What better way to test out the new Dungeons & Dragons Questers series of toys, designed to give children too young for the actual Dungeons & Dragons game their first exposure to the franchise, then to have children play with the things? I don’t have kids, but my brother does, so when the opportunity to review some of these toys landed with me I passed it on to him. Here are his thoughts:
In short, it totally won over all four of our “testers”, aged seven, six, four and two, to the point that three more dragons are already on order.
Our set was a black dragon in its egg, a dwarf rogue in a tower and three of the dice blocks, which turned out to hold a silver dragon, a golden owl and a green dragon. Every pack contained a single figure, a die, a sheet of stickers and a hexagonal fact card.
It’s worth declaring that ours is a household of nerds and D&D tragics from way back, so we were always likely to be favourable buyers.
The unboxing was a big part of the fun. The dragon’s egg is a good size and a dark black, with a claw breaking out of the top, and it looks great on the bench even now that it’s empty. It was easy to unwrap for the most part, although some sections needed scissors, so the opening became an adult’s job.
Everything inside felt new and well packaged. The kids loved the hexagon cards and the stickers, and having a die of their own was a nice touch.
Each figure comes in about six parts, usually a head, a torso and four limbs, with a tail added for the dragons. The parts were mostly easy to find and clicked into place easily, though the assembly was another task for an adult.
The designs are the line’s great success. They are cute, friendly and clearly made for younger kids, and Basic Fun! has done a remarkable job of making D&D’s creatures, including some of the most fearsome, feel approachable. The figures also have a good weight and feel solid in the hand.
Each of the kids claimed one straight away. My two-year-old carried the black dragon around all day in a headlock, wedged into the crook of her elbow.
The dwarf’s sword and crossbow were a hit with the seven-year-old and left the younger kids cold.
Play was mostly imaginative, and in fairness it seemed like something of a missed opportunity to not build some kind of formal gameplay around the toys. Nonetheless, the story starter in each pack suggests that a child says what they want to do, rolls the d20 and then sees whether the result is a disaster, a partial success or something amazing. Our kids needed no prompting to do exactly that, and they were soon rolling to decide the outcomes of stories they had invented themselves.
The toys have also been into the shower as bath toys, and they coped well. The plastic is durable and has mostly held up to four kids, although the silver dragon’s wings came off a little too easily. Being able to adjust the large dragon into different poses was neat, but if I am to hazard a guess this guy will become a wingless lizard at some point, with those pieces going “magically” missing never to be found again.
Going on feel alone, we guessed that the dragons would cost somewhere between $50 and $70 and the heroes close to $30. The Australian distributor’s recommended retail prices are $34.99 for a dragon, $24.99 for an adventurer and $14.99 for a creature, and these feel like toys that are priced competitively compared with what is out there.
I see Questers as a first step into D&D for kids who are too young for the real game. It gives them the basics of heroes, monsters, dice and chance, and then leaves the storytelling to them.
The story starters were a disappointment in that they didn’t really introduce Dungeons & Dragons as a formal game, but this is just the first release and, Wizards of the Coast being what they are, it’s hard to imagine that the pipeline doesn’t have play boards and simple little adventure modules in the guise of children’s books for formalised play being released down the track.
The range could be broader as well. Eight heroes felt like the right number on that side, but we would have enjoyed a much bigger range of monsters than the 12 creatures and three dragons on offer. A collection of 25 to 30 would be more consistent with other kids’ collectables, but then again, this balanced against the cost of the figures makes owning the entire set less onerous for those families that get right into it. And, of course, we don’t know how frequently we’ll see new series’ launch.
Back when I was a kid, there was Monsters In My Pocket, which was a great way to introduce kids to various popular culture stories. This does a similar job for the current new generation, albeit with a singular Dungeons & Dragons focus. All-in-all, these now sit alongside our Ooshies, Paw Patrol and Pokémon toys, and the kids have their Christmas lists sorted.
