D&D 5E Introductory game first?

[Tortoise]

There was a whole bunch of discussion about this probably a year and a half ago, and my thoughts now are the same as they were then. Publish the game in two different lines with two different formats.

The box set line, based on tier:

Novice Levels 1-4
Adventurer Levels 5-16
Epic Levels 17-20

Each box contains three softcover books, a player's book, a DM's book (with monsters), and a book of options. The Novice box player's and DM's books are all about the rules of the base game (4 races, 4 classes etc.), and the book of options gives all the standard and advanced rules up through 4th level (including the rest of the races and classes). The Adventurer and Epic, same way... base game rules in the first two books, book of options in the third.

Then you have the hardcover books, based on subject:

Player's Handbook
Dungeon Master's Guide
Monster Manual

Each of these three gives the rules for levels 1-20, with the standard and advanced rules appearing in each book (in the various sections front to back.)

Basically... players should be able to buy either publishing method complete set (box set or hardcover) and get all the rules for all the levels. There should be no rules you'd need to "cross over" to get, because that is how you end up paying for duplicate info.

Now, I know some people will say that putting a book in the boxed set full of the standard and advanced rules runs counter to what the boxed set should be and will "confuse people". But I think that so long as you just make explicit that the third book is a book of options, and that you add them to your game when you are comfortable... that is a much better option than telling them to go buy the hardcover book in order to get those standard and advanced rules. Because you are then basically making your boxed sets obsolete.

The only issue I have with my own suggestion is that it's based off of WotC's pseudo-tiers, and thus the Adventurer box set has so much more meat to it because of the much wider level range. Personally... I would rather have seen WotC use the 1-5, 6-15, 16-20 level splits for their individual tiers (thereby not making the middle tier so huge, and giving either end more heft.)

I hadn't thought of it this way, and the more I consider it the more I like it.

 

[Blackwarder]

I think that Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle is a good indication of what they intend to do with the basic game, publish a mini campaign for levels 1-10 with the core rules for the game along side it, as Mike said before the basic game will only support the fighter, Mage, Cleric and Rogue and humans, dwarves, halflings and elves.

What would be nice is a product like GoDC only with a bag of dice with it.

And I wouldn't be surprised if they publish a new adventure after a year or two.

Warder