Dungeons & Dragons has doubtless influenced various themes, including Heroica and Master of the Mountain, most memorably. The official partnership of LEGO with Dungeons & Dragons is thus welcome, producing 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale.
Of course, interesting characters are integral to any Dungeons & Dragons campaign and an excellent selection is provided here, with various accessories. There are even some surprises to be found, not apparent from the packaging or official images!
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Box and Contents
While the dark packaging used for 18+ sets can sometimes be effective, I think this is another instance where a more flexible approach would have been nice, fully embracing the fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons. Nevertheless, the model is fairly vibrant and stands out against the black backdrop on the box. Inside are 32 numbered bags and four instruction manuals.
These four manuals feature artwork by chainsaw yu, whose relief-inspired design won a LEGO Ideas contest to create artwork for the instructions. This relief looks splendid, although it seems strange not to have a design that more closely matches the contents of the set. A small sheet of eleven stickers is supplied too, as well as a paper envelope protecting fabric components, such as cloaks and the dragon's wings.
Minifigures and Monsters
Four archetypal Dungeons & Dragons adventurers are included, starting with the Dwarf Cleric, whose stocky proportions and long beard are ideal for such a character. I like how the shoulder armour gives the figure the appearance of strength and the medium legs work nicely, decorated with golden mail to match the shoulder armour and gauntlets.
Furthermore, the colour scheme of teal and gold looks splendid, as does the blue and lavender of the Elf Wizard. This minifigure includes a new hair element, with lovely texture and moulded ears, which continues to expand the variety of elven hairstyles. The wizard's robe looks brilliant, but my favourite detail is how the dark blue shoulder armour continues across the torso.
Both figures include double-sided heads and I like the cleric's battle-worn design in particular, even though it is normally hidden behind his beard. A selection of accessories is provided too, including the Dwarf Cleric's warhammer and a holy symbol, while the Elf Wizard is armed with her arcane focus and a spellbook, displaying a stickered star on the cover.
Dungeons & Dragons characters are endlessly customisable, hence LEGO has also included alternative heads for each hero, so they can be male or female! Moreover, there is a separate hair element belonging to the Dwarf Cleric, while the Elf Wizard's hairstyle suits both male and female versions of the adventurer.
These heads are also double-sided, with happy and determined or frightened expressions on each side. Opening the spellbook reveals a printed tile inside and four such tiles can be found throughout the set, denoting varied spells. The invisibility and magic missile scrolls are pictured below.
The diminutive Gnome Fighter fittingly re-uses the heavy armour created for the Master of the Mountain subtheme of NINJAGO, complete with a huge pauldron over one shoulder. That pairs well with the chest armour and I like the chainmail underneath. However, the warrior's short legs are unable to move, which is obviously restrictive, especially for a presumably agile character.
Similar to the Elf Wizard, the Gnome Fighter includes a hair element with pointed ears, but this piece was created for the Elf Collectable Minifigure thirteen years ago. The accompanying Orc Rogue, meanwhile, is hooded and wears a dark blue cloak. I love the combination of dark blue and sand blue across their attire, alongside reddish brown and silver accents.
The padded design on the torso and legs is effective and I love the accessories printed on the back, with two pouches and a throwing star. Two knives and a crossbow are also included and these suit a rogue, while the Gnome Fighter carries either a shortsword or a longsword, as well as a displacer beast-emblazoned shield.
Although their differences are quite subtle, particularly in the case of the Orc Rogue, these two characters have male and female heads, like the cleric and wizard. The orc lacks second facial expressions on either head, but the gnome looks perpetually cheerful, displaying smiles on both sides of each head. A little more variety would have been welcome here.
Alax Jadescales is an innkeeper and incorporates a dragon head, introduced for VIDIYO, but featuring new decoration. The printed scales around the eyes look great and I love this figure's detailed clothing, which I can envisage appearing in any future Pirates sets, as well as medieval settings.
According to the Dungeon Master's guide for this model, the mysterious Merry Rumwell has recently taken over as the innkeeper from Alax. The character's garb is noticeably ornate and therefore includes metallic silver patterns, in combination with red, dark red and black designs. The dragon-shaped pendant looks marvellous too, perhaps worn to honour Alax.
On the other hand, Merry's beaming smile seems somehow forced and a bead of sweat can be seen on the character's male and female heads. I think the black hair element works nicely with either and the facial expressions look excellent, certainly suggesting there is more to Merry than first appears.
In fact, Merry is the evil Ervan Soulfallen! Both heads present intimidating alternative designs, with green energy crackling around the eyes. In addition, a tattered black cloak and a hood are supplied to complete Soulfallen's sinister ensemble, complementing the matching details across the torso and legs.
Green is clearly the colour of Ervan's magic because the sorcerer's staff is topped with a trans-bright green gemstone and the figure also includes a trans-bright green lightning bolt. Perhaps some more energy-based parts could have accompanied the Elf Wizard, similar to the lightning bolt, but at least Ervan Soulfallen is fully equipped.
Soulfallen uses his magic to animate three Skeletons, comprising the standard components for modern LEGO skeletons. Their accessories are interesting though, as one skeleton wears pearl silver armour and carries a dual-moulded sword, returning from the Fierce Barbarian Collectable Minifigure and the DREAMZzz range.
However, this is overshadowed by the second skeleton's beautiful cloak, which features purple fabric on the inner surface and an iridescent surface on the outside. This bears a resemblance to Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. The third skeleton lacks armour, but is presumably protected by a golden ring and wields a poisoned dagger.
Overall
Fun characters are vital to a satisfying Dungeons & Dragons campaign and 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale definitely succeeds in that regard. While the upcoming Collectable Minifigure series will presumably fill gaps in the selection, I think these six minifigures cover the essentials and the option to use different heads is welcome, as are the many accessories.
The second part of our review will be published later this week, exploring the actual model and meeting its monster inhabitants!
178 likes
51 comments on this article
By DaLegoNerd1 in United States,
The multiple heads is definitely a win, makes me even more excited for the minifig series.
By Your_Future_President in United States,
Why can't we have this level of detail, customizability, and creativity on just all sets...
By TeriXeri in Netherlands,
Best part about the figures, are the neutral hand and print colors, so most heads can be easily swapped with heads from the set itself but also heads from others.
Elf ears being a litle bit more limited , as they are skin tone specific but those can still be used on any of the characters' torso/leg combos.
By Ridgeheart in Netherlands,
The rouge is grossly overpowdered.
By TheAbleTable in United States,
I highly recommend checking out Tiago’s video, apparently there’s much more than meets the eye as far as purpose for this set, and is actually a playable D&D scenario, which I presume is the scenario they played at LEGO house recently and will release a video for soon.
Neat huh? And take a look at how majestic the dragon looks when stood up, looks like one of the cool dragons in SPYRO.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tNQ-ZOOe45k
I think the associated minifigure series will make or break my sway on getting the set, but as always, be prudent and pick it up at a lower price later on!
By AcademyofDrX in United States,
@TeriXeri said:
"Best part about the figures, are the neutral hand and print colors, so most heads can be easily swapped with heads from the set itself but also heads from others.
Elf ears being a litle bit more limited , as they are skin tone specific but those can still be used on any of the characters' torso/leg combos."
I don't know if the D&D fandom will get behind this, but it's very neat that they designed class outfits and heads for different species to allow for relative ease in mixing and matching to create player character avatars. I know others have done this over the years, but I used a Lego minifigure in my last D&D session, repurposing Jedi Luke parts for a black-cloaked Rogue. It's fun!
Between table football, the Hogwarts trunk, and some unannounced upcoming sets, it's clear that Lego is leaning into self-representation via minifigure, including for self-fictionalization like in RPGs. I'd like to see that in more licensed themes that have some aspect of player creation.
Whether D&D branded or not, Lego should do some additional modular fantasy scenes including castles and dungeons with the optional use case as terrain packs for would-be DMs.
By MrGurt in United States,
Fairly clever of Lego to release both this and 10332 Medieval Town at almost the same time. I'm sure a lot of people will be mixing the two sets together for extra fun.
I'd be into this as a major theme too, I mean for tabletop miniatures Lego is way cheaper than things like warhammer for what you get.
By BigDumbWookiee in United States,
I'm just getting more and more excited for this set. It will be a definite day one buy for me, can't wait to get the Mimic GWP as well as the campaign book! It'll be interesting to see if D&D extends beyond this set and the CMF series.
By WemWem in United States,
Wow, these minifigs are all real keepers. Makes me wish they would do a D&D CMF line or two - I could see IRL D&D players collecting them to make their own “sigfigs.”
By jjr_2009 in United States,
I'm definitely an outsider to D&D, but this set really does look tremendous. I especially love the male/female heads included for the characters. Very fun!
By ForestMenOfEndor in United States,
@WemWem said:
"Wow, these minifigs are all real keepers. Makes me wish they would do a D&D CMF line or two - I could see IRL D&D players collecting them to make their own “sigfigs.”"
Well, have we got some good news for you! I believe that the CMF is slated to drop in September.
By darthnorman in Germany,
Mixing the character's gender and class is so cool, I want to be the dragonborn with plate armor and the two handed Dreamzzz sword!
By lordofthedreams9 in Poland,
@WemWem said:
"Wow, these minifigs are all real keepers. Makes me wish they would do a D&D CMF line or two - I could see IRL D&D players collecting them to make their own “sigfigs.”"
One D&D CMF series is already officially confirmed ;)
By Sethro3 in United States,
I'm confused about Ervan's face. The mustache and thin frowny line is tripping me up. The mustache looks like it could be his actual mouth like in a scream expression, and then the thin line could be his chin. I can't wrap my head around focusing on one over the other. Weird
Otherwise, it's neat I suppose. I've never done any campaigns or know anything about the game other than what I've seen on sitcoms.
The figures look pretty neat, but I won't have to buy the set for them specifically. I may try to pick one or two up in the aftermarket.
By xboxtravis7992 in United States,
@AcademyofDrX said:
" @TeriXeri said:
"Best part about the figures, are the neutral hand and print colors, so most heads can be easily swapped with heads from the set itself but also heads from others.
Elf ears being a litle bit more limited , as they are skin tone specific but those can still be used on any of the characters' torso/leg combos."
I don't know if the D&D fandom will get behind this, but it's very neat that they designed class outfits and heads for different species to allow for relative ease in mixing and matching to create player character avatars. I know others have done this over the years, but I used a Lego minifigure in my last D&D session, repurposing Jedi Luke parts for a black-cloaked Rogue. It's fun!
Between table football, the Hogwarts trunk, and some unannounced upcoming sets, it's clear that Lego is leaning into self-representation via minifigure, including for self-fictionalization like in RPGs. I'd like to see that in more licensed themes that have some aspect of player creation.
Whether D&D branded or not, Lego should do some additional modular fantasy scenes including castles and dungeons with the optional use case as terrain packs for would-be DMs. "
One of the aspects of the Bionicle fandom during it's peak years was the idea of Self-MOC's which was helped by the variety of masks available, and being able to put together some parts to make a unique combination. Minifigures have always been capable of that and there are plenty of self-figures, but including multiple heads in a set to customize it even more brings back that feeling I have with spare Bionicle masks; just spare minifigure heads in general are great.
Between Transformers and D&D, LEGO's somewhat adventures with Hasbro are proving fruitful. Maybe LEGO can return the favor to Hasbro, and they could do some up-scaled minifigure/action figure hybrids or something. It seems like an interesting partnership between the two rival brands.
By Brickalili in United Kingdom,
Oh here I thought each fig would just have one head, female on one side and male on the other. A head each that’s still double sided is pretty sweet
By taalrob in Netherlands,
I love that Beholder behind the minifigs
By Maxbricks14 in New Zealand,
Wow! that was quick!
These minifigures are incredible. Too bad my wallet can't handle that hefty price tag of the set.
By Rimefang in United States,
I HAVE A POWERFUL NEED
By ToysFromTheAttic in Netherlands,
I have no connection to these characters whatsoever, but they do look great as minifigs. Would've preferred D&D cartoon-style minifigs, but I fully realize I'm just a small minority who'd like to see those.
By lORDoFtHEbOARD in Belgium,
Revealed... uhm reviewed! Oh, ok. Sweet.
By bundyta in Hungary,
I am so sad that we did not get a full playable line, just one gigantic adult set. These characters are really great, and the monsters also look pretty fun. 4-5 smaller sets would be much more appreciated as someone who plays dnd weekly but builds lego mostly with/for his kids.
By JDawg5 in United States,
@bundyta said:
"I am so sad that we did not get a full playable line, just one gigantic adult set. These characters are really great, and the monsters also look pretty fun. 4-5 smaller sets would be much more appreciated as someone who plays dnd weekly but builds lego mostly with/for his kids."
This issue came up a lot in the message thread for the original release, but it bears repeating. Making a single giant set feels like such a sad waste of a killer concept. A D&D theme would have worked perfectly as an "Action Theme" like Ninjago, Monkie Kid, Power Miners, Pharoah's Quest, Chima, Ex-Force, Atlantis, etc. You've got a conflict-driven story, named characters, endless monsters and locations and pick from. They could have churned this theme out for YEARS, while constantly producing new character classes, races, and monsters.
By lordofdragonss in Poland,
I hate sets like this. Overpriced single great set that it should have been a whole theme.
Huge sets NEVER will be for me, as I always have problem: This set is too expensive to be separated/customized.
Fantasy are HUGE with kids nowadays.
By Altair1970 in France,
I find the D&D set quite disappointing (the dragon in particular), but I like the minifigs.
By missedoutagain in United States,
Did I miss the part of the review..
pros cons
?????????????????????????????????
By missedoutagain in United States,
Should of made dwarf halfling drow elf human ect maybe in next minifigure series? one each character
By fakespacesquid in United States,
@lordofdragonss said:
"I hate sets like this. Overpriced single great set that it should have been a whole theme.
Huge sets NEVER will be for me, as I always have problem: This set is too expensive to be separated/customized.
Fantasy are HUGE with kids nowadays."
Pros and cons, selling one big set is much less complicated than selling 4-5 smaller sets.
What fantasy is huge with kids nowadays? The D&D movie (even though it was my favorite movie from last year) was a borderline flop. The LOTR series tanked. The D&D game itself is about as popular as it always was, not really surging. The last Harry Potter-adjacent movies didn't do well, and the series is still theoretical. The Percy Jackson series is the only recent thing I can think of that isn't doing poorly, and even then, it's not like it's doing great.
By fakespacesquid in United States,
@JDawg5 said:
" @bundyta said:
"I am so sad that we did not get a full playable line, just one gigantic adult set. These characters are really great, and the monsters also look pretty fun. 4-5 smaller sets would be much more appreciated as someone who plays dnd weekly but builds lego mostly with/for his kids."
This issue came up a lot in the message thread for the original release, but it bears repeating. Making a single giant set feels like such a sad waste of a killer concept. A D&D theme would have worked perfectly as an "Action Theme" like Ninjago, Monkie Kid, Power Miners, Pharoah's Quest, Chima, Ex-Force, Atlantis, etc. You've got a conflict-driven story, named characters, endless monsters and locations and pick from. They could have churned this theme out for YEARS, while constantly producing new character classes, races, and monsters.
"
Every other theme you named is a lot more kid-friendly and simple compared to D&D, they really just aren't in the same basket. Also, almost all of those were the standard theme allotment of 1-2 years
Also, it's not like Ideas is the final step of a license. Sonic (sort of) came out of Ideas with his own theme, and Minecraft also started there. If this does well, chances are good that it'll come back in another form (but I'd still question how wide the appeal would be. Kids don't know D&D.)
By xboxtravis7992 in United States,
@fakespacesquid said:
" @lordofdragonss said:
"I hate sets like this. Overpriced single great set that it should have been a whole theme.
Huge sets NEVER will be for me, as I always have problem: This set is too expensive to be separated/customized.
Fantasy are HUGE with kids nowadays."
Pros and cons, selling one big set is much less complicated than selling 4-5 smaller sets.
What fantasy is huge with kids nowadays? The D&D movie (even though it was my favorite movie from last year) was a borderline flop. The LOTR series tanked. The D&D game itself is about as popular as it always was, not really surging. The last Harry Potter-adjacent movies didn't do well, and the series is still theoretical. The Percy Jackson series is the only recent thing I can think of that isn't doing poorly, and even then, it's not like it's doing great. "
It's a $350 plus set, and D&D's popularity (although now somewhat plateued again) spiked after the release of 5E in 2014, with lots of interest in the franchise continued due to Baldur's Gate 3 and D&D adjacent properties like Critical Role. A new game edition is coming out later this year.
I don't think "them kids" is the target audience of this set here.
By PhantomBricks in United States,
@Brickalili said:
"Oh here I thought each fig would just have one head, female on one side and male on the other. A head each that’s still double sided is pretty sweet"
That's what I thought as well. Apparently it will just be the CMF line that goes that route.
By missedoutagain in United States,
@fakespacesquid said:
" @JDawg5 said:
" @bundyta said:
"I am so sad that we did not get a full playable line, just one gigantic adult set. These characters are really great, and the monsters also look pretty fun. 4-5 smaller sets would be much more appreciated as someone who plays dnd weekly but builds lego mostly with/for his kids."
This issue came up a lot in the message thread for the original release, but it bears repeating. Making a single giant set feels like such a sad waste of a killer concept. A D&D theme would have worked perfectly as an "Action Theme" like Ninjago, Monkie Kid, Power Miners, Pharoah's Quest, Chima, Ex-Force, Atlantis, etc. You've got a conflict-driven story, named characters, endless monsters and locations and pick from. They could have churned this theme out for YEARS, while constantly producing new character classes, races, and monsters.
"
Every other theme you named is a lot more kid-friendly and simple compared to D&D, they really just aren't in the same basket. Also, almost all of those were the standard theme allotment of 1-2 years
Also, it's not like Ideas is the final step of a license. Sonic (sort of) came out of Ideas with his own theme, and Minecraft also started there. If this does well, chances are good that it'll come back in another form (but I'd still question how wide the appeal would be. Kids don't know D&D.)"
Today, people play it at bar and restaurant pop-up events such as “Drinks and Dragons” in Philadelphia, and “Orcs! Orcs! Orcs!” in Portland, Ore. They pay $2,650 per person plus lodging over four nights to play it in Caverswall Castle in Staffordshire, England.
50 million people played DnD to date.
40% of players are aged 25 or younger.
11% of players are 40 years or older.
39% of players identify as female.
4.3 billion minutes of DnD content has been watched on Twitch.
Dungeons & Dragons saw a growth of 33% in sales in 2020.
In 2020, the Wizards of the Coast has generated a total revenue of $816 million.
TSR originally released Dungeons & Dragons in 1974.
Wizards of the Coast acquired the company and DnD’s IP in 1997.
The current edition, fifth, was released in 2014.
They saw 24% overall growth during 2020.
With a 30% increase in DnD book sales the same year.
------------------
(Source: Twitch Leaked Revenue)
They have 946,000 Twitch followers and nearly 30 million views.
Critical Role has streamed 1,449 hours of content.
They have an average of 53,000 viewers per stream.
Each stream lasts for approximately 4 hours.
Undoubtedly one of the most popular live-play DnD shows available to watch, Critical Role has been extremely successful since becoming their own company in 2018. The cast is made entirely of famous voice actors, and the show has a high production value, something that most people could never even dream of.
-------------------------------------------------------
my opinion, I think kids know of D&D most likely prefer other....
also bet more adults pre 2000 like D&D then they know of.
Just some info all in case curious ect.
By TheOtherMike in United States,
Dang, just reviewing the minifigs has me regretting that I don't have space for this set. I hope my heart can hold out when the full review comes.
@missedoutagain said:
"Did I miss the part of the review..
pros cons
?????????????????????????????????"
This is just the minifigs, the summary box will come with the review of the full model.
By StyleCounselor in United States,
@PhantomBricks said:
" @Brickalili said:
"Oh here I thought each fig would just have one head, female on one side and male on the other. A head each that’s still double sided is pretty sweet"
That's what I thought as well. Apparently it will just be the CMF line that goes that route."
Actually, the leaked images show that most of the CMFs also have two heads/genders each.
I'm disappointed that the figs in this set lack arm printing for such a high-priced set. It's also a stingy amount of figs.
Nevertheless, the Mimic GWP has firmly placed me on the fence, but leaning towards a Day 1 purchase.
By PurpleDave in United States,
@StyleCounselor:
The leaked one-sheet only shows that they have one male and one female face, which could be accomplished by doing something I don't know if they've done before, which is to make a dual-gendered minifig head. If there are more leaked images that show a third or fourth minifig face, I haven't spent much time trying to find them.
By missedoutagain in United States,
@TheOtherMike said:
"Dang, just reviewing the minifigs has me regretting that I don't have space for this set. I hope my heart can hold out when the full review comes.
@missedoutagain said:
"Did I miss the part of the review..
pros cons
?????????????????????????????????"
This is just the minifigs, the summary box will come with the review of the full model."
ty
By bananaworld in United Kingdom,
I believe it is obligatory at this point to note that all Dwarves, of any gender, have beards.
By AustinPowers in Germany,
Back in the day I loved playing Dungeon Keeper 2, and I am a huge LotR fan, so a set like this should tick a lot of the right boxes for me.
But I can't see myself buying this since a) I find it far too expensive for what you get and b) I really dislike the changes they made to the dragon and the tavern versus the original submission.
Ruins the entire look of the set for me, even if I found the rest to be good value for money.
By StyleCounselor in United States,
@PurpleDave said:
" @StyleCounselor :
The leaked one-sheet only shows that they have one male and one female face, which could be accomplished by doing something I don't know if they've done before, which is to make a dual-gendered minifig head. If there are more leaked images that show a third or fourth minifig face, I haven't spent much time trying to find them."
True. Yet, I doubt they would do so given what they did with the figs from this set. CMFs usually set the standard for high quality.
BTW, my earlier post was a bit incorrect. 5 out of the 12 CMFs have dual genders- all the humanoid characters except the witch.
By AustinPowers in Germany,
@bananaworld said:
"
I believe it is obligatory at this point to note that all Dwarves, of any gender, have beards."
Ah yes, what does that remind me of? ;-)
https://youtu.be/FQ5YU_spBw0?si=TEIV7g6voDUwJUSd
By Jack_Rizzo in United Kingdom,
Definitely going to headcanon that Beholder as being the tavern keeper, like Large Luigi from Spelljammer.
By StyleCounselor in United States,
@AustinPowers said:
" @bananaworld said:
"
I believe it is obligatory at this point to note that all Dwarves, of any gender, have beards."
Ah yes, what does that remind me of? ;-)
https://youtu.be/FQ5YU_spBw0?si=TEIV7g6voDUwJUSd"
Mmmmmm.... halibut, very, very tasty.
By PurpleDave in United States,
@bananaworld said:
"I believe it is obligatory at this point to note that all Dwarves, of any gender, have beards."
I was a bit disappointed they didn’t include a shorter beard for the female dwarf.
@StyleCounselor:
Based on the list I’ve seen, it’s five dual-gendered humanoid character class minifigs, three generic minifigs with molded heads, and four named characters.
By ForestMenOfEndor in United States,
@PurpleDave said:
" @bananaworld said:
"I believe it is obligatory at this point to note that all Dwarves, of any gender, have beards."
I was a bit disappointed they didn’t include a shorter beard for the female dwarf.
@StyleCounselor:
Based on the list I’ve seen, it’s five dual-gendered humanoid character class minifigs, three generic minifigs with molded heads, and four named characters."
Does anyone else find it odd that the named characters are either villains or “enigmatic” at best? Where are the heroes? Where’s Elminster?
In my dreams, Series 2 will be heroes, and Series 3 will be mages of legend (your Bigbys, Mordenkainens, Midnights, etc.).
By ForestMenOfEndor in United States,
… Series 4 would be Dragonlance, Series 5 the animated series, Series 6 Spelljammer…. We can skip Dark Sun.
By AcademyofDrX in United States,
@fakespacesquid said:
" @lordofdragonss said:
"I hate sets like this. Overpriced single great set that it should have been a whole theme.
Huge sets NEVER will be for me, as I always have problem: This set is too expensive to be separated/customized.
Fantasy are HUGE with kids nowadays."
Pros and cons, selling one big set is much less complicated than selling 4-5 smaller sets.
What fantasy is huge with kids nowadays? The D&D movie (even though it was my favorite movie from last year) was a borderline flop. The LOTR series tanked. The D&D game itself is about as popular as it always was, not really surging. The last Harry Potter-adjacent movies didn't do well, and the series is still theoretical. The Percy Jackson series is the only recent thing I can think of that isn't doing poorly, and even then, it's not like it's doing great. "
"Fantasy isn't popular, just look at the dozen different media properties out there!"
D&D popularity spiked with video streams in the last few years which doesn't even require playing, Hogwarts Legacy was arguably the most successful video game last year, Percy Jackson is getting another season... Like, your individual points are valid, but there's plenty of counter evidence too.
I'm not sure if the demand would carry an entire line or not, or if Lego and Hasbro might consider it, but there's definitely a calculation that the best payoff for following through on the Ideas premise was a big ticket item for adults. Kids can buy up the CMFs on impulse at checkout, if the interest is there. There's also the question of what the D&D brand brings to Lego on a longer timeframe. Between this set and the CMFs, most of the major Forgotten Realms characters and creatures will have been represented. Lego can always sell sets with orcs, elves, and dragons with other brands or even no brands. I'm more encouraged by the ongoing commitment to fantasy than disheartened at the possibility of just one D&D set.
And that's not to say that D&D doesn't offer tons more set options, like Tiamat or builds from Spelljammers or Ravenloft, just that at a certain point, any fantasy can work for D&D, especially at the tabletop.
By JDawg5 in United States,
@ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @bananaworld said:
"I believe it is obligatory at this point to note that all Dwarves, of any gender, have beards."
I was a bit disappointed they didn’t include a shorter beard for the female dwarf.
@StyleCounselor:
Based on the list I’ve seen, it’s five dual-gendered humanoid character class minifigs, three generic minifigs with molded heads, and four named characters."
Does anyone else find it odd that the named characters are either villains or “enigmatic” at best? Where are the heroes? Where’s Elminster?
In my dreams, Series 2 will be heroes, and Series 3 will be mages of legend (your Bigbys, Mordenkainens, Midnights, etc.)."
I can't believe they didn't make a Drizzt figure with two swords and a panther statue. He's basically "D&D Batman."
By xboxtravis7992 in United States,
@ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @bananaworld said:
"I believe it is obligatory at this point to note that all Dwarves, of any gender, have beards."
I was a bit disappointed they didn’t include a shorter beard for the female dwarf.
@StyleCounselor:
Based on the list I’ve seen, it’s five dual-gendered humanoid character class minifigs, three generic minifigs with molded heads, and four named characters."
Does anyone else find it odd that the named characters are either villains or “enigmatic” at best? Where are the heroes? Where’s Elminster?
In my dreams, Series 2 will be heroes, and Series 3 will be mages of legend (your Bigbys, Mordenkainens, Midnights, etc.)."
I do think that villains are more likely to show up as NPC's though in any random campaign. Lots of D&D groups have experiences going up against Strahd. Very few have experiences with Mordenkainen beyond knowing him as the wizard on the cover of some sourcebooks. Bigby is most famous for his spell "Bigby's Hand" and even then a decent amount of the audience now knows the spell as "Scanlan's Hand" now thanks to Critical Role's copyright avoidance with their Amazon Prime show renaming the spell.
Personally I love Eberron as a setting but I couldn't tell you any NPC's from it, and really my love for the setting is all about the warforged and that's because I tell people "it's Bionicle meets Jurassic Park meets film noir."
By PurpleDave in United States,
@ForestMenOfEndor:
One possibility is they seeded these two sets with characters you’re either going to play, or tangle with.
@ForestMenOfEndor:
Hey! I liked the Dark Sun PC game!
@AcademyofDrX:
And how many other GoT spin-offs are in the works besides HotD?
By ForestMenOfEndor in United States,
I'm going to steal @PurpleDave's formatting trick here.
@JDawg5: Drizzt is, of course, the first hero that I think should be included! Although I do have a pretty good figbash version of my own, accompanied by a panther from one of the recent City jungle sets.
@AcademyofDrX and @PurpleDave: I hadn't thought about the villains' greater utility as NPCs. That's a great point. On the other hand, a named Drizzt minifig (for example), could always be used for a generic drow ranger, or parted out.
@PurpleDave: I remember avoiding the Dark Sun PC game, although not because of its setting, but rather the fact that it was a departure from the Gold Box series that I loved so much.
By TheOtherMike in United States,
@ForestMenOfEndor said:"On the other hand, a named Drizzt minifig (for example), could always be used for a generic drow ranger..."
Given how many PCs have been basically ripping him off, that's uncomfortably close to the mark.
