D&D 2024 Starter Set Review: Heroes of the Borderlands

Heroes of the Borderlands, D&D’s new Starter Set for 5e24 is out, and it is MASSIVE. It is easily the best designed beginners tutorial I think the game has ever seen, and with D&D being such a complex and customisable experience, that is a great thing. But despite its girthy size and hefty weight, this mighty tome of a box set is still missing 3 things which I think would have elevated it from a 9 to a 10 out of 10  experience. So what are they are how can we fix it?

The 3 Three Things I'd like to have seen included that were not...

Number 1: A DM Screen. This box is just awesome. Yes is it is 3x the price of older 5e Starter sets, but it is 10x the value and designed with the brand new D&D player AND brand new DM in mind. So, where is the number one piece of kit that a new DM (and let's face it, experienced DMs) rely on to hide their secrets and home reminders about common rules like Conditions and “Hey DM, how far can I jump?” This seems an odd thing to leave out, given the box builds beautifully on the good work of the Essentials Kit: Dragon of Icespire Peak, which had a DM Screen, physical cards for magic items, player handouts and NPCs. Heroes of the Borderlands goes all out on this physical prompt concept, but instead of the cheaper-looking perforated sheets, we got several decks of beautifully illustrated cards for Magic Items, Spells, Monster stat blocks, NPCs and more. There are poster maps for every combat encounter, cool tracking sheets for the pregen player characters to replace the sometimes overwhelming paper character sheets, tracking tokens and more… but no DM screen. What gives?

The cynical among you, and well, me included, might jump straight to the rather expensive, separately available D&D24 screen available for purchase as a cash grab by WOTC. To me, the DM screen is not just a rules reminder and place to hide notes, it sets the stage on which a game of D&D is… a theatrical shared experience with some mystery and delineation between the DM and Players. Which, according to D&D designer Justice Arman, is exactly why they DIDN’T include the DM screen. Bob World Builder actually covered this exact topic and spoke to Justice directly, so go watch that cool video after reading this for more, but we can see a summary of what they were going for right in the core rules book that comes with the Starter Set. HoTB wants the players' and DMs' roles to be fluid. It actively encourages swapping positions so everyone gets a go at directing the narrative and, importantly, appreciates the role of the DM and helps stop “Forever DM” burnout. They felt a DM screen put up a physical barrier that actively discouraged that philosophy, a noble idea, but then, you also go and sell the things as an optional extra for those who, like me, really want one to set the immersion stage.

Honestly, I am not mad. There is SO much in this box, and adding the screen would then mean they’d have to charge more and push the price point higher, which would be a big ask for folks new to the hobby. I’ll likely end up building my own, or use the one that conveniently comes in the even newer “Stranger Things” box set that was just released, which I am sure will end up on my bookshelf sometime soon.

Why include one when we can sell a piece of cardboard for $35?! :P

Number 2: A Plot. Again, I’ll reference Bob as he is a lot more timely in getting his content out, but while he too picked up on this, we come to the opposite conclusion. In HotB, there is “No overarching story or plot, it is the story you build along the way that matters." Bob loved this as it suits his RPG ideals and philosophy, and honestly, as a conscious design choice by the D&D crew, I can again see where they are coming from… and I don’t like it. Personal preference, but I am very much a module-running DM. Sure, I homebrew, edit, and vary the published adventures I run to suit my parties and style, but as a dad of a toddler with limited time to hobby, I much prefer the heavy lifting of story being done for me than creating a whole world and plotline. While neither this nor a complete open world sandbox is the wrong way to play and every game is on a sliding scale of Adventure as Written vs Homebrew, I feel that for a Starter Set the balance should lean towards guiding the players through a story rather than expecting people learning a brand new thing to co-create the ‘soul’ of their collaborative undertaking.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a HUGE amount of content, encounters and NPCs sprinkled throughout the 3 included module books, and each cleverly teaches a different pillar of the Game. 'Keep on the Borderlands', the player's home base, focuses on NPCs and social interactions. 'The Wilderness' focuses on Exploration with skill checks and a bit of combat, while the 'Caves of Chaos', the largest module, is 11 mini-dungeons, heavily combat-focused. My issue is “The Why”. Lost Mine of Phandelver, still my favourite starter set story, did a brilliant job of offering campaign hooks, why the players met and started their journey, increasing mystery and logical story progression, side quests to battles that are likely they can't win and importantly, a final resolution and launching point to further adventures (or later the Shattered Obelisk book). HotB misses most of that. There are no story hooks, no reason for the players to form a group, and while the Keep Module drops a few leads and there are some small things to investigate, the primary driver of the ‘story’ as it is, is plundering the caves one by one for gold and loot…. And there is nothing wrong with that.

All of those gaps can be filled by a keen party, and there is enough meat for the players to build a story and a DM to weave in tension. There is a level equivalent BBEG and even a somewhat epilogue to the adventure, but it all feels a little underwhelming. As a new player or DM, I personally would like a little more structure to remove the “now what?” condition new players often encounter. An experienced DM could definitely take the given material and weave a fantastic adventure, but for a starter set, a little bit more of a plot would have been nice.

The Keep on the Borderlands

Number 3: Player Choices – Now I totally get this. While going fully physical with these awesome character boards, spell cards, equipment cards, token etc, is the best and most innovative thing the new box has done, it is also its biggest limiting factor. You get 1 flavour of fighter, wizard, cleric and rogue. If they had wanted to add more, that would require a ton more work, printouts, cards and therefore expense and a box so big it would have the heavy property and require a strength of 14 to wield. But especially with them encouraging DM swapping, I would have loved to see 1 more PC option like a Ranger to avoid the need to character share when playing musical chairs and give players a real choice.

Now of course, if there was someone who designed 3^rd party additional tools to expand and enhance D&D Starter sets with awesome paper minis, player handouts and DM tools, they might be well suited to fill this gap, especially given the fact that WotC have done such a great job with this set all my… I mean, this designer's previous best-selling products are now kinda redundant… It’s me, ok, I do that! So! What do we think? It’d be no small undertaking, but would you like to see an analogous setup for the other classes to add to the HotB set? A character board, spell cards, ability tokens and equipment for new players to bring a Ranger, Warlock, Paladin and friends to the table… literally? Let me know in the comments!

As I said for the previous Starter Sets, I produced sets of cool paper minis for every encounter that have graced hundreds and hundreds of tables around the world, which you can check out on my website. HotB has, very awesomely, I might add, included PC Standees and 2D tokens for all the Monsters in the box. While beautiful, they still lack a certain something on the table compared to a standing mini. SO! Just like WotC and their separate DM screen, I too, have produced a new complete set of high-quality custom paper minis for HotB to upgrade the tokens if you so wish. They are available now on my website, and as always, Patreon members get themselves a big discount if you are looking to upgrade your 2024 Starter Set experience. Despite these observations, I still think HotB is awesome and a great addition to your D&D collection for players new and old. Do go check it out, and I’ll catch you soon. Cheers!