Vintage D&D Starter Sets from TSR | The New Easy to Master Dungeons and Dragons Game & First Quest

These simple, old-school minis are a joy to see. And the artwork never looses it's charm, either.

'It's about finding the right people' - very true 👍

Those Dragon cards put me in mind of the "Fighting Fantasy" books by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingston, think I still have a few of those around the house somewhere.

I had the Introduction to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. It had most everything First Quest had, save some monsters and treasures not being in the booklets, and the space adventure being omitted entirely. I still get a chuckle at the fact that the audio CD had Macho Man Randy Savage as the Ogre.

The dragon cards did work very nicely. I got the box at around 92 and there was no one around me who could teach me the game. It helped me understand the game and lead me down the road of "almost always DM".

As you named every other artist, I felt I should add that the monsters in the Monster and Treasure book were drawn by Tony DiTerlizzi, the same art used in the 1993 Monstrous Manual. Plus, it's always fun when people realize that the guy who co-authored The Spiderwick Chronicles used to do art for D&D.

I acquired a copy of First Quest from a garage sale in the late 90's and used it to great success to introduce several new players to D&D. What an incredible experience, with the combination of lavish maps, creative and immersive audio support through the CD and just a fun series of adventures. Harrow Hill was a particular stand out and playing it late at night created some spooky moments that I still remember vividly all these years later. I've long since lost almost everything from that box set over various moves and the ravages of time. However, I still have two relics from it in my possession: the audio CD, still in its jewel case and the "thief" miniature, in good condition.

Ah, the black box. I do love that thing ever since I found one... Literally in the trash. Someone was throwing out tons of stuff, including the black box itself. It was open, and even a little warped on the lid, but it is still otherwise complete, including the dice AND lots of those flyers. Someone's dad probably bought it for their kids but since it was in english and not the local language, it probably sat in a closet for years before it got thrown out, and properly rescued by me.

Are you going to do a let's play of any of this games? Would you see a solo adventure of dragon strike and the black box. Love ur videos and love watching you play these games and paint mini's. Thanks for sharing this video 😊

Another great review! Love seeing The Easy-To-Master Box set. This was the set that taught me how to play. The dragon cards were so simple. I had the red basic box but for some reason it never made sense to me. I didn’t have anyone to ask questions about the game. Then this set came out and the rest was history. I learned the game and have been a DM ever since.

The artwork at 15:47 of Delver Ironfist the dwarf is actually from the front cover of the R. A. Salvatore book Streams of Silver... It was the 2nd book in a trilogy starring Drizzt Do'Urden, the Drow... you can actually see Drizzt on the left behind the dwarf, (who is called Bruenor by the way) with Regis (a Halfling) and Wulfgar (a Barbarian)... I'm actually reading that book at the moment, thats how I know lol...

The original Red Box (1983) was my introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. It also had a choose your own adventure teaching the basics of role playing. ((To the Hells with you Bargle!! Vengeance for Aleena!))

I am gonna say this is amazing to look back at the old edition

That big black box was my life when I was 13.

Thanks for bringing back all those good memories of playing First Quest back in the day 🙂👍 I still have the CD that came with it, although I'm not sure where the box went.

Good stuff! Looking forward to those Dragon Lance and Dragon Stike reviews!

I work for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. One of my coworkers used part of my original blackbox set to reject a patent.

This episode brings me back. I own the Dragonlance game, Dragon Strike, Dragon Quest & the ‘black’ box (fantastic way to learn with the dragon cards) still. Those were the days. I actually loved the cardboard standees. I own all the box sets & adventure books for the ‘black’ box with all their cardboard standees. I had an obsession I guess. 😂 Keep up the great work, mate.

I started out with First Quest in the early 90s if I recall correctly but I quickly fell in love with the New Easy to Master box set. To this day, I won't play any other version of D&D. TSR throughout the 90s regularly used draft artwork for product previews in their catalogues. Peruse the catalogue more carefully and I am sure you will find more instances of it. There were also oddly enough several different final versions of that artwork used on the back of the First Quest DM screen as it was reused on several different products (with slight differences in the details of each version).

Yes, the dragon cards were really effective on learning the game to a newcomer. Nice video!