Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit (D&D Boxed Set) Video Game – September 3, 2019

The product is as I expected. It has everything I need to (hopefully) play D&D one day with friends under the same roof. The back of the box came pretty damaged. But it’s just a box, so I don’t care that much. This game has helped me a lot during the pandemic, though I’ve only played it online. I’m looking forward to enjoy a long lasting relationship with this new hobby.

Like all D&D it's nice

The box came absolutely mangled, but the contents inside were unharmed. The DM screen is made of cardstock instead of the nicer screens you can buy. There are a bunch of nice handouts that are beneficial for new players. Would recommend as a gift for a new DM.

Just starting 5th edition for my kids and I was an old school 3.5 edition DM.The box set gives you what you need to start out playing. The rule book is nice, and quick and easy to understand.The DM screen is fine, has good info in there, and makes it smoother running the game. Also I like the touch with the cards… though I don’t see the point of the initiative cards as it is just easier to keep track on a piece of paper than handout collect, handout and collect… although for a beginning group it might be fun? Spell cards would have been much nicer… and why ever they didn’t print out the basic stats on the sidekicks cards is a bit shocking. Yes, basic personality is good, but not nearly as useful. The dice, meh, they work. Kinda nostalgic for someone who started played 26 years ago.My major beef with the game is the module. I’ve ran a handful of starter modules… this is by far the worst put together one I have ran. Especially for a started DM. The maps are great, the descriptions are fine, but it’s not new DM friendly. No random encounter tables, the boxed text that is supposed to be read by the DM to describe the scenes are far and few in between. Storytelling and creating a mood is such a big part of DMing and modules, and this gives surprisingly few boxed texts to read to the players, leaving it to the DM. So many other modules do a great job of describing in boxed texts pretty much all bigger encounters and I never realized how much easier it makes it on the DM until running this module. Which is a shame… because it’s a starter.