I know this post is pretty late to the party considering US based content creators got a head start on the rest of the world when they were able to buy this starter set and cover it during the Target exclusivity window. Everyone else has had to wait until it was released last month. Even then I’m a little later than others.

But I did only get my copy three days ago.

The big question I had to ask myself is do I have anything worth adding to the conversation about the new starter set?

After all there are some pretty great content creators out there that have shared their thoughts on it already. Some in the time since it has come out have even ran it, and shared more thoughts on it.

So what could I possibly add to the conversation about this new starter set?

You know I haven’t played the adventure. My initial impressions are exactly that. So take them for what they are.

So straight out of the box you get the following when you open it up.

• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle adventure
• Basic rules book
• 6 dice
• 5 pregenerated character sheets

WotC still don’t give a full set of dice in the box. They should at least provide two d20’s. But they don’t.

The Dragons Of Stormwreck Isle adventure is smaller compared to the original starter adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver.

For starters it takes characters from levels one to three, compared to characters finishing at level five in Lost Mines.

Page count is less 48 pages compared to 64.

But looking at the adventures and the dungeon maps players will explore, the maps are just smaller. Less to them. Having said that I’m already planning to reuse one of the maps for my current campaign.

I’m not sure why they reduced the scope, and size of the dungeons. Maybe the feedback WotC got over the years since Lost Mines was released is that new players and DM’s found the adventure too daunting.

I love the art in the new starter set, especially with the characters depicted being the characters from the 80’s D&D cartoon.

One thing I’d have liked to have seen included in this updated starter set is the inclusion of cardboard standees. Although a dream inclusion would be the Wizkids Idols of the Realm 2D starter set they do for this. Yes the price would go up but it would rake this set to the next level.

A digital code to unlock the adventure on D&D Beyond should have been included. No ifs or buts. This omission is mind boggling.

An A4 wipeable grid sheet to use as a battle map, similar to the ones WotC used in their DM kits would also have been nice. Along with a DM screen like the one in the essentials kit.

Although the fact WotC did create complimentary videos to help players and DMs get started, and provide a link to it in the box was a nice touch.

I don’t think the new starter set is an improvement over the previous one. So I’m unsure why they changed it. If it had some of the things added that I mentioned above. Yeah I can see why it was updated. The changes were needed to compete with similar starter sets from other systems.

But change for change sake? It feels like a money grab to me.

Yeah this will allow a group of friends curious about trying D&D to do exactly that. Which is what it’s intended to do.