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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonosophy" data-source="post: 6311994" data-attributes="member: 6688049">Three levels of usefulness have been mentioned in this thread:1) A 'disposible' beginner's game, which is just there to be digested and then hardly used ever again. The old 2e-era First Quest boxed sets, and 3e Adventure Game boxed set come to mind. My experience of the Pathfinder Beginner Box was partly like that (though I recognize it's a well-made product, with some free Beginners adventures available to extend its usefulness.) I just think it's weird to pay $40 or even $20 for something which is only going to be used once, or a few times. That contrasts with the Catan boardgame, whose use obviously lasts and lasts, with no further upgrades, expansions, or pay-ins necessary.2) What Mearls is aiming for: a Starter Set which is intentionally crafted to maintain some usefulness: including a well-made regional mini-setting, like Threshold and northern Karameikos of B10: Night's Dark Terror, or the Village of Hommlet, or the Keep on the Borderlands, which can be the basis of further adventures. I think that's a great improvement.3) Beyond that, I'm considering how a Starter Set (or any adventure for that matter) could be meaningfully played over and over by the same players! That would be something different than D&D as we know it. That's why I offered some pretty far-out ways of justifying and supporting that possibility (such as randomized dungeon-building 'baked into' the game, so that it changes each time). It would almost be a different genre of game than TRPG: something like the 3e Chainmail skirmish game, or the Cooperative Boardgames, Dungeon!, or HeroQuest boardgames--but it would still use all the RPG rules. It wouldn't have any 'continuity', unless there were some far-out meta-story of Alternate Timelines justifying why things are happening over and over again. I'm content to let that imagination rest. Thanks everyone for the suggestions and response.</blockquote>

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