Challenger Series (1992)
The picture is actually, Dragon's Den, but this version was boxed like a board game, included stand-up counters and poster maps for "Zanzer's Dungeon". It had several seperate boxed add-ons, including Goblin's Lair and Haunted Tower. This series (I believe) had numerous pure modules, such as "Quest for the Silver Sword", "Assault on Raven's Ruin" and others.
This is where I started. The actual box (which is dated 1991) has the same art from the 1996 box. The box refers to it as the "New easy to master" D&D. It included dice, stand-up counters, a one-sided poster map, and a DM Screen with a pocket that contained cards that had the introductory adventure and instructions for a novice DM. This DM screen is kind of flimsy, and the cards tend to tip it over. It was designed by Troy Denning and included black and white art by Terry Dykstra.
The cards had a sort of choose-your-own adventure layout on the front that walked a novice DM through a solo version of the "Zanzer's Dungeon" adventure, on the back, the cards explained the rules being introduced on the front. The full adventure was on 4 double folded up cards, the DM was supposed to read a section of the cards, and then run one of the 4 parts of the adventure after learning some of the rules. However, the 4 parts by themselves are pretty short, some are only 3 or 4 rooms in a dungeon with about 32 rooms. Also, there are a few undetailed rooms in the dungeon in the tradition of B1 and B3, they're left for the DM to stock, the last set of cards has some instructions on that. The last card also has a map for a dungeon called Stonefast which is meant to be the second adventure. The "boss" for the dungeon is a weak white dragon, but this dungeon is set up for the DM to stock on his own. One of the final cards gives some advice on it.
There's also a 64-page rulebook that covers levels 1-5 for the fighter, cleric, thief, magic-user, dwarf, elf, and halfling. There's a decent selection of monsters, with most of the classic D&D stuff. Not a lot of really powerful monsters, given the level range, but it does include giants and dragons. Spells cover the highest levels the cleric and m-u can cast. There's the treasure chart, and magic items go up to about +2, and some various basic miscellaneous stuff. This is meant to be the actual rulebook, with the cards being a teaching device.
From the final dungeon card:
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Is This All There Is to the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Game?
The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS role-playing game provided all the rules you need for Character levels 1-5. You can also buy preplanned adventures written by TSR's designers especially for use with the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game. Look for D&D (R) game products that say "Introductory or Entry Level Adventure," Two new adventures designed for the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game are available:
Eye of Traldar and
The Dymrak Dread. You will also find at your best book and hobby stores the two adventure modules
Quest for the Silver Sword, and
Assault on Raven's Ruin, and the adventure pack,
Dragon's Den.
Generally, these game adventures will indicate that they have been written for character levels 1-3. Once your characters reach levels 4 and 5, you may wish to buy game adventures for levels 4-6, but it would not be fair to your players to use game adventures designed for any levels higher than 6th.
As you can guess by now, the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game does not end when your PCs reach 6th level. The
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Game Cyclopedia (sic, I presume this is the RC they're referring to) has all the rules that you will need to continue playing with characters up to 36th level! Once you begin using the
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Game Cyclopedia you will also discover that there is a wide range of adventures, gazetteers, and resource books available to help you enrich your campaign.
When you buy DUNGEONS & DRAGONS products, be sure they are designed for use with the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game and not the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (R) game. The ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game is different from the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game. (Yeah, see how useful it is to start with this set at the end of 1993....) It doesn't have the same rules. It would be like trying to play football with soccer rules (cue laughter from all the non-Americans reading this
).
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This was likely meant as a replacement to the original Basic set, and players were probably intended to go to other introductory and beginner sets like Dragon's Den, and then eventually move up to the RC.
Unfortunately, TSR soon discontinued the basic D&D line. I'm unfamiliar with Mentzer and 1e, so I don't know how far apart the rules were. But 2e had some differences with the RC rules. I note that TSR later released an into product almost every year after discontinuing D&D. This looks like really bad brand management to me; let the easy and advanced rule drift apart, discontinue the easy rules, then try to have various intro products that last only a year. Let's hope 4e's Essentials will be handled more deftly than this.
It might have been a repackaging of the 1996 box, but I remember an ad in Dragon from 1997 or maybe 1998 for another intro set that reused the Moldvay/Cook set's cover art.
(1999)
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I have this set, but I'm not familiar with its contents. This was the last "Basic Set" TSR (not WotC) put out.
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This was WotC at this point. They didn't drop the TSR logo until 2000, but WotC published everything D&D from 1997 onward.
IIRC, this was connected to the Fast Play rules by Jeff Grubb(?).
First Quest was set in 2e-based Mystara. This was when Mystara was being briefly used as a beginner setting. The 2e Mystara used a lot of the audio CD stuff that TSR seemed to be big on at the time. I don't know if this was connected with the 1995 set or not.
