DnD Red UnBoxing

Behold! The newest DnD Red Box! The Dungeons and Dragons Essentials Starter Set! Check behind the cut for more stills from the set.

A nice spread of everything included in the box.

New style character sheet. The paper is thicker than normal printer paper, but it's not quite cardstock. I also really enjoy the simplicity of this sheet. It gives you the information you need, it's very easy to read and it's not too overwhelming like many previous sheets.

We have the token sheet, double sided. It gives you lots of different mobs to choose from, including my personal favorite the Gelatinous Cube! It also gives you several male and female PC tokens to choose from, with Bloodied (red ringed) versions on the opposite side.

The double-sided poster map is nice, but new DMs may have trouble finding new reasons to have people traverse the same or similar locations. The first thoughts that came to my mind for the "Monster Lair" was for it to actually be the base of operations for the party, make them defend their home, loots, or perhaps a prisoner.

As for the crossroads, I really like the idea of making it right at the exit of a town or settlement. Perhaps there is a patrol who guards the town and issues a toll. You may have to fight or bluff your way in. Maybe the next time you have to get back to town, you're being chased or ambushed. It's generic enough to give you the ability to have multiple encounter on the same map.

The second side is a really mish-mashed dungeon when you first look at it, however the beauty of it is that it doesn't all *have* to connect in the way it seems. You can just use the "Starting Location" technique of starting the encounter in a certain room even it's it's no necessarily next to where the last combat was.

Often if you use dungeon tiles, you may have an encounter where an enemy should run, but you'll have to struggle to grab more tiles to create his escape route. This map already has those hallways there for you to use. Also, it's nice to be able to just have a large amount of winding corridors at your disposal. It's fun to have a lone screaming goblin alert room after room of minions as he runs away from the PCs.

All in all, I'm very impressed with this starter set (and most importantly, it's price point). It's cheaper than the last starter set, and offers so much more to a beginning gaming group than the last. It really helps hold your hand on the first couple of encounters, but it gives you the ability to grow.

If this is the quality we should expect from the DnD Essentials line, it'll be a great series of books in my library.

~Channing