't done yet, but I have to say that once you learn the rules while playing Red Box you should move onto something more complex
    I'm happy to have this in my collection, but once I learn more about the game I will not be going back to the red box :P
    Report
  • Marlys
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners, good price and good way how to ease into the game......
    Reviewed in Canada on May 26, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Pretty good. I'm just getting into DnD and this is perfect. My friend (who is hard-core into Dnd) said he liked it because you can create your character in your first adventure. So everyone isn't sitting around figuring out what kind of character to make. I liked that too. I agreed with him. It was better than how we did our last game. Everyone sat around all wishy-washy, fickle and confused.

    I like how you can play alone so you can understand the game at your own pace.
    I had to use the last part of money on one of those visa gift cards. I had just enough money to buy
    Red Box. It's a good price too. :)
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  • zachery
    5.0 out of 5 stars Short story, but enough to get you started.
    Reviewed in Canada on November 23, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Exactly what I wanted to start playing. Not a lot of information, but enough to get you started. Even started our own story right after.
    Report