Retro Review: The New Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons

TSR1070 – The New Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons
Release Year: 1991
Design: Timothy B. Brown & Troy Denning
Cover Art: Jeff Easley
Cartography: Spectrum Graphics
ISBN: 1-56076-082-6
Original Price: $20.00

The two of you awaken in a musty room. The floor and three walls are solid stone, but the fourth wall is of thick iron bars. You’re in jail!

The last thing you remember is being hit on the head by a couple of ruffians.

A hairy, whip-carrying monster enters the hallway in front of the jail. Behind it follows a brawny man with bound hands. The monster stops in front of your cell, then says in its hobgoblin-accented voice:

“Jerj wise to your tricks, prisoners. Lie face down on floor. Don’t try anything, or Jerj bash you good!”

Do you follow Jerj’s orders or do you try something?

Contents:

• Rulebook – 32 pages with wrap-around cover.
• Dungeon Master’s Screen
• 48 numbered cards
• 4 un-numbered double-sized folded cards – Zanzer’s Dungeon Part 1 – Part4.
• 2 Sheets of standup counters with 24 Counters per sheet
• Fold-Out Map of Zanzer’s Dungeon
• Box art poster of the cover art
• Set of 6 Polyhedral Dice
• Instruction page entitled “Read This Sheet First!”

I was a D&D addict back in the old days. It didn’t matter what TSR put (or sometimes shat) out, I bought it or begged mum and dad to get it for me. So even though I had already been playing for 13 years, when this came out – I had to own it.

This “New Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons” boxed set is a bit of an anomaly. It has the dimensions of a board game (42 x 31 x 5.5) and has “game pieces” – and plays out much like you would a board game. But at the same time, it is an RPG – a good old-fashioned fun D&D. In fact, it is the 4th revision of the Basic Set rules which make it the 15th printing of the original set.

The Rule Book contains all the rules you need to play low-level (1-5 ) games, making it in many ways much like the current 4E red box. It contains a some-what like an abridged version of the Players Manual (minus the solo adventure) and Dungeon Masters Rulebook from the Red Box rolled into one.

The book covers character generation, the game rules, spells, treasure, how to create adventures and even contains a fairly long list of monsters. What makes this different from others is the ‘Dragon Card Learning Pack’ – a pouch of loose pages attached to what claims to be the Dungeon Masters Screen (but sadly actually prevents it from standing up and being used as the DM’s screen).

The Good
By far the nicest thing in the box is the Zanzer’s Dungeon map. It’s a rather nice little dungeon with prison cells, a small mine and a rock sorting room with hand-driven conveyor belts, among other features. I now own multiple copies of the dungeon map and have used it not only for the purpose intended, but for lots of other game systems than D&D.

Another good point is that for those that want to own a copy, it is very easy to find and actually doesn’t cost much more than it originally did. Considering that the map itself would probably retail for at least $20 if released today, it is a good bargain. I’ve purchased complete sets for as low as ¢.20 (yes, that is 20 U.S. cents) and have seen them highest at no more than $30.

And since this was a TSR product, it was released in a ton of different languages. So if you’re not a native English speaker or would rather just have one in your own language, chances are you can find one. I mean, they even printed them in Danish – which often seems to rank along side Ket and Yeniseian as far as companies willing to translate their works.

And the bad
This thing is a nightmare of design and practicality. The loose-leaf format hinders rather than helps and is made all the worse by the solo adventure being printed on one side of the pages and the introductory guide to the rules in a Q&A format being printed on the other. Yes – 2 different sections of text are printed back-to-back on alternate sides of the same pages. And if you drop the cards out of the DM screen / folder – you’re screwed. It takes forever to put it all back together.

Overall, it is a fun game – just one badly made.