Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle is the latest starter set for Dungeons and Dragons, written by Jeremy Crawford, James Wyatt, Sydney Adams, Makenzie De Armas, and Dan Dillon and published by Wizards of the Coast.
By Aaron T. Huss
Learn more about Dragons of Stormwreck Isle here
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With Dungeons & Dragons 5E, Wizards of the Coast has been releasing products in cycles (sometimes the cycles are even themed). Within each cycle is some type of starter or essentials set to get new players into the game quickly and easily. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle is the latest D&D 5E Starter Set in much of the same fashion as before (low cost, all the mechanics content you need, options to get you started, pre-generated characters, a full adventure, etc.). In fact, the rules content within is pretty much the same as the other sets and the core rulebooks. No big deal; I wouldn’t expect them to continually redesign the wheel after finding one that works. But there is something visually different.
In the past 10+ years, retro-clone/throwback/vintage has been growing in popularity with an incredible number of options for those who like every old edition and variant of the RPGs from the 70s and 80s. D&D 5E was already meant to bridge the gaps among editions and allow for content throughout to be usable. They’ve gone a step further with an artwork throwback within the pages of Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (the entire boxed set) that hearkens back to the D&D cartoon from the 80s. This isn’t a reprinting of that artwork; it’s a re-imagining of each iconic character (by the way, I noticed there’s a minis set out there too now). Not only does this pay homage to the D&D of old, it’s kind of like reminding people that D&D used to be on TV ahead of an upcoming big screen release (Honor Among Thieves). Wizards already bridged the gap among editions (kind of); now they’ve bridged the gap between the D&D media!
That’s the biggest thing that stands out in this starter set. The player’s rules are just the same as what you always see, although the adventure is new and honestly pretty cool! I found this adventure much more interesting than some of the ones I’ve seen in the past. It’s difficult to say much more than that without spoiling the adventure. I’ll just say that it has something to do with Stormwreck Isle and dragons.
By the way, it’s only $20! A DM and 5 players can jump right in and play an entire adventure for only $20! And if you don’t need that, DMs will get a new adventure, fleshed-out characters to use as NPCs, and new dice!
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