D&D's “Heroes of the Borderlands” starter set “Smoothing complex parts”

The new D&D starter set, Heroes of the Borderlands, wants to play the game without worrying about what the hit points are. The RPG starter set has a balance that is extremely difficult to strike. On the other hand, they need to take people playing the game by making it easy and fun to try on and sit at the table. On the other hand, they also have to teach the rules and make you crazy for a long time. After all, if you don't start a new player to D&D, what is the goal of a D&D starter like Heroes of the Borderlands? It's like a video game demo. You want to get a good sense of how the game plays to see if it's worth sinking in a few more hours. Then, if everything goes well, that handful will be hundreds or even thousands of hours. That's the beauty of D&D. Also, with the new starter set of Heroes of the Borderlands, WOTC appears to employ many board game techniques to try to make the game smoother. I can't help but wonder how it will help or hinder new players/DMs taking their first steps beyond the box. Let's take a look! Heroes of the Borderlands – Preview of Peace One of the big marketing points of Heroes in Borderlands is D&D's “The Biggest Starter Box of All Time”. And that means it comes with lots of bells and whistles. Or, like in this case, it comes with tokens and cards. There are cards for all items. Gear cards. Big cards representing your character sheet – everything seems like something off board games like Wingspan and Galaxy Trucker. A recent preview of D&D Beyond has looked into some of the tokens and other elements in the box. It focuses on “physical components that help you introduce players to the game and immerse yourself in the session.” And that makes sense. One of the first big stumbling blocks for people is the vast number of numbers you have to walk to understand who your character is. I ran the session for people who had never played D&D before using simple pre-processed characters, but the initial response was mostly in ververversed, the “Whoa thatus thats over numbers” shade. However, in the heroes of Borderlands Starter Box, each character sheet has its own board that helps you lay out the game. “The bards in each class teach important game mechanics using tactile elements such as hit points and SSP ELL slot tokens, equipment and spell cards. And that makes sense, right? They visually represent these abstract concepts. Do they do damage? Remove hit points tokens. Are you spending money? Use tokens. Boxed sets do a lot of heavy lifts (and thinking) for you: “These cards keep his game flowing smoothly. Players don't need to flip Thrugh's book to find out what they have or what they can attack the characters. They're sitting on the character board! In fact, when you set your predictions, many of the previews of heroes in Borderlands talk about what they have to worry about the rules. “Players don't worry about which points will be purchased or what Hit Die will do.” Instead, they just go with a class board. This may be the fastest route for people to actually play the game. But it also cuts out one of the best parts of D&D that are making your own character. That was the purpose of the Dragons of Stormreck Isle and its accompanying starter set. Here was a box where players could dream of their own heroes as part of their first session. But again, it's roaming through even more numbers and rules before you play. I think the starter set is inherently better or worse for all its physical components. But if you're a first time in a game, you might think that D&D is like a board game. There is always a point when you realize that new players don't have “objective” or “wins” and everyone is having fun. So, running DMS in a box may help you set the expectation that not every game in D&D comes with its own tactical maps and small miniature tokens. It's a deluxe experience, but it's not usually the norm. Everything falls into the realm of imagination. At the very least, until you can upload your creativity directly to your virtual tabletop. But without anything else, the new Staert set looks like a bigger and more accessible stepping stone than ever before. Heroes of the Borderlands will be released on September 16th! Staff writers and DMs for Bell of Lost Souls, JR covers all the striped RPGs and sometimes eats sandwiches. You can ask him about either (email protection) Read Comments (1)