RPG Review: Dragon Age Boxed Set 1 - Part 1: Product Impression

I offered to do a quick review of the Dragon Age roleplaying game to a person I follow on Twitter, @Sorceror_Blob. These posts are dedicated to YOU, Sorceror_Blob!!!

A few caveats.  

First, computer RPGs are NOT RPGs. They are computer simulations. I do not play them as a general rule (Deus Ex would be the only exception because I could cheat in God mode and just enjoy the story) because I feel they limit me and they bore me. For the amount of time they would suck out of my life, I could do something more productive. Like talk to people I care about. Take care of my house. Put salicylic acid on my warts. Clean the dirt out from underneath my toenails. Hit myself in the head with a claw hammer. As a result, I have never played the Dragon Age electronic games. As a result =, I will not be comparing this game to that. I will review and critique it on the basis of its merits as a dice-roll-based tabletop roleplaying game.  

Second, if you have either played HiBRiD or read any of my ravings here, you know what you are going to get. If not, please understand that I love and appreciate cool mechanics but I prefer my games light on rules and heavy on fast action. I will have strong opinions, and will let you know them without holding back. I like what I like, I don't like what I don't like, and love discussing my opinions as well as your own and being talked out of mine! I love challenging the status quo and am willing to change my paradigm if given the proper argument. So, after you read this, let me have it! Challenge me! Ask me questions. Let's get together, drink some tea or Mountain Dew, and hash it out...

Finally, this is a review of  just the first boxed product, not the core book combining the different boxed rule sets, none of which I own.

So, without further delay. Let's get into this

What You Get

When you buy the Dragon Age Boxed Set, you get a box, 3 six-sided dice-two of one color and the third a separate color. (In my box, there are 2 black dice and one green die. All three dice have white dots.) The color of the dice matters due to the primary game mechanic, which I will get into in my next entry. They are plain and functional. You also get a map of Ferelden (the Game World), a glossy-covered, 64-page Player's Guide and a glossy covered, 64-page Game Master's Guide.

My Take on the Physical Product

Let me just start by saying I love boxed sets! I do! They have a special place in my heart. I cut my roleplaying teeth on the classic Red Box Basic Dungeons and Dragons with the Larry Elmore cover in 1983. I bought the 4e D&D boxed set even though I hated 4e (come to think of it, 3e and 3.5e created a massive negative pressure gradient too!) because it stirred up the nostalgia I felt just thinking of that set. I EVEN bought the Gamma World boxed set based on the horrible 4e mechanics.

While I was massively disappointed with those, the Dragon Age boxed set pleasantly surprised me. It covers character levels 1-5. a nod to the original beginner boxed set. It gives you all you need to get started playing a game. The products are solid and attractive. The art is stylish and definitely creates a mood. The colors are unified, the layout is organized. The fonts are of a good size and tables are clean. The prose is clear and concise, and should be easy for any player of 4th grade education or above to understand.  

On the downside, the editor made a few errors; the one that annoyed me on my first read-though of the Player's Guide and still annoys me every time I read it reads as follows: “Should a mage encounters such a demon...”. The lack of subject-verb agreement drives me NUTS! Also, just an other nitpick, there are no cover pages on the interior, no facing pages setting apart chapters, nor is there a table of contents. Really? No table of contents? There are glossaries and an index on the last two pages of both books, but upon attempting to look up 12 various random topics, they failed to contain the subjects I was looking for 3 of them in the Player's Guide and 4 in the Game Master's Guide. As a result of my background in the hard sciences, I am kind of a stickler for complete documentation. For most people, however, the provided tools should suffice.

Conclusion

Overall, I think the materials are professionally done and their level of quality are several notches above those of the boxed sets put out by Wizards of the Coast. The 29.95 list price on the box is definitely worth it if you are a collector, a fellow boxed set lover, or want a professional, well-put-together product from which to launch a roleplaying campaign. 

What is HiBRiD about THIS?

As an independent game designer/writer, the boxed materials are definitely the level of quality I want to strive for, minus the tiny faux pas(s?) mentioned here. I am keeping them as an example of what I can do once I get the funds to produce a boxed set of my own.

Next Up...Mechanics...