D&D 5E What Would You Put In a 5E Red Box?

[TrippyHippy]

I'm not discussing online only gaming, just downloadable PDFs with videos and FAQs. Make it so you can get started for free by downloading the game (printing if you want).
Having to go online is far less of a barrier to entry than having to find a local gaming store or purchase a $40 item at some box store.

As I said before, this is a great method to attract people who use the internet regularly in this way - but I think you make a huge assumption that all gamers follow their games in this way. The evidence we hear from game companies, limited as it is, is that pdf sales and the whole internet gaming community account for just a fraction of the overall market. As I said before, you need to appeal to a wider net of gamers by approaching it eclectically - that includes attempts to get games into mainstream retail as well as online support.

 

[trancejeremy]

They need to copy Frank Mentzer's Red Box as much as possible. Really brilliantly done

 

[Jester David]

The expensive things in a book are the art, layout, and writing. Plus the printing.
I bet they could make a slightly cheaper version of the Core Rulebook by placing a softcover version of the Core Rules in a starter kit. If it was the same book as the hardcover rulebook - just with a different binding - it would avoid the problem of paying to make the same book twice.

So I'm changing my preference.
Softcover variant of the Core Rulebook. Possibly slightly lower paper quality. Also included are loose sheets (character sheets, reference sheets, blank graph paper, etc). And everything in a cardboard shell with dice.

The plan is to make money off the regular hardcover version of the Core Rulebook. The regular players buy that to have a book that lasts.
So the "starter kit" is priced lower and barely makes a profit. But the production costs are lower as they're not designing any new book content.

So you have a $45 Core Rulebook with everything you need to play for 20 levels and all you need to run for 5 levels.
Or you can get the $35 starter kit that has even more but a flimsier book.

Then put the usual "New to D&D" content on the website: quick start rules, pre-gens, adventures, FAQs, examples of play videos, etc.

 

[Jester David]

As I said before, this is a great method to attract people who use the internet regularly in this way - but I think you make a huge assumption that all gamers follow their games in this way. The evidence we hear from game companies, limited as it is, is that pdf sales and the whole internet gaming community account for just a fraction of the overall market. As I said before, you need to appeal to a wider net of gamers by approaching it eclectically - that includes attempts to get games into mainstream retail as well as online support.

I'm not saying there should stop being product in stores. There should absolutely be product in stores,

I'm saying that a dedicated Starter Box that kids are expected to buy themselves is likely not the ideal method. It's expensive to make and expensive to buy.
Buying a demo of a game is just plain silly.

We're looking at strategies to bring in the next generation of gamers. That audience, the kids of today, are online. They're comfortable online. Many have smartphones and kindles and iPads in Elementary school. Most schools have the internet, if not wi-fi. All colleges and universities have places to gain computer access. Many console and PC games require an internet connection now.
I have family that lives on a farm. In rural Saskatchewan. They have the internet.

Asking people to be online for the 10 minutes it takes to find and download a printer friendly PDF is not a huge requirement.

If kids have the money to buy the game, let them buy the whole game not some truncated portion of the game. If someone is buying it for them, let them also buy the whole game.
Put the full focus on a Core Rulebook and try and sell a bajillion copies of that, because the more copies you sell of a book the more money you begin to make per copy.

Just because Starter Sets used to be mandatory doesn't mean they always have to be mandatory. We're not including a crayon with dice any more either.

 

[tuxgeo]

Player's book with: Four iconic races, four iconic classes, no feats, no backgrounds, no skills.

Also, no subclasses: have the simplest subclass of each class be the way that class works in the basic set.

DM's book with basic DMG, advice, magic items, random treasure and monster generators, basic set of MM monsters.

Levels 1-10.

I would go 1-20. That makes it the complete game for that subset of the rules.
Also, I would have the How to Play section separate from the Character Creation rules. More booklets means that more sets of eyeballs can read about the game at the same time.

Good sandbox-style adventure or two.

Fold-out map of a geographic region with hexes (one hex = days travel), with a closer-up map on the back of a smaller region on that larger map (one hex = hours travel).

Set of pre-printed character sheets.

Also, a set of pre-generated characters with minimal art, but each one on half a sheet of paper. Have four fighters, four clerics, four mages, four rogues, mixture of races and genders. Let the newbies see how race changes things slightly, and gender doesn't.

Set of dice.

 

[Texicles]

The "Basic" book (as I've described here, here and here), one set of dice, one introductory adventure (level 1-3 feels right to me, but I haven't given it much thought), and one red box.


Perfect for new players and DMs, as well as experienced players/DMs who know they'll favor the rules-light, old-school-feely approach to 5e, and just want the boxed set for collectibility.

ETA: Character sheets, fixed links

 

[TrippyHippy]

I'm not saying there should stop being product in stores. There should absolutely be product in stores,

I'm saying that a dedicated Starter Box that kids are expected to buy themselves is likely not the ideal method. It's expensive to make and expensive to buy.
Buying a demo of a game is just plain silly.

But that is the whole point. I'm not looking for a 'demo game' in a box or a 'starter kit'. I want a complete, self-contained game product that includes everything needed for play (including dice!).

Give people a good range of classes, races, levels of play, monsters, adventures and a fully working ruleset, along with the sheets and dice needed to play - to begin with, and they'll naturally come back for more (and buy more supplements). Having a partial game made for the purposes of 'introducing new players' is frankly just a rip-off, and I'm not surprised people object to the thought of it and wouldn't buy much beyond this set.

If people want to buy a set of thick text-books instead of this format, or alongside it, then fine - but why only provide this format exclusively if there is a whole market out there that wants to play simpler, 'casual' game which is self-contained in and of itself. There is a massive bunch of RPGers that have technically 'moved on' from D&D, but would still buy a complete core rules set out of nostalgia as much as anything else.

The online thing is fine, if you're online. But not everybody is, as has been stated a lot already. Beyond this, a lot of people prefer to own tangible products rather than online documents.

 

[Mistwell]

The "Basic" book (as I've described here, here and here),

I see zero posts from you, in any of those three links. Did you undergo a username change?

 

[Jester David]

But that is the whole point. I'm not looking for a 'demo game' in a box or a 'starter kit'. I want a complete, self-contained game product that includes everything needed for play (including dice!).

Give people a good range of classes, races, levels of play, monsters, adventures and a fully working ruleset, along with the sheets and dice needed to play - to begin with, and they'll naturally come back for more (and buy more supplements). Having a partial game made for the purposes of 'introducing new players' is frankly just a rip-off, and I'm not surprised people object to the thought of it and wouldn't buy much beyond this set.

Right.
But when people think "starter set" they also tend to think "dirt cheap" and it's pretty darn hard to get the full game into 96 pages. Even two 64-page books would be hard to fit all the content inside.

If people want to buy a set of thick text-books instead of this format, or alongside it, then fine - but why only provide this format exclusively if there is a whole market out there that wants to play simpler, 'casual' game which is self-contained in and of itself. There is a massive bunch of RPGers that have technically 'moved on' from D&D, but would still buy a complete core rules set out of nostalgia as much as anything else.

It's nice to provide options but two parallel products do tend to take away sales. Which is a problem that really hurt TSR.
You don't want two competing lines, people who skip the core rulebook(s) but can still play the entire s game. Game publishers really like players to "graduate" to the full game. There's a reason Paizo hasn't done a second Beginner Box with more levels. They'd rather have people buy the Core Rulebook.

The online thing is fine, if you're online. But not everybody is, as has been stated a lot already. Beyond this, a lot of people prefer to own tangible products rather than online documents.

10 minutes online is a pretty small requirement.
I pity the kid that has no internet at home, school, a library, or cafe. But also have no friends with the internet.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Right.
But when people think "starter set" they also tend to think "dirt cheap" and it's pretty darn hard to get the full game into 96 pages. Even two 64-page books would be hard to fit all the content inside.

Then stop calling it a "starter set", which is your own chosen moniker, and start calling it what I have been calling it - 'The Core Rules' - which provide full rules (200-300 pages of written material) and still fits easily into the box alongside the dice and sheets. Stop arguing at cross purposes with what I am suggesting.

It's nice to provide options but two parallel products do tend to take away sales. Which is a problem that really hurt TSR.
You don't want two competing lines, people who skip the core rulebook(s) but can still play the entire s game. Game publishers really like players to "graduate" to the full game. There's a reason Paizo hasn't done a second Beginner Box with more levels. They'd rather have people buy the Core Rulebook.

Where is the statistical evidence of this? The only thing I've ever read that loosely relates to this was that WotC felt the moniker 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' confused people and possibly put off casual gamers. How does providing alternative formats of the game hurt sales. It's not as if each game is eating out of each others profit margin - they're not competing products, their the same thing!

10 minutes online is a pretty small requirement. I pity the kid that has no internet at home, school, a library, or cafe. But also have no friends with the internet.

It's an irrelevance to those gamers who don't want to use the internet to support their gaming habits. Evidence from gaming companies suggest that this a significant proportion of the market as a whole.