Dungeons & Dragons, 4th Edition: Remastered Director's Cut

[Steelwill]

Let me offer you a different analogy.

4e's PH, DMG and MM are like big tubs of different legos. You can build all kinds of cool stuff with them; however, if you buy (f'rexample) Martial Power, it has purple legos in it. Wow! There weren't any purple legos in the original books. Then if you buy PH2, you find that it has some shiny, reflective legos; PH3 has some legos that light up from within; etc. Each set of legos offers new ways to build stuff, but none of them make the original simple red and white and blue bricks obsolete or less useful; they just continue to add options.

I suspect that the Essentials line will add orange and black legos, as well as some that have simple moving parts so that you can build rotating devices like windmills. Also, maybe some curved ones, or something neat like the old moon surface lego terrain or whatever they called it.

But you know what? You can still build lots of things that are plenty cool with just the different sized bricks in white and red.

Lego designers however found that the original red, white, and blue blocks were too cool for school...and since legos in schools is a big deal, they have been "updated" and no longer resemble anything cool at all.

 

[the Jester]

Similar to a "director's cut" DVD or Bluray that adds seconds of edited footage, some side-boob, and a commentary track that provides minimal insight or entertainment, or a remastered album that provides a marginal sound improvement and a single new track that can be downloaded from iTunes for $.99 anyway, Essentials doesn't seem to offer sufficient value to be worth the increase in price.

You keep using that analogy, but I think it's flawed.

Let's try James Bond Movies.

The PH/DMG/MM are like Thunderball, while the Essentials line is like You Only Live Twice. The content is different. You're not paying for an extra 12 minutes on a 106 minute movie.

Now, is the content entirely different? We don't know yet- but from everything I've seen, I'd say it promises to at least be largely different. So maybe Thunderball vs. Never Say Never Again.

Both are James Bond, but they are different movies.

 

[Imaro]

You keep using that analogy, but I think it's flawed.

Let's try James Bond Movies.

The PH/DMG/MM are like Thunderball, while the Essentials line is like You Only Live Twice. The content is different. You're not paying for an extra 12 minutes on a 106 minute movie.

Now, is the content entirely different? We don't know yet- but from everything I've seen, I'd say it promises to at least be largely different. So maybe Thunderball vs. Never Say Never Again.

Both are James Bond, but they are different movies.

Well if it uses the 4e rules... we know the Rules Compendium won't be different content, barring errata.

 

[JoeGKushner]

ah, another blah blah blah blah blah thing about the Essentials.

I'd love to see the admins just make a "Bitch/Praise the Essentials" sub forum about this time.

EDIT: Admin here. Don't threadcrap, Joe. There are lots of threads on this messageboard that you may not be interested in; when that's the case, just ignore them. ~ PCat

 

[Echohawk]

If I'm not mistaken, the whole intent of the Essentials line is to make it cheap and easy to get into the game. You certainly won't need more to start playing; everything else is butter and designed to keep you playing.

I'm saying you are mistaken and the whole intent of the Essentials line is actually to make players pay more than they would if they just went with the core books to start with.

I'm not convinced that intending that the Essentials line makes it cheap and easy to get into the game, and structuring the essentials line to sell more products to those who can afford it are mutually exclusive goals.

RPGs are luxury purchases. You don't buy RPG products unless you've already paid the rent and bought food. People have wildly varying amounts of cash to spend on luxury purchases. Some will have just $20 to blow on the starter set. Others will have a budget of $100, and will want to pick up the starter set, an expansion book, a pack of minis and some dice. Ideally, any product range consisting of luxury purchases should be designed to soak up as much of someone's discretionary spending as possible. That's just a sensible business approach.

However, that strategy certainly doesn't make it impossible for you to design the basic set to be both cheap and an easy way to get into the game by itself.

The original red box met both of those objectives. It was a cost-effective starting point, but it also had plenty of (optional) supplements and expansions to soak up more discretionary spending from people who could afford to buy more. I'm hoping that the Essentials line manages to do the same thing.

 

[darkadelphia]

I'm saying you are mistaken and the whole intent of the Essentials line is actually to make players pay more than they would if they just went with the core books to start with.

I haven't come across anyone who thought the 4E PHB made the game too hard. And it's only $35. The 4E starter set box did exist--even if everyone here forgets it--and only cost $17 until WotC let it fall out of print in the ramp up to Essentials.

Using the Essentials line to run an entire campaign will be more expensive than using the core books.

Similar to a "director's cut" DVD or Bluray that adds seconds of edited footage, some side-boob, and a commentary track that provides minimal insight or entertainment, or a remastered album that provides a marginal sound improvement and a single new track that can be downloaded from iTunes for $.99 anyway, Essentials doesn't seem to offer sufficient value to be worth the increase in price.

That was my recommendation in the original post.

I'm trying too teaach my girlfriend 4e. She loved world of darkness (her first rpg) and picked it up very easily. She finds 4e very intimidating. I wouldn't mind some simpler builds with more transperant choices.

 

[Imaro]

I'm trying too teaach my girlfriend 4e. She loved world of darkness (her first rpg) and picked it up very easily. She finds 4e very intimidating. I wouldn't mind some simpler builds with more transperant choices.

What exactly is she having a problem grasping. Are you using multiple PHB's and/or splats? I guess I'm trying to understand what is difficult in creating a 1st level character only using options from PHB 1?

 

[darkadelphia]

She wanted to play a character with an animal companion. So she's playing a BM Ranger. Most of the decision points are meaningless without knowing the game. Arranging stats, choosing powers, choosing feats (especially feats) are difficult without having a frame of reference from experience in previous editions. This is my first 4e player who was not a dnd veteran.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I've run into similar situations where new players not deeply invested in mastering game mechanics have trouble making heads or tails of their characters. I applaud the design goal of 'clear decision points'.

 

[fanboy2000]

I'm saying you are mistaken and the whole intent of the Essentials line is actually to make players pay more than they would if they just went with the core books to start with.

The cost of entry for a DM right now is $35 x 3, or $105. (I'm ignoring the starter set for two reasons, 1) it adds to starting cost, and 2) Keep on the Shadowfell is a free PDF download that comes with everything needed to start playing.)

For $105 the DM gets PC classes, feats, rules, guidelines for creating your own monsters, a starting location and city (also presented in Keep), and lots of pre-made monsters. Errata is a free add on via the web.

The cost of entry via Essentials is $60. For that the DM gets rules (DM kit comes with a 256 page rulebook), three adventures (the one in the red box + the two in the DM kit), monster tokens, battle maps, and a DM screen. Presumably, Errata up to this past June will be included.

That's a lot for $60.

If the Warpriest is any indication, there's a good chance that the players will not need the rules compendium to play and all they will have to buy is the red box plus the book with their race/class combo. That's $40.