Review: Pathfinder Beginner Box

IronWolf · Oct 28, 2011

OpsKT said:
Also, why is it that everyone lists the release of this as yesterday except Amazon, who I pre-ordered it from, and still says it does not release till November 8th?

Amazon has a horrible track record at RPG pre-orders. They are always delayed. I ended up pre-ordering with them as well as I couldn't stomach the Paizo shipping price, but I knew when I did I wouldn't have it in my hands nearly as soon. But with the money saved, I could buy the PDF from Paizo's site on official release day to tide me over.

OpsKT · Oct 30, 2011

IronWolf said:
Amazon has a horrible track record at RPG pre-orders. They are always delayed. I ended up pre-ordering with them as well as I couldn't stomach the Paizo shipping price, but I knew when I did I wouldn't have it in my hands nearly as soon. But with the money saved, I could buy the PDF from Paizo's site on official release day to tide me over.

Yeah, I tried to give them evidence that they were wrong on the date, and so they decided thy were, but rather than move it up, they pushed it back from Novemeber 8th to November 15th.

I decided to cancel the pre-order (having cash flow issues now anyway) and stick it in my wish list to keep an eye on.

13garth13 · Oct 31, 2011

Reported

Cheers,
Colin

OpsKT · Nov 2, 2011

Reported for what?

IronWolf · Nov 2, 2011

OpsKT said:
Reported for what?

There have been a couple of spam posts hitting this thread.

Tamlyn · Nov 3, 2011

Steel_Wind said:
The one thing out of all of this which I felt was lacking in the Game Master’s Guide was story. While there is mention of story, the tale and the motivations and all the rest of the elaborate plotting that I tend to think is the heart and soul of Game Mastering and adventure design is almost entirely glossed over in this book. It is present, but it is not accorded all that important a status. I am not sure why this is so and it may be that the authors are just trying to keep a young reader from being overwhelmed. It may be that their thought was “teach the mechanics with a nod to a plot, and the story will sort itself out in time.” After all, most young players will have played many RPG flavoured video games where the story elements are well underscored.

Perhaps this choice was a correct one to make; I am not sure. Whatever the case, it certainly does seem that the role of the story and individual plot elements were deliberately de-emphasized in favour of having the book teach mechanics. This potential “plot hole” aside, the book otherwise achieves mostly all of what it sets out to do rather admirably.

I can't help but think this was intentional. Once new players and DM's can figure out the mechanics, Paizo has a ton of other adventures and AP's ready to help with the story side. I don't think it's nefarious, but rather good business practice to push new customers into existing products.

OpsKT · Nov 3, 2011

Then I assume the spam posts are gone already, cause I don't see them. Ok.

Xphile · Nov 4, 2011

As a mainly 4e player, this product did pique my interest. Mostly because I think my group would be rather intimidated if I (not literally) threw the core rule book at them. I think this product would have a shot at getting them into Pathfinder.

I will say though, that the thing that I did dislike about this product is the one you seemed to like the most. While I love the artwork, I hate the pawns. I feel like I'm looking at a copy of Chutes and Ladders or Candyland every time I see them.

Part of it could be that I usually have at least one Skype user in my group playing remotely. Pogs and minis are easy to see, not so much with pawns.

seankreynolds · Nov 10, 2011

Xphile said:
Part of it could be that I usually have at least one Skype user in my group playing remotely. Pogs and minis are easy to see, not so much with pawns.

I think you'll agree that "One of my players attends my games via Skype" means you're not exactly the target audience for the (introductory product) Beginner Box.

Windjammer · Nov 20, 2011

Xphile said:
I will say though, that the thing that I did dislike about this product is the one you seemed to like the most. While I love the artwork, I hate the pawns. I feel like I'm looking at a copy of Chutes and Ladders or Candyland every time I see them.

One man's garbage... It's the part that reminds me of all sort of awesome generals who're looming large these days in historical wargames.

Not to mention the stand-up tokens used in Fantasy Flight games, like Arkham Horror or Warhammer Roleplay.

It seems someone is missing out on the great developments the war- and boardgame market has undergone in recent years.