Dungeon Starter Sets
Lately I have been getting questions by parents on how to get started playing Dungeons & Dragons. My go to response is always to check out one of the starter boxes for any of the current edition or the edition they are looking to play. When I was just getting started, I had the 3rd edition starter kit and fell in love with the game and now spend almost every waking moment thinking about it and other games. My goal here is to give a quick run down of each published book for this edition as well as help new gamers get started in this hobby make it easily approachable.
5th edition has a few starter sets, the first one had a green dragon on the front of the box and has the Adventure, The Lost Mines of Phandelver. The second set was the Essentials Kit with the adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. The third version was the Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. They also made both a Stranger Things and Rick and Morty starter set, but I have not had a chance to read through one and hunt down the other.
Starter Set 2014: This starter set includes the adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver, a basic rules booklet, character sheets, and a set of dice
Lost Mine of Phandelver: When the dwarf Gundren Rockseeker goes missing the group is instructed to investigate, finding multiple enemies working for a strange figure known as the Black Spider, and a lost dwarven mine.
This was the introductory adventure in the starter set for 5th edition and it takes place in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. I ran the first few encounters for my home group and then took it to a game store to run before I even had the Players Handbook for this edition. There are many types of encounters across the module from standard fighting the monsters, negotiating with the undead, to freeing a town from band of ruffians. My favorite encounters were the goblin caves at the very beginning and the green dragon in the forest from the cover of the Starter Set box art. This adventure is a great tool for new groups and can be used as a starting first through fifth level campaign for most of the adventures published afterwards, which a few started after 5th level. When I ran this adventure, I tweaked the final area, adding in a few custom creatures due to the large number of players I had at the game store. The town of Phandalin can serve as an adventure hub for further campaigns in the Forgotten Relams.
They also made an entire adventure around this Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. It is a pretty solid adventure I will revisit at a later date.
Happy Gaming!
-Rob the Book Gnome
