Red Box discontinued......Smart Move?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually since we're going this route it's $23 at amazon.com...
Amazon.com: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box (9781601253729): Jason Bulmahn, Sean K Reynolds, Wayne Reynolds: Books

So I was actually trying to be fair by using the actual MSRP. so again... it's still cheaper and not 3.5 times the price of the red box... so yeah you were far off.

Yes, I was DRASTICALLY far off, lol. Or maybe I guessed a number from the recollection of the prices I've seen for these products recently, which was not exactly all that far off, as I have demonstrated, and was FAR from being even close to so inaccurate as to have any effect on my basic argument, which was that the RB was a LOT cheaper than the BB and thus comparing them directly against each other wasn't really a valid comparison. Of course it is easier to argue about trivial details instead of substance...

It is a little disingenuous (ignoring the gigantic exaggeration of PF BB being 3.5 times the price of the red box) when I can find a cheaper price easily by going to the major internet online discount seller, which I assumed if you are comparing cheapest prices instead of MSRP you would have done as well. That's why the easiest and most fair route would have been to stick to MSRP.

Funny, I went to Amazon, and Amazon said $27.88, so I went with that, lol. I realize you take offense at my price comparisons, but AGAIN, the salient point is that there's a considerable price difference between RB and BB, which may be 2x if you can find it for $24 instead of 3.5x, but since when do you expect a product that costs half as much to be equivalent to the more expensive product? You're arguing trivia instead of addressing the ACTUAL point of what I said.

As to the monster issue, the reality of the matter is that the PF BB gives you enough monsters,magic items (which I'd be willing to bet are even more than in the DM Kit/HoF), etc. to cover 5 levels of play, along with a downloadable enhancement with even more monsters, magic items, etc... and then you can hit the PFSRD for even more monsters that are free... again bang for buck seems to go to the PF BB

OK, I don't think Essentials in general has vast listings of different types of items, but it certainly has enough items to supply PCs with more than enough basic items to play a perfectly good game. I don't know what else is in the DMK, I presume it doesn't have regular items in it since the HotF* books do, but I'd point out that if we are considering ONLINE materials that even without DDI WotC has a pretty hefty roster of stuff. You can download KotS, another 'starter' adventure, and ALL of the LFR adventures for instance. Again, if we're going to compare things then we need to compare comparable things. This is why I stuck with the books/sets. Once you bring other stuff into the mix where do you end? Again too, if we're comparing the BB to HotF*/DMK then the 4e stuff has 30 levels worth of rules, the BB has 5. I think overall it is a pretty fair comparison. Realistically you will want more stuff with either of those selections before too long.

You'll also need more magic items (MME) to run 4e from those two books... so add MV, and MME, see how the price keeps going up? It's still cheaper to go PF BB + core + monsters from PFSRD.

No, you can certainly run a good game for quite a while with what is in those 2 books. There are a couple dozen items in HotF*, and IIRC several more in the DMK adventure (not sure exactly how much overlap there, but there are some). Given 6 levels for each item you CAN get by for 30 levels with them, though most of us would want more. Still for FIVE LEVELS you need more than a couple dozen items? 5x4 = 20, you aren't even going to give away near all the ones you've got in 5 levels... And again, as soon as you bring in PFSRD I'm bringing in the full LFR library, which has easily 100's of monster stat blocks and a LOT of items as well.

No the single real criticism of the Red Box was, IME, it's low play and replay value... of course there were many others surrounding the product that were just as valid.

we can just agree to disagree as far as it's quality since you are certainly entitled to your opinion, personally I prefer books with covers to paper pamphlets, a reusable flip mat to paper maps, enough levels to provide months of play andbe re-playable numerous times as well as stand-up's to tokens. I mean you can run an entire mini-campaign from the BB.

In the end I voted with my dollars. I bought one red box and thought it was crap... I've purchased 1 PF BB for myself and after seeing the quality and utility of the product I went ahead and purchased 3 more PF BB for my nieces and nephews this christmas confident that they would get much more out of these than they would the RB. WotC honestly made it easy for me to decide which way to go this christmas season.

I don't have the slightest issue with your opinion of anything. All I was ever pointing out was that it made more sense to compare equal things or to at least understand that when you compare the RB to the BB that it is a LOT cheaper product that clearly has a slightly different purpose. For $12 IMHO it serves as a pretty good basic intro to the game. TBH I think if they'd have jacked up the price 5 bucks and included a couple more levels of play I think it might have been better, yes, but clearly they were aiming for an MSRP < $20 to keep it in the impulse buy category.

I'll also go back to my own experience with the original Holmes basic of so long ago. We only played it for a couple weeks before we ran out and got more D&D stuff. I doubt we even got to 3rd level. Actually I think we did, but my point is the RB wasn't designed for a lot of replay value, it was designed to be replaced in a month with the HotF*/DMK/MV/etc as needed.

Clearly the BB OTOH aims to serve as a longer term game. Instead of being seen as just a bare starting point clearly they wanted something that you could play through for a while. That's great. It just seems hard for me to understand how WotC could have done that for $20...

Again, maybe the Paizo product strategy proves to be a better strategy. I don't think we can fairly say more than what we personally prefer. If there were a 4e version of the BB done BB style? Hmmmm, it would be cool, but again wouldn't it just basically be HotF* and DMK and maybe 10 pages of 'creatures and treasure'? I think they COULD do that for the same price and it would be cool. I'm just not sure at all that what they did was bad or foolish, just different.

 

[delericho]

HoF= $19.95
DM Kit = $39.99
MV = $29.99
Total = $89.93

PF BB= $34.95
PF corebook = $49.99
Total = $84.94

You forgot the PF Bestiary, which is a must-have. It's also perhaps worth considering that the Pathfinder option contains more than three times as many classes, and many many more magic items than the 4e route. To be comparable, you'd probably have to throw in the other "Heroes of..." book and MME as well.

D&D Starter Set (Red Box) is $12.
PF BB Admittedly you can find for $28. So really, I'm not exactly far off...
HotF* $12.
4e DM's Kit $16

For fair comparisons, you really need to use the RRP. Otherwise, you could trawl eBay for a Red Box for $0.01, or something equally extreme.

Not that I really care all that much. Chances are that a new player who tried both 4e and PF would vastly prefer one to the other (rendering price comparisons secondary). Hopefully, most people will find the right game for them.

However, when comparing the D&D Red Box and the Pathfinder Beginner Box, I think there's a very clear winner, and it's Pathfinder. Even at nearly twice the price.

 

[Windjammer]

Can you cut it with the tedious price comparisons?

 

[Imaro]

However, when comparing the D&D Red Box and the Pathfinder Beginner Box, I think there's a very clear winner, and it's Pathfinder. Even at nearly twice the price.

This...

 

[SteveC]

Where oh where is my eye rolling smiley?
In other words: yes, I know some folks might love Pathfinder, but we're talking two very different products here: a cheap point of introduction to the hobby, that was initially sold in retail stores, which banks on a known product (D&D) and a nostalgia factor.

The Pathfinder Beginner Box is a VERY nice looking product, but it's price point is different, it isn't available in conventional retail, and it has no nostalgia factor whatsoever. Even if it was at Walmart, who's going to walk by and recognize Pathfinder anything, unless you're already a gamer?

Both are nice products, in their own way. If you like Pathfinder, I'm sure you'll absolutely LOVE the BB, and you'll have no need for the Red Box. Funny, that's exactly the opposite of my experiences, almost as if different people have different expectations and interests, which color their expectations on what makes a good product.

Just as a simple example: I had an old friend from college come into town and we saw each other for the first time in 20 years. He was so excited to tell me about the Red Box, and how he had picked it up on a lark last year in Target, and introduced his 10 year old son about D&D. He was very excited that he was showing his son the same thing that had been so important to him at that age. Has he ever heard of Pathfinder? As he was out of the hobby since college, he's never heard of it.

Different products, with different goals! And I completely think that WotC should revise the Red Box and keep it in print.

 

[Imaro]

Where oh where is my eye rolling smiley?
In other words: yes, I know some folks might love Pathfinder, but we're talking two very different products here: a cheap point of introduction to the hobby, that was initially sold in retail stores, which banks on a known product (D&D) and a nostalgia factor.

The Pathfinder Beginner Box is a VERY nice looking product, but it's price point is different, it isn't available in conventional retail, and it has no nostalgia factor whatsoever. Even if it was at Walmart, who's going to walk by and recognize Pathfinder anything, unless you're already a gamer?

Both are nice products, in their own way. If you like Pathfinder, I'm sure you'll absolutely LOVE the BB, and you'll have no need for the Red Box. Funny, that's exactly the opposite of my experiences, almost as if different people have different expectations and interests, which color their expectations on what makes a good product.

Just as a simple example: I had an old friend from college come into town and we saw each other for the first time in 20 years. He was so excited to tell me about the Red Box, and how he had picked it up on a lark last year in Target, and introduced his 10 year old son about D&D. He was very excited that he was showing his son the same thing that had been so important to him at that age. Has he ever heard of Pathfinder? As he was out of the hobby since college, he's never heard of it.

Different products, with different goals! And I completely think that WotC should revise the Red Box and keep it in print.

Emphasis mine... I keep seeing people post this but I'm not seeing how the products have different goals. Different methodologies, sure... but the goals of the beginner box and starter set seem to be for all practical purposes... identical (which is why I feel it's fair to compare the two). So please expound on what the differences are in their goals, I'm genuinely curious.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think it is so much a radically different basic goal as it is a rather different overall product strategy. As Steve said, Paizo has pretty much zip brand recognition outside the gamer community and their retail presence is pretty much restricted to game stores. Few and far between are the people who aren't gamers who will know what Pathfinder is or associate it with D&D, nor are they likely to have kids asking for a PF product for Christmas etc. BB is aimed at people who know what PF is. They will likely be buying it for kids or maybe as an entry for themselves into playing PF. The RB was clearly designed instead to trade on the D&D brand name and act as an impulse buy where the buyer knows what D&D is, probably remembers the old RB, and picks it up as a way to intro their kids to what they played back in the day. Someone wanting to get into 4e that plays RPGs will likely buy some of the other Essentials books, which gets them basically what the PF BB would give them.

Looking at myself, if I were buying one of these products for some kids I'd be pretty tempted to go with the less expensive and simpler RB. OTOH if I was buying a PF item for myself to get into it or my sister, who likes to run E6 3.5, I'd clearly want to be buying the PF BB. In terms of which strategy is going to work best from a business standpoint for WotC and Paizo I think we really can't answer that. Clearly if WotC had made an intro product with an MSRP of $35 like the PF product then I think it is safe to assume it would be a more substantial product. Would it be 'better' or 'worse' than what Paizo produced? Heck if I know! We could as easily ask if Paizo would have made as good a product as RB at MSRP $20? We don't know that either.

I think it would be cool if WotC did revise and re-issue their RB. Clearly it can at worst be cleaned up a bit rules-wise. I don't think it was some sort of stunningly brilliant product, but I've looked at it, it isn't crap either. It is just the minimum amount of D&D stuff you can put in the cheapest possible box and still have a playable game.

 

[Windjammer]

I don't think it is so much a radically different basic goal as it is a rather different overall product strategy.

Indeed. Look to the 2004 and 2006 D&D starter boxes WotC put out at Paizo's current price tag and you can see the different 'strategies' in action. WotC goes for 'D&D Miniatures - and, oh, you can roll to detect traps!', whereas Paizo gives newbs way more of a rounded D&D experience. The DM advice and sample adventures in these products couldn't differ more strongly, and it has exactly zero to do with the price tag.

Actually, the cheapest way to continue that strategy is not to promote a new D&D starter box but to start including short leaflets with their D&D boardgames. The latter sell well, and mostly to people who'd exactly need as smooth a transition from a glorified minis game to a RPG as possible.

 

[Jester David]

I enjoy all this discussion breaking things down by price and comparing which has more value. Which doesn't mention the Red Box becoming hard to find and having an inflated price on the secondary market, which skews the whole exercise until it becomes available again.

I think the PF BB is a slightly better option. If you buy the books - which has been pointed out as optional with the free online resources - it will be more expensive. The combination of Beastiary, Core Book and BB is steeper than the Red Box, DMK, MV, and one of the Heroes of Adjective Noun books.

That said, I think the value in the PF BB is what else you have. Once you've bought everything, if you're a 4e player you have all the tokens you need from the DMK and MV, and you have all the PC rules. The Red Box becomes vestigial. Superflous.
With the PFBB you still have the cardboard standies. And the flipmat.

And I think the PFBB has the advantage of tiding you over for longer. You don't have to save much to buy the Red Box. It's cheap. But it doesn't last long. Three or four sessions and you have to go buy the new book. And since the other books are so cheap, if you have the spare $20 it's almost easier to buy one of the player books and skip the Red Box altogether.
The PFBB will last you longer. It's an investment but you have the time after to save and scrimp.
And both make excellent gifts. But with the Red Box you're giving a gift that will last a long weekend then get closeted as they need to go buy more books. With the PFBB, you're giving a gift that will last 2-3 times as long.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, as of the other day you could buy the RB for $12 through Amazon partners. I don't know how hard to find it is offline, but the price is still well below MSRP online. The OLD Red Box from 1983, yeah, that's pretty expensive, around $80 judging from the search results that popped up when I googled 'Red Box'.

Otherwise, yeah, the RB is definitely not going to be something you need for more than the maybe month or so you might take to get to level 2 and finish up the adventure they give you.