Starter PHB - Easy and cheap entry?

[Fenes]

Flipping through my 3.0E first printing book, I noticed the "2000 survival kit" appendix, 16 pages with bare-bones DM info to tide the players over until the DMG 3.0E and the MM were released.

It covered CL, experience awards, treasure, a few monsters, and a "do it yourself" dungeon.

It was, if I remember correctly, enough to run a 3E game.

Now, given the recent thread about MMOGs and the barrier to entry, I wonder if adding 15 to 20 pages with such DM information to the PHB would be a cheap "starter kit", allowing new players to start playing with simply one book, instead of 3.

Thoughts?

 

[Whisper72]

Interesting idea. Personally, I would believe it would be even better to release such a booklet as a softcover edition, similar to a module, at very low price, add to that the softcover PHB, put it in a box with maybe an additional starter module, some miniatures and presto.... instant basic set... I am hoping the current basic set is kinda like this...