Red Box: Some Constructive Criticism

[nnms]

The idea that the DM can houserule fixes is, IMO, a very poor argument. Of course we know that. Does a new player?

I tacked that onto the very end of a paragraph and you think I was putting that forward as an argument?

My argument is that magic items don't matter for levels 1 & 2 like they do for levels 4 and on when monster defenses and hit points start to truly outpace a PC that doesn't have enhancement bonuses.

And if you replayed a few times with just the red box, the 7 magic items being *the 7 magic items* might well become part of the fun.

I would feel MUCH better about this set if it included a shopping list, a couple or a few dozen magic items (rather than 7) and a shortcut cheat sheet so that you could create a character without playing through the solo adventure (even if it referred you to the existing steps). That would fill all my requirements (albeit in a somewhat odd way). The changes I'm proposing don't have to be complicated.

I completely agree with the above. A tiny shopping list, a tiny magic items section and a tiny character creation summary would be very, very nice.

That said, I think the red box is complete as it is. A DM *can* make adventures with it. With the meagre skill training and feat choices as well as a few build choices, you can make well, well beyond 16 pre-gens.

I would love it if the free extra online solo adventure had a shopping section. That way people would atleast get some of that, even if they have to go online for it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I totally agree. What gets me is the fact that Keep of the Shadowfell seems as a whole to be made with a totally different set of rules. I mean there is a level 6 encounter set in front of level 1 PCs for crying out loud!

I have to wonder how they can let something like this happen. These are supposed to be the pros of the industry.

It's because the quick-start rules for Keep of the Shadowfell was written before the entirety of the rules were solidified. Let's look at it this way...

Mearls has said (Ibelieve) that his work on Essentials was last fall. Which means (I would venture a guess) that the documentation in the Red Box was probably also written at that time. However, since that time they've had all these updates and changes to the main game's errata trying to get that into shape, thereby changing and adapting the Rules Compendium and the two Heroes booksas they've gone along. As they were struggling to get all these things together, they probably only made the most cursory of glances back at the Red Box material they had sitting in the copy editor's room. We'd like to think that they'd be a bit more careful and make more substantial edits to the Red Box during that time so to keep both products more up-to-date with each other, but for all we know they just didn't have the manhours to do that much on it. Thus Red Box and Heroes of the Fallen Lands are not exactly the same. Unfortunate yes, but a decision probably had to be made that the differences were not enough to warrant spending money and time to fix it.

The Keep on the Shadowfell was probably the same situation. They got the quick-start rules as up-to-date as they could with where they were in the 4E 1 design and development process... then sent it off to copy in preparation for it's release... not expecting continuing edits to the main game to be so major that it would make the two completely incompatible. And it turns out they were right.

But why we are still holding WotC so darn accountable for the very first supplement they produced at the exact same time they released the first three books is beyond me. If we want to take WotC to task for this kind of stuff... let's look at their epic level modules that occurred much later in the design cycle and see if those are as "incompatible" as everyone wants to keep bringing KotS to be.

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

I was very excited to get the Red Box last week. I was never able to buy one of them back in the 80s so I was really looking forward to it. While I am not a new player to role playing games or D&D, I approached my unboxing from that perspective. I sat down with my dice, my favorite pencil and a character sheet and opened the player's book.

"I want to be a human fighter" is always my mantra when I set out to make my first character for any new game. It was my first AD&D character in 1985 so it has a special place in my heart. I started the solo adventure with that in mind and chose Fighter. The farther along I got I realized that there were some major problems going on... First, there were a lot of inconsistancies and missing information (no Passive Insight/Perception on the charsheet forex). that was not only confusing me as an experienced player but I could just imagine my frustration as a 13 year old... I tried to make a Cleric next and it was even worse... I just had to put my pencil down and stop...

I'm really sad at how many problems there were with the Red Box... It saddens me that WOTC has put out a product aimed at new players to our hobby and it is filled with so many errors... If you are going to be putting out a flagship product aimed at growth then you really should make sure that it is a fully working product... Yes, after a few minutes I went back and used my experience with RPGs in general and was able to complete my characters but for a new player? I would have found it frustrating and probably put it away and that would have been that...

What made me really mad though was the fact that the material in Red Box is completely incompatible with what has been previewed in the Essentials articles, what the character races and classes are supposed to be in the Heroes books. So, here I am a new player, I've just made my first character (with dificulty) and I've played through the first adventure with my friends and made it to Level 2. So if we want to progress beyond and expand our games we will have to reroll new characters when we get the Players Books since we wont have any way to advance... The characters we made and played are now useless... Its a bit of a slap in the face... The Characters made should have been seemlessly transitioned from the Red Box into the rest of the game...

I am very disappointed with Red Box... I really had hopes that WoTC was going to finally do it right... I cannot recommend Red Box to anyone, especially kids my age when I got into roleplaying or anyone new to the hobby... Yet another throw away Starter Set... It really makes me sad...


Thats my two copper anyway...

 

[_NewbieDM_]

Nowhere, anywhere is there a writeup on the races. Unless I missed it.
If a new player, lets say a kid asks, "what's a halfling?" or "what's an elf?" he has nowhere to flip to to find out.

That is a huge mistake for a product looking to attract new blood to the fantasy rpg hobby.

You can't assume people are familiar with fantasy races. It has to be in there. Just like names, example names, give me something. Sample dwarves can be called Barundar, Regnar, whatever.... Nothing at all on what the races are, what makes them tick, nothing.

Combat rules are in the DM's book. In fact, every rule is in the DM's book. If a new group of players are playing, the DM needs his book, because the adventure and the monsters are in there. But the players are going to want to reference the combat rules as well. I know when we started 4e we referenced that chapter. A LOT.

Not only that, but a new group will assume that the combat falls under the DM's responsibility to make sure it is being done properly, and it's the DM's job to teach combat or whatever. This is a huge deal of more stuff just added to a newbie dm, who has a daunting enough task in front of him.

I think the ball was dropped with this, especially when you open it to comparisons by dressing it in red with an Elmore piece on the cover. Mentzer's is leaps and bounds more of an intro to fantasy gaming than this will ever be. And I'm an unabashed 4e fan boy. :\

 

[gjnave]

Ok.. heres what I dont understand. I thought that Essentials was supposed to be fully compatible with the rest of 4E. If that is so, than why do you need extra rules about how to "pick up a short sword", or how to dole out treasure parcels?

 

[Primal]

Ok.. heres what I dont understand. I thought that Essentials was supposed to be fully compatible with the rest of 4E. If that is so, than why do you need extra rules about how to "pick up a short sword", or how to dole out treasure parcels?

Because that may be evident to you or me, but not to a 13-year old newbie DM; how could he know which 'Essentials' books he should get to find the proficiency bonus for a short sword? Or which books contain the treasure parcels? Furthermore, if this box is supposed to contain all you need to run 4E adventures (and equipping your characters is part of that) I don't think he *should* need to buy another book to resolve something like this.

And, yet, to add to a newbie DM's confusion, it appears that the 'Red Box' is not fully compatible with the 'Essentials' (e.g. the thief class).

I ran several low-level campaigns with the "old" Red Box back in the day; it didn't give me colorful maps or tokens, but the *rules* contained pretty much everything I needed as a DM (or a player). Heck, I even ran a couple of nostalgia-laden BD&D campaigns ten years ago and it still felt like a complete package. Based on what I've read, this new Red Box does not meet the same standards in my book; I had thought to buy it for my nephew, but I'm not so sure anymore. It's a shame that WoTC seems to have dropped the ball on this one. I guess I'll just dig out the old Red Box and pass it on to him.

 

[Ajar]

It is a starter set meant to be found on the shelves of Target or Walmart that a mother or father will grab and throw into the cart when they need to pick up some game or toy for their child's birthday or Christmas, or some other's child's birthday party their kid is going to. Many of the children who will be receiving this box quite possibly will have not even heard of the name 'Dungeons & Dragons', let alone played it. So for most of them... they will possibly open this box up, maybe play the solo adventure for a couple hours, and then when they're done, they'll throw it into their closet with the rest of the junk they've acquired over the years, never to be looked at again.

If that's the case, then why the retro styling? It seems to me that the 1970s look would hurt the Red Box in this market, not help. I think the only market the retro aesthetic helps with is lapsed D&D players.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

I think that an additional 32 page booklet with the info that JohnSnow described would have made for a much better "red box"

as it stands it's a good introduction to what D&D is for people that don't know what pen and paper rpg is... with a few more info would have been perfect

 

[Emertinel]

Let's all just hope WotC realizes their mistakes in the red box and fixes them in the retail version. If they don't, well, that's just another error of the long chain of errors they've made. Although they might argue "it's for starting players", it's even worse for starting players to play with a set with mistakes because they never realize them until they have problems.

Perhaps this Red Box isn't exactly all that good at all, with all these errors. Also, the fact that it uses a battle map instead of Dungeon Tiles makes it less flexible and you can't really make your own mini-adventures that easily.

Then again, it is a starter set, but not the best. I suppose after they release it we'll really see if the Red Box is better than the Roleplaying Game Starter Set.

 

[cavalier973]

It sounds like they should have modelled the Red Box more along the lines of the 3E "Basic Game". The DM guide in that was pretty awesome.