Or worst? It depends on your needs - Dragons of Stormwreck Isle Review
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- čas přidán 2. 08. 2024
- In this video, I review of Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, the Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set released in July 2022, I go over just how simple this adventure and set is. It's a lot of handholding. Which could be good, if you're daunted by the D&D system but interested or bad if you don't want something too simple.
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D&D Starter Set (Lost Mines) - amzn.to/3pv55mg
D&D Essentials Kit - amzn.to/3c0792x
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Index:
0:00 - The Best Starter Set?
0:35 - Concisely Written Rules
0:53 - Supplemental Videos from Publisher
1:17 - Monster Choice
1:57 - Length
3:06 - Spoiler Warning
3:14 - Chapter 1
4:25 - Chapter 2
5:04 - Chapter 3
5:40 - Chapter 4
7:04 - Final Thoughts - Hry
Are you upset that the 80's D&D Cartoon characters turned out to be nothing be just artwork in this adventure?
I'm not tbh, kind of wish we had character sheets for them like how we have character sheets for the rick and morty crew.
I should mention that I never watched the dnd cartoon, but i also never watched rick and morty lol
The fact that someone is annoyed that "Presto" and "Gadabout the Gallant" (or whatever) are not fully represented in a "Starter kit" is very silly.
The art is just to coax the 4 people who remember a rubbish 80's cartoon.
@Andrew Williams I'm not even really convinced they were trying to "nostalgia-bait" the people who watched the 80's cartoon. They aren't the target demo for a starter box. The fact that the Wizkids minis seem to imply that they would be the characters, at least visually, when it's really multiple different species was a little weird.
@@TheEssentialGameMaster woc are doing some interesting crossovers with their artwork. Several pieces of the artwork in Tasha's depicted the characters in the Spelljammer trailer and book art. I won't be surprised if we don't see those kids soon.
But ultimately... is it honestly worth getting cross over. Of all the things....
Yeah, character sheets would have made sense.
Afterall some of the "guests" in the D&D Cartoon made their way into Wild Beyond the Witchlight.
I will buy the Wizkids set when it comes out just like I bought the Valor's Call and League of Malevolence.
As an old player I like that it is getting easier to get into roleplaying. The online side espcially helps a lot.
I think it's a nice touch that each of the starter sets features different dragon types -- green in Phandelver, white in Icespire Peak, and now blue and bronze in this one.
Variety is nice, no doubt.
I'm so exciteddddd! Another vid from my favorite new small CZcamsr! Any chance for a small vid for how you would continue to say level 5 or 6?
I am wondering the same thing tbh. I've been wanting to explore the moon isles for a long time
I wouldn't rule it out, but it wouldn't be right away with Spelljammer about to release. But there is some time between releases after that. I actually have a video I recorded awhile back that I haven't gotten around to editing yet either.
Sounds like you already have a pretty good starting point for an idea @wyrmink
Fantastic, balanced review. Keep the content coming, my man!
Thanks! Will do!
I'm really diggin this set and as someone that's been playing since the 70s, I think it does exactly what it's meant to do. I really appreciate you sharing your take on this and breaking it down. Many thanks.
Thank you!
Brand new to the game, we purchased the essentials kit 2 weeks ago and run session 0 and 1 + familiarised ourselves with the rules. My reaction as a newbie :
I like the pre generated characthers. They should have both options honestly. Session 0 was hard for us because we never played so we didn't understood why or what to choose. But creating your character seems to be such a fun part of the game that it would be a shame not to do it.
I don't like that you don't have a GM screen, nor companions for the 2 players options, nor items cards or quests, or a map like in the essentials kit. + you don't even have all the dice here. The essentials kit seems to make it more easy to transition into D&D as a whole because it covers a lot of aspects and simplify a few things.
I think this new Starter set claiming it is meant for 2-6 is a bit of a stretch. Especially without outlining some of the pieces The Essentials Kit does in that regard.
Exactly this. The Essentials Kit feels like it's getting you going in D&D. This new Starter Set feels like a standalone game just to show people what real d&d is like
Good info here, thanks.
Glad you found it helpful!
Incredible Vid. Instantly Subbed
Thanks Andrew!
Seems VERY light compared to the other box sets
You definitely aren't getting as much content/goods per dollar at its initial price point.
Sounds cool
I may have to pick this set up.
Yes a little disappointed about the characters not being in the adventure.
I'm only really recommending it to a group of people who are fully brand new to D&D and TTRPGs. But maybe you can make some tweaks and make it into something a bit more interesting with the knowhow and the elbow grease to bring it to a new level.
Quick question i got this set for my wife to dm for her first time so I havent read the rules myself for fear of spoiling. Our group has played a little dnd and understand the basic rules and wants to make their own characters to play in this adventure. Is making fresh level 1s a good idea for this adventure or should we just bite the bullet and use the pre-made sheets so that the story sticks together? Thanks in advance
The included rules with the set don't have character creation information, but if you use outside stuff like the free basic rules or another book, you could. Storywise, you'd just need a reason your character wanted to come to the island. You could use the pre-mades for inspiration on their reasons.
As a dude who’s brand new to D&D, haven’t ran a campaign or played in one, just been researching the last month or so, I have the old starter set and the essentials kit. Would you recommend this one before diving into one of those? I’m thinking I’d rather run this with my wife and kids (kids are around 10) and the friends that join. That seems like a good plan right?
Loved the video, def subbing
I can't give you a definitive best answer for the best one for you, but I would say some things you should consider are: 1) the amount of prep work and effort you'd like to put in, 2) which story seems the most interesting to you and which has the vibe that seems like it will be the best fit for your players.
I will say, it does seem like they are aiming to get D&D back into schools using the new set and I think it's the absolute simplest and shortest time commitment. If you all really like it and want to keep doing it you could certainly move on to another starter box but you could also pick up a full module book for a longer storyline. I'm not *as* familiar with the essentials kit, but I think lost mines (the old starter) has a really quintessential D&D feel with a lot of classic monsters and multiple dungeons to crawl through.
@@TheEssentialGameMaster bro appreciate the reply! And luckily I have a couple cool local game stores that sells modules that i will be looking into. So far Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation have my interest in longer campaigns once we get to that point, which is a ways off haha.
I also agree, I think D&D is in a verge of an explosion in terms of popularity, I’ve been seeing more and more here recently. I’m dying to get started.
Hi, I'm also in new dungeon mastering. I'm currently running the starter kit for my players. It's my first time and I'm finding it pretty easy. ☺️ I change the campaign a little bit using Matthew Perkins on CZcams. He has a playlist on it. My players are loving it. Hope this helps!
I don't personally have any interest running this for reasons you've mentioned, I'm surprised it's taken so long to finally find a review that is approaching it with the right context. So many crusty D&D youtubers have gone off on it saying that it's too simple, on railroads, and just lacking. Well yeah, you've been playing RPGs for decades, of course it's going to seem simple. But if you don't have at least one experienced player to guide everyone, analysis paralysis is real. D&D is VERY overwhelming to new players if there isn't someone to say "hey don't worry about xyz for now, just focus on a." Learn the basic mechanics (combat, skills, and RP) before introducing options to the players. How do you make any meaningful choices in character creation if you've never seen an encounter?
Like I just started running a campaign with a part of entirely new players and you bet your butt I'm simplifying everything and fudging rolls for the first few sessions. Character creation took hours so if they die before learning enough mechanics and class features to significantly speed up the process, I don't think they'll want to do it again. That might be the end of their D&D career. Folks need to realize that while options are great and what make the game what it is, but at the same time, they create a high barrier to entry for new players. Impossibly high for unguided new players. Taking away options can be a good thing, when the options are what are preventing the group from having fun. We need to stop reviewing products that aren't meant for us as if they were meant for us. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle is simply a product that isn't meant for us experience players and DMs.
I think we're on the same page. Lowering the barrier to entry will get more people playing, and in the long run, that means more people that will get into the more complicated stuff, get into other RPG systems, etc. This box isn't trying to be anything it's not, which is a simple, relatively short first exposure for newer folks or newer GMs.
Love the artwork too bad it didnt connect to the story.
Honestly this set is a bit of a let down and a rip off when you consider how much more content was in the 2019 Essentials Kit
LMOP is an amazing first adventure with lots of things to see and do a decently coherant story flow and with minor adjustments from the DM can be used in many different ways. iv run it a few times and modified it in different ways.
i think ending lvl 3s main issue is the moment your actually getting into your class the adventure ends. while in Lost mines your lvl 4/5 for an entire large dungeon.
it feels like this adventure is well made and could have easily just been made to go to 5. its definitely easier and simpler but lost mines wasnt an issue its first 3 levels are not any more complicated really than this adventure. while lost mines includes more varied types of play. Town/Large dungeon/Small maps/Travel Allowing new players to get a quick feel of different aspects of the game
Hopefully it will come down in price with time once they make up some overhead, but I think that the goal here for Wizards is to get more people to become dungeon masters and in that sense, I think being minimalist is not a bad move. If you want max content per dollar spent LMOP or Essentials Kit are gonna be a better way to go. Or even the free basic rules pdf with a used copy of a level 1-10 module.
No mention of the pre-gens being 80s cartoon characters??
They're not. Several of them aren't human species even. It's pretty much just the artwork that references it. There are more pieces of artwork than just the box though. I watched two episodes of the show just to familiarize myself but as far as I know, that's it.
I just used this starter set for my first DMing for a first-time player [my fiance], and I gotta say, from a hobbyist-writer's perspective, Dragon's of Stormwreck Isle is fuckin' terrible.. and that didn't help me much as a first time DM.
It feels like some 12 year old kid wrote it, and then an adult was paid to make it seem like an adult wrote it..
To summarize Stormwreck Isle's "story" [in my own shitty way]:
You show up to the island to start the advent, zombies attack.. okay cool, you soon find a story hook for why there are zombies, you deal with said curse, and the island/Dragons Rest is safe from zombies [no real problem there, to be fair]. Suddenly, "the Myconids are no longer peaceful and killing anyone that goes near em, halp." Okay fine, let's go deal with that.. PCs force their way into the cave, and for an unexplained reason they're peaceful to the PC even though the PC just annihilated the guards to their cave-dwelling, but whatever - the Myconids get dealt with. Get back to Dragon's Rest, and now there's suddenly an evil dragon [Sparkrender] trying to take over the island and we need you to go deal with it, and here's the key to get in its lair [freely handed out, like.. the good guys just had the key sitting around gathering dust for no reason]. OH! And the evil dragon has also been here long before the PCs get there, it's a young little shit that can be easily swatted away by the good-guy-Elder-dragon [Runara] who is also there but is doing nothing about Sparky. Very little of the quests available have any ties to one another even though they all take place on a tiny island, and Elder Runara [good guy dragon] didn't [and won't] tell you about Sparky until you're level 3 because.. well because that's what the rule book says. Oh, and if your PCs free the captured bronze dragon BEFORE fighting Sparky, it will completely take the spotlight off your players in the final fight. But oh well! Just finish that up and go back to Dragon's Rest. Look at the gold/rewards you got along the way but weren't given resources or opportunities to do anything with [Elven boots that make your armor silent.. how is that useful in Stormwreck?]. Thanks for the halp adventurers, Bahamut blesses your sneeze. Advent over.
..along with too many NPCs to keep track of that don't really have any important roles to play, combined with 5th editions weak/boring AF combat for any class in the early levels, Stormwreck just felt horribly written. And having level 3 characters [in 5e] fight a dragon with nothing but none-magic weapons and arrows? Even for DnD, that just felt unrealistic. At least 4th edition chars at that level look like they 'could' take on a young dragon, but 5E chars at that level are essentially farmers with pitchforks.
I guess for getting players started as a first timer, to get the "feel" for DnD, it's not necessarily a bad intro. My fiance generally had fun and was upset when each session was ending, but she did start complaining and losing interest when things stopped making sense story-wise [because they really don't in Stormwreck], and when the character progression [leveling] felt obviously pointless - she was no stronger or more capable in combat throughout levels 1-3, which is pretty stupid. For first timer DMs AS a first timer DM using Stormwreck, I personally have to say it was horrendous and would never recommend it to another first time DM.
We're going to go through it again soon [redesigned for 4E chars/combat], but unfortunately, I also have to rewrite roughly half of it so the adventure doesn't feel like a Bethesda-designed list of pointless quest objectives.
This product is a total disappointment. Buy the Essentials Kit; it's far better value for anyone trying to get into the game.
I won't disagree, you get a lot more per dollar with The Essentials Kit. I do think there is an audience out there that this set is potentially a good fit for though.