WotC Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Is A New UK Magazine To Teach D&D

As reported on the Mastering Dungeons podcast, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer is a weekly magazine from D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast and UK magazine publisher Hachette Partworks, designed as a magazine run to teach you D&D and serve as an adventure kit.

Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer is a brand new partwork that teaches you how to play the world’s most popular tabletop roleplaying game, with an exclusive adventure, easy step-by-step instructions and all the background information you need to start creating your own characters and becoming a D&D expert. Collect the specially designed dice given throughout the collection and join us on a wild ride through the D&D journey of a lifetime!

Each of the first four issues also comes with a free dice set, along with bigger goodies every few deliveries, inclusing dice towers, binders, keyrings, even a DM screen. A premium subscripiton throws in miniatures, too. It's kind of a combination of loot box and magazine.

There are currently 80 weekly issues planned. The first issue is £1.99, with subsequent issues costing more at £4.99 for issue #2, and then $7.99 onwards (and the premium subscription versions more at £9.49 per week). As they're weekly, that comes to about £32 per month, or £38 for premium.

The magazine is available in UK stores or via subscription.

Home - Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer

danddadventurer.hachettepartworks.com

A premium subscription that includes miniatures.

 

[Noddy Beholder]

I picked up issue 3 this morning.
Nice figures, a little bit smaller than expected, but definately useble.
The mag covers conditions, skills, Elves, Halflings, Wizards - concentrating on 1st level, the Red Wizards and an adventure.
One thing that did make me do a double take was that this issue has the same cover art as issue 2.
Here's a pic of the figures with dice for scale.

 

[aco175]

I would pay this amount for a smaller adventure of 10-16 pages with a double page map that flips over for two of the encounters and a few of these plastic minis. Some sort of 5-room dungeon to build on. I can even skip having the adventure part be in color or on good paper to keep cost low.

Heck, there must be newspapers that have gone out of business that can be repurposed to have them print modules for cheap. Rag-Dungeons where you have basic adventures and large grid maps that fold out. I can even see advertising in parts like one of the paper tablemats in heap food places or like a Monopoly board around the map.

 

[RichGreen]

I picked up issue 3 this morning.
Nice figures, a little bit smaller than expected, but definately useble.
The mag covers conditions, skills, Elves, Halflings, Wizards - concentrating on 1st level, the Red Wizards and an adventure.
One thing that did make me do a double take was that this issue has the same cover art as issue 2.
Here's a pic of the figures with dice for scale.

I didn't notice but Issue1 & 2 had the same cover art too!

 

[Noddy Beholder]

I didn't notice but Issue1 & 2 had the same cover art too!

You're right. I mean, the covers are meant to be torn off anyway so no biggie, but the shop I got it from had all three issues. I'll bet that could lead to some confusion.

 

[Kris]

I received my second delivery today - so I've only skimmed the magazines, but I thought I'd share pictures of what you get (seeing as how they are keeping us in the dark about what's actually included in this 80 issue series).

First the magazines themselves (issues 3, 4, 5 & 6 ...6 also comes with level 2 sheets for the pre-gens):

In #3 you get the acrylic standees (they have the same image front and back - which is a minor disappointment), and in #4 there is an oversized D20 (which will definitely get used at my table for those times when there's a tense die rolling moment), and a dice pouch:

In #5 you get a nice set of dice, and in #6 you get another (not quite as nice) set, and another tin to keep them in:

So it does look like it's going to be very dice focused (they mention other jumbo dice in future issues) - which, for me is a bit of a disappointment (but YMMV of course), and I don't really see the point in their 'each series of adventures will have their own colour coded dice' approach, when other (more useful things) could be included.

Speaking of which - there's no pull-out maps or anything like that to use with the miniatures (in fact, the mini's only really get mentioned in the 'what's in this issue' sidebar as far as I can tell). Plus, as Noddy said, even though the mini's are made/supplied by wizkids - they are a little small. Here they are compared to some of the regular wizkids mini's:

(though I don't own any of their idols of the realm stuff - so this might just be the scale for that range - I don't know)

So all in all, this is not going to be for me I don't think (I'll be cancelling my subscription - but keeping my eye on it just in case it does turn into more than just a dice collecting exercise). It's a shame really - but I think something more akin to 'dungeon in a box' would have been a better direction (at least in my opinion - though, again... YMMV )

 

[Noddy Beholder]

I am curious as to why they didn't throw in a tin with issue 5 as well. I picked up #5 and I thought it was a tad anemic compared to the others.

 

[Dire Bare]

I received my second delivery today - so I've only skimmed the magazines, but I thought I'd share pictures of what you get (seeing as how they are keeping us in the dark about what's actually included in this 80 issue series).

First the magazines themselves (issues 3, 4, 5 & 6 ...6 also comes with level 2 sheets for the pre-gens):

In #3 you get the acrylic standees (they have the same image front and back - which is a minor disappointment), and in #4 there is an oversized D20 (which will definitely get used at my table for those times when there's a tense die rolling moment), and a dice pouch:

In #5 you get a nice set of dice, and in #6 you get another (not quite as nice) set, and another tin to keep them in:

So it does look like it's going to be very dice focused (they mention other jumbo dice in future issues) - which, for me is a bit of a disappointment (but YMMV of course), and I don't really see the point in their 'each series of adventures will have their own colour coded dice' approach, when other (more useful things) could be included.

Speaking of which - there's no pull-out maps or anything like that to use with the miniatures (in fact, the mini's only really get mentioned in the 'what's in this issue' sidebar as far as I can tell). Plus, as Noddy said, even though the mini's are made/supplied by wizkids - they are a little small. Here they are compared to some of the regular wizkids mini's:

(though I don't own any of their idols of the realm stuff - so this might just be the scale for that range - I don't know)

So all in all, this is not going to be for me I don't think (I'll be cancelling my subscription - but keeping my eye on it just in case it does turn into more than just a dice collecting exercise). It's a shame really - but I think something more akin to 'dungeon in a box' would have been a better direction (at least in my opinion - though, again... YMMV )

The 2D miniatures are suprising . . . the ones you can buy in the store from WizKids have front/back images, unlike what you describe here. They do run a bit smaller than the miniatures though, although these look even smaller in scale. I figured they would just include some of their existing 2D acrylic miniatures, but I guess not.

I'll never say no to another set of dice, but . . . even if I was a newbie, I wouldn't subscribe if the major "loot" is dice set after dice set . . .

 

[Noddy Beholder]

I picked up issue 6 today for the dice and tin. Ooooeer Missus - there's a letter inside the mag explaining that there is a shipping delay and issue 7 will now be going on sale on 8th November.
The dice by the way, are OK. They're a more orange version of the dice from issue 2. The mag covers character advancement and contains 2nd level character sheets for the 4 characters.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Does the publisher have socials? Someone should link this to them so they can see what more hard-core players think.

 

[darjr]

Does the publisher have socials? Someone should link this to them so they can see what more hard-core players think.

It’s not for hardcore players. Not even a little. Thier intended audience are people brand new to the game or who are green and want to possibly DM.