Sunday, November 24, 2019

Rick and Morty vs. D&D


I only bought this on a whim because it was cheap on pre-order, I'm a sucker for 64 page rulebooks, I like R&M, and I'm also a sucker for cool box sets.

The box is an entirely playable game. You can literally run D&D from this box for many sessions without buying anything else. You can be creative with the contents, make up your own adventures, and never buy anything else. You got your core rules, dice, four character classes through level 5, a bunch of races, a very cool DM screen, and a dungeon to play through.

The rules are presented coherently with Rick's rickness helping you understand what the hell you're reading. Which is fun.

But I don't LOVE this. Here's why I don't LOVE it.

It's literally just vanilla 5e D&D. It is absolutely NOT Rick and Morty D&D. It's vanilla milktoast Dungeons & Dragons with Rick and Morty kind of sprinkled on top as they offer meta-commentary. The adventure that comes in the box, The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy, seems like a fun romp with plenty of juvenile humor (buttless zombies?) that feels like Rick and Morty. But at the core: just plain D&D.

There are no descriptions of portal guns, laser guns, or anything sci-fi that would be in the theme of R&M. This is because the box set is JUST D&D as (Rick sees it). It is Rick and Morty explaining how to play D&D. It is not playing D&D in the Rick and Morty universe... which is kinda what I was hoping for.

Hell, we even get the same blah passages on rules we get from the 5e books along with some of the same extremely boring artwork.

But yes, we also get tons of fun R&M cartoon art and lots of R&M commentary. Just no god damn portal guns.

(If I'm missing something, let me know.)

Is it worth the price? YES.

Why? Because if you want to play basic D&D 5e and you don't want to spent $150 doing it, you get ALL YOU NEED right here. In a fun package. Just don't expect high level hijinks (it goes through level 5 and D&D is more-or-less a 20-level game). And for god's sake don't expect space ships and laser pistols because they ain't in here. The price on the box is $29.99 but you can probably still score it for $20.

If you are trying to learn D&D or want to give D&D to some snot-nosed teen this is your cheap ticket in.

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