Starter Set - $16.99

[SlyFlourish]

starter set

"It's $11.55 on Amazon.

It comes in a box

You should buy it."

"That's why Scott knows coffee is for closers."

I recently acquired a recording of the Rouse's recent sales meeting. You can check it out here:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI]YouTube - Alec Baldwin - Best performance[/ame]

I just ordered my copy and I plan on ordering a bunch for Christmas gifts for family and friends.

I want everyone playing D&D. I want sports bars to go bankrupt because everyone's gathered around their tables rolling dice. I want to have five ongoing games in my townhouse community alone so any night I can go play or run a game. I want 4e to be bigger than football.

I think keeping character creation out of the box is a good idea. I know that when I get together with people who don't play, trying to spend two hours explaining character creation is a hassle. Why not just include the pregens and get the first d20 rolling within 5 minutes? That's what will hook them, not a big chart full of feats and powers.

Once they like the gameplay, they'll want to make their own character and then it's another $20 on Amazon to do that.

Hey Rouse, when you say 2 to 5 players, are you including the DM or not? This might be that perfect 1 on 1 game that we've hoped for when you can't get a group together and just want to play D&D with your wife for an hour.

I think there's a big open market for one-on-one D&D game adventures that no one has tapped into yet. This might be a good start.

I can't wait to get mine.

 

[Imaro]

I think keeping character creation out of the box is a good idea. I know that when I get together with people who don't play, trying to spend two hours explaining character creation is a hassle. Why not just include the pregens and get the first d20 rolling within 5 minutes? That's what will hook them, not a big chart full of feats and powers.

Once they like the gameplay, they'll want to make their own character and then it's another $20 on Amazon to do that.

I've never, even with 3e spent 2 hrs just explaining character creation...perhaps an hour (with the full rules to explain and make up a character in 3e, with the boxed set it was about 15 to 20 minutes).


I guess my main response to this is...what does this offer a D&D player...that they can't get with KotS? Especially if the pre-gens are the same (NOTE: I do not know if they are the same...this is a hypothetical). I mean, I understand focusing on the DM...but players have to be drawn in too with what distinguishes D&D from games like Descent and Talisman.

 

[JeffB]

I guess my main response to this is...what does this offer a D&D player...that they can't get with KotS? .

A better presentation for people brand new to the game

+
counters
tiles
dice

for about half the price of KOTS

 

[Nifft]

For a full second, I thought this was a thread about a "GSL Starter Set" for $16.99, which seemed a bit much, considering it's not all that hard to read.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Imaro]

A better presentation for people brand new to the game

+
counters
tiles
dice

for about half the price of KOTS

I agree that there is more shiny in the basic set...but I guess I was referring more to the experience. If the play experience isn't fun or different from a boardgame what's the incentive to spend the $100+ or $66 on amazon to keep going. I think the basic set should highlight the best aspects of D&D, and I think the whole...you can create an individual and personalized playing piece is definitely D&D's strong suit vs. boardgames.

NOTE: Though personally I haven't purchased KotS, but I assume it has a plot... if the basic set doesn't actually have a plot but is instead just dungeon fights (I'm drawing an assumption from the previous basic sets) then I believe the play experience may actually be diminished, it then even moreso is like a run of the mill fantasy boardgame...and isn't a longterm one at that.

 

[SlyFlourish]

4e starter set

"I agree that there is more shiny in the basic set...but I guess I was referring more to the experience. If the play experience isn't fun or different from a boardgame what's the incentive to spend the $100+ or $66 on amazon to keep going."

I think, like it or not, the combat rules are the core strength of 4e. I think we'd all like a bit more roleplay in our roleplay system, but combat is where the bulk of our games seems to head.

If players enjoy the combat of the starter set, they should like the full game.

That said, Rouse did say the set included skills and skill challenges so that should give people a better idea how roleplaying works. I don't think we'll know for sure how much it stresses roleplaying vs tabletop gaming until we see it.

 

[Skywalker]

Well, what would it take for a 3 levels of 'real' 4e (with character creation).

Start with the 320 page PHB.
how to play - unchanged
making characters - -2 pages (eliminate alternate character creation methods, any mention of classes or races not in the book, or higher-level play, cut deity list)
Races -8 pages; cut races to human, elf, dwarf, and halfling.
Classes -149 pages; cut classes to cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard, and eliminate powers beyond 3rd level (it looks like if you cut the half-page opening picture you can cut classes to five pages using basically the same format). Also cut everything on paragon paths and epic destinies.
Skills - unchanged
Feats - -10 pages; eliminate all paragon and epic tier feats, racial feats that apply to omitted races or classes, multiclass feats, channel divinity feats for omitted deities
Equipment - -20 pages; eliminate level 6+ items, vastly reduce set of available items, eliminate some equipment
Adventuring - unchanged
Combat - unchanged
Rituals - -10 pages; eliminate all level 4+ rituals
Eliminate playtester credits, ads- -2 pages

That gives you 120 pages; probably blow that up to 128 (you'll need some monsters and DM advice, and you've got 32-page bundles anyway).

I totally agree that this would a much better starter set. I also think you could streamline this material down further by removing 25% of the Powers and a number of the less used combat options and equipment to get down to a 96 pages. Add in a 64 page book for GMs with 20 pages of monsters and a 32 page adventure and it would be a properly complete Basic Set.

 

[Korgoth]

I agree that there is more shiny in the basic set...but I guess I was referring more to the experience. If the play experience isn't fun or different from a boardgame what's the incentive to spend the $100+ or $66 on amazon to keep going. I think the basic set should highlight the best aspects of D&D, and I think the whole...you can create an individual and personalized playing piece is definitely D&D's strong suit vs. boardgames.

When I was a kid, making up characters was fun in itself. We'd come up with characters or decide to be a character based on a cool picture ("I'm that guy. He's a ranger." type of stuff).

Pregens? To a kid, pregens are weak. A starter set should put the game's best foot forward.

 

[drothgery]

I totally agree that this would a much better starter set. I also think you could streamline this material down further by removing 25% of the Powers and a number of the less used combat options and equipment to get down to a 96 pages. Add in a 64 page book for GMs with 20 pages of monsters and a 32 page adventure and it would be a properly complete Basic Set.

Err... I wasn't saying anything on the merits of the approach, just that it would be difficult to get a useable complete subset of 4e down to a basic set booklet size. But my math was off on the Classes section.

In the 4e PH, it's 126 pages, so you can't possibly save 149 pages there. And if you want to preserve some choice of powers, 3 levels of powers will take two pages.

4 level 1 at-wills (humans will get 3, so if you want humans to have a choice, you need 4 options)
2 level 1 encounters
2 level 1 dailies (3 for wizards, due to the spellbook feature)
2 level 2 utilities (3 for wizards, due to the spellbook feature)
2 level 3 encounters

So even at 4 pages per class instead of 5, you're really only going to save about 100 pages in the classes section.

 

[Skywalker]

4 level 1 at-wills (humans will get 3, so if you want humans to have a choice, you need 4 options)
2 level 1 encounters
2 level 1 dailies (3 for wizards, due to the spellbook feature)
2 level 2 utilities (3 for wizards, due to the spellbook feature)
2 level 3 encounters

So even at 4 pages per class instead of 5, you're really only going to save about 100 pages in the classes section.

What about if you remove the Ranger, the Warlock, the Paladin and the Warlord? That's still providing the 4 iconic classes and covers the 3 powers and 4 roles.

I still think that you can take the existing D&D4e ruleset, trim it down to a 96 page PHB (4 races, 4 classes, 3 levels, trimmed combat, equipment, rituals and feats) and a 64 page DMG/MM/Adventure, with considerably more replayability that just pregens. This IMO would give a much better introduction to the full RPG.

I don't think WotC will do this as they would see such an starter set as overlapping the full RPG and eating away at its sales. As such, they believe they are better served by a disposable one shot intro starter set. I think this understanding is wrong based on the impact red box D&D had on me and my friends.