The new D&D Starter Set is the first one I've been excited about in years

The new D&D Starter Set has broken cover, and it feels as if developer Wizards of the Coast has finally caught up to its competition.

Called 'Heroes of the Borderlands,' the D&D Starter Set was shown off in a teaser trailer by developer Wizards of the Coast ahead of New York Toy Fair. Besides a classic cover heavily inspired by old-school fantasy, the reveal pulled back the curtain on a wealth of accessories. This lineup includes item, spell, and NPC cards to go with maps, tokens, enemy datasheets, what appear to be a handful of adventure booklets, and a character sheet seemingly inspired by the best board games (it features slots for your spell and item cards, for example).

That may not sound like a big deal, especially considering how most starter sets for the best tabletop RPGs do this already. However, it's worth noting that Dungeons & Dragons has always been behind on that front. With the exception of the 2019 Essentials Kit, both Fifth Edition D&D beginner boxes have been threadbare so far as contents go. In the 2014 version you got dice, premade character sheets, a slimmed-down rulebook, a map, and the (excellent) Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure. As for the 2022 Dragons of Stormwreck Isle pack, it didn't even have that – you got the rules, a shorter adventure, character sheets, and dice. It also directed players online for advice on how to play, so it felt a bit like modern video games where you're just buying a digital code in a box rather than something on the actual disc.

Because D&D is easily the biggest TTRPG out there, it felt oddly lacking – and fell way behind the likes of the One Ring Starter Set.

D&D Starter Set: Heroes of the Borderlands - YouTube

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Suffice to say, this 2025 alternative is an improvement. I'm particularly excited about the user-friendly character sheets included in Heroes of the Borderlands. As previously mentioned, this new design features empty boxes to put your items, spells, hit point, and spell slot tokens so that you can easily keep track of everything. There's a boxout filled with advice on playing your specific class too, not to mention species and background cards so all the important information about your adventurer is to hand. I've always felt that D&D was more difficult for beginners than it had to be, and this solves the problem. That's especially true of the enemy datasheets that bypass any need to trawl through a Monster Manual.

Naturally, we don't know anything about the actual adventures themselves and whether they'll be any good (beyond the fact that over "40 hours of adventure" is included and they're based on 1979's Keep on the Borderlands by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax). Still, all signs so far are good. We'll just have to wait for the box's fall release to find out if it lives up to the hype.

For more adventures, why not check out the best D&D books? You can also get some cool merch via our guide to D&D gifts.