
Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set is a brilliant starting point to get into the TTRPG hobby
One of the joys of playing a tabletop role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons is the freedom of choice that these sorts of experiences offer players. Any sort of wacky and wild idea someone can come up with can be played out, such as making a bear familiar glow and appear to be on fire, enraging them, and sending them crashing through a closed door to scare off the Kobolds inside who are having lunch (a specific example of one of my own clever plans). For those unaccustomed to it, it can be overwhelming to have so much freedom, so having products that can introduce the genre to folks is paramount, and the new Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set is one of the best boxes that I have come across that does just that.
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Contents:
- 3 adventure booklets
- 8 character class boards featuring iconic D&D classes
- 1 quick-start guide
- Reference booklet
- 5 in-world immersive handouts (including a tavern menu and shop catalogs)
- 9 double-sided poster maps
- a combat tracker
- 11 dice
- 210 game cards (including spells, magic items, and equipment)
- 273 tokens (including monsters, terrain, and resources).
Like most TTRPG starter sets on the market, Heroes of the Borderlands contains everything a group of five players (1 game master and 4 players) needs to get going on adventures. You get some nice-looking maps, a ton of tokens to represent monsters, players, and gold, a general play guide, three different small adventures, everything you need to make characters, and most importantly, a set of dice. For the $49.99 price tag, you get a good bunch of content in the box, and all of it is really nice quality (the tokens have a really nice sheen to them), but what has really won me over on this box has specifically to do with how it approaches and handles character creation and item management.
Character creation is one of the most time-intensive and exciting parts of a TTRPG, and most starter sets provide a hodgepodge of premade character sheets for players to pick from that fulfill the standard roles to create a well-balanced party: a tank that can soak up damage, a sneaky character good at picking locks, a glass-cannon magic user, etc. Borderlands still has those to pick from, but this new set also provides far more flexibility, thanks to the plethora of cards that have been included.
These simple-to-read cards feature different weapons, armor, spells, abilities, and more that players set on their character board, giving a bit more of a sense of ownership over their character and what they can do. Weapons, for example, clearly show right on the corner of the card what you roll and what modifier you add to get the damage. Armor shows how much defense it adds to your armor class. Spells even have little spots to place tokens on as a sort of physical spell slot. Removing the need to sort through a book or around a sheet to figure out what something does, and instead clearly displaying it on a card in front of the new player, goes a long way in removing some of the hassle and frustration for new players.
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This shift to cards extends to other aspects, too, including monsters, NPCs, and handing little help cards to each of the players that show the various actions you can take on your turn. This sort of approach isn’t really new, as many big campaign RPG board games use a similar card-focused approach like the Divinity Original Sin board game, Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era, and Gloom/Frosthaven. Even Dungeons & Dragons offers card versions of magic items and other gear that you can buy and use in your campaigns. As someone who is no stranger to flipping through book after book to find an item or monster stat I’m looking for, these cards are so incredibly handy to have, and it’s a brilliant move on Wizards’ part to include them in this beginner set.
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While not related to the gameplay per se, one quality of the Heroes of the Borderlands set that I find to be incredibly important and welcome is how it promotes and nudges players to take turns running sessions as a Dungeon Master. Each adventure and its corresponding supplemental materials make this not only a wonderful product to learn how to play the game as a character, but also help those who are running the games. Each of the three quests isn’t overly long and provides the person running it with enough information to comfortably run it with enough little gaps for some silly role-playing fun and spontaneous hijinks, which, let’s be real, is where the real joy of TTRPGs can be found.
With a price tag of more than double the previous Starter Set, Heroes of the Borderlands offers plenty of value for its price tag and an overall better new player experience than the last option. I hope that Wizards continues to evolve and refine this card-based character sheet idea further, perhaps even going so far as offering dual-layered player character boards one day and accompanying decks of cards with future books
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You can snag a copy of the Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set for yourself for $49.99 over on Amazon and at your local game shop.
RPGSite was provided a review copy of this Starter Set to cover.