Asmodee - Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins - Board Game

Product Information

CHOOSE A JOURNEY FOR YOUR PARTY: Choose a journey and which Boss your party of heroes will fight in the end. Choose from Felbris (Beholder), Orn (Fire Giant), Deathsleep (Green Dragon), and the Kraken. While playing the game there will be multiple instances where the players are prompted to tell a story. This storytelling is a pure improv experience with no hard fast rules or guidelines. Interestingly while this does add a solid role play element to Adventure Begins, none of this improvising has any actual effect on the mechanics. When we bought a copy of Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins for our daughter for Christmas I really didn’t know what to expect. In general, I know to expect good things from the Dungeons & Dragons brand and at the time I actually thought this was published by Wizards of the Coast and not Hasbro Gaming. Having now played the game a number of times I’m still not exactly sure what to think of this game, for a number of reasons.

Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins is a board game with RPG elements that was published by Hasbro Gaming in late 2020. Unfortunately, Hasbro didn’t credit the designer(s) though I do know Allie Jennings worked on it. It features artwork from Henning Ludvigsen and Benjamin Raynal. Step into the exciting world of D&D with the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins board game! Choose your character and work together along the journey through the lands of Neverwinter, facing fantastic obstacles, battling monsters, and defeating the boss monster terrorizing the realm. The role of Dungeon Master passes from player to player with each turn, so everyone gets to be part of the storytelling. FEATURES D&D MINIATURE FIGURES: The game includes 4 plastic mini figures that correspond with the heroes featured in gameplay. The Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins cooperative board game is a fun, fast entry into the world of D&D. Players choose their characters and journey as they travel through the lands of Neverwinter, and work together to overcome fantastic obstacles, battle monsters, and defeat the Boss monster terrorizing the realm. The role of Dungeon Master passes from player to player with each turn, so everyone gets to be part of the storytelling. This fantasy game makes a great gift for the emerging D&D fan. For 2-4 players, ages 10 and up.Now that sounds like the game could become repetitive and while that’s somewhat true, the randomness of the encounter cards does make sure that each journey is different. Added to that is the variability in characters you can make. Each character gives you two hero options, two personality type options and two weapon options, which gives you a number of different combinations for each individual character. Then there’s the fact that you are playing with one or more players who each make their own character, leading to a high number of possible combinations of adventuring parties.

The game centres around the path through the middle of the game board. As the players move down the path, the DM for that turn will draw a card, read the scenario or monster and then follow the instructions. Think choose-your-own-adventure books, but on a board game with actions decided by 20-sided dice and you wouldn’t be far off. Combat encounters are a bit more complicated. When facing a monster the encounter starts off with the DM reading a short monster description then having everyone roll initiative. This is a simple D20 roll where the player that rolls highest will get to act first. The game continues until you reach and defeat the final boss monster or all of the characters die along the way. CHOOSE A JOURNEY FOR YOUR PARTY: Choose a journey and which Boss your party of heroes will fight in the end. Choose from Felbris (Beholder), Orn (Fire Giant), Deathsleep (Green Dragon) and The KrakenAfter this fiasco, I went on Board Game Geek only to discover that I’m not the only one who has found production issues with this game. A number of people have reported broken or missing miniatures as well as missing cards. Every single one of those people has reported that they never got any resolution from Hasbro, with most only getting as far as the run around between WotC and Hasbro. So in these threads, I did try to help by providing a link to the proper product replacement form for Hasbro Gaming. Each of these monsters is associated with one of the four map boards. You find that board and place it on the table with the standee for your foe placed into the last spot on that board. You then build the rest of the map by randomizing the other boards and connecting them in a row to the first. At the end of each map, you will place the Henchmen cards for the boss monster you chose. These are numbered from one to three. You place the one on the first board, the two on the second, etc.

COOPERATIVE FANTASY GAME: This fantasy board game is a portal to the monsters, magic, and heroes of Dungeons & Dragons. Players work together as they journey through the lands of NeverwinterI’ve actually had a fantastic time playing this game with my two kids. We’ve told some fantastic stories, like the time we returned home to our village and found that our friends and relatives had all been turned into zombies and we struggled to find non-violent ways to contain them instead of killing our loved ones. All of that was based on one Undead Townspeople card that had this for flavour texts, “Aunt Gertrude? Is that you?” Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins is an enjoyable entry to the world of D&D. With four story lines and 24 adventure cards for each map (96 total), the game can be played multiple times whilst limiting repetition in the storyline. For each hero class, there are four personality cards and 2 combat cards to choose from. The personality cards contain a personality type and special ability. The personality types give you a ‘flavour’ to play the game with. COOPERATIVE FANTASY GAME: This fantasy board game is a portal to the monsters, magic, and heroes of Dungeons & Dragons. Players work together as they journey through the lands of Neverwinter.