For many, Dungeons & Dragons may seem like a insurmountable entry point to the world of RPGs, and, in many ways, especially without at least one seasoned veteran in your group, it isn’t necessarily an incorrect assumption. The all new Dungeons & Dragons – Starter Set: Heroes of The Borderlands aims to eliminate that hurdle not only for new players, but new Dungeon Masters (DM) as well, while still providing a fun experience for seasoned veterans.

Spoiler Alert: As someone who has both played and run D&D campaigns for the past 30 years, this starter set is hands down the best introduction I have ever seen to D&D and made it super easy for my 12 year-old, who has been wanting to play, to jump in and have a great time.

Dungeons & Dragons – Starter Set: Heroes of The Borderlands is an all-in-one game set for 2-5 players, ages 12 and up, and takes about 30 – 60 minutes to play if you’re choosing characters and going up through the first couple of encounters. It’s currently available from Amazon as well as just about any gaming store that carries Dungeons & Dragons products for about $49. In addition, both physical, digital, and a bundle are available on D&D Beyond.

Dungeons & Dragons – Starter Set: Heroes of The Borderlands was published by Wizards of the Coast.

This review is going to be a little different than a lot of our game reviews. I am going to focus mainly on how the components work to streamline and create a great entry to Dungeons & Dragons and less on the actual gameplay since there are hundreds if not thousands of resources on actually playing the game which doesn’t really change beyond the usage of the components.

This set strives to make D&D more accessible by removing rules, spells, creatures, statistics, etc. that are not necessary for the specific characters and adventures found within, while providing plenty of play aids – cards, maps, tokens, etc. and using a plethora of standardized call outs and highlighs across the components to simplify things (for example, almost every component, from the Adventure Booklets to the NPC cards has a “What You Need to Play” highlighted section to make it easy for each player and the DM to gather the things they need.

This is a large boxed set and it includes a lot of components.

All of the books and maps are printed on heavy duty semi-gloss paper. All of the cards are on par with most table top games (which is a vast improvement over the much cheaper feeling perforated cards of the previous Starter Set we tried out a couple of years ago). And the cardboard tokens are all of thick durable stock and printed on both sides.

The maps are all huge, full-color, highly detailed, and have grids on all of them except the overland maps.

All of the tokens that need to be punched out.One of the best upgrades to the tokens in this set is that that monster tokens are lettered on he backside. For example, the four bandits have A, B, C, D on them. This is extremely helpful for the DM to keep track of which is which especially for turn order, tracking health, etc.

This is a really fun addition to the game – five flavor handouts. There is a menu for the inn along with price sheets for the temple, provision store, and weaponshop, and a letter to the players. This is a really brilliant way to give new players a handful of options for what they can purchase without them having to stare at pages of tables.

The four Class Cards.Technically there are 8 Class cards but that’s because each Class has 2 cards with 2 sides. The first has Level 1 and Level 2 and the second has Level 3 on each side but with a different specialization (that players choose when they hit Level 3).

The Class card is the perfect example of how Heroes of the Borderlands streamlines rules and confusion for new players without actually sacrificing any of the complexity and rules of Dungeons & Dragons. Seasoned players will notice immediately that there are NO STATS for your character. I will admit this rubbed me the wrong way when I first looked at the card, but the reality of it, is that those numbers are pretty irrelevant when it comes to actual gameplay nowadays. What does matter are the bonuses those ability scores give your character for different skills and so only the relevant skills and bonuses for the specific class are shown.Why innundate players with a bunch of numbers and skills that often cause more confusion than clarity?

Each card also has a “What You Need to Play” box in the bottom corner to make gathering components quick and easy. Initiative, Speed, and Hit Points are front and center on the card with hit points being tracked using tokens. Armor Class has a card slot where a spell or equipment card can overlay when AC is enhanced. Each class card also has two card slots appropriate for the particular class that help explain some of the classes abilities (ie, the Wizard card has a cantrip and spell card slots while the Fighter has two equipment card slots in the event of dual-wielding).

Right beneath these card slots, each card has the relevant rolls during combat for that class so players do not need to figure these out for themselves, nor does the DM.

There is a section on each Class card with specific Class Features, often with spots for power tokens. This makes it really easy to know what special abilities your character has and how often you can (and have) use them.

And on the right edge of the card are slots for the Species and Background cards.

When a character levels up, the card is flipped over and all the appropriate leveling changes are done and in hand for them! No need to spend precious play time minutes looking up what to change or modify on your character sheet. At worst, the player will need to pick a couple more cards or tokens and then they are ready to carry on.

There are four available species in Heroes of the Borderlands – Elf, Dwarf, Human, and Halfling. Each Species has two variants – one more feminine presenting, and one more masculine presenting. Other than looks and the corresponding token, the two flavors of a given species are identical. Each species has special abilities noted on the back of the card.

There are eight backgrounds to choose from and while they are firstly intended to enhance a player’s backstory and role-playing, they do give the player a few extra abilities or bonuses to add variety to the classes.

Equipment Cards.Equipment Cards make it really easy for a player to see what they have in their inventory and reference exactly what the equipment does (on the back of the card) without having to look through pages and pages of equipment.

Not to overstate the simplification of this game, but only having a handful of spell cards that are specific and relevant really does cut down on confusion and time spent figuring out which spells a player should choose. I am sure many of you, like me, has sat at a table while someone spends 20 minutes or more figuring out spells. Limiting the availability of spells, while putting nice easy summaries of how they work on cards like this, really streamlines so much about playing a spellcaster. One other addition to this set is the spellbook equipment card. While it doesn’t actually do anything, it is a really brilliant way for a player to keep track of what is in their spell book versus what is actually memorized. All of a player’s spell cards go under the spellbook card except for those they have memorized for the day. Its a very simple mechanic that I think really brings to life the way a spellbook works in Dungeons & Dragons, especially for visual folks.

One of my favorite things about the spell cards in Heroes of the Borderlands is that spells with a range, have this really nice, easy way to help visualize the scope and range of a spell. Since all of the maps the players do battle on have 5′ scale grids, these pictographs make it super easy to see exactly how the spell will interact with the characters surroundings.

The On Your Turn Cards take and even further simplify and put at the forefront for players the most common actions and basics of combat. While these types of cards are fairly standard in many table top games, it’s really nice to have something like this available for Dungeons & Dragons versus this information being spread across multiple parts and pages of a character sheet.

Magic Item cards work exactly the same as Equipment Cards but have a different colored border to more easily track with equipment is magical versus non-magical.

NPC Cards are for DM use and make it really quick and easy to gather necessary components, along with providing the DM some quick flavor on how the NPC can and should interact with the players and what they can potentially do for (or against) the players.

The Monster cards are double sized cards with gorgeous art on the front for the DM to show to the players. The back of each card has all the relevant details the DM needs for the players to interact (and fight) with the monster – AC, HP, Speed, Initiative, Immunities, Traits, Actions, and even flavor text.

The goal of the game, to oversimply for something of this scope, is to have fun, use your imagination, and complete adventures without your character dying (although even that isn’t necessarily a complete roadblock to playing the game)!

Dungeons & Dragons – Starter Set: Heroes of The Borderlands has streamlined the setup and preparation for playing D&D to an amazing degree. The very first choice to be made is who will be the DM and which of the three adventure books the group will start with. The full range of adventures are split into three books so that no single person has to be the DM and can run adventures without seeing all of the secrets and details of the other adventures. For our first game, I as the DM while my wife and son were the players. We chose the Wilderness Adventure booklet to begin with (which also happens to be the recommended starting point for new players).

The first page in each Adventure Booklet gives the DM an overview of the adventures in the book, a Getting Started guide and a list of items that are needed to begin. In the case of the Wilderness it is the Wilderness map. While it isn’t necessary for the DM to read through the book in advance, I would recommend doing so just to make play flow a litle more smoothly. In the Wilderness booklet, there are 4 areas available for players to explore and for first time DMs the Trail is recommended as that section also functions as a tutorial for new DMs.

While the DM gets the adventure components together and sets things up, the players get ready by choosing their characters. Like everything else in this set, player creation has been streamlined and reduced to choosing from a handful of options. Players first choose their class card (Wizard, Fighter, Cleric, or Rogue) and set it before them with the Level 1 side face-up. They then choose their species (Human, Halfling, Elf, or Dwarf) and the corresponding player token, placing the card in the Species spot on the Class card. Next players choose their Background card, placing it on the Background spot on the Class card. Once each player has their character chosen, they gather any additional cards (Spells, Equipment, etc) and tokens (health, gold, power tokens, etc.) they need as indicated on their cards. Each player should also take an On Your Turn Card. The last thing players should do is choose a name (which actually took my son longer than the entire rest of the character creation process)!

While there is a Play Guide that players can read through, it is absolutely not necessary. However, it is really amazing that they were able to generate a 30-page streamlined Player’s Handbook that manages to cover everything needed to get started playing AND understand all of the mechanics if a player chooses to.

I’ve never spent less than a couple of hours prepping for a D&D game. Which is usually why I always try to do that session 0 ahead of time so it does not cut into play time. Getting ready to jump into Heroes of The Borderlands took us all of about 15 minutes.

One of my very few negatives about this boxed set is that it does not include a DM screen to protect the DMs book, dice rolls, etc. from player’s eyes. This isn’t a huge deal of course, and already having several screens made it a non-issue for us but brand new players and DMs may need to get creative if they want to hide things!

A game of D&D consists of the DM narrating and describing the world, non-player characters (NPCs), monsters, etc. The DM knows what will happen (or at least what random things can possibly happen), and guides the players to role-play what their characters say, do, and how they interact with the world. The DM will frequently prompt players with questions, have them make skill checks to accomplish things, and of course, control and play the NPCs and bad guys the characters interact with and fight.

While technically the game is not over until the players have finished every encounter in all three Adventure Booklets (which is enough for many, many hours of play), a given session can end just about anytime. At least in the Wilderness booklet and in the Trail region, we were able to create our characters, and go through three encounters in about an hour. We stopped at the entrance to the Woods region of the Wilderness where we’ll pick up next time.

When a session ends, each player should put their cards, tokens, etc. into one of the provided baggies. This is essentially a “save” of each character. This is also where one of my very few gripes about this set comes into play – if you end your session without character’s doing a long rest (something that happens quite often), there is no good way with the given components to know the exact status of a player – were they at 10 of 12 hit points, which spell slots had they used and not recovered yet, etc? This is the one downside to not having a paper character sheet. However, I think the simplicity for new players far outweighs that and it was fairly easy for me to just jot down a few notes and stick it in the Adventure Booklet for next time. It would also work to have players have multiple baggies to keep all of their components together while tracking which things were used versus not, but I’d rather just take a few notes than use more plastic.

If you, or some of your friends or family, are new to Dungeons & Dragons, and they have been hesitant because they are intimidated by it, this is the set to bring to your table. If you have been a player and have wanted to try your hand at being a DM for the first time, this is the set to bring to your table. If your kids are interested in “that game” you play with your friends, this is the set to bring to your table. With things in the book like the above sample play, and all of the streamlined components, Heroes of the Borderlands makes D&D as easy to get out and play as any modern tabletop game (and even easier than a lot of them), which is not something I’d ever have said before using this set.

I can say with full confidence that Heroes of the Borderlands is not only the perfect starter set and introduction to D&D and being a DM, but it’s fun and a breath of fresh air even for seasoned veterans like myself who, sometimes, just want to play some quick D&D without getting bogged down in what a full campaign with your gaming group may entail.

Order your copy of Dungeons & Dragons – Starter Set: Heroes of The Borderlands and get started adventuring!

Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.

Source: geekdad.com