Dungeonosophy
Legend
"I wouldn’t want to buy a Settlers of Catan intro set, and then never play it again so that I go out and buy the real stuff."
My experience with Pathfinder Beginner Box:
Though I like the Pathfinders Beginner Box (the only RPG I've bought in the last couple years) and admire Paizo, I felt the same way once we finished that adventure.
Background: I'd played a little bit of 3e back in the day, but I skipped over the 4e era. My friends and I have been playing Catan and Dixit over the past couple years. I recently decided to dip our toes in roleplaying. But when we played the Pathfinder adventure, and the black dragon few away, it really hit me that D&D can be an expensive hobby.
Sure, the dungeon map could be re-used, and there are some free Pathfinder Beginner adventures to download, and some Third Party basic Pathfinder adventures, but it still felt like--wow, that was sorta fun, but there's this $40 box (including shipping and 'handling') full of stuff that is no longer clearly or directly useful for playing ever again.
A Catan-like experience of re-play:
In contrast, the Catan set is used over and over again. Granted, settling Catan is, in my perspective, not quite as fun as clearing a dungeon, but re-useability is 'assumed' and 'expected'--it's built into the set.
I’m trying to imagine: What would a D&D Starter Set (or any D&D adventure) look like if it were really crafted to be a complete game in itself, like Catan, which was meant to be played over and over again, without ever ‘having’ to buy another expansion pack? People read novels over again and watch films more than once--why not play the same adventure over again? We don’t play it again because we already know where most of the traps and puzzles are by the end. It’s ‘spoiled’. And because it's an inherent part of an rpg to advance through character levels, and go to other places.
The Basic D&D download goes a long way towards making any single D&D adventure re-usable. Yet I’m allowing myself to imagine what it would take for a single Starter Set to be an entire D&D game which is meant to be played and played again.
Blue-sky thoughts:
The region is the world. The regional map of the Starter Set is (or could be considered to be), essentially, the entire world. The Classic D&D-era Thunder Rift setting is an example. The Jakandor mini-setting of 2e is another. Nentir Vale, if that had been the extent of Nerath, is another.
Some sort of (optional) justification for re-playing the adventure over and over--even a gonzo far-out justification.
Like at the end of the adventure it says:
Where to go from here? There are four options:
A) Use the random dungeon generator to re-boot the D&D World of Phandalin. Play over and over like Settlers of Catan. Like settling the continent of Catan, each game is a discrete re-enactment of the story of the five characters in the D&D World of Phandalin. The randomization makes each session unique. There's even the option of randomizing the location of the dungeons. Look for free web-enhancements which offer other pre-gen characters and 're-skins' of the same dungeon.
B) In the same way that Catan offers optional maps for playing the same game (for example, Catan New York, a single poster for only $5). Look for other 'geographies' or 'starter worlds' which are available for a minimal price, such as Nentir Vale, the Thunder Rift, Threshold, and the Keep on the Borderlands. Like the World of Phandalin, these are crafted for use with the Starter Set, and feature a series of adventures from levels 1 to 5.
C) Download the free Basic D&D rules and advance your characters to level 20. The BD&D e-book includes random dungeon generators reaching up to level 20. Play an entire campaign in the World of Phandalin fighting randomized 'spawned' monsters in the dungeons and countryside. The other 'Starter Worlds' could be grafted to the edge of the Phandalin map however you wish--there is also the option of considering those places to be alternate worlds which the characters enter through 'world gates'.
D) If you want an Advanced Game, purchase the PHB, MM, and DMG, and expand the D&D World of Phandalin however you wish. The Forgotten Realms are offered as one 'campaign model' for expanding the map beyond the Phandalin Environs. But the DMG gives step-by-step guidelines for homebrewing your own world, with its own map, and its own name, beyond the confines of Phandalin.
Granted, there's nothing stopping people from playing the same thing over again--but it's not really 'baked into' the game as a viable, interesting option.
-Mike Mearls interview June 2012
My experience with Pathfinder Beginner Box:
Though I like the Pathfinders Beginner Box (the only RPG I've bought in the last couple years) and admire Paizo, I felt the same way once we finished that adventure.
Background: I'd played a little bit of 3e back in the day, but I skipped over the 4e era. My friends and I have been playing Catan and Dixit over the past couple years. I recently decided to dip our toes in roleplaying. But when we played the Pathfinder adventure, and the black dragon few away, it really hit me that D&D can be an expensive hobby.
Sure, the dungeon map could be re-used, and there are some free Pathfinder Beginner adventures to download, and some Third Party basic Pathfinder adventures, but it still felt like--wow, that was sorta fun, but there's this $40 box (including shipping and 'handling') full of stuff that is no longer clearly or directly useful for playing ever again.
A Catan-like experience of re-play:
In contrast, the Catan set is used over and over again. Granted, settling Catan is, in my perspective, not quite as fun as clearing a dungeon, but re-useability is 'assumed' and 'expected'--it's built into the set.
I’m trying to imagine: What would a D&D Starter Set (or any D&D adventure) look like if it were really crafted to be a complete game in itself, like Catan, which was meant to be played over and over again, without ever ‘having’ to buy another expansion pack? People read novels over again and watch films more than once--why not play the same adventure over again? We don’t play it again because we already know where most of the traps and puzzles are by the end. It’s ‘spoiled’. And because it's an inherent part of an rpg to advance through character levels, and go to other places.
The Basic D&D download goes a long way towards making any single D&D adventure re-usable. Yet I’m allowing myself to imagine what it would take for a single Starter Set to be an entire D&D game which is meant to be played and played again.
Blue-sky thoughts:
The region is the world. The regional map of the Starter Set is (or could be considered to be), essentially, the entire world. The Classic D&D-era Thunder Rift setting is an example. The Jakandor mini-setting of 2e is another. Nentir Vale, if that had been the extent of Nerath, is another.
Some sort of (optional) justification for re-playing the adventure over and over--even a gonzo far-out justification.
Like at the end of the adventure it says:
Where to go from here? There are four options:
A) Use the random dungeon generator to re-boot the D&D World of Phandalin. Play over and over like Settlers of Catan. Like settling the continent of Catan, each game is a discrete re-enactment of the story of the five characters in the D&D World of Phandalin. The randomization makes each session unique. There's even the option of randomizing the location of the dungeons. Look for free web-enhancements which offer other pre-gen characters and 're-skins' of the same dungeon.
B) In the same way that Catan offers optional maps for playing the same game (for example, Catan New York, a single poster for only $5). Look for other 'geographies' or 'starter worlds' which are available for a minimal price, such as Nentir Vale, the Thunder Rift, Threshold, and the Keep on the Borderlands. Like the World of Phandalin, these are crafted for use with the Starter Set, and feature a series of adventures from levels 1 to 5.
C) Download the free Basic D&D rules and advance your characters to level 20. The BD&D e-book includes random dungeon generators reaching up to level 20. Play an entire campaign in the World of Phandalin fighting randomized 'spawned' monsters in the dungeons and countryside. The other 'Starter Worlds' could be grafted to the edge of the Phandalin map however you wish--there is also the option of considering those places to be alternate worlds which the characters enter through 'world gates'.
D) If you want an Advanced Game, purchase the PHB, MM, and DMG, and expand the D&D World of Phandalin however you wish. The Forgotten Realms are offered as one 'campaign model' for expanding the map beyond the Phandalin Environs. But the DMG gives step-by-step guidelines for homebrewing your own world, with its own map, and its own name, beyond the confines of Phandalin.
Granted, there's nothing stopping people from playing the same thing over again--but it's not really 'baked into' the game as a viable, interesting option.
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