I’ve been writing about Magic for nearly 15 years now and playing it since 1994 when I begged my dad to buy Ice Age starter decks for my brother and me at the comic shop at the Freehold Raceway Mall (I think it was called Zapp! Comics. The mall is still there. The comic shop is not). But before Magic there was another fantasy game I would subject my brother to for hours on end: HeroQuest. And, like many before and after me, HeroQuest became a gateway to another game and another world altogether: Dungeons and Dragons.
So when the incredibly beautiful and intelligent folks who handle Wizards of the Coast’s PR sent out a blast email announcing Heroes of the Borderlands, the new Dungeons and Dragons starter set for the 2024 update to the game’s fifth edition, I immediately knew I was going to review this thing whether I had to wait for it or not. Wizards was kind enough to send me a completely free review set and a bunch of very professional photos (much better than I could have taken with my Flip 5) so that I could write this up for my (equally beautiful and intelligent) readers who might be interested in the new D&D product.
What is Heroes of the Borderlands
Heroes of the Borderlands is an introductory boxed set for Dungeons and Dragons. The goals for the product, according to the developers, are as follows:
- An introductory experience for groups who have never played D&D before
- A teaching tool used by longtime players to introduce the game to family members, friends, or students at an after-school club
- A comprehensive resource for aspiring or first-time Dungeon Masters to hone their skills
- A source for essential game components – such as dice, maps, or tokens – that Dungeon Masters might mine for future adventures.
Personally I used it for objective #2 and introduced a handful of parents from my 7-year-old’s class to the game, including my wife who has tolerated my gaming hobby’s damage to our budget for years but had never gotten in on the fun of D&D until now (for reference I’ve been running a game for my 7-year old and her friends for several months but that’s a topic for another article). So one Saturday evening we let the kids run amok in another parent’s living room while I introduced four other parents to D&D for the first time.
The Review – 8.5 / 10
I hate reviews that make you read five thousand words and scroll through three dozen ads before they tell you their thoughts. So here’s my final assessment and then I’ll dive into some more details for those who might be interested. First, I would rate our experience overall as a group at around 8.5 out of 10. We had a ton of fun and everyone agreed at the end of the night that they wanted to play more. We spent about four hours exploring the wilderness outside of the keep and then scratching the surface of the keep itself before finally scarfing down the momos we’d ordered for dinner but didn’t eat until after wrapping up our final encounter.
But, and this is a big but (and I cannot lie), I don’t think the experience would have been as great if I hadn’t been a seasoned DM, familiar with the rules, and very comfortably helping to guide new players into their first active role-playing interactions. Even though we played through the “tutorial” encounters first, there were plenty of times where the new players really had no clue what to do, just based on my reading of the “read this” box of text in the adventure booklet. Without my nudging and explanations of how “investigation” works mechanically, they may have just spent four hours staring dumbfounded at an empty wagon on a trail just south of a large borderlands keep.
But they made it through and had a blast. The highlights included our rogue convincing one NPC that they were an infamous dragon slayer only to then get caught trying to pickpocket another NPC resulting in a very awkward experience later at the keep’s inn. Our wizard got the first kill of the campaign with the classic Magic Missile and our fighter cleaved a bandit leader in half with her greatsword. The Cleric had her hands fill with the rogue getting knocked out not once, but twice.
Despite some uncertainty and some missteps and some confusion everyone had a great time and wanted to play more and if that isn’t the sign of a great product what is? So, if you’re an experienced player looking to introduce your friends and/or family and are willing to get behind the screen, this is probably a great option. If you don’t have an experience member in your playgroup my advice is to spend time to read through the rules carefully before getting started, and don’t be afraid to explore.
As far as the game being a comprehensive resource for DM’s, I think that’s mostly marketing speak. Anyone who’s spent any time in the TTRPG space knows that there are oodles of companies out there making products for D&D to help Dungeon Masters. I could write an entire series on that topic but suffice to say, I think plenty of DM’s will have a preference for the more generic dry erase products over the game pieces this boxed set comes with.
So if you want to have and introduce some folks to D&D, this is a great set to start with. I have plenty more thoughts below, but these will be more geared towards more experienced D&D players. If you’re just wondering if it will be a good way to introduce your friends to a game you love, the answer is resoundingly yes. If you’re just wondering if it’s a good way for a completely new group to learn D&D I would say, probably, but it’s going to depend a whole lot on whether your group has someone with the right mindset to sit in the DM’s chair.
If you wanna read more, let’s go!
The Good
So you already know that the game is “fun” but was there anything else good about it? Absolutely! Here’s a quick rundown of what I thought Heroes of the Borderlands really got right.
First, it felt like Dungeons and Dragons. The Keep, the Wilderness, and the Caves of Chaos are all very well fleshed out and detailed with almost every mundane character you run into given some level of motivation and a real place in the world. At the same time, the setting is incredibly open-ended. The players are free to explore the environment as they desire, moving at their own pace. Most importantly, while the details are there, they are also open enough that the players can make their own mark, and make it feel like their own setting. To me, this is the most important part of playing D&D, taking the world handed to you by the designers, and making it your own.
Secondly, while I already mentioned my preference for third-party supplements to help me DM, I have to give Wizards credit for the incredibly well-made maps, handouts, tokens, and cards that come with this box set. The tokens, cards, and character sheet (or play mat if you prefer) were very helpful for my new players to get accustomed to everything they needed (though not without caveat as I’ll go into later). Most importantly, the monster card deck and NPC card deck were both among the most helpful DM supplements I think I’ve ever gotten from a Wizards product. Not only was the design great, the execution was perfection. Being able to pull out a card instead of continually flipping through the adventure book was phenomenal (and why I use similar supplemental products for Monsters and NPCs when I run my own games). Kudos to WotC for including these.
The Bad
But it wasn’t all roses so to say. While the handouts were helpful, some could be a hindrance. The character sheet play mats in particular I thought could have used a bit more thought in their design. They were clearly meant to mimic the general sort of character sheet experience we’re all used to with abilities and skills grouped together, inventory, and abilities. However, each of the four party members in our game missed something on their sheet. One player didn’t read the recommended origins and was confused later on when they realized they would have preferred the other choice. Most players had no idea where to find the attack or damage roll information or spell DC’s. No one really knew which side of the cards to keep face up.
D&D’s rules can be very overwhelming. The game I run for my 7-year-old uses a watered-down set of rules in order to keep things simpler. My table of 40-something year old parents have the mental capacity for D&D’s rules, but they weren’t presented in the most intuitive way on the character sheets.
What also was not well-presented was when the party was expected to roll to play and when they were expected to role-play. Especially in the early encounters, there was a significant amount of hand-holding when it came to helping to guide the players to make decisions. “You come across an abandoned wagon. There is no driver and you see no horses.” An experienced player might have the party’s rogue check for traps. Have the fighter set up a perimeter or scout for ambushes. My new party just kind of waited for more information.
I told them to take a look at their character sheet, especially the abilities and skills, and see if anything sounded like it might be applicable. This led to a productive discussion but it’s why I feel very strongly that this box set may not be ideal for a completely new group of players. I completely recommend it to any experienced player who wants to introduce people to a new game, but they’ll have to do some hand-holding. A brand new DM may not be ready for that.
The Ugly
Teaching someone how to be a dungeon master is probably the steepest challenge that Dungeons & Dragons faces as it tries to expand its player base. This boxed set may not be doing Wizards any favors in that respect. The way the set tries to hold the DM’s hand through the tutorial is by adding a ton of information that only the DM is meant to read. But there’s a huge problem with that. Either the DM is sitting there, at the table, in the middle of board game night, reading a short novella, while the rest of the players just kind of sit around and twiddle their thumbs, or the DM has to have spent a decent amount of time reading all of the booklets that come with Heroes of the Borderlands before actually playing the game, which kind of kills the whole “we’re a new group of players who want to learn D&D” objective.
Going back to the four goals the designers stated that I highlighted earlier:
- An introductory experience for groups who have never played D&D before
- A teaching tool used by longtime players to introduce the game to family members, friends, or students at an after-school club
- A comprehensive resource for aspiring or first-time Dungeon Masters to hone their skills
- A source for essential game components – such as dice, maps, or tokens – that Dungeon Masters might mine for future adventures.
I think they mostly failed at number 1. It’s entirely possible there are some groups out there who would be okay, especially maybe those who for some reason play something like Pathfinder and just now want to get into D&D, but mostly if this is your weekly board game crew playing things like Catan and Talisman or your Commander crew this may not go over that well.
Number 2 they hit out of the park. No doubt.
Number 3 is another big miss in my book. The DM’s guide is still the best way for DM’s to hone their skills, and playing with experienced players would be more helpful than diving in with a completely new table of players.
Number 4 is a maybe. Again this is a problem mostly solved by third-party companies but I know Wizards can’t help but try to make more money off of maps and cards and tokens.
I still recommend the product, but really only if you have at least one experienced player at the table, even if they don’t want to DM, who can help hold everyone’s hand through the experience.
Rich Stein (He/Him) has been playing games for as long as he can remember and began his journey into Dungeons and Dragons when he picked up a copy of the 3rd Edition Players Guide in a mall in Cleveland while on a family vacation in late August in the year 2000 before his senior year of high school. In his spare time he runs this Magic content site and writes new bios for himself at the end of every article to keep his business partner Donny entertained.