Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
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 rundown 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.
Today we talk about the 2019 Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. This is a much shorter adventure, only taking the characters from first level to third level. The box set has dice, the adventure, premade character sheets, and basic rules for running the adventure. My original assumption seeing the box art was the premade characters were going to be the characters from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show, but they only feature in the artwork in the booklets and the premade characters are unique new characters. They have no names but feature a dwarven cleric, a wood elf fighter, a human paladin, a halfling rogue, and a high elf wizard. Each character has a personal goal tied into the plot of the adventure, which is something helpful for new players. the character sheets also show how the character levels up, which is great for new players.
The adventure feels more intuitive for new dungeon masters. The players can take on any of the tasks in any order and the adventure has recommendations for adjustments depending on the order they do the tasks. This can be as simple as adding additional monsters to an encounter, or removing a monster that might wipe the floor with the characters.
I have read through the adventure but I have not had the chance to run it yet. The monastery the adventure takes place at has many NPC characters the party can interact with and many have secrets the party can investigate. Depending on party composition I would love to send a kobold along with the group using the sidekick rules from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. The adventure feels more self-contained as an introduction to Dungeons & Dragons instead of the prologue to any of the published campaigns. This is great for new players and new dungeon masters.
Happy Gaming!
-Rob the Book Gnome
