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.

Bushido!

Here's a thing I picked up recently on a whim. Here's how it happened:

1. I saw a post on G+ where someone was selling Bushido RPG books.
2. I remembered owning Bushido in high school. It means something because it was the first time I got a money order and mailed off for a book. Special!
3. Noticed the books were not in original box. Nerd mind kicked in.
4. Found complete box set on eBay, sans the wacky tiny d20 that my original set came with.
5. Bought the damn box set.
6. Spent some time looking at it, flipping through the books, reading some bits I remembered from long ago. Smiled.
7. Posted about it.

The box is beat up but it's been 37 years so...

This isn't actually the printing of the box set that I owned back in the day. Mine was all black. I ordered it via a Dragon Magazine ad. I think it was $8 if I remember correctly. I was so excited when that package arrived! I do remember this stuff being in my box, but also a tiny tiny d20.

The good stuff inside!

The box may look like shit, but the books and other contents are in excellent condition. There is some wear on the books, but not much. The map and reference sheet are perfect. Almost as if they were never used... hmmm.

Thing is, I never played this game. I never even fully read the rules. I skimmed it, read bits, stole bits, and got inspired by it. I remember especially being fond of stealing the weapons table and using it for D&D. I even wrote up a budoka character class for D&D and rolled up a few PCs that I never used.

So the thing about Bushido is that I'll never ever run it in a hundred years. I'll keep this box set, mostly on the shelf, and I'll pull it out now and then to look at it. I'll maybe eventually read the whole thing. I'll steal from it and be inspired by it. But I have no illusions about running it. Not gonna happen. And since this is an FGU game I probably would not like the way it plays anyway. The presentation is crunchy and I'm not a big fan of crunch.

Of course if I found a group playing it I might join in at some point. That much is for sure.