Wizards of the Coast and the Lego Company have teamed up to provide a free DnD one shot. Released alongside the Red Dragon’s Tale DnD Lego set, the adventure – designed by Chris Perkins – can be downloaded from DnD Beyond completely free of charge. It features six scenes, each one incorporating a different section of the Red Dragon Lego Ideas set.
Red Dragon’s Tale is clearly designed to be an entry point to Dungeons and Dragons, and tabletop RPGs as a whole, and as such it’s both beginner-friendly and child-friendly. It assigns preset characters, and spells out – for instance – that the DnD Rogue can be sneaky, disarm traps, and pick locks.
There are even options to run the game without DnD rules at all, and treat it purely as a storytelling exercise – though as you might expect these are somewhat barebones.
Skimming over the 18-page document, it seems Red Dragon’s Tale is a fairly archetypal DnD adventure. You meet in a tavern, explore a dungeon and a wizard’s tower, before facing a dragon.
Along the way, some classic DnD monsters like the Mimic 5e and Owlbear 5e show up – though high level monsters are generally nerfed in some way, to avoid an instant TPK.
While there are opportunities to find treasure in the course of the journey, all you get as a reward for defeating an evil sorcerer and surviving an encounter with an adult dragon is unlimited hot wings.
What the adventure lacks, as far as we can tell, is gameplay or story elements that actually link it to Lego, that make it a ‘Lego adventure’ as advertised. While you’ll find the various creatures and locations from the Red Dragon’s Tale Lego set within the adventure’s pages, I’d have liked to see some unique Lego-themed DnD 5e spells, abilities, or items.
As well as this adventure, you can also claim some virtual DnD dice sets designed to look like Lego on the DnD Beyond store.