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Box Set, 2006, $24.99
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Content
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10
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Organization
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13
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Consistency
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12
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Intelligibility
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13
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Overall
12
Near Miss
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Review Scoring
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Dungeons and Dragons: Basic Game is designed for new
players and Game Masters alike. The game provides four double sided tiles, four player
character miniatures and eight monster miniatures, four sample rule books for four
classes, two books for Game Masters, and a set of dice. The Basic Game, as one
would expect, uses a simplified version of the 3.5 Edition rules to introduce the game
to new players. While this works well for beginners, experienced players teaching the
game to new or young players may find the rule changes and omissions frustrating. Even
more frustration can arise when it comes time to explain the more complex rules.
The four classes provided in the Basic Game are the fighter, rogue, cleric and
wizard. This subset of the basic classes provided in the Player's Handbook
provides the beginning player with an excellent sampling of the different playing styles
available in the advanced game, while not overwhelming them with some of the nuances
of classes such as Monk, Druid and Ranger.
The adventure provided is a short, five part delve that climaxes with a battle against
the iconic dragon. It also provides the players with the first experience leveling up
a character, albeit with simple character sheets that are partially completed for the
gamer.
Unfortunately, the short adventure provided, while giving plenty of
opportunities for gamers to try different skills (search, spot, open lock),
is really too short for a new gamer to learn enough to be ready to dive into
a more complex adventure using the full ruleset on just one play through. Also, without
any followup "basic adventures", the basic game loses a lot of its appeal for teaching
new gamers the rules of Dungeons and Dragons.
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