D&D 5E Second guessing WOTC

[pkt77242]

Still doesn't get you an adventure. You're talking about someone who doesn't know about D&D - that means they don't know what's supposed to be in a dungeon. There may be monsters, but no idea of adventure structure in Basic. What are these fictional people supposed to *do*?

While it still doesn't get you an adventure, according to the news page of this site it will be updated to include " In August, with the release of the Player’s Handbook, Basic D&D will expand to include the essential monsters, magic items, and DM rules needed to run the game, along with the rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1631-Dungeons-Dragons-Starter-Set-Fantasy-Roleplaying-Fundamentals-%28D-D-Boxed-Game%29-Hits-Amazon!#.U9RpTrEnKdU#ixzz38dLSTOsg

To me that means that it will include some info on designing encounters.

Also I find the bold part of your statement to be slightly condescending, as I doubt that someone downloading basic has zero idea of what D&D is and what characters are supposed to do. Will they need help in creating balanced encounters, of course but from the sound of it Basic will include that info after the PHB comes out.
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[Umbran]

Also I find the bold part of your statement to be slightly condescending, as I doubt that someone downloading basic has zero idea of what D&D is and what characters are supposed to do.

Look back at the discussion. We are talking about a "kid", buying with their allowance, because they might like D&D. We are not talking about veteran players here, but new players.

 

[pkt77242]

Look back at the discussion. We are talking about a "kid", buying with their allowance, because they might like D&D. We are not talking about veteran players here, but new players.

I am well aware of that. They are children not aliens from another planet which is how you are treating them. I am thinking of children about 10-12, young enough to still be getting an allowance but old enough that most parents would be cool with them buying it. Chances are a child who would be interested in D&d is either playing games like WoW/Elder Scrolls, watching movies like the Hobbit or reading science fiction/fantasy or comics, etc. They also are likely to have Googled it before buying it as well.

While I believe that there would be some growing pains for a brand new player starting with basic (mostly in balancing adventures and making it flow, I think you are underestimating children. Now I am talking about 10 and up child. I am also not arguing that Basic is always the best way to go or that it is perfect for new players that are young just that Basic is a very reasonable intro for many beginners even children.

 

[Lalato]

If I was able to figure out D&D enough to play back in the day, then I'm pretty sure kids can figure out a free Basic D&D pdf nowadays. Honestly, when I think back to my early days. We were playing D&D, but not by RAW. The bits of rules we didn't understand we just glossed over or came up with something that made sense at the time.

Additionally, if a kid is downloading the Basic D&D pdf without having a Starter Set... that probably means the kid understands teh googles. That puts the kid a trivial number of clicks away from all kinds of free adventures written by other fans or designers.

Or am I missing something obvious?

 

[doctorhook]

If I was able to figure out D&D enough to play back in the day, then I'm pretty sure kids can figure out a free Basic D&D pdf nowadays. Honestly, when I think back to my early days. We were playing D&D, but not by RAW. The bits of rules we didn't understand we just glossed over or came up with something that made sense at the time.

Additionally, if a kid is downloading the Basic D&D pdf without having a Starter Set... that probably means the kid understands teh googles. That puts the kid a trivial number of clicks away from all kinds of free adventures written by other fans or designers.

Or am I missing something obvious?

Certainly kids are still smart enough to figure it out. The question is whether they'd bother, especially if they had no idea what a tabletop RPG is and dozens of CRPGs compete for their attention along the way.

 

[Lalato]

Certainly kids are still smart enough to figure it out. The question is whether they'd bother, especially if they had no idea what a tabletop RPG is and dozens of CRPGs compete for their attention along the way.

That's been an issue for the last two decades. I believe TTRPGs scratch a different gaming itch than CRPGs, and I think products like the 5e Starter Set and PF Beginner Box do help.

 

[Morrus]

That's been an issue for the last two decades. I believe TTRPGs scratch a different gaming itch than CRPGs, and I think products like the 5e Starter Set and PF Beginner Box do help.

Ryan Dancey cited some research they did at CCP on MMO demographics which indicated otherwise - the data showed that people were playing MMOs instead of, not as well as, TRPGs. The MMO pool had a massive population of ex-TRPGers.

 

[Eirikrautha]

Ryan Dancey cited some research they did at CCP on MMO demographics which indicated otherwise - the data showed that people were playing MMOs instead of, not as well as, TRPGs. The MMO pool had a massive population of ex-TRPGers.

I wonder about that, though. We're those people "retainable"? There are a number of reasons people play RPGs, and not all of them are common to both MMOs and TTRPGs. For folks who are playing for social reasons, MMOs might very well be able to replace TTRPGs. But if you are playing for story/sandboxy reasons, you may not be satisfied enough to switch to MMOs exclusively. What CRPGs did was fragment a market that was only a single market due to lack of options. When TTRPGs were the only game in town, it's not surprising that it had the player numbers. It's also not surprising that another option that gave gamers the part of the game they wanted would draw them away. They were destined to leave once any diversity of experience occurred.

 

[Jester David]

I can believe that.

The Pathfinder Beginner Box was a *really* well thought out product. The character sheets are much more visually appealing with a unique visual style, and Paizo spent a LOT of time perfecting it.

Meanwhile, the D&D Starter Set is pretty straightforward in presentation with the focus being on the adventure more than anything else. And the team involved were really working on the entire ruleset noot just the Starter Set so there wasn't much unique design.

Rules aside, the D&D Starter Set wasn't *that* different in presentation from past starter sets with walls of text and few visual cues, and lots of walls of text.

 

[hbarsquared]

Starter Set > Beginner Box for WotC's purposes and goals.

I cannot exactly put my finger on it, but WotC's amount of inspiration and flexibility for the DM, while still holding to concrete rules, is a far better value foe the money.