D&D 5E Street date for D&D Next Starter Game is July 15

[DMZ2112]

Another thought: the next D&D Encounters season begins July 30 and hasn't been announced yet. It will presumably use the Starter Game (Tyranny of Dragons) rules, no? And traditionally, at least, Encounters provides pregens but also accepts custom characters?

 

[Hutchimus Prime]

Half the player base? That's being more than generous.

 

[Mistwell]

IF there were character creation rules in the Starter, then there would be no need for character creation workshops a month later at Gencon?


If there is no creation rules in the starter (rules that SEAMLESSLY transition into the full game), then it is nothing more than crippleware ad copy like the 4e Redbox.

Character creation rules in the starter set is not mutually exclusive with character creation workshops at Gencon.

Many will not have the starter set yet, and the starter set likely won't cover all the options available for character creation that are available at the GenCon events.

 

[GX.Sigma]

The date and price are the same from the B&N leak, right? I guess that's more evidence supporting the $50 PHB in August.

 

[Ichneumon]

@MerricB just mentioned elsewhere that "I've seen a report from a meeting last week that the PHB is August and the DMG is November. Both $49.99. Think we'll hear more soon.... Apparently there was a retailer's conference last week that gave that information. I'm dubious, but Red Box details were confirmed."

Interesting!

If true, this will be the biggest gap between a Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide since the late '70s.

Which, on reflection, isn't overly surprising. If WotC have decided that they must have D&D Next out around GenCon, then it would make sense to ease back on the DMG until the essential manuals are sorted. Otherwise, they could just aim for a simultaneous release of all three books around October-November.

 

[delericho]

Half the player base? That's being more than generous.

Yes it would be, if I had literally meant "50% of all D&D players". Fortunately, it was a figure of speech.

When that $50 price point was 'revealed' there were several very long threads discussing it, and from pretty much every angle - is it worth it, how does it compare with previous editions, what should be in a $50 PHB... It raised more than a few eyebrows.

Now, I'm sure there's something mitigating that price point (if it is indeed $50) but because WotC didn't manage the information flow we don't know what it might be. All we have is FUD. And that really isn't what they want - instead of "look at this, it's awesome!" they get "yeah, I'm not paying $50 again..."

 

[DEFCON 1]

Half the player base? That's being more than generous.

Indeed. A thousand or so guys and gals on D&D message boards who actually saw the couple threads that mentioned the B&N pricing compared to the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people who actually will buy and/or play the game when the time comes. We are such a small sliver of the playerbase that there's little to no reason for WotC to make special effort making sure we don't have our feelings hurt about not having ALL the information.

It's not enough that we got to do the playtest... it's not enough that we got special articles written about te game several times per week giving details about what was going on... it's not enough that we had adventures we could play every week in stores using the rules... we thousand people needed that *and* every detail about every single aspect of the game given to us early because we're just that special.

Yeah... I don't think so. We're not that important.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And that really isn't what they want - instead of "look at this, it's awesome!" they get "yeah, I'm not paying $50 again..."

I'm sure they'll get over having offended the 50 or so people who occupied those couple of threads here on EN World complaining about the price. Especially considering even if their PR *had* done a "grand reveal" of the PHB with all its bells and whistles while simultaneously mentioning the price point... they'd still have gotten 50 or so people here on EN World complaining about it.

 

[Morrus]

Indeed. A thousand or so guys and gals on D&D message boards who actually saw the couple threads that mentioned the B&N pricing compared to the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people who actually will buy and/or play the game when the time comes. We are such a small sliver of the playerbase that there's little to no reason for WotC to make special effort making sure we don't have our feelings hurt about not having ALL the information.

It's not enough that we got to do the playtest... it's not enough that we got special articles written about te game several times per week giving details about what was going on... it's not enough that we had adventures we could play every week in stores using the rules... we thousand people needed that *and* every detail about every single aspect of the game given to us early because we're just that special.

Yeah... I don't think so. We're not that important.

That's not how statistics work. You can certainly form an argument that folks here aren't representative by virtue of some fundamental characteristic you may have discovered through surveys and research; you definitely can't form one in terms of sample size. A place like this (and others) is a more than significant statistical sample.

 

[the Jester]

I wouldn't expect the starter set to have everything in the PHB. I would be completely happy with limited options. What a starter set should offer is rules that are fully compatible with the rest of the game.

Here, we are 100% agreed, and it is here (along with the not-pc-generation pc generation) that I agree that the 4e red box fell down on the job.

If I create a L1 Fighter with the starter, then you should be able to continue with that fighter when you transition into the full game. You shouldn't have to completely remake said character because it wont work like a Fighter created with the PHB.

With the caveat that I'd say "Because it won't work as well as and alongside a fighter created with the PHB", I'll agree with you here, too. (And that's just a semantic quibble.) I suspect that we mean the same thing here.

The PFBB character creation rules are very limited to the options available. The one thing that makes it such a wonderful product is that you can use those characters once you start using the PF rulebook.

I've heard absolutely nothing but good things about the PFBB, though I'm not familiar with it myself. From the sounds of things, WotC could do worse than use it as a model for the 5e starter boxed set.