Do you love role-playing games, but lack the energy for an entire one? Or maybe you have a kiddo who wants to play D&D, but you don’t know where/how to get started? Then Dungeons & Dragons: The Adventure Begins is the game for you!

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The Adventure Begins is kind of like a board game version of D&D. Unfortunately, it’s only for up to four players (and unlike other games, where you can just add more pawns, it doesn’t work with this game). It is still cooperative, which we love. Everyone creates a character, and the role of dungeon master (DM) is passed around the board.

To create a character, take a hit point (HP) slider and choose a pawn. Each pawn is a different color, which will correspond to their color die, as well as their color character boards. There are five character boards for each character, but you only end up with three. The first character board just has a picture, and you choose whether you want to be male or female (choose which side is facing you).

The next two boards, you’ll have two to choose from. You want to make sure that at least half your party is able to heal; this special ability is on the second, taller, board. There are two sides to this board, so four special abilities to choose one from. The last board, you’re basically choosing whether your special attack uses your surroundings, or uses items from your backpack. All three character boards fit into your HP slider.

Each board has a different deck of monsters and situations. There are only, at most, 6 spots on each board, but at least 20 cards in each deck. All of these things – different Big Bads (and accompanying smaller bads), order of boards, and the individual decks – mean there is a LOT of replayability. Not to mention the player factor; we sometimes play different characters with different abilities and different backpacks.

Each new space you go to, move the DM deck and die one person clockwise. While adding extra flavor text is nice, all the DM really has to do is read the card. Since this is a cooperative game, it’s okay if your kids don’t know how to read yet, but you definitely want at least one player to be able to read.

There are both monsters to attack and general situations to resolve. If you want more monsters to fight (which give you gold, which you can trade in for a level), choose a side quest when you have the option. When you take a side quest, you look through the deck for the next monster. (This made me realize I’ve probably been shooting us in the foot. I haven’t been shuffling the decks, on the theory that this way it’ll be a while before we have repeat cards, so it’ll always be like a new game. But every time we do a side quest, we look for the next monster, so probably the top half of each deck is monster-free. I should probably shuffle the decks!)

We really love this game. It scratches the role-playing itch for my son, but is easier on my husband (our resident DM). The box is on the larger side, and there is a lot of wasted space, but the organization is so great that I haven’t bagged this game yet.

What do you think? Is this a game that deserves a place on your game shelf? Make sure you check out our play-through video to help you decide, too!