Almost a year ago, Wizards of the Coast revealed the newest version of their popular role playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. This fourth edition of the game (known as 4E D&D) was designed to be easier to learn, faster playing, and better balanced. I’ve been playing the new version for about a year and my conservative favoritism has blossomed into a positive enthusiasm for the new system. If you haven’t taken a look at the new version or haven’t ever tried D&D before, now is your chance. Wizards of the Coast has just released everything you need to get started as a free download! Read on to find out the details…

Even before the first 4E basic rulebooks were released last June (the three books needed for a “complete” game are the Player’s Handbook, Dungeonmaster’s Guide, and Monster Manual) there was an introductory adventure released to whet everyone’s appetite to the upcoming new edition. Keep on the Shadowfell was released on May 20th, 2008 along with a short rules summary and several prebuilt characters, everything one needed to play through this first adventure and go through character levels 1 to 3. It was (and still is) a pretty good introduction to the system. On April 28th of this year, Wizards has now released the entire adventure as a free, downloadable PDF file. So, if you never got around to giving it a try, you can try it for free.

To help you make the most of this opportunity, I’ve gathered up a few different links from around the internet to help you get started. As is the standard for D&D adventures, this is designed for five players and one person to run the game as the Dungeon Master, but with a little bit of finesse the game can be accommodated for one more or fewer player. For smaller groups, there’s no rule against a player running more than one character at a time either.

To play, you need at a minimum the Quick Start Rules (1.3MB) and the module itself, Keep on the Shadowfell (4.2MB).

The Quick Start Rules come with five premade characters, but if you like lots of options, you can download the demo of the free D&D Character Builder. This program contains nearly every available bit of information on building custom characters in the D&D world, its only limitation is that it has a maximum character level of 3rd level. However, since this adventure doesn’t go past 3rd level, you don’t even have to worry about that. If you subscribe to the D&D Insider program (even for just a month) you can download the full version of the character builder and create characters up to 30th level.

All three of these resources, along with short blurbs can be found on a page at the Wizards of the Coast web site.

OK, you have your rules, the adventure, and even custom designed your own characters, and are ready to go. If you wan to add a bit more style and class to your game you can also download a free set of PDF counters designed just for this adventure. All you have to do is download the PDF file, print is out on card stock, cut apart the tokens, and you have a ready-made set of interesting markers to use for all the encounters in the adventure. (Note, there is a supplemental PDF page with a few markers that were missing from the initial PDF. Special thanks to the folks at Fiery Dragon for the spiffy free tokens. If you find their tokens useful, they sell large sets of preprinted and/or PDF style tokens for use in role playing games.

Well, that should be enough to get people going in trying out the game. Get up off your couch, get out there and talk it up to a few friends, and give the game a try. Its quite an enjoyable experience, as players have far more control over their actions than anything encountered in a typical computer RPG or MMORPG. Good luck, and watch out for that Kobold leader, he’s pretty deadly!

Tags: Misc