OK, so you want to learn about this whole D&D thing, but you are unsure of which books/products to purchase. Well you have come to the right place. I am going to tell you what you need and give you a chance to purchase those products as well. If you find this area helpful, please let me know. If there are any problems with it let me know about them as well.

The absolute minimum that you need to start playing D&D is the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Game. Its retail price is $9.95 (US), but if you click on the link you can get it from Amazon.com for 8.95 (US) and it usually ships in 24 hours. This is a basic box set that will allow you and a group of friends to start playing about 1 hour after you open it. It has a very stripped down and easy to understand set of rules. It comes with several pregenerated characters, 6 adventures for the DM to run, a large poster map, very nice tokens for use on the map, all the dice needed, and a nice illustrated rules book.

This set is great for new players as it will introduce you to the rules of the game in a very small easy to understand increments. It is also good for players who are experienced in role playing as you will be able to see the changes to the game and understand the new rules quickly. At about $10.00 (US) it will provide many hours of fun for people of all ages. The most common use I have heard about for this product is adult D&D gamers using it to introduce D&D to their children.

For those who are interested in the full game you will need a few more books. These are the PHB (Player's Handbook), the DMG (Dungeon Master's Guide) and the MM (Monstrous Manual). The PHB is essential to all players, while the other two books are needed by the DM. Techniquely, a group only needs one copy of each book. Realisticly I have found that it is better that there are at least two copies of the PHB, one for the players and the other for sole use by the DM.

Currently all three books are retailing at $19.95 (US), but are selling for $17.95 (US) at Amazon.com. As I write this (August 28th, 2000) only the PHB has been released. The DMG is scheduled to come out in September, while the MM is slated for an October release. As they come out I will give specific reviews.

The Player's Handbook
This book is the foundation of 3rd edition D&D. It has been written very well to illustrate the new rules ina cosistant and informative manner. All school gamers will have to put aside their ideas from previous additions to really get into this game. The new skill system allows for more flexibiltiy than ever before seen in D&D, while the combat system (including the new concept of Feats) allows for every character to be different and useful in the party. They have brought back the Barbarian and Monk classes and included a new classed called the Sorcerer. The magic system is consistant between all classes that can cast spells and the new rules for magic item creation justify the prevelance of abundant magic items on most (but not all) game worlds. I heartil suggest this book to anyone playing any version of D&D even if you aren't going to switch. I am willing to bet money ($0.01) that you will be able to find at least some information useful as house rules.

The book is well illustrated with relevant pictures. The diagram a few spell effects (Bruning Hands, Fireball and Meateor Swarm) as well as show all the PC races in proportion to each other. All weapons, armor and gear is drawn to scale and ever picture in the book is related to the information on the page it is on.

Now for the bad news. The one major problem I have seen with the new rules is that the combat system is very hard to fully use without the use of minutures, tokens, or some other way to represent the combat such as a white board. This is a major drawback as my group didn't play with this type of style. It is unfortunate, but having used minutures for a few game sessions, my entire group agrees that it makes any combat much easier to understand.