Got the D&D 4e Starter Set...So whatcha wanna know?

[Imaro]

Which necessitates the purchase of an Xbox, the game, and three additional controllers to reach the conclusion that at least one of my players will be sitting out.

So, it's pay $20 for a starter kit that will allow me and my friends to all sit down and play right out of the box, or pay $100 or more to get the hardware, software, and accessories so that one of my players can sit out.

And that doesn't even address the fact that D&D Heroes is neither (a) 4th Edition nor (b) a good game.



My point is that saying "Hey, go and play a single player game if you don't want to deal with character creation in a multiplayer game" is a load of crap, especially when acquisition of said single-player game would be more expensive than acquisition of the 4e Starter Kit and does not include group play.

Oh, ok now I see what you did... you quoted me out of context and didn't address ninety percent of my post. I'm in no rush I'll wait till you think of something to repute every other point I made...

 

[firesnakearies]

56 double-sided counters made of the same awesome stuff as the Dungeon Tiles, plus a few extra DU1 tiles?

Sold.

Throwing in some dice, and whatever else comes in the box is gravy. I can give that stuff to the next new-to-D&D player I get.

 

[The Little Raven]

Oh, ok now I see what you did... you quoted me out of context and didn't address ninety percent of my post. I'm in no rush I'll wait till you think of something to repute every other point I made...

You said that if there is no character creation, then why not just play FF7. I pointed out several reasons why not, with the most important being: because I want to play a game at the table with my friends, not a single player game on video game console.

The reason I didn't address any of your other points in that post is because, frankly, I don't care about your other points. I do care about the bogus claim that if there's no character creation, you may as well be playing a single player video game (or even incredibly limited multiplayer ones, like D&D Heroes). I also think its bogus to exclude the cost of hardware and accessories when trying to compare the D&D Starter Kit to playing a game like D&D Heroes.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Why the war over pre-gen and char-gen. The solution seems obvious enough. INCLUDE BOTH. The cost may go up a couple of dollars but is there a mojor pricepoint that the market would reject if the cost was $19.99.

To Scott: If I were you I would seriously consider a Revised Starter Set that would replace the original over time in store iventories and include both char-gen and pre-gen. You still get the benefit of instant play from the player side but open the option up for players to explore thier creativity if they want to. An online version of char-gen does not work as it puts a barrier to entry up and the starter should include everything to play.

 

[justanobody]

Its hard for us on ENWorld to have the perspective of a new player - we are probably the hardcore gamers of the hobby; a lot (most?) of us are probably DMs.

Here is an analogy though:
A month ago I bought the board game 'Arkham Horror'. It sat unopened on my shelf for weeks because I knew it was going to take some time to learn the rules, and friends were too busy to play immediatley. The other day I broke it open, pushed out the hundred or so tokens, and started reading the rulebook. I thought to myself "Whew, this game has a lot of rules!"....then I glanced at my four feet of D&D books on the shelf and 'face-palmed' myself.

For people like us here on ENWorld, we don't think twice about books with hundreds of pages of rules. But for someone new, especially someone young, even a few dozen pages can seem like a lot, just like the piddly Arkham Horrors rules seemed to me, and I'm a post-graduate!

Until a person moves from "D&D is a game" to "D&D is a hobby", it is probably wise to keep the rules light and streemlined. The motivated 1 in 10 kid is likely the first one to make the leap.

I can understand HASBRO, like Fisher Price, making things for smaller children, but in the realm of D&D and such I cannot get behind these things implying kids are dumb. Its demeaning to them, and appalling to me. Why be condescending to your customers? Give them more credit they might surprise you.

The sad thing is today there are quicker games to pick up with less work. That just means kids today are maybe lazy due to technology, but doesn't make them to dumb to understand a game.

I think many 10-12 year olds would grasp the "harder" things quite easily.

I don't like kids, they are annoying, but they are not dumb!

Why the war over pre-gen and char-gen. The solution seems obvious enough. INCLUDE BOTH.

I think that is what most people are saying that it did NOT include both, but both would have been the best way to go with char-gen in a limited state to wet the new players whistle prior to buying the full game product.

 

[Imaro]

You said that if there is no character creation, then why not just play FF7. I pointed out several reasons why not, with the most important being: because I want to play a game at the table with my friends, not a single player game on video game console.

The reason I didn't address any of your other points in that post is because, frankly, I don't care about your other points. I do care about the bogus claim that if there's no character creation, you may as well be playing a single player video game (or even incredibly limited multiplayer ones, like D&D Heroes). I also think its bogus to exclude the cost of hardware and accessories when trying to compare the D&D Starter Kit to playing a game like D&D Heroes.

This is the last time I am going to reply to you about this issue Mourn...you have been quite disingenious about exactly what my post said and infererred...so here's a reminder...

You know I just want to say for those claiming character creation is too complicated... No one claimed it had to be the totality of character generation in the box, but what it should foster is some kind of investment and attachment to one's character...otherwise why not play FFVII? It's $19.99 (even cheaper used), has a pre-gen for you...more hours of play than you'll get out of the starter set and the graphics look better than the 2d tokens...

It appears to me that the point my post centered around was investment and/or attachment in one's character as a highlight and positive that makes D&D better than other games, without which one may as well be playing a pre-gen character in any number of videogames. The point was not "If you don't want to deal with character creation...go play a videogame." If you had actually read any of my other posts and not put your own biased spin and selective quoting on this one...I think you would have easily realized that this tied into the whole " stress what makes D&D better" argument I have been expounding on since somewhere near the beginning of the thread.

But then some people are so quick to feel any criticism of anything 4e is an attack...they will create one at times. I have given praise where it was due to the starter set and I will also voice what I feel is wrong with it...why don't you try stepping back and actually reading the entire thread before jumping on the defensive?

 

[justanobody]

CRAP! I missed nearly a whole page of posts, so backtracking here for a minute to respond to people that responded to me. Look for edits incoming until I get caught up.

The Rouse has been saying, however, that the Character Generator will be free for levels 1-3: so it's not exactly a money grab.

No but it is a cost increase for a product lacking completeness. The character builder will only work for people with a system powerful enough because it was built around being a single piece of the larger tools, making its small needs compounded by the Dirext X or whatver engine the other high end tools were based on so the player may need to upgrade their computer. Unless they are a Mac user, then they just have to buy a whole new computer.

IF, the character builder was a web application that anyone could use, then it wouldn't look so bad. Download the webpage as compelte and use it offline.

ALSO, not everyone that may purchase the box set physical product will have constant access to a computer or even the internet.

These are all part of the problem of the online tool trying to replace about 5 extra pages in the physical product.

I am guessing 5 pages and don't know how many it would take the way it is formatted to get levels 1-3.

So the "money grab" isn't as much the problem as the digital media should not be required for the old world media format physical product. The fact that DDI will cost something for later use is moot if one cannot even use the digital media at all, thus being the reason they may have purchased the physical product.

 

[RFisher]

1) DM focused

• A purchaser that wants to play so bad they buy the box will likely take on role of DM. They will likely do this ebven if they get it as a gift. "hey gang let's play this new game I just got"
• You can't really play D&D without a DM
• DMs recruit players
• New DMs will buy the books even if their players don't
• DMs are the glue that hold game groups together

This is interesting to me because in 28 years of gaming, this has never been my experience. There has never been a single or even primary DM in my groups. At least half the group regularly takes a turn at it. New players are recruited by everyone, and I’d say those players who seldom DM tend to be more zealous evangelists.

You hand a kid a game like D&D nowadays and say make a character and 9 times out of 10 they are totally lost after 10 minutes and start asking "where's the X-box?" I have personally seen it happen in focus groups with 10-12 year olds.

Have you tested subsets of character creation?

Everyone hoping for a product exactly like the old Red Box is perhaps forgetting that the whole reason they dropped the BD&D line was the market fragmentation that occured from having it and AD&D alongside each other

All the information (though it is hard to get anything much hard and credible information) I’ve seen says that D&D and AD&D synergized rather than fragmented or competed. A good many AD&D players came to the hobby through a Basic Set. AD&D players bought and used D&D products. D&D players bought and used AD&D products. D&D often did better in foreign markets for various reasons.

D&D didn’t get dropped until TSR was already run irreversibly into the ground. And I’d argue that the equivalent of the Basic Set that they had at that point had already lost too many of the good features of the Basic Sets.

Its hard for us on ENWorld to have the perspective of a new player - we are probably the hardcore gamers of the hobby; a lot (most?) of us are probably DMs.

Sure.

But some of us remember when we were new players. Some of us do often enough work with new players whom we’re trying to introduce to the hobby. Some of us are always on the look-out for something approaching the old Basic Sets to buy as gifts for our nieces and nephews who live too far away for us to personally mentor.

 

[darjr]

Whew!

Scott, thanks for posting a reply. I think the product looks good. I'd prefer some chargen options, but I understand where you guys were headed with the product.

My potential giftee's of the starter have ample access to the internet and will go to the web site, hopefully after they've played a game or two. So I think the free 1-3 chargen program is potentially an excellent idea. I'll just have to remember to mention it in their christmas cards.

Thanks!

 

[SlyFlourish]

have it

So I got my Starter Set today from Amazon. I had ordered two more to give away as gifts for non-players and I think it will work out nicely. I plan to write a more thorough review but here are my initial thoughts:

1. It's the full 4th edition. There's no hedging of the rules or trying to simplify things. Because the pregens and the basic rules are the same ones used in Keep on the Shadowfell, there isn't a feeling like you're playing some stripped down version.

2. The Dungeon Master's Book is THICK! It's got sixty pages, including the nearly 30 page monster section. There are a LOT of monsters in here, thanks to the new stat-block format and the multiple levels and types of the same monsters. There's a lot more to this than just a pre-made adventure. Monsters go up to level 5.

3. Though the adventure focuses on combat, it at least begins with some Q and A with an NPC. I'm disappointed to see a lack of traps or skill challenges. The DM section has a discussion of skill challenges but even as a vet player, I'm not exactly sure how to run them so an example would be nice and would break away from the idea that 4e is all about combat.

4. The tokens are cool - not miniatures cool but cool. They are numbered which makes tracking pretty easy. The artwork is also nice and flipping the token for bloodied guys is nice.

5. The tiles are nice but they are re-prints. Still there are four big rooms and a lot of accessories. It's clearly enough to build out a few different types of rooms.

6. The dice are fine but pretty low quality. They're fine if you have nothing else but the d20s given out in starter mini packs are a lot nicer.

7. The box is actually my biggest problem with this set. I really hoped for an old-school front opening box with a lid like board games have. Instead its a pretty thin top opening box and a cardboard insert to keep it from completely crushing. I can't imagine this box lasting through very many play sessions before it falls apart. I know people who still have the red box in good condition. There is no way this one will last. Still, it's pretty.

8. I also think this should come with a fold-out map like the new adventures have. Two big overland maps would work really well to augment the dungeon tiles.

Overall I'm pretty impressed for a $12 package. I'm a vet who purchased every 4e book already published (I doubt I'll say that for very long). I had hoped to have enough in this to run some fun adventures on the road or to introduce new players to the game without having to lug up the whole pile of books.

Unlike a lot of people on this thread, I can't see how they could have added character creation without making it a lot more complicated. I think new players want to get into combat. I know my own beginning in 4e was with the half-elf warlock in KotS and I'm still playing her in Thunderspire. I have no problem with pre-gens and I don't think they remove from the RP side of it one bit. My Tira Duskmeadow is completely different than other people's I bet, just in her attitudes and goals alone. I think those who think you can only roleplay with a character you made yourself spend too much time tweaking and not enough time seeing through the eyes of your character. My opinion, of course.

Also, to those who seem to jump to thinking people need to spend $100 to continue. I'm pretty sure you could play all of Keep on the Shadowfell after playing through this without ever needing another book. The maps would be the hardest part, but all the rest of the rules already exist.

Anyway, overall, I'm impressed.