What's a resonable price-point for entry into the RPG hobby?

[delericho]

That's always the misconception about hobbies. Aunt's buy the beginner box for their nephew.

a self-starter buys the full deal for himself, because he projects that he's going to out-pace any beginner material quickly and doesn't want to be saddled with product he's going to replace with the upgrade.

It's true in every hobby.

I'd rather buy my own guitar and amp separately, than have somebody give me a $100 starter guitar and practice amp.

Perhaps, but if you're smart you equally wouldn't skip the "Learn Guitar in 5 Easy Steps" starter book and jump straight to "101 Rock Classics", because trying to hit the advanced stuff without the foundation would lead to failure. You have to learn the basics first. (Of course, if you're smart you also wouldn't try to learn from a book at all. But a decent tutor* will likewise start you on the basics.)

And a great many parents whose kids want to learn an instrument will start them out by buying that $100 'starter' guitar (or whatever the equivalent is), precisely because they know there's a real good chance said kid will very quickly tire of it and give up. That $100 purchase is something they can accept writing off in such a case, where the $1,000 'grown up' guitar is too much to risk at this time.

In RPG terms, if you give a keen child three 300 page hardback books and tell them to get back to you when they've read them, chances are you've turned a potential gamer into a non-gamer. Give them a good Starter Set, and they might have a chance. That 10-y-o kid might well think differently, and be desperate to jump to the 'grown up' version of the game, but that doesn't mean he'd be smart to do so.

(Again, the best way to turn a potential gamer into an actual gamer is for them to be brought into an existing group and shown the ropes there. In which case there's no need for a Starter Set. But where that's not possible, a good Starter Set is almost certainly the route more likely to have good results than those three 300-page hardbacks.)

* Incidentally, I don't teach guitar but I do teach the bagpipes. So I'm not entirely inexperienced in this one!

 

[ggroy]

Perhaps, but if you're smart you equally wouldn't skip the "Learn Guitar in 5 Easy Steps" starter book and jump straight to "101 Rock Classics", because trying to hit the advanced stuff without the foundation would lead to failure. You have to learn the basics first. (Of course, if you're smart you also wouldn't try to learn from a book at all. But a decent tutor* will likewise start you on the basics.)

As an off topic aside, I did exactly this when I first picked up a guitar.

I pretty much skipped over all the guitar basics, and dived head first straight into stuff that would today be "101 Rock Classics" type stuff.

Back in the day, I first picked up the guitar tab book of Metallica's "Master of Puppets", a distortion pedal, a guitar tuner, and a $300 second handed "flying V" guitar. Initially I just played the guitar through my stereo system, largely making a lot of noise while attempting to figure out how to tune a guitar by trial and error.

At the time I also use to go to a lot of rock concerts (both large stadium concerts and small nightclub ones), where I would watch closely what techniques the guitarist(s) on stage would use in their playing style(s). Sometimes I also watched rock videos, largely to watch closely the guitarist's playing techniques.

In hindsight, I was extremely motivated to learn how to play guitar as fast as possible.

 

[delericho]

As an off topic aside, I did exactly this when I first picked up a guitar.

Heh. I should have expected an "actually, that's exactly what I did..." post.

In hindsight, I was extremely motivated to learn how to play guitar as fast as possible.

Two questions:

- Did this approach work for you? That is, do you now play the guitar, and do you feel you do so reasonably well? (For whatever definition you care to use for "reasonably well".)

- Do you feel this was an efficient way to learn, or do you think in hindsight that you would have been better served to seek out a tutor/start with a beginner book/whatever?

 

[ggroy]

- Do you feel this was an efficient way to learn, or do you think in hindsight that you would have been better served to seek out a tutor/start with a beginner book/whatever?

In general, I don't think it was the most "efficient" way to learn. For example, it took me over a month to figure out how to tune a guitar, without using a tuner.

Also some bad habits I developed initially, took quite awhile to eventually break. For example, my picking technique was mostly downstrokes for the first year or so. It took awhile for me to break that bad habit, and eventually figure out how to do alternate picking (ie. alternating downstrokes and upstrokes).

If I had a teacher/tutor, most likely they would have immediately pointed out these problematic areas.


With that being said, I didn't have much patience or discipline in those days. So I was perfectly fine with doings things in a haphazard trial and error manner.

- Did this approach work for you? That is, do you now play the guitar, and do you feel you do so reasonably well? (For whatever definition you care to use for "reasonably well".)

For my initial intentions, this approach did work albeit haphazardly. At the time, I wanted to play stuff like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Judas Priest, KISS, Sex Pistols, Sepultura, Black Sabbath, Anthrax, etc ... (It turned out a lot of the guitar riffs from these bands, were largely simple power chord progressions and relatively easy to play). I was able to play a lot of this stuff within a year or so, largely by ear and a lot of trial and error.

After that first year or so, I had to break some bad habits to be able to play somewhat harder stuff like Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, etc ... which were a lot more than just easy power chord progressions. I was also attempting to figure out how to play guitar solos at the time too, also largely from trial and error.

It took me around 5 years, until I was able to approximately transcribe the easier guitar solos by ear, such as stuff like Motley Crue, KISS, some Kingdom Come, some Metallica, etc ... It took me even longer until I was able to approximately transcribe guitar solos of stuff like "Eruption" (Van Halen), Ozzy Osbourne, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc ... by ear. (For me, I thought Van Halen was somewhat harder than Yngwie Malmsteen).


(This is getting too far off topic).

 

[ShadowDenizen]

In RPG terms, if you give a keen child three 300 page hardback books and tell them to get back to you when they've read them, chances are you've turned a potential gamer into a non-gamer. Give them a good Starter Set, and they might have a chance.

I totally agree!
+1 XP.

 

[Ahnehnois]

In RPG terms, if you give a keen child three 300 page hardback books and tell them to get back to you when they've read them, chances are you've turned a potential gamer into a non-gamer. Give them a good Starter Set, and they might have a chance.

I don't think so. I started on 300-page gaming books at age 12 or so, as did most of the people in the hobby I know. And most of us were reading LotR before that, right? Not exactly an easy read.

In fact, I think it's much easier for a child to sit down and finish a 300-page book than it is for an adult to do it. There's a popular narrative about kids having shorter and shorter attention spans, but I think what causes attention spans to shorten is checking stocks on one's iphone. To a kid, the more engrossing a hobby is, the better. Kids are obsessive. Kids are precocious. I think dumbing the hobby down for kids is completely unnecessary.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

In fact, I think it's much easier for a child to sit down and finish a 300-page book than it is for an adult to do it. There's a popular narrative about kids having shorter and shorter attention spans, but I think what causes attention spans to shorten is checking stocks on one's iphone.

I wouldn't say it's "Short Attention Span" necessarily, but the sheer number of entertainment options available to kids nowadays is mind-boggling, ({Grognard Alert} far more so than 30 years ago), and almost all of it is basically at their fingertips, just a keystroke/mouse-click away.

Thankfully, there will ALWAYS be bright, imaginative kids who dive into LotR at a young age, but I fear that the number DOES seem to be dwindling.

So is a 300 pp. rulebook NECESSARY for a kid to play a game of (Essentially) "Make-Believe"?

 

[Janx]

I don't think so. I started on 300-page gaming books at age 12 or so, as did most of the people in the hobby I know. And most of us were reading LotR before that, right? Not exactly an easy read.

In fact, I think it's much easier for a child to sit down and finish a 300-page book than it is for an adult to do it. There's a popular narrative about kids having shorter and shorter attention spans, but I think what causes attention spans to shorten is checking stocks on one's iphone. To a kid, the more engrossing a hobby is, the better. Kids are obsessive. Kids are precocious. I think dumbing the hobby down for kids is completely unnecessary.

Indeed. Also, who's talking 10 year old children? I was 16 when I bought my D&D books.

Somewhere between 10, Harry Potter's monstrous page count and 16 is sufficient maturity and attention span to read RPG rule books and figure it out.

And who's reading the entire book? You don't need to read the entire page count of the PH and DMG to get what's knowledge and what's data for consumption later (like spell descriptions and magic item descriptions). half of both of those books is that kind of content.

And lastly, let's not forget our target demographic is not little boys who'd rather play with a ball.

It's the eggheads who are already above their age-reading level. People who already live more in their mind than doing the same boring stuff everybody else is doing.

We don't need to be arrogant or exclusive about it, but D&D is for smart people. That is the demographic that is inherently most drawn to it.

As one of those smart people, I can assure you I did not and would not waste time on beginner products, but instead buy the minimal "full" product set that I expect to use forever.

And yes, I taught myself how to play guitar off of the internet. I taught myself how to read sheet music in a weekend. And my axe cost about $350, which is the price range where "decent" non-crap gear begins. My outlay into guitar playing costs WAY MORE than what it takes to buy the grown-up books in D&D to start playing and skip the beginner box phase.

I have no doubt that Beginner sets are bought, used and enjoyed by plenty of people. But they are only a subset of the total demographic in a given hobby. For people like me, Beginner sets are marketing traps for parents/relatives who heard their kid was interested in it. And it quickly turns out the kid outgrows it, or already has "everything".

 

[Ahnehnois]

I wouldn't say it's "Short Attention Span" necessarily, but the sheer number of entertainment options available to kids nowadays is mind-boggling, ({Grognard Alert} far more so than 30 years ago), and almost all of it is basically at their fingertips, just a keystroke/mouse-click away.

Thankfully, there will ALWAYS be bright, imaginative kids who dive into LotR at a young age, but I fear that the number DOES seem to be dwindling.

To me it seems that modern children are becoming more and more exposed to (and obsessed with) particular niche media. It's not just Harry Potter, now there are tons of very involved book series that young people get obsessed with. It's one of our main sources of blockbuster movies. Likewise, it's amazing the length and depth of modern video games that people will stick with. And they'll buy into the associated franchises heavily.

So, while the overall volume of choices is large and each individual choice may have only a niche fanbase, I think there's plenty of reason to believe that each individual child is committing to something and if D&D is the thing that wins his interest, will happily read thousands of pages of materials and spend hours creating his own fantasy world.

So is a 300 pp. rulebook NECESSARY for a kid to play a game of (Essentially) "Make-Believe"?

Not necessarily. However, I don't think a starter set is the same thing as a rules-lite rpg. The latter is much more important in my view. D&D is not a rules-lite rpg in any form I've ever seen, and trying to reduce it to such amounts to dumbing it down. But if someone tries to market a scratch-built rule-lite rpg to new audiences, I say go for it.

That being said, I think the obsessive level of detail in D&D is a selling point that hooks people in. A full character sheet helps the player invest in that character more than a brief statblock. Labyrinthine rules create an opportunity for people to try to master them and build an effective character through skill. Rules-heavy is not a bad thing necessarily.

 

[Ahnehnois]

We don't need to be arrogant or exclusive about it, but D&D is for smart people.

Maybe. I don't think D&D requires a great deal of intelligence to play, and the online forums for discussing it certainly haven't always attracted the best and the brightest (present company excluded of course). But that does seem to be what happens; that intellectuals tend towards this hobby.

Which to me is kind of a shame. The hobby has a lot to offer for people of modest intellect as long as they're willing to accept its tenets and learn how to use the game to serve their own personal needs.