Can anyone tell me about the D&D Boxed Set?

[Ed Cha]

I'm thinking about getting the D&D Boxed Set for my nephew. Has anybody played it? Is it a good introduction to D&D for seven to eight year olds? Thanks.

 

[Sam]

I'm thinking about getting the D&D Boxed Set for my nephew. Has anybody played it? Is it a good introduction to D&D for seven to eight year olds? Thanks.

Assuming you're talking about the gold box that came out shortly after 3.0 came out, then the following applies:

The box set is how I got back into gaming, and how I got my family into gaming. My wife had never gamed, and my kids loved the box set. They were 8 and 6 at the time and were hooked after playing two times.

The rules are streamlined. Pre-gen characters are provided and are more limited than "full" 3.0 characters. For example, the cleric only has a couple of spells on his sheet, so the player doesn't have to choose 3 or 4 spells from the whole list. Same for the other spellcasters. The sheets lay out attack rolls and damage dice, give a fixed initiative (rather than rolling), show speed in # of spaces (kind of like the miniatures handbook) and give AC using melee or ranged weapons. Each sheet even has the 6 types of polyhedral dice printed on it with the type of dice printed below, so they don't have to keep asking "which one is the d20?"

I think that the box set was the best $10 I've spent on gaming materials. It has a great intro to the game, some basic adventures, a small battlemat and a full set of dice. If you get this for your nephew, you will definitely know if he's going to be a gamer. One caveat though: You (or another adult) will likely have to run the adventures for him (and his friends, hopefully).

I hope that answers your questions. Let me know if you need more info.

 

[johnsemlak]

Sam, as an aside, your link to the enworld book club in your sig has the old cyberstreet url.

Here's the updated link:
http://enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59667

Ed Cha,

I don't know as much about the boxed set Sam wrote about. Remember that WotC is coming out with a new one in Later 2004:

Here's what we know of it
http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=DBS

There was en extensive discussion of it in the General Discussion Forum.

 

[Ed Cha]

We couldn't find the boxed set anywhere around here, so we picked up the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King version of Warhammer instead. My nephew seemed to be pretty happy.

 

[Sam]

Sam, as an aside, your link to the enworld book club in your sig has the old cyberstreet url.

[HIJACK] Thanks John. Updated the sig. [/HIJACK]

Ed, you should look around for the box game, or wait for the new version of "Basic D&D" to come out. I found it a great introduction to the game. Not rules heavy, not overwhelming. Very easy to get someone sucked into the fun of a simple dungeon crawl. WotC did a good job designing a intro tabletop game that would appeal to computer/console game players.

Quick searches found it available at FRP Games and on Ebay for $9.99