Red Box

I see some threads here about the new "Red Box" D&D set, sold under the name "D&D Essentials." It's obvious that people here have tried it. Still, I'd like ot know what people think of it.

Walking Paradox said:

I see some threads here about the new "Red Box" D&D set, sold under the name "D&D Essentials." It's obvious that people here have tried it. Still, I'd like ot know what people think of it.

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If you're new to this edition of D&D, it's a pretty good introduction. There are typos and some errors, but just check the sticky at the top of this thread for that.

I'm glad I bought mine. The dungeon adventure in there is quite good and the DM booklet is suprisingly complete. It's just missing extra magic items and rules for mundane equipment. The red box pretty much assumes the PCs will not want to change out their weapons or armour except for certain specific magic weapons.

It doesn't transition well if you want to keep playing with Heroes of the Fallen Lands. So much so that HoFL even recommends that if you started with the Red Box, you should rebuild your character or just make a new one.

Altogether good. For someone who already plays 4E? Not sure I'd recommend it. I got it for nostalgia, the adventure and the poster map. I've been really digging the $15 adventures that have been coming out with a booklet and a poster map. For $5 more, I got a cool box, a mini-DMG, monster and PC tokens and some power cards.

It's good, but I think the market audience for the red box are people who have not played any sort of RPGs before.

I'd actually recommend the Ravenloft board game to veteran gamers instead. The board game mechanics are obviously different from 4e, but the mechanics of the board game is quite similar to the flavor of 4e combat mechanics I think.

In any case, if someone is already familiar with RPGs, I would not recommend the red box and direct them to the Essentials books and DDI instead (oh and the great tile set that's part of the essentials line).

I think it's a good purchase for inexperienced D&D players, even if an experienced D&D player is introducing the game to them. Being able to multiple-choice your way through a story to make a character is vastly less complicated than handling every option of character creation, and that it does so while introducing combat rules is really nice. Experienced players will get nothing but counters, a small poster map, an incomplete set of dice (one d10 instead of two), and OCD collector satisfaction with regards to the Essentials line.

The only downside from my view is (a) converting to D&D proper requires some rework due to errors (but if they're hooked at that point, probably no biggie) and (b) the character creation process is meant for a single player (but can be adapted to multiple with a little elbow grease). The points others make about it not offering enough other gaming options are fair, but I don't consider damaging. A kid that enjoys the game will find ways to extend the game regardless, the game has advice on the matter, and leaping into the game proper is likely a realistic option given time to their next birthday / Christmas / parent whim.

I'm an experienced player but novice DM with an inexperienced girlfriend getting into the game. We both enjoyed our session opening and going through the Red Box together, and when she went through the "proper" 4E experience of making characters, she asked "why is this so much harder than the Red Box?" There are good answers for this, but it hints at the positive Red Box experience.

I really love my red box! I got it just for the hell of it the day it was released even though I've been playing 4e since release. I have to admit that it's probably the best introductory D&D set that's been made in pretty well ten years or more.

As stated above, there are some minor errors, and it is not directly compatible with the full game as far as character generation goes. The DM material is what's really awesome, though. I had happily stopped DMing a few years back, and have not so much as looked in the 4e DM material, but just flipping through the DM book in the Red Box got me excited enough to start my own game just a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, yeah, it's a fantastic value, well constructed, and easy to use. I really recommend it to anyone who thinks they might benefit from it.

Grandpa said:

I think it's a good purchase for inexperienced D&D players, even if an experienced D&D player is introducing the game to them. Being able to multiple-choice your way through a story to make a character is vastly less complicated than handling every option of character creation, and that it does so while introducing combat rules is really nice. Experienced players will get nothing but counters, a small poster map, an incomplete set of dice (one d10 instead of two), and OCD collector satisfaction with regards to the Essentials line.

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I really, really hope you're right.

I was at my local Geek-shop tonight and two kids in the 8-13 (wearing pokemon shirts to give you an idea) were looking at miniatures and stuff (the D&D board game and what not)..

In the end, they bought something like 15 hero-clicks, 2 sets of dice, the red box starter set, and ... like.. four sets of power cards...

I'm not kidding you.

They were jumping up and down and giddy and I think I heard one of them say 'I can't wait to see what spells these power cards give my characters'..

At this point it dawned on me that they thought D&D was a pokemon like game... and their parents were asking about starter games and the shop owner... nice as ever showed them the schedules for 'starter d&d games'... something tells me half the stuff will probably be returned in three to four weeks.

Their bill came upto over 40$...

I've only seen the outside of the box at a friend's house. He bought it for nostalgia reasons and is planning on leaving it in the shrink wrap...

Has anyone actually seen these in a Target store yet?

There is a thread over at RPG.net where several posters found the Red Box both at target and at Wal Mart. It seems that the best place to look for it is where the magic cards are stored.

Minifig said:

I really, really hope you're right.

I was at my local Geek-shop tonight and two kids in the 8-13 (wearing pokemon shirts to give you an idea) were looking at miniatures and stuff (the D&D board game and what not)..

In the end, they bought something like 15 hero-clicks, 2 sets of dice, the red box starter set, and ... like.. four sets of power cards...

I'm not kidding you.

They were jumping up and down and giddy and I think I heard one of them say 'I can't wait to see what spells these power cards give my characters'..

At this point it dawned on me that they thought D&D was a pokemon like game... and their parents were asking about starter games and the shop owner... nice as ever showed them the schedules for 'starter d&d games'... something tells me half the stuff will probably be returned in three to four weeks.

Their bill came upto over 40$...

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Did no one explain to them that they are not compatible? If not, next time please help such inexperienced folks out, it is always important to get new players into our hobby but with first experiences like this you can easily loose them.