Basic D&D rides again!

[howandwhy99]

*snip*
I predict the rules pamphlet will be very similar to the existing D&D Miniatures skirmish game rules, if not identical. This will make it easy for D&D Minis gamers and Star Wars Minis gamers to pick up and play.

We'll see how it goes.

-z

And I predict you may be right.

I think the main reason for making an basic version of the current D&D system is to open up the game to 6 - 12 year olds. Sure some kids are really bright and may be able to pick up the full game, but why limit your sales to just those with the capacity to buy and read 3 300+ page books?

If WotC can make the game rules' "presentation" a bit simpler and lower the entry cost, I would hope D&D becomes popular with actual kids again. Wouldn't you love to see some 10 year old running the game for his younger brothers and sisters? I just don't see that happening as often under the current ruleset.

And if the set (or book?) comes with lots of dice, figurines, maps, terrain, etc., then there is all the more 'cool' factor for younger children. Kids love visual stuff! At least look at the current toy market and see what you're competing against.

My big hope is that they might include more than one (short) adventure (maybe continuous?) that teaches a newbie DM how to run a game. (better yet, how to create an adventure.)

For the kid players, I'm willing to bet some simple example text and character sheets are already planned for.

I expect NBD&D to be something more along the lines of "open up and play".

 

[Altalazar]

I would hope that it would simply be 3.5E, but in an abridged form. Perhaps only four basic classes, an abridged spell list, an abridged monster list, an abridged list of everything - to keep it simple; basic.

Not different rules, just less of them. Then it is 100% compatible with all existing products - but if you were just starting out you could keep it "simple."

That would also allow "basic" modules that were also 100% compatible, they just happened not to be built using as big a pallette.

Kind of like the old Squad Leader system - it had incremental instructions - to introduce the rules. So you could do the first scenario just by reading a short set of rules (it just had basic infantry and leaders and support weapons). Then the next scenario added a few more rules. Then the next added a few more, and eventually, you could learn the whole system that way. Very clever. I wonder if the same sort of progression could be used with modules. In a certain sense, I think the original 8 modules did this - but the method of rules introduction was by level - I mean, you don't REALLY need to know about certain feats and spells that you'd not encounter at your level anyway. You don't need to know how "fireball" works at 1st level, for instance.

I sure hope it isn't a different system - that would just lead to confusion and proliferation of incompatible products. While I enjoyed Basic D&D in my extreme youth, I never played it in any full scale campaigns - that was AD&D all the way.

 

[Voadam]

Gads... it's been so long, I've probably forgotten, but I'll make a stab... here they are in the order they're coming to me...

1st Level
1 - Detect Magic
2 - Read Magic
3 - Magic Missile
4 - Light* (* means reversible, remember?)
5 - Ventriloquism
6 - Floating Disc (spelled with a "c" if memory serves, and not a "k")
(okay, now they're not rolling right out, but they're still coming fairly fast...)
7 - Sleep
8 - Hold Portal
9 - Detect Evil
(things are coming slower now... I'm having to reach way back to pull them out now...)
10 - Protection From Evil
11 - Shield
(that's 11 - blast, I'm one short... think... think... think...)
12 - Shocking Grasp, if memory serves... I think that was the "other" direct damage spell (to go with Magic Missile).

2nd Level
(these are pouring out fast)
1 - Knock
2 - Web
3 - Wizard Lock
4 - Continual Light*
5 - ESP (I think it gets a * in the Expert Set, could be wrong)
(slowed for a second, then once I hit the next one, the started pouring out again)
6 - Invisibility
7 - Detect Invisibility (or was it "See Invisibility" - can't recall now)
8 - Levitate
9 - Locate Object (gets a * in the Companion set, if memory serves)
10 - Mirror Image
11 - Phantasmal Force
(come on, one more... THINK, man! Hold Person is 3rd level... mmrmff...)
12 - Protection from Evil, 10' radius? I think that's right... I think it's 2nd, not 3rd level...

3rd Level (in the DM's book)
Fireball
Lightning Bolt
Dispel Magic
Possibly Hold Person, not sure. I think they mention "Remove Curse" as a 3rd level cleric spell/4th level magic-user spell in the "Cursed Items" section of Magic Items, but I could be wrong.

How'd I do?

--The Sigil

20 xp for a good effort! shocking grasp is right out and you forgot charm person, and a few other flubs as you noted later, but a very good job.

So is that enough for you to level?

 

[jrients]

No, but i could have dmed from the get-go. The rules simply aren't that difficult.

Maybe I missed an earlier mention of it, but how old are you?

I think it's great that you and Ranes don't need a Basic Set. I fail to see why that means its a bad idea though. Obviously Basic Sets have gotten people into the hobby. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks there are still kids living out in corn fields who don't know anybody to teach them even the basics of the game. I'd like to see cheap and easy-to-use rules in their hands, so they can get into this wonderful hobby. I have yet to figure out why anyone would think this is a bad thing.

 

[jasamcarl]

Maybe I missed an earlier mention of it, but how old are you?

I think it's great that you and Ranes don't need a Basic Set. I fail to see why that means its a bad idea though. Obviously Basic Sets have gotten people into the hobby. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks there are still kids living out in corn fields who don't know anybody to teach them even the basics of the game. I'd like to see cheap and easy-to-use rules in their hands, so they can get into this wonderful hobby. I have yet to figure out why anyone would think this is a bad thing.

I wasn't objecting to the release of a basic set. There is certainly a market there for it. I was mostly quibling with the idea that 3.5 was more complex than earlier editions, or really that complex at all.

 

[Havlo]

My big hope is that they might include more than one (short) adventure (maybe continuous?) that teaches a newbie DM how to run a game. (better yet, how to create an adventure.)

Maybe we'll see a 3.5e version of Keep on the Borderlands!

 

[WizarDru]

I wasn't objecting to the release of a basic set. There is certainly a market there for it. I was mostly quibling with the idea that 3.5 was more complex than earlier editions, or really that complex at all.

More complex than earlier editions, no. Not complex at all? I'd argue that's a relative thing. Is D&D really that complicated at it's core? Not at all, I'd agree.

But to a 10 year-old who's never played before? All the necessary concepts to absorb is quite a bit, and it's intimidating. The rules can be esoteric, even in 3E, where everything is relatively consistent across the board (an 18 stat gives you a +4 bonus, regardless....and there is no 18/00). The fact that we have a rules forum, and that folks are still discussing rules ambiguities 3 years later (and I've seen plenty of discussions where people discover that something worked under 3.0 the same way as 3.5, but they missed it) means that there's plenty of room for confusion.

You may say that you weren't confused by anything in 3.0 from the get-go, but many of us, who are long-time gamers, were. AoOs took two sessions to really understand, and only then because some cat named Eric Noah had a cool website that explained them more clearly than the first printing did (wonder whatever happened to him?). Things like Bull Rushes, grapple checks (especially with monsters with Improved grab or trip attacks) and dispel checks all are examples of where things start to get complicated.

And while you don't need all that right out of the box, the books show so many options over the space of 320 pages that it can be very intimidating. Now add into that the fact that you're not ready to play, yet. That novice DM has to either buy some modules or the Monster Manual, and unless you know how to run a game, you'll really need the DMG to learn how to run a game...or you may end up quitting before you've run more than a game or two.

Why do I use 10 years-old as the baseline? Because that's when almost everybody I've ever gamed with started, with the exception of my wife and my female players in high-school, who started a couple of years later. And of those players both past and present, almost all of them started D&D with the Red Box, and then graduated to the AD&D tomes when they were ready. 3.5e is much less intimidating, I agree, but I still see a new Red Box as a great idea for the above and other reasons.

 

[jrients]

I wasn't objecting to the release of a basic set. There is certainly a market there for it. I was mostly quibling with the idea that 3.5 was more complex than earlier editions, or really that complex at all.

Please accept my apologies for mischaracterizing your statement.

 

[johnsemlak]

The real question everyone should be asking about the new Basic D&D set is of course-- will the Cover be by Erol Otis?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Why do I use 10 years-old as the baseline? Because that's when almost everybody I've ever gamed with started, with the exception of my wife and my female players in high-school, who started a couple of years later. And of those players both past and present, almost all of them started D&D with the Red Box, and then graduated to the AD&D tomes when they were ready. 3.5e is much less intimidating, I agree, but I still see a new Red Box as a great idea for the above and other reasons.

Exactly, sometimes I wonder if my whole RPG experience is wildly different from the norm. I and EVERYONE I know who games started around 10-12 with the Red Box that had the Elmore cover. Nobody dived right into AD&D, or even knew about it. You would see the Red Box at toy stores and stuff and that's how we got into the hobby. Maybe today's gamer doesn't start playing until thier 20's, maybe they find the system simple and easy to learn. I don't know, I'm so out of touch with the modern gamer it's not even funny.