Advanced Dungeons and Dragons First Quest boxed set. Two Shelves of Gaming - Episode 4.

Welcome back listener(s)!  In this episode I ramble semi-coherently about TSR's First Quest boxed set which was an introduction to role playing games using the 2nd Edition AD&D system. I remember seeing this product back in the day when my interest in the RPG hobby was starting to fade. Yet even so I didn't have any kind of idea how it fitted in to the larger AD&D gaming universe / multiverse and kind of wondered whether this was some kind of re-start attempt or even a means to bypass the expensive core rule books? I just didn't know. (To be totally honest, at the time it looked like an act of desperation from a game and company that seemed to both be in decline) Looking back on things, and having a general notion of the gaming hobby, I have to wonder if some kind of wonderful opportunity was squandered with this product? Rather than trying to steer new gamers into the TSR / AD&D fold, should they have made a clean slate situation and instead released something simpler and cheaper - a rules light or slimmed down AD&D if you like, instead of pushing this product expecting it to drive these people in turn towards the larger system. That's asking a lot of people don't you think? Although for me the highlight of this set is the comical CD that came with it. While touted as a game aid to explain aspects of the game and having examples of 'actual game play' my mean cynical self was stunned into disbelief the first time I heard it. "Surely they didn't actually put this in an AD&D product? Oh, lordy!" No matter, by the time I'd first heard the audio, TSR was no more and thus the impact of this boxed set long since faded.  In the episode I mention the Complex Games Apologist. Look him up if you can.