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Podcast #204: RPG Starter Sets
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<blockquote data-quote="Abstruse" data-source="post: 8661863" data-attributes="member: 6669048"><p>It's one of my favorites because it meets 3/4 of my requirements for a good starter set and one of my bonuses.</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Must have everything needed to play in the box</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Price that is a significant discount on the core rulebook(s)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">At least three sessions worth of material included to play</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Rules in the starter set must match the core rules</li> </ol><p>A starter set is meant for one primary goal: Introduce the game to new players by reducing barriers to entry. That includes players who have never played an RPG before. That's why #1 is important: If you don't have everything in the box, you've added a barrier to entry because I grab the box off the shelf, open it up, and I'm immediately presented with a shopping list of more stuff I need to buy...I'm going to close the box, put it back on the shelf, make a mental note that I need to buy dice/playing cards/minis/whatever, promptly forget, and the box will collect dust next to Monopoly and Cluedo.</p><p></p><p>The price is another barrier to entry. If the starter set is a similar price to the core rules, why wouldn't I just get the core rules? My preference is to be at least half the price of the buy-in for the core rules. If the core rulebook is $60, the starter set should be no more than $30. The absolute maximum is $50 because that's the price of a standard board game. Now this is on a sliding scale depending on materials included and the quality of the components and just how prices are going in the industry overall (if a standard board game goes up to $60, then that's the new maximum for a starter set).</p><p></p><p>More than one session's worth of play is a time barrier. Assume it's a game I will eventually like once I start playing. When I pull that starter set down off the shelf and play it, I'll have fun. Now is it the game itself that was fun or just because I was hanging out with my friends? I'd need to play it a second time to be sure. I play it the second time and yes, the game itself was fun, I'll get to the store or place an order online when I get a chance. If there's not a third session to play, there's a chance I might forget to buy the core rules. Maybe I had to wait for my next paycheck or maybe there's a shipping delay or maybe the wifi's down or maybe the game store has to order it. That third session of play in the starter set (and hopefully a couple more than that) means there's padding to make sure my interest and attention are still focused on the game during the delay in me deciding I want the core rules and actually getting the core rules. Plus it lets me keep playing the starter set with its more basic, streamlined rules while I tackle reading the thick hardcover tome I just bought. (Note: This is the one the PF1e Beginner Box fails - it just has one glorified dungeon crawl with no jumping-off points for follow-up adventures and the adventure isn't one easily replayed)</p><p></p><p>The last one hasn't been a problem I've noticed recently but used to be a problem. I'd buy a starter set for a game with some very crunchy and intricate rules. Because the designers couldn't streamline those rules effectively because of their complexity and didn't want to devote 10+ pages to one rules system, they created a substitute system to play. This is a cognitive barrier because I not only have to learn the core rules, I have to <em>unlearn </em>the starter set rules before I can do that.</p><p></p><p>Bonuses would be things that are useful to already-experienced players. The PF1 Beginner Box had a flip mat and quality cardboard stand-up tokens that were great even for people who had been playing D&D for decades. Unique custom dice like the ones in the Shadowrun Sixth World Beginner Box are also cool. Posters, maps, campaign setting information...I know in video games they used to be called "Feelies" but I'm not sure if that's still the case, but cool little props and handouts that can be reused. Another bonus is stuff that's visually interested from afar. While a product that big can't be produced today at the same price as it was in the 1990s, HeroQuest was an amazing game to attract people because if you play in a coffee shop or library, people are going to see all the minis and terrain and stuff and be curious what that game is in a way that people sitting around a table with just a sheet of paper and some funny looking dice won't.</p><p></p><p>I think the D&D Starter Set from 2014 was a great set that just has the problem of being dated compared to further 5e material that came out. I could play from just the box, Lost Mines of Phandelver was a good 6ish sessions worth of play, the dice were replicas of the ones used in the Community D&D episode so they felt a little more special than just plain old polyhedral dice, and the price point was dirt cheap because there wasn't much in it (I liked that it left me a lot of space I could use to chuck my minis into and go to my friend's house to play) and the economy of scale that WotC can afford.</p><p></p><p>A very bad starter set was the one for D&D 4e. It wasn't a starter set, it was a convention demo in a box. The included map was just cheap poster paper and not easily re-used because it wasn't generic enough, the included "adventure" wasn't an adventure but three skill checks and a single combat encounter, and the included flat 2D cardboard tokens were on cheap punchboard that was really easy to rip when punching them out. Its only advantage was it was cheap, but it was also its detriment: it looked and felt cheap.</p><p></p><p>Now there are exceptions for all of these. What Modiphius is doing with the Dune and Star Trek Adventures sets isn't so much providing a "here's an introduction to the game to see if you like it" but attempting to create an all-in-one bundle to buy into the game fully. You buy either of those sets, they're something like $75-100 but you have everything you need to play not just a few sessions but the entire game. You have the full core rules in PDF, you have all the maps and minis and tokens you need, you have a full set of dice, etc. Those are closer to what WotC does with the Gift Boxed Sets with the PHB, DMG, and MM in one set than a traditional starter set.</p><p></p><p>The potential Level Up starter set would be targeting a similar market. If somebody's playing an RPG for the very first time, they're not going to pick up something with the word "Advanced" in it because that's antithetical to the idea of just starting out. You'd get the basic version first and, after you know that, then get the advanced version. So like they said on the show, it would be less of a "starter set" and more of an "upgrade kit". Here's an introduction to the new rules options available in Level Up that you can add into your existing game. If you want more, we have whole core rulebooks filled with these options.</p><p></p><p>All of this is my perspective as a consumer and what I would look for in a starter set. A publisher is going to want to trim as much back as possible to keep costs down. Which is completely understandable and there are ways to cut costs without cutting content. When I say I want more than one or two sessions of play, I don't need a full adventure path in the box. Give me one session's worth of adventure and a bunch of potential plot seeds to continue later using the stats and rules already in the starter set, or a link to a website where I can download free PDFs with more adventures. The more familiar a setting for a game is, the easier this is because you're asking for less work from the game master. Shadowrun, I'd want fully written adventures because it's a complex setting that hasn't had a lot of mainstream media penetration yet. Dungeons & Dragons, everyone's seen Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or something similar to have an idea about what a fantasy setting is so it's easier to make up something that fits. Licensed products have it easiest because a new GM can just wholesale rip off episodes of Star Trek shows, subplots from Star Wars movies, side quests in Fallout, etc. to build an adventure around. A licensed Terminator RPG can get away with half a page of bullet point ideas for adventures where BattleTech would need full detailed adventures to take advantage of the setting.</p><p></p><p>Oh, and one consideration from a publisher's point of view that wasn't brought up: If you've got a chance to get major distribution, you have to have a boxed set. Wal-mart, Target, and the other big box stores don't treat hardcover books like games and thus won't stock them, but if you take the exact same material and put it in a cardboard box, they will. It has to do with how their inventory and ordering systems classify products - books are books, boxed sets are games. Their shelving systems and inventory computers aren't set up to treat books like games, so they won't stock them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Abstruse, post: 8661863, member: 6669048"] It's one of my favorites because it meets 3/4 of my requirements for a good starter set and one of my bonuses. [LIST=1] [*]Must have everything needed to play in the box [*]Price that is a significant discount on the core rulebook(s) [*]At least three sessions worth of material included to play [*]Rules in the starter set must match the core rules [/LIST] A starter set is meant for one primary goal: Introduce the game to new players by reducing barriers to entry. That includes players who have never played an RPG before. That's why #1 is important: If you don't have everything in the box, you've added a barrier to entry because I grab the box off the shelf, open it up, and I'm immediately presented with a shopping list of more stuff I need to buy...I'm going to close the box, put it back on the shelf, make a mental note that I need to buy dice/playing cards/minis/whatever, promptly forget, and the box will collect dust next to Monopoly and Cluedo. The price is another barrier to entry. If the starter set is a similar price to the core rules, why wouldn't I just get the core rules? My preference is to be at least half the price of the buy-in for the core rules. If the core rulebook is $60, the starter set should be no more than $30. The absolute maximum is $50 because that's the price of a standard board game. Now this is on a sliding scale depending on materials included and the quality of the components and just how prices are going in the industry overall (if a standard board game goes up to $60, then that's the new maximum for a starter set). More than one session's worth of play is a time barrier. Assume it's a game I will eventually like once I start playing. When I pull that starter set down off the shelf and play it, I'll have fun. Now is it the game itself that was fun or just because I was hanging out with my friends? I'd need to play it a second time to be sure. I play it the second time and yes, the game itself was fun, I'll get to the store or place an order online when I get a chance. If there's not a third session to play, there's a chance I might forget to buy the core rules. Maybe I had to wait for my next paycheck or maybe there's a shipping delay or maybe the wifi's down or maybe the game store has to order it. That third session of play in the starter set (and hopefully a couple more than that) means there's padding to make sure my interest and attention are still focused on the game during the delay in me deciding I want the core rules and actually getting the core rules. Plus it lets me keep playing the starter set with its more basic, streamlined rules while I tackle reading the thick hardcover tome I just bought. (Note: This is the one the PF1e Beginner Box fails - it just has one glorified dungeon crawl with no jumping-off points for follow-up adventures and the adventure isn't one easily replayed) The last one hasn't been a problem I've noticed recently but used to be a problem. I'd buy a starter set for a game with some very crunchy and intricate rules. Because the designers couldn't streamline those rules effectively because of their complexity and didn't want to devote 10+ pages to one rules system, they created a substitute system to play. This is a cognitive barrier because I not only have to learn the core rules, I have to [I]unlearn [/I]the starter set rules before I can do that. Bonuses would be things that are useful to already-experienced players. The PF1 Beginner Box had a flip mat and quality cardboard stand-up tokens that were great even for people who had been playing D&D for decades. Unique custom dice like the ones in the Shadowrun Sixth World Beginner Box are also cool. Posters, maps, campaign setting information...I know in video games they used to be called "Feelies" but I'm not sure if that's still the case, but cool little props and handouts that can be reused. Another bonus is stuff that's visually interested from afar. While a product that big can't be produced today at the same price as it was in the 1990s, HeroQuest was an amazing game to attract people because if you play in a coffee shop or library, people are going to see all the minis and terrain and stuff and be curious what that game is in a way that people sitting around a table with just a sheet of paper and some funny looking dice won't. I think the D&D Starter Set from 2014 was a great set that just has the problem of being dated compared to further 5e material that came out. I could play from just the box, Lost Mines of Phandelver was a good 6ish sessions worth of play, the dice were replicas of the ones used in the Community D&D episode so they felt a little more special than just plain old polyhedral dice, and the price point was dirt cheap because there wasn't much in it (I liked that it left me a lot of space I could use to chuck my minis into and go to my friend's house to play) and the economy of scale that WotC can afford. A very bad starter set was the one for D&D 4e. It wasn't a starter set, it was a convention demo in a box. The included map was just cheap poster paper and not easily re-used because it wasn't generic enough, the included "adventure" wasn't an adventure but three skill checks and a single combat encounter, and the included flat 2D cardboard tokens were on cheap punchboard that was really easy to rip when punching them out. Its only advantage was it was cheap, but it was also its detriment: it looked and felt cheap. Now there are exceptions for all of these. What Modiphius is doing with the Dune and Star Trek Adventures sets isn't so much providing a "here's an introduction to the game to see if you like it" but attempting to create an all-in-one bundle to buy into the game fully. You buy either of those sets, they're something like $75-100 but you have everything you need to play not just a few sessions but the entire game. You have the full core rules in PDF, you have all the maps and minis and tokens you need, you have a full set of dice, etc. Those are closer to what WotC does with the Gift Boxed Sets with the PHB, DMG, and MM in one set than a traditional starter set. The potential Level Up starter set would be targeting a similar market. If somebody's playing an RPG for the very first time, they're not going to pick up something with the word "Advanced" in it because that's antithetical to the idea of just starting out. You'd get the basic version first and, after you know that, then get the advanced version. So like they said on the show, it would be less of a "starter set" and more of an "upgrade kit". Here's an introduction to the new rules options available in Level Up that you can add into your existing game. If you want more, we have whole core rulebooks filled with these options. All of this is my perspective as a consumer and what I would look for in a starter set. A publisher is going to want to trim as much back as possible to keep costs down. Which is completely understandable and there are ways to cut costs without cutting content. When I say I want more than one or two sessions of play, I don't need a full adventure path in the box. Give me one session's worth of adventure and a bunch of potential plot seeds to continue later using the stats and rules already in the starter set, or a link to a website where I can download free PDFs with more adventures. The more familiar a setting for a game is, the easier this is because you're asking for less work from the game master. Shadowrun, I'd want fully written adventures because it's a complex setting that hasn't had a lot of mainstream media penetration yet. Dungeons & Dragons, everyone's seen Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or something similar to have an idea about what a fantasy setting is so it's easier to make up something that fits. Licensed products have it easiest because a new GM can just wholesale rip off episodes of Star Trek shows, subplots from Star Wars movies, side quests in Fallout, etc. to build an adventure around. A licensed Terminator RPG can get away with half a page of bullet point ideas for adventures where BattleTech would need full detailed adventures to take advantage of the setting. Oh, and one consideration from a publisher's point of view that wasn't brought up: If you've got a chance to get major distribution, you have to have a boxed set. Wal-mart, Target, and the other big box stores don't treat hardcover books like games and thus won't stock them, but if you take the exact same material and put it in a cardboard box, they will. It has to do with how their inventory and ordering systems classify products - books are books, boxed sets are games. Their shelving systems and inventory computers aren't set up to treat books like games, so they won't stock them. [/QUOTE]
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