LEGO Insiders Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale adventure book review

The LEGO Group's partnership with Dungeons & Dragons has led to a tie-in adventure with a physical LEGO Insiders book as the ultimate item for collectors.

As exciting as the huge 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale is for D&D and LEGO enthusiasts, no one could have expected the partnership with Wizards of the Coast to include a fully-fledged adventure. A physical version of that adventure with new artwork and a guide to the model was even more unexpected.

This premium book is exclusively available for LEGO Insiders. It's free to sign up to the program and you can earn points by spending in LEGO Stores and on LEGO.com. It's not required to access the adventure though as LEGO Insiders can also download its contents digitally for free.

This LEGO adventure book comes as the latest effort to expand the LEGO Insiders reward selection, offering members something other than a discount to spend their points on. As this adventure is available to download digitally, it's by no means a required reward. For the right collectors though, it's going to be a must-have.

D&D books are not only useful for running campaigns: they're also essential for understanding the worlds, story, characters and more, and from that perspective it's hard not to appreciate what has been done with this LEGO Insiders reward. The level of authenticity present, but with a distinct LEGO touch to the design, only begins to make sense when you learn that legendary D&D adventure designer Chris Perkins is behind the Red Dragon's Tale adventure.

Importantly, the book acts as a guide and glossary to the items, creatures and minifigures in 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale. Whether you settle for the free digital copy or stretch to the physical LEGO Insiders Reward, the contents are excellent and well worth a read for anyone picking up the LEGO Ideas set next month.

The adventure itself is relatively simple, but offers a great introductory adventure to Dungeons & Dragons – especially as it includes rules outside of the normal D&D ruleset for anyone without dice and character sheets who still wants to experience it. It's still very high quality and you can tell that it has been designed by a Dungeons & Dragons legend.

The artwork is excellent too, adding plenty of personality and backstory to the minifigures in 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale, and it's an ideal accompaniment to the larger set. The quality of the paper is great too and won't be damaged easily. There are reflective parts to the cover to give it a sense of whimsy and magic and it's hard not to appreciate these finer details as it glistens in the sunlight.

That said, 2,700 LEGO Insiders points are worth £15 – and require a spend of £300+ to acquire – and the size of the book isn't massive, likely only taking three to four hours to run with a group of players. But for an avid Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast, there's little doubt that it's a worthwhile acquisition provided you have the points.

Those tempted by the set or curious about the adventure without the points – or the willingness to spend them – will be able to settle for the free digital copy, putting points towards a discount instead. The limited-edition nature of the LEGO Insiders reward is something to consider of course, especially for collectors, and we can't imagine that this will be offered again in the future when – not if – it runs out of stock.

This book was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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