Thanks for the breakdown! I really appreciate your reviewing these, I've watched every single one of your videos on them. It does seem like most of the early encounters were almost a setup to the more interconnected ones we see from issue 15 or so onwards. It's possible they wanted to avoid overwhelming the DM, and I think that's a noble goal, but they may have overcorrected a bit because the early ones seem sort of disjointed and all over the place in terms of quality. I thought you'd only get dice in the first few issues, so each player could have their own set, but it appears dice is just the standard goodie. At some point even the most avaricious dice goblin must surely be sated! Hahaha. Definitely overpriced, especially considering most of the assets and texts are recycled from old D&D products. These aren't available in my country, so I couldn't have subscribed even if I'd wanted to, but maybe they'll release an internationally distributed collector's bundle or something of all the adventures, possibly even a digital version? I'd buy that!
Dice goblins are never sated! I actually think I didn't do the earlier encounters enough justice. After I'd recorded it I remembered that I wanted to talk about the "Mummy In Auction House", "Stop Noble Person Being Assassinated" and "Crypt Under Big Tree" encounters as they were excellent
While visting England in September last year, I spotted issue 1 of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer. I bought it out of curiosity, but at £1.99, the set of dice alone was a steal. When I returned home, I checked out the offer to subscribe, just to see how much getting D&D drip-fed to you would cost. I checked what the sum total of those 80 issues and accompanying binders would be and arrived at £752.16 (USD 932), postage included. On top of that, the whole collection will be finished by January 2025. OK, one gets some unique content and "free" gifts, but if you instead buy the DM's Guide, Player Handbook, Monster Manual, the Starter and Essential sets, the DM screen, the guide to the Sword Coast and the new campaign Phandelver and Below, it will set you back some £275 (USD 350), or slightly more than a third of the cost for the full collection - and you'll be able to start playing straight away. Even if it had been available in my home country, that would've been way too expensive, no matter how good the exclusive content is.
Just realised that I have the free binder, which is broken into 4 pieces, Sage, Character Creation, Lore and Encounters. Are you gong to get a cheep binder and do the same. I had a few spare polypockets for the maps that came with it. Hatchette's binder is £10.99 if bought?
I'm still undecided about splitting them up. I remember splitting up a science magazine called Quest in the 80s, the Star Trek and Star Wars ones in the 90s and always regretted it. As I've all the rule books I'm not sure I need to disassemble them, are you glad you did? I have them all stored in an Ultra Pro character folio (a book of lots of polypockets) and I pull out the issue when I want to run the encounter.
Yes. As I have some where to keep them in some sort of order. BUT (there always a but) I wish I left them as they were or place them into the folder in issue order. If I kept them in that order I would not have to flick back and for to look for the info needed for the encounters. I not sure how it would work out with all 4 binders all holding each section, a novice DM will have all four binders opened to work on lore, how this faction fits into this story and who the hell is this guy, and is he a Wizard or an other type of Caster?
Thanks for the review. Wow this D&D set isn’t worth the money at all! The GW mags are usually pretty good value (but only when compared to the exorbitant prices that AoS/40k models are priced at).
Thanks for watching it. That's a good point though, GW prices have risen steadily and still more than the rest of the miniatures market - but they are very well made. I've decided to pick up a few more Stormbringer because the value seems good.
Agree less dice would be good but if you subbed the extra stuff was v nice, the adventure screen is great quality. Shame you stopped the characters just leveled up again added warlock and monk and from issue 23 all the adventures are a page longer, so 8 sides not just 6, and even refer back to previous encounter etc. it doesn’t just give you info from players hand book it covers class choices from other books too etc, lore monster and faction sections are great, it’s diff color each adventure red then blue next one is green etc, 7 in total so by end will have full set of enlarged dice. Just got 2nd level spells booklet and great map of pretty much much whole of forgotten realms as off to moonshae islands soon.
Wow, sounds like I exited at the wrong time, I imagine the increase of a couple sides to the page count is enough to swing the encounters into being pretty decent, especially if they refer back to previous parts. I might look at trying to pick up what I missed, could do with the FR map. I will always regret not subbing, I passed as I have multiple screens, but the one you guys got looked very very nice
The D&D one was just so poorly thought out. The overload of dice was a joke. I think the magazine would have been great for a game group to have, like a club. Having that all together would be great for new people joining the club who want to get into D&D. A much bigger focus on minis, screens, maps, etc. would have been a far better idea.
I know, would've been so much better with 2D miniatures (or even 3D!), more maps and card handouts. I agree about the clubs, I think it would've been a good tool for schools too
I´m a big fan of Ravenloft. But I discovered some years ago that Ravenloft is waay better without D&D (I´m loving it with The One Ring 2e at this moment).
Again a great review. Great breakdown and the spoiler for encounters was very informative too 😃 I wished there was more Lore involved. I finished collecting after 5th postage as I finally got the very good DM screen. Though by now they could have sent a colourful box for the dice. 🤣🤣🤣
Were there additional subscriber rewards passed the DMs screen? I can't remember. Imagine how big the dice box would have to be!! I feel sad I stopped but it was all just too pricey
For those that are not in the know, the freebees are; a nice dice tray and a free 1st Issue (£2.99) with first post. A 20 issue binder, which has all of mine in it, was with the third post. A DM screen which is actualy very good quality, was with the fifth. The next post, 7th would include a dice jail the last freebeee in series.
Thanks for the breakdown! I really appreciate your reviewing these, I've watched every single one of your videos on them.
It does seem like most of the early encounters were almost a setup to the more interconnected ones we see from issue 15 or so onwards. It's possible they wanted to avoid overwhelming the DM, and I think that's a noble goal, but they may have overcorrected a bit because the early ones seem sort of disjointed and all over the place in terms of quality.
I thought you'd only get dice in the first few issues, so each player could have their own set, but it appears dice is just the standard goodie. At some point even the most avaricious dice goblin must surely be sated! Hahaha.
Definitely overpriced, especially considering most of the assets and texts are recycled from old D&D products. These aren't available in my country, so I couldn't have subscribed even if I'd wanted to, but maybe they'll release an internationally distributed collector's bundle or something of all the adventures, possibly even a digital version? I'd buy that!
Dice goblins are never sated!
I actually think I didn't do the earlier encounters enough justice. After I'd recorded it I remembered that I wanted to talk about the "Mummy In Auction House", "Stop Noble Person Being Assassinated" and "Crypt Under Big Tree" encounters as they were excellent
Thanks for the breakdown, does seem like a crazy volume of dice!!
It is!
While visting England in September last year, I spotted issue 1 of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer. I bought it out of curiosity, but at £1.99, the set of dice alone was a steal. When I returned home, I checked out the offer to subscribe, just to see how much getting D&D drip-fed to you would cost. I checked what the sum total of those 80 issues and accompanying binders would be and arrived at £752.16 (USD 932), postage included. On top of that, the whole collection will be finished by January 2025.
OK, one gets some unique content and "free" gifts, but if you instead buy the DM's Guide, Player Handbook, Monster Manual, the Starter and Essential sets, the DM screen, the guide to the Sword Coast and the new campaign Phandelver and Below, it will set you back some £275 (USD 350), or slightly more than a third of the cost for the full collection - and you'll be able to start playing straight away. Even if it had been available in my home country, that would've been way too expensive, no matter how good the exclusive content is.
Just realised that I have the free binder, which is broken into 4 pieces, Sage, Character Creation, Lore and Encounters. Are you gong to get a cheep binder and do the same. I had a few spare polypockets for the maps that came with it. Hatchette's binder is £10.99 if bought?
I'm still undecided about splitting them up. I remember splitting up a science magazine called Quest in the 80s, the Star Trek and Star Wars ones in the 90s and always regretted it. As I've all the rule books I'm not sure I need to disassemble them, are you glad you did? I have them all stored in an Ultra Pro character folio (a book of lots of polypockets) and I pull out the issue when I want to run the encounter.
Yes. As I have some where to keep them in some sort of order. BUT (there always a but) I wish I left them as they were or place them into the folder in issue order. If I kept them in that order I would not have to flick back and for to look for the info needed for the encounters. I not sure how it would work out with all 4 binders all holding each section, a novice DM will have all four binders opened to work on lore, how this faction fits into this story and who the hell is this guy, and is he a Wizard or an other type of Caster?
They should have included many more skinny minis and more encounter maps. Nobody needs that many sets of dice.
I've seen a couple of the recent ones had big maps and some more 2D-minis, I plan to try to pick them up if I see them
I’m on my own Ravenloft collection quest! Would love to see your collection if you wouldn’t mind doing a video?
That can be arranged… I’ve been meaning to do one!
I look forward to it! ☺️
thank you very much for this review
Thank you for watching it!
Thanks for the review. Wow this D&D set isn’t worth the money at all! The GW mags are usually pretty good value (but only when compared to the exorbitant prices that AoS/40k models are priced at).
Thanks for watching it. That's a good point though, GW prices have risen steadily and still more than the rest of the miniatures market - but they are very well made. I've decided to pick up a few more Stormbringer because the value seems good.
Agree less dice would be good but if you subbed the extra stuff was v nice, the adventure screen is great quality. Shame you stopped the characters just leveled up again added warlock and monk and from issue 23 all the adventures are a page longer, so 8 sides not just 6, and even refer back to previous encounter etc. it doesn’t just give you info from players hand book it covers class choices from other books too etc, lore monster and faction sections are great, it’s diff color each adventure red then blue next one is green etc, 7 in total so by end will have full set of enlarged dice. Just got 2nd level spells booklet and great map of pretty much much whole of forgotten realms as off to moonshae islands soon.
Wow, sounds like I exited at the wrong time, I imagine the increase of a couple sides to the page count is enough to swing the encounters into being pretty decent, especially if they refer back to previous parts. I might look at trying to pick up what I missed, could do with the FR map.
I will always regret not subbing, I passed as I have multiple screens, but the one you guys got looked very very nice
The D&D one was just so poorly thought out. The overload of dice was a joke. I think the magazine would have been great for a game group to have, like a club. Having that all together would be great for new people joining the club who want to get into D&D. A much bigger focus on minis, screens, maps, etc. would have been a far better idea.
I know, would've been so much better with 2D miniatures (or even 3D!), more maps and card handouts. I agree about the clubs, I think it would've been a good tool for schools too
I´m a big fan of Ravenloft. But I discovered some years ago that Ravenloft is waay better without D&D (I´m loving it with The One Ring 2e at this moment).
That's a cool idea, never considered porting it into another system, especially cos mechanically there's better than D&D. I'll check The One Ring out!
@@moatmonstergaming Hope you enjoy ToR2e
Again a great review. Great breakdown and the spoiler for encounters was very informative too 😃
I wished there was more Lore involved. I finished collecting after 5th postage as I finally got the very good DM screen. Though by now they could have sent a colourful box for the dice.
🤣🤣🤣
Were there additional subscriber rewards passed the DMs screen? I can't remember. Imagine how big the dice box would have to be!!
I feel sad I stopped but it was all just too pricey
For those that are not in the know, the freebees are; a nice dice tray and a free 1st Issue (£2.99) with first post. A 20 issue binder, which has all of mine in it, was with the third post. A DM screen which is actualy very good quality, was with the fifth. The next post, 7th would include a dice jail the last freebeee in series.
That's right, saw a picture of the dice jail when I was sorting through to make the last video. No way it holds that many sets of dice!