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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott_Rouse" data-source="post: 4515707" data-attributes="member: 51773">Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding we have a winnah!We wanted to achieve a few things with this product.1) DM focused<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A purchaser that wants to play so bad they buy the box will likely take on role of DM. They will likely do this ebven if they get it as a gift. "hey gang let's play this new game I just got"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You can't really play D&D without a DM</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">DMs recruit players</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">New DMs will buy the books even if their players don't</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">DMs are the glue that hold game groups together</li> </ul>2) Teach basics of play while avoiding complexity<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Playing a PC, party roles, cooperative group play etc</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">basic mechanics</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">combat (the fun of kill the monster & take it's stuff)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rely on DM to fill in the char gen gaps later if player doesn't take a deeper dive themselves with a PHB purchase</li> </ul>3) keep it it as inexpensive as possible so: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tokens instead of minis</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">re-use content from other products (assuming the new purchasers had not seen it before since they are ne wto the game)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Re-use art</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Re-use tiles</li> </ul>A few people have talked about character creation and I have to agree it is one of th every fun aspects of D&D. 25 years ago it was a compleling point of differentiation between computer games and D&D. But these days as a new player D&D style char gen is daunting when you look at how these kids are used making characters in the games they play. In 10 minutes on most MMO or console games you can not only make a cool character with a simple to use UI, but you can even use the software to make the avatar look like who ever you want. You hand a kid a game like D&D nowadays and say make a character and 9 times out of 10 they are totally lost after 10 minutes and start asking "where's the X-box?" I have personally seen it happen in focus groups with 10-12 year olds. But very 1 out of 10 you get a motivated kid, who looks at the dragon on the cover, opens the book and starts to read the rules. This is the future DM and the kid who we want to target with this box set.FWIW I think there are some valid points in the thread about the fun and long term hook char gen provides. Our approach was to go get to the fun fast and in our opinion and experience combat is the fun. You may disagree but that is the approach we are taking. I do think  Zaruthustran's idea of "idiot proof" char gen is a pretty good approach. After playing with the Character Builder beta for D&D Insider it does this walk through approach pretty well. When the Builder goes live non-subscribers will be able to download and play with a demo version that has all the same functionality, but only for level 1-3 characters so it could cover the char gen problem in a familiar format.</blockquote>

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