D&D General Actual Play: Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set

[Paul Farquhar]

Some new quibbles, though: Digging through the tokens to find, say, the three lizardfolk when that encounter is rolled in the swamp, really slows things down

Yes, I had similar issues. I’m inherently disorganised and I had to do a lot of rummaging around trying to find what I needed from all the pretty components. I found it easier with pencil and paper. And the monster tokens would have been easier to use with simpler art to make them stand out, rather than using the arty illustrations, with all the extraneous background details.

One thing that struck me is they didn’t tokenise the initiative tracking, still using pencil and paper.

For the person I was testing it on, I think they would have had an easier time with a plotted adventure like Stormwreck Isle, rather than a sandbox. They also seemed to have trouble interpreting the maps. But then they also struggle with road maps so I think that was a personal quirk.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, no one I've run if for now had any problem with the maps. The players got quite excited about having everything labelled in the keep, for instance.

Amusingly, as someone who knows B2 well, no one noticed the canyon where the Caves of Chaos is on the wilderness map. I think an NPC is eventually going to tell them to go to the area.