Review: Dungeons and Dragons Roleplaying Game Starter Set

Well, everyone, here's part one of my review of the new Starter Set. Part one will focus on what's actually in the box, while part two will say what it's like to actually play the game.



The game came in a cardboard box, with all these plastic sausage things in it. They're fun.
I got the game off a really good site called GamesLore.com, if anyone's interested.

The box itself is bigger than I imagined. I pictured a small yet thick box. Actually, it's like what you get a jigsaw puzzle in. Here's a photo, with Thok for comparison.



And the back...



Unfortunately, rather than having a lid, the box opens at the top. This is only a minor mumble, however, and the 'D&D' logo on the tab is a nice touch.



At the side, there, you can see all the stuff that came in the box. All else there was was a set of dice. Don't get me wrong, though - there's plenty there. The DM rulebook is 60+ pages.



Sorry about the blurriness of the above photo. It shows the six dice that come with the set. Black is a the, red is a d6, orange is a d8, green is a d10, yellow is a d12 and blue is the famous d20.

What you get in the box, apart from the dice, are:



Three double-sided sheets of Dungeon Tiles. These are made from really tough cardboard, with a plastic coating. They should last you a while.



A double-sided sheet of counters, to represent players and monsters. These are made from the same stuff as the tiles. I'm slightly annoyed they chose not to put miniatures in anymore, but it did halve the price of the set, so I 'spose it's okay.



And finally, two basic rulebooks. These don't contain anywhere near as much as the full rulebooks, but they're more than enough to play the basic adventure, and probably others.
The one on the left is for players, and is about 15 pages long. The first 5 pages are rules, and then the rest is the 5 pre-generated characters for the players to use. It would, of course, be better if the character sheets were separate, but you can download them as PDFs on the website, so no worries.

The other book included is called the 'Dungeon Master's Book'. I haven't read through all of this, as it's only for the eyes of Scott, our DM. However, I flicked through it. It's got the same rules as for the players, then some extra ones for DMs. Then there's a short adventure to play through. At the back is some tips to DMs for creating their own adventures, as well as about 30 pages of information on monsters.

Overall, this set is really good value. For £10, you get all that. How it plays, I shall see on Monday!