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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5658593" data-attributes="member: 22424">Based on my sample set of one, no.At our local wargames con, my Meetup group took a table and ran some demo games. During the course of the day we were approached by a father and son pair who were interested in the game. They said they'd tried the Red Box, but hadn't been able to make head nor tail of it.It turns out that "Castle Ravenloft" is a much better introduction to D&D than D&D itself. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />However, that's probably because the Red Box is just not a very good product, rather than that the concept is bad.I've mentioned this before, but if I were in charge I would produce a single "Core Rulebook" on day one, and also a boxed set labelled just "Dungeons & Dragons". The key thing would be that the boxed set should include the same Core Rulebook as everyone else used, in addition to quick-start guides, adventure books, tiles, minis, dice and so on.I would then produce a "second tier" of products called the "Advanced Player's Handbook", the "Advanced Dungeon Masters Guide", the "Bestiary", the "Tome of Treasures" and so on. These would be strictly supplements to the Core Rulebook, rather than a stand-alone game, but together would form the assumed baseline of the 'real' game.(I would then do a "third tier" composed of splatbooks, modular additions such as psionics, and so on, but these would be considered even more peripheral than the second tier.)If WotC want to significantly expand the market, then it absolutely has to be possible (and as easy as possible) to start a group 'cold'.Although there are groups out there, finding them can be surprisingly difficult. Additional, many groups are simply closed, or are quite intimidating for one reason or another (jerks at the table, a legacy of too many in-jokes, whatever).Although the ideal entry route may well be for a kid to make contact with an established gamer, play a few games, and gradually be introduced to the rules that way, I don't think this can be assumed. It really does need to be made as easy as possible to jump in to the game.One more thing: that kid I mentioned earlier seemed quite keen to get into the game, as was his father. But the truth was that my current group is really not set up to accomodate children - we deal with mature themes, R-rated humour, and the like. So it wasn't really practical for him to join us. That meant I had forty minutes to introduce him to the game and then... what?I couldn't point him at the Red Box, since he'd tried it and it didn't work. I couldn't point him at any other groups, because I don't know any. And I don't have the time to run a second group suitable for children. So, most likely, he is now not a gamer, and I think that's a real shame.</blockquote>

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